The Consequence of Resistance
Interrogating Heidegger and Butler on the Conundrums of
Ableism
By
Josephine Angela Seguna
BHuServ (Hons) Griffith University
Griffith Law School
Arts Education and Law
Griffith University
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
May 2013
i
DEDICATION
To Charles, James, Simon and Katherine-Anne
To know how to question means to know how to wait, even a whole lifetime...What is
essential is not the counting but the right time...the right moment and the right endurance.
Martin Heidegger (Introduction to Metaphysics 2000 [1935]: 221)
i
ABSTRACT
The Consequence of Resistance is a philosophical investigation into the writings of Martin
Heidegger and Judith Butler to unravel the character and disposition of social resistance to the
disabled individual. The qualitative analysis moves beyond physical considerations of the
dis/abled body to probe, investigate and challenge the essence and performativity of
conventional constructions and interpretations of society’s dismissive attitudes, manner and
the discriminatory behaviours and language that remain resistant to the ‘Being’ of those
Others. The phenomenological nature of the endeavour is underpinned by autobiographical
insight offering a ‘counter’ discourse to the sustained systematic careless banter of community
and common expectations of ‘rationality’, ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’. The disabled identity is
identified and explored through the vested interests and obstinacy of normative/ableist
complex institutional, political and cultural structures, and legal ‘mythologies’. Indeed, the
persistent discriminatory character of such social limits of ‘disability’, along with its
oppressive marginalisation and relentless invisibility, is highlighted and articulated through the
lens of Critical Disability Studies and Studies in Ableism.
Martin Heidegger’s basic existential ‘Being’, Dasein, in constant interaction with others
negotiates its best possibilities of being-in-the-world. Humankind’s pursuit of an ‘authentic’
existence is the struggle for individuality, freedom from submission to uniformity, consensus,
passivity and resistance to the social conformity, anonymity and apathy of present
organisations and cultural determinants. Individual authenticity lies in the confrontation with
‘truth’ through the Care of Others (Mitsein), making sense of existential possibilities of Self
and taking responsibility for one’s involvement in social practices. Resistance to dif-ference as
the essence of das Man and its discourse of idle conversation remains restrictive and
challenging to the disabled identity. Language for Heidegger is an ontological condition, a
sharing of perception and understanding that provides for otherness to be an experience and
reflection of undefined spaces rather than definitions framed within oppressive normative
classification and expectations.
Equally, Butler’s theoretical disruption to the binaries establishing social and individual
‘identity’ offers a context to consider ‘other’ subjectivities. Social performativity as a crucial
constituent of political construction and social regulation of disability demonstrates the
historical representation and framing of discriminatory language, behaviours and attitudes
perpetuating the righteousness of the abled-bodied individual. For Butler, vulnerability turns
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an individual ‘condition’ into the public function of cultural expectation and consciousness,
and affords consideration of ‘violence’ linked with ‘disability’, for reiterative patterns maintain
the exploitation associated with preserving the normative status. Exclusion and retribution
associated with transgression mark some Others as unintelligible and unravelling the ‘limits’,
‘tensions’ and performatives of the ungrievable life provide for a new language of
nonviolence.
In a three-part interrogation, this dissertation magnifies current oppressive and sustained
assumptions maintained in: (a) the construction of physical and social barriers of ‘impairment’
rather than social recognition of repressive resistance to their ‘Being’; (b) discursive failing;
and (c) inequalities inherent in contemporary language and social awareness. Specific legal
judgments are also consulted to disclose the fabricated ‘fixity’ of disability in law and the
reality of leaky identities. Heidegger’s concepts of disclosive freedom and Language are used
to theoretically redefine justice and legal rhetoric to substantiate the destructive ‘truth’ of
‘formal equality’. Butler’s theory of performativity re-characterises the nature of individual
behaviour, autonomy and social interaction, and reveals the language of ‘rights’ as political
and legal tactics regulating the ‘folklore’ of normative discourse. The injustice and ‘violence’
of beliefs, practices and institutions of the They are visible in the lived experiences of disabled
individuals. Yet the strength of these Other voices will be heard by anyone willing to listen to
the ‘truth’ of their existence, recognise the prejudiced position of otherness and think about
belonging and the possibilities of ‘Being’.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To acknowledge …
The act of owning or recognizing a particular quality, association or relationship.
Recognition of the existence of authority, ‘truth,’ giveness.
A proclamation of genuine, courteous recognition or admission of obligation or
responsibility.
The printed pages of this thesis hold far more than the culmination of years of study. They
represent an incredible journey and reflect a relationship with many generous and inspiring
people. Indeed, this research has been kept on track and completed with the support and
encouragement of numerous people. Now, as I complete the final pages, I wish to thank some
very special individuals who made it all possible and provided an unforgettable experience.
It is with immense gratitude that I acknowledge and recognise the support, guidance and trust
of Associate Professor Fiona Kumari Campbell. If not for your determined insistence and
confidence in my authentic self, this thesis and the world of academic endeavour would have
remained a distant and unrealised dream … thank you!
It gives me pleasure to acknowledge Dr Daniel Hourigan for accepting the role of associate
supervisor. Our constructive philosophical discussions provided not only significant
‘technical’ clarification and direction but also the opportunity to embrace the essence of the
individual spirit. Further, I am grateful to the Dean of Griffith Law School, Professor William
MacNeil, for ongoing scholastic support and colleagues within the Law School for their
assistance and friendship, particularly Merran Lawler for guidance in matters of law and
Dr Karen Crawley for editorial commentaries. Many thanks to Dr Leanne Dowse (UNSW), the
project’s initial independent assessor, for providing constructive advice and recommendations;
Professor Lesley Chenoweth for facilitating my entrance into the world of research and Gail
Pritchard for ‘teaching’ me to trust my own judgement and for taking on the daunting task of
editing.
Finally, words cannot express my appreciation to family and friends who have endured this
journey with me through moments of despair and joy, to offer comfort, patience and steadfast
belief in the dream.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................ i
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................................. ix
LIST OF PANELS.................................................................................................................... ix
STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP .................................................................... x
GLOSSARY .............................................................................................................................. xi
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1
SECTION ONE ....................................................................................................................... 22
Chapter 1
Theoretical Frameworks, Epistemological and Methodological Assumptions .................. 24
1.1 Foundations: Ontological and epistemological ............................................................... 29
1.1.1 Rationale for critical ontology .................................................................................. 30
1.1.2 Critical analysis of the epistemological position of the research ............................. 33
1.2 Theoretical frameworks ................................................................................................... 33
1.2.1 Martin Heidegger ..................................................................................................... 33
1.2.2 Judith Butler ............................................................................................................. 45
1.3 Critical definitions ........................................................................................................... 56
1.3.1 The definition and interpretation of power ............................................................... 56
1.3.2 Resistance ................................................................................................................. 64
1.4 Methods ........................................................................................................................... 67
1.4.1 Intertextual discussion .............................................................................................. 70
1.4.2 Symptomatic dimensions.......................................................................................... 73
1.4.3 Legal judgments ....................................................................................................... 74
1.5 Knowledge standpoint and ethics of researcher .............................................................. 86
INTERLUDE ........................................................................................................................... 92
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Chapter 2
Tomes and Canons of Martin Heidegger and Judith Butler ...............................................94
2.1 Martin Heidegger .............................................................................................................97
2.2 Judith Butler ...................................................................................................................115
Chapter 3
The ‘Truth’ of Dasein’s Identity ...........................................................................................133
3.1 The ‘Fundamental’ Structures of Dasein .......................................................................138
3.2.1 The ‘truth’ of conversation .....................................................................................141
3.2.2 The ‘truth’ concerning averageness in society ........................................................149
3.2.3 The ‘truth’ concerning the publicness of injustice ..................................................154
3.3 The temporality of ‘Being’.............................................................................................160
3.3.1 The ‘Truth’ of Dasein’s Present..............................................................................167
3.3.2 The ‘Truth’ of Dasein’s Destiny .............................................................................169
Chapter 4
The Performativity of Disability ............................................................................................178
4.1 Performativity and disabled ‘identity’ ...........................................................................182
4.2 The abject body of the disabled ‘identity’ .....................................................................189
4.3 Agency, discourse, power and the disabled ‘identity’ ...................................................195
4.4 Embodiment, ‘identity’ and the disabled subject ...........................................................200
INTERLUDE ..........................................................................................................................207
SECTION TWO .....................................................................................................................209
Chapter 5
Language is the House of [Resistance] ..................................................................................211
5.1 The experience of Language ..........................................................................................216
5.1.1 Dis/abled experience with Language ......................................................................218
5.1.2 The social word (Das Wort) of disability ................................................................225
5.2 Theoretical and philosophical progression and relevancy .............................................238
5.2.1 Contemporariness ...................................................................................................242
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5.2.2 Ereignis … ‘events and happenings’ ...................................................................... 247
5.2.3 The Language of ‘Belonging’ ................................................................................ 250
5.2.4 The Language of Ereignis ...................................................................................... 253
5.2.5 Language or saying ................................................................................................ 256
5.2.6 The Embodied Reality of Language....................................................................... 261
Chapter 6
Language of Vulnerability and Responsibility: An ‘Ableist’ Vocabulary ......................... 267
6.1 The violent power of normativity .................................................................................. 270
6.1.1 Disturbing normative spaces .................................................................................. 273
6.1.2 Subversion … a possible alternative politics.......................................................... 280
6.2 Vulnerability .................................................................................................................. 287
6.3 A ‘provisionality’: Living otherwise ............................................................................. 292
6.3.1 Provocation or violence? ........................................................................................ 298
6.3.2 Non-violence ........................................................................................................... 302
INTERLUDE 3 ...................................................................................................................... 308
SECTION THREE ................................................................................................................ 310
Chapter 7
Dasein’s Precarious Performativity in Law.......................................................................... 312
7.1 The precarious nature of ‘freedom’: Paradox of liberalism .......................................... 317
7.1.1 Precarious state of ‘rights’ ...................................................................................... 318
7.1.2 Precarious state of ‘justice’ .................................................................................... 320
7.1.3 Precarious state of ‘equality’ .................................................................................. 322
7.2 An alternative position on freedom ............................................................................... 329
7.2.1 Heidegger’s Freedom defined ................................................................................ 330
7.2.2 The phenomenological possibilities ....................................................................... 336
7.3 The precarious state of dis/abled freedom … two judicial decisions ............................ 340
7.3.1 Performativities of ‘difference’ .............................................................................. 340
7.4 Jurisdictional issues as geodisability knowledge .......................................................... 351
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7.3.1 The Purvis case – Australia ....................................................................................354
7.3.2 The Sutton case – United States..............................................................................360
Chapter 8
Da-sein’s Language of Dis/ability and Political Performativity ..........................................370
8.1 The political ‘house’ of language...................................................................................374
8.2 The liberation of language .............................................................................................381
8.3 Language … purely spoken............................................................................................383
8.3.1 Is law purely spoken? ..............................................................................................386
8.3.2 What about rhetoric? ...............................................................................................388
8.3.3 A possibility: Rhetoric speaks purely .....................................................................391
8.4 The political language of performativity ........................................................................395
8.4.1. Rights as a political performative ..........................................................................399
8.5 Law as s ‘spoken’ performativity or tactic .....................................................................403
8.5.1 Law: A performativity of ableist normativity .........................................................405
8.6 ‘Formal equality’: A rhetorical device ...........................................................................413
8.6.1 The Marsden case – Australia.................................................................................414
8.6.2 The Price case – United Kingdom ..........................................................................421
Conclusion
The Possibilities of a Resistant-less Society ..........................................................................431
Re-statement of purpose ......................................................................................................432
Summation, significance and possibilities ...........................................................................433
Chapter summaries...............................................................................................................436
Future directions ..................................................................................................................440
References
Cases ....................................................................................................................................446
Statutes .................................................................................................................................447
Secondary Sources ...............................................................................................................447
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Disability lineage ......................................................................................................... 3
Figure 2: Overall rationale of thesis .......................................................................................... 26
Figure 3: Methods ..................................................................................................................... 67
Figure 4: Diagrammatic representation of the consequence of resistance ................................ 91
Figure 5: Focus of the canons .................................................................................................... 96
Figure 6: The ‘democratic’ entitlements of Dasein with an Impairment ................................ 170
Figure 7: Two Bathers – Aristide Maillol (1941) .................................................................... 194
Figure 8: The deconstruction of ‘disability’ ............................................................................ 231
Figure 9: Image of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble ................................................................ 268
Figure 10: Maya with her Doll, Pablo Picasso (1938) ........................................................... 286
Figure 11: The ‘authentic’ cycle of disclosive freedom .......................................................... 332
Figure 12: The lived experience of the disabled identity ........................................................ 337
Figure 13: The social performativities of ‘equality’ ................................................................ 341
Figure 14: Boundaries through language ................................................................................ 379
Figure 15: The performative tactics of law..........................................................................405
LIST OF PANELS
Panel 1: Christina’s World; Andrew Wyeth (1948) .................................................................. 23
Panel 2: Yearning for Spring; Dennis Francesconi ................................................................. 210
Panel 3: Hung Out to Die ........................................................................................................ 311
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STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP
This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the
best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or
written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Included in this thesis is a published paper in Chapter 3, of which I am the sole author. The
bibliographic detail for this paper is:
Seguna, JA 2010, ‘Dasein’s struggle with Others,’ Emergent Australasian Philosophers, vol. 3
no. 1: http://eap.philosophy-australia.com/index.php/eap/issue/view/9.
(Signed) ___________________________________________(Date)________
Josephine A Seguna
(Countersigned)_____________________________________(Date)_________
Supervisor: Associate Professor Fiona Kumari Campbell
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GLOSSARY
Ableism: A network of ‘beliefs processes and practices that produces a particular kind of Self
and body (the corporeal standard) that is projected as the perfect, species-typical and therefore
essential and fully human. Disability then is cast as a diminished state of being human’
(Campbell 2001: 44).
‘Being’: For Heidegger, human existence has a universal constitution and wants to delve
beyond the ordinary, routine, everyday dealings of this concrete subject to unearth the
‘transcendental structures’ that cannot be derived from ‘anthropological–psychological
assumptions’ (Heidegger [1929] 1997a: 165–6). Heidegger calls this inquiry into the ‘meaning
of being, fundamental ontology which [prepares one] for the question of Being in general’
(Heidegger [1927] 1962: 364). True understanding of the world does not amount to knowing
facts but rather knowing how to live (being) in it. The complexity of Heidegger’s position is
unravelled through the definition and consideration of three specific modes of inquiry:

Ontic inquiry: Concerned with specific or particular beings (Seiendes); addresses the
precise functions, value or characteristic of human beings (such as man, woman,
father, daughter, doctor, dentist, farmer, writer) or properties and feature of non-human
beings (warm-blooded, carbon-based). The sciences (such as Anthropology,
Mathematics, Medicine, Psychology, Zoology, Theology and so forth) study beings
(Seiendes) or entities through ontic investigation. For example, Anthropology is the
study of the human races, cultures and societies; Mathematics studies numerical
beings; Medicine is the study of the physical ‘condition’ of beings; Psychology deals
with the mind and behaviour of beings; Theology considers spirituality and beings; and
Zoology is the study of animals (beings).

Ontology: The concern with the essential being (Sein) of beings studied or investigated
through these sciences, addressing the essence (essential) of things (what something is)
and the existence (existential) of things (that something is) (Heidegger [1954] 1968:
161). Heidegger maintains that ontic science operates under the tactic understanding of
the ontological status of the beings studied (Aho 2009):
Ontic sciences in each case thematize a given entity that in a certain manner is
always already disclosed prior to scientific disclosure. We call the sciences of
entities as given-of a positum-positive sciences ... Ontology, or the science of
xi
being, on the other hand, demands a fundamental shift of view; from entities to
being (Heidegger [1927] 1998: 41; original emphasis).
Thus, as Thomson (2003: 528) explains, a mathematician would rely upon and
accept the ontological standing of numbers, a botanist on the ‘vegetable character
of plants’ and the zoologist on the ‘animality of animals’. However, Heidegger
([1927] 1962: 31; emphasis added) dismisses such traditional ontology because it
suggests or represents the ‘essence’ (Being) of beings through the notion of
substance – static, fixed and or timeless – and neglects to raise the question ‘What
is it to be at all? … What is Being? … ontology taken in the broadest sense?’ to
question the very meaning of Being through fundamental ontology:
The question of being aims therefore at ascertaining the a priori conditions not
only for the possibility of the sciences, which examine entities as entities of such
and such a type, and in so doing, already operate with an understanding of being,
but also for the possibility of those ontologies themselves, which are prior to the
ontical sciences and which provide their foundations. (Heidegger [1927]
1962: 31)

Fundamental ontology: This is Heidegger’s focus or scheme concerned with ‘how’
and ‘why’ beings are intelligible or actually make sense in the first instance, with how
meaning (Sinn) itself is possible. As Aho (2009: 18) explains, ‘as human beings
actually embody a tactic understanding of being in everyday activities, fundamental
ontology requires a phenomenological analysis of human existence’, an analytic of
Dasein, an existential analytic:
The question of the meaning of being becomes possible at all only if there is
something like an understanding of being. Understanding of being belongs to the
kind of being which we call ‘Dasein’. The more appropriately and primordially
we have succeeded in explicating this entity, the surer we are to attain our goal in
the further course of working out the problem of fundamental ontology.
(Heidegger [1927] 1962: 244; emphasis added)
Therefore, fundamental ontology, from which all else – all other categories – originates, ‘must
be sought in the existential analytic of Dasein’ (Heidegger [1927] 1962: 34). Meaning is not
generated by the mental activities of self-enclosed consciousness, but emerges from the sociohistorical world into which one has been thrown on the basis of which things show as
intelligible (Aho 2009). In accepting Heidegger’s concept of ‘meaning’ in relation to worldly
relations, it is necessary to remember that ‘Dasein is not an individual, a self, ‘pure I’ (reinen
Ich) or consciousness separate and distinct from surrounding objects’ (Heidegger [1927] 1962:
272). Human beings are not disengaged spectators but rather ‘being-in-the-world’, always
xii
already engaged in a public situation, ‘a common totality of surroundings’ (Heidegger [1925]
1985: 188; original emphasis). See below for further discussion/explanation of Dasein.
Besorge: The element of the complex existential structure, Care, which manifests in relation
to things ‘ready-to-hand’ (zuhanden) as concern. As an individual and society, one is
‘concerned’ with all that surrounds and confronts; one is neither indifferent nor submissive in
relation to such things, for even in neglect or avoidance they matter to everything one ‘is’ and
‘does’.
Care (Sorge): The most characteristic and central feature of human life. Composed of a
threefold set of complex existential structures that provide understanding of the unique manner
in which Dasein exists. This self-reflective is restricted to the ‘selfhood’ of the particular
individual and correlates with the three aspects of temporality – past, present and future – to
expose the completeness of existence through Being and Time (Lewis 2005; Tuttle 2005).
Critical Disability Studies: A socio-political lens that explores the dominant principles and
creed of power, privilege and cultural construction of the advantaged and disadvantaged in
relation to disability. More specifically, it provides an examination of the social, political,
cultural and economic factors that characterise disability as a function of the personal and
collective response to difference (Meekosha & Shuttleworth 2009).
Dasein: A reflexive selfhood, a process more fundamental than cognitive self-awareness or
moral accountability. Heidegger ([1927] 1962: 79) makes it clear that one cannot think of
Dasein in terms of objective or static corporeal substance; as ‘a being-present-at-hand of some
corporeal Thing (such as a human body) “in” an entity that is present-at-hand’.
[Indeed] we do not ‘have’ a body in the way we carry a knife in a sheath. Neither is the
body a natural body that merely accompanies us and which we can establish, expressly
or not, as being also ‘at hand’. (Heidegger [1927] 1962: 99)
The essence of Dasein is not to be found in physiological attributes but in existence, for
‘everything we call our bodiliness … down to the last muscle fibre and most hidden molecules
of hormones [already] belongs essentially to existing’ (Heidegger 2001a: 232). Aho (2009)
clarifies and maintains that this essence, Dasein, is therefore to be understood or defined as
dynamic, temporal ‘movements’ (Bewegung) or happenings (Geschehen) of understanding, of
being, unfolding within the historical world (Aho 2009):
Dasein is this happening of understanding and existence refers to the unique way that
human beings understands or interprets [one’s] life within a shared socio-historical
context (Aho 2009:13; emphasis added).
xiii
Dasein is a term that is meant to capture the way in which we are already concretely involved
in the world, in an average socio-historical understanding of things and unable to disengage or
escape. As Dreyfus (1991) asserts, human beings in their way of being embody an
understanding of what it is to be for ‘[one] grow[s] into [understanding] through the process of
socialization, whereby [one] acquire[s] the ability to interpret … to ‘take a stand’ on [one’s]
life (Heidegger [1927] 1962: 41):
[We] already stand in an understanding of the ‘is’ [Being] though we are unable to fix
conceptually what his ‘is’ signifies … this vague average understanding of Being is
still a Fact.’ (Heidegger [1927] 1962: 25)
One is disclosed to oneself, not as a distinct and persisting individual but rather immersed in
the social world, its possibilities, trappings, ‘baggage’ and Others with which one has to
engage. This immersion, an aspect of everyday experience – one’s averageness – constitutes
the background condition, the inauthentic, conformist condition (they-self) not only typical of
human life but standard in terms of which exceptional conditions of human life make sense:
My acts and practices … take place within a meaningful public space or ‘clearing’
(Lichtung) on the basic of which I make sense of my life and things show up for me as
the kinds of things they are. This context ‘governs’ any possible interpretation that I
can have of myself. (Heidegger [1925] 1985: 246)
Heidegger suggests that authenticity, experiencing oneself as isolated from others, is atypical
for such individuation is a momentary clear-sighted confrontation with the anxiety of one’s
own death (being-towards-death) and retrieval of one’s singular thrownness (historicality)
(Geschichtlichkeit) – or, as Aho (2009) explains it, the social potential of shared history
fundamentally ignored by convention and traditional assumptions, intolerance and
discrimination of current times.
Dasein with an Impairment: The identification of disabled persons in relation to Heidegger’s
Dasein. The thesis is not using the person-first rhetoric as used within recent disability
discourse, for the generally accepted terminology ‘person with a disability’ fails to consider
the complexity of social and or political oppression. The perception that disabled people are
‘just people’, while seductive, negates the expression of life of disabled people who fail to
meet such categorisation (Overboe 2007b). However, as Dasein is an individual process of
‘Being’ this terminology is offered as a compromise – as the ‘average everyday’ expectation,
interpretation and understanding of disabled persons by the sociality and themselves, to avoid
misunderstanding or misrepresentation and confusion of terminology within current discourse.
xiv
Da-sein with an Impairment: Represents an equivalent compromise for the identification of
disabled persons in relation to Heidegger’s later writing. Da-sein comes to represent
something closer to a topos, a place rather than being-in-the-world, as Heidegger interprets and
elaborates on the structure of the Da of Sein, the topos of ‘Being’. Da-sein is the opened and
cleared realm, the ‘between’ uniting and differentiating the elements of the world, allowing for
the opening of the world, the originary unfolding or happening or the revealing ‘things’ within
the world and offering humankind the possibility of a history and future (Malpas 2008).
das Man: The phenomenon of social normativity; the anybody, in everyday activity. This
mode of ‘Being’ allows for the ‘levelling’ of society. The desire for anonymity, need for
uniformity and imposition of conformity provide for only a possibility of existence, and tend
to disguise or conceal the ontological fact that we are thrown, being-towards death.
In this averageness with which [the Anyone] prescribes what can and may be ventured,
it keeps watch over everything exceptional that thrusts itself to the fore. Every kind of
greatness gets noiselessly suppressed. Overnight, everything that is original gets
glossed over as something that has long been well known. Everything gained by a
struggle becomes just something to be manipulated. Every secret loses its force. This
care of averageness reveals in turn as essential tendency of Dasein which we call the
levelling down of all possibilities of Being. ( Heidegger ([1927] 1962: 165)
Epistemology: Literally the science or philosophy of knowledge: ‘The claims or assumptions
made about the ways in which it is possible to gain knowledge.’ (Blaikie 1993: 6–7)
Ereignis: Another word for Being; the disclosive movement or ‘event’ of history providing for
the gathering and appropriating of beings (including human beings) and the revelation as what
they represent. The nature of the revelation is between Being and beings, between Being and
human and between Being and time (including space). Ereignis, according to de Beistegui
(2005: 83), should be considered a development and ‘reworking of the problematic of the
ontological difference and the quest for the unifying sense of being with which [Heidegger]
began’. As Chambers (2003) clarifies, while Being remains the emphasis, the ontological
difference (the focus of early writings) must be left to consider Being more deeply.
Fürsorge: The element of the complex existential structure, Care, which manifests in relation
to Other beings’ as ‘solicitude’. Taking the form of ‘Being-with’, it comprises leaping-in (the
inauthentic mode) and leaping-ahead (the authentic mode).
Grievability: The presupposition for the definition of life that ‘matters’. A subject of life, or
individual, is a person positioned in and through norms that are reiterated and reinstated
xv
through the production and shifting of social terms. This scaling or continuum situates
individuals with respect to their ‘place’ or value within the social definition and boundaries to
establish or rate one’s life as grievable (life or non-life). Butler (2009: 15) asserts that a
‘grievable life is one that can be regarded as a life and sustained by that regard … without
grievability there is no life or rather there is something living that is other than life … a life
that will never have been lived, sustained by no regard, no testimony, and ungrieved when
lost.’
Identity: A social category, constructed over time through discourse, ‘knowledge’ and
performance to represent a set of persons marked by characterisations typical of behaviour,
beliefs and desires. These categories are further distinguished by implicit and explicit ‘rules’ of
ritualised membership and reflecting (alleged) characteristic features or attributes (dis/ableism)
(Fearon 1999).
Kehre (The turning): The thesis defines Heidegger’s famous ‘shift’ as the single development
of philosophical thought (1930–46) rather than a change or rejection of previous theory. It
represents a change in focus from consideration of Being as relating to human individuals
(Dasein) to Being considered on its own terms. Heidegger rejects the notion that the ‘turning’
is something manufactured or peculiar to his personal biography (Malpas 2008).
Medical Model of Disability: The social perception of a disability in terms of the individual
‘unfortunate’ problem or ‘tragic affliction’; a negative biomedical situation or condition to be
overcome through medical intervention and rehabilitation (Michalko 2002).
Ontology: Literally the science or philosophy of ‘being’; relates to being, to what is, to what
exists. ‘The claims or assumptions that a particular approach to social enquiries make about
the nature of social reality’ (Blaikie 1993: 6).
Polemos: A Greek word normally translated as ‘war’, but which Heidegger translates into a
profound ontological concept: ‘confrontation’, for only ‘in confrontation do we most fully
become what we are: beings summoned to an ongoing interpretive struggle with the meaning
of the world and with the meaning of “Being” itself’ (Fried 2000: 4).
Social discrimination: Defined in line with studies that classify the relationship between the
in-group (normative citizenry) and the out-group (disabled identity) and the tension for
positive acknowledgement and evaluation. The resultant disability ‘antagonism’ requires
sufficient motivation to present (a) a positive distinctiveness of the normative citizen and
xvi
(b) subjective
legitimisation
of
negative
behaviour
against
the
disabled
identity.
Discrimination serves the ‘shared’ interests, values and goals of citizens and is constantly
legitimised by a negative ‘campaign’ challenging and destabilizing the validity of the disabled
identity. The significance for the thesis’ structural interpretation of ‘Being’ lies in that
perceiving a lack of dif-ference will have society’s citizenry increase motivation and
methodologies of positive distinctiveness through differentiation and differential treatment at
the expense of disabled identity. Equally aggressive and interdependent, the perceived
difference from social normativity will be used as legitimacy for ‘violence’ against the
perceived deviant and unintelligible identity (Mummendey & Wenzel 1999).
Social model of disability: Represents and concerns the environmental and social barriers that
exclude people with perceived impairments from mainstream society. While not denying the
importance or significance of impairment, ‘it offers a concerted attempt to provide a clear and
unambiguous framework within which policies can be developed concerning aspects of
disabled people’s lives which can and should be changed’ (Barnes 1998: 78).
‘Truth’: Defined not in terms of the search or understanding of metaphysical ‘being’, but
rather a questioning of both the nature and conviction of presumed and perceived ‘realities’
accepted as socially objective systems, convictions, content and contexts based on the
integrated, mirrored repetition of unopposed, unchallenged propositions, practices and beliefs.
Vulnerability: The conventional, implicit understanding suggests a negative interpretation of
susceptibility, exposure and risk, defencelessness, dependence, openness to harm and injury.
The thesis’s definition (based upon Judith Butler’s philosophy) or fundamental understanding
of ‘primary human vulnerability’ is an openness to being influenced, changed and involved in
positive and negative manners through diverse forms in differing social, economic, cultural
and legal situations. This interpretation is distinguished from the implicit, first for its scope
refers to the fundamental human condition rather than a transient concern for only some
individuals and not Others. Second, it is conceived in more ambivalent terms than the essential
negativity synonymous with harm. Together, these provide the potential for and possibility of
other ‘conditions’, for vulnerability is not just a condition of limitation but also one that
enables humankind to be receptive and reflective of being ‘affected’ and ‘affecting’ Others
(Gilson 2011).
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