The turn: Plato, Kant, and Heidegger on the encounter with the ground of obligation

Modern thinking requires that the ground of obligation should be transparent, demonstrable, orderable, and harnessable at will for man's purposes. Under this mode of thought, which Heidegger names "technique," any ground must further the orderability of man and man's world. Through an inquiry into the phenomenon of the "turn," as described by Plato, Kant, and Heidegger, this study questions the 'technical' approach to the ground of obligation.; For Plato, Kant, and Heidegger, the ground of obligation is not a demonstrable object of knowledge. The ground of obligation only appears, insofar as it appears at all, in the happening of the turn. In the turn, a "call" invites man to turn away from common sense, including commonsense understandings of man and of obligation, and draws man to an encounter with the ground of obligation. The ground of obligation is an already binding claim upon man that is not susceptible to man's ordering. The encounter with the ground of obligation discloses obligation proper: a far-reaching responsibility that eclipses what ordinarily counts as obligation. Obligation proper is man's responsibility to care for the always binding claim that is the ground of obligation. Obligation proper is empty; it offers man no material direction on what he ought to do, and thereby leaves man with the full burden of his responsibility and freedom. Ordinary obligation contains an intimation of obligation proper, but necessarily diminishes the depth of obligation. Man is only properly bound by obligation through the turn.; This study traces the turn through careful readings of Plato's allegory of the cave in Politeia; Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten and Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft; Heidegger's treatment of "the call of conscience" in Sein and Zeit; and Heidegger's essays " Die Frage nach Technik" and "Die Kehre." While Heidegger frees the turn from Plato's and Kant's metaphysics, each thinker points to the same phenomenon.