Phenomenology and Metaphysical Realism1 Robert D. Stolorow Abstract: This article examines the relationship between totalitarianism and the metaphysical illusions on which it rests. Phenomenological investigation is claimed to loosen the grip of totalitarian ideology by exposing its origins in the "resurrective" illusions that seek to overcome the impact of collective trauma. Phenomenology is thus shown to have emancipatory power. Keywords: phenomenology, metaphysical illusion, resurrective ideology, Manichaeism, collective trauma, finitude, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricoeur "Philosophical pleading for subjectivity is becoming the citizen's only recourse against the tyrant."--Paul Ricoeur, 1977, p. 155 This essay extends an earlier article co-written with George Atwood (Stolorow & Atwood, 2017) in which we joined Wilhelm Dilthey's conception of the metaphysical impulse as a flight from the tragedy of human finitude with Ludwig Wittgenstein's understanding of how language bewitches intelligence. We contended that there are features of the phenomenology of language identified by Wittgenstein-in particular, the projection of reified pictures as the meaning of words-that play a constitutive and pervasive role in the creation of metaphysical illusion. Unlike Dilthey, who largely 1	Presented	at	the	Annual	Southwest	Seminar	in	Continental	Philosophy,	June	8-10, 2017,	California	State	University,	Northridge. 2 reserved the metaphysical impulse to abstract philosophical systems, we extended it to everyday life as well. And unlike Wittgenstein, who believed that the bewitchment of intelligence by language could be overcome by good philosophizing, we argued that such bewitchment is an indelible feature of the never-ending struggle against the traumatizing impact of finitude. Our account of the genesis of metaphysical illusion provides a means of unpacking the claim by Ricoeur with which the present essay begins. Typically, tyranny is supported by some form of totalitarian ideology, and totalitarian ideology, in turn, is ordinarily rooted in a framework of metaphysical illusion or what is oxymoronically characterized as metaphysical realism. In	her	study	of	totalitarianism,	Hannah	Arendt	(1951)	provided	a	cogent	analysis of	the	essence	of	political	ideology.	Such	"isms,"	she	said,	claim	to	explain	all historical	happenings	by	deducing	them	from	a	single	self-evident	idea	or	premise- for	example,	that	history	"progresses"	through	the	elimination	of	inferior	races (Nazism)	or	decadent	classes	(communism).	Once	established,	these	ironclad	logical systems	become,	like	paranoid	delusions,	immune	to	the	impact	of	actual experience.	Further,	they	readily	devolve	into	systems	of	genocidal	terror,	as	they give	warrant	to	the	unbridled	liquidation	of	anyone	or	anything	believed	to	impede the	historical	process. An	all-too-common	form	of	totalitarian	ideology	is	found	in	the	rhetoric	of	evil. The	seeds	of	the	rhetoric	of	evil	can	be	found	in	the	ancient	religious	ideology, originating	in	Persia	and	pervasive	in	contemporary	religious	fundamentalism, known	as	Manichaeism-the	idea	that	the	movement	of	history	is	explained	by	an 3 eternal	struggle	between	the	metaphysical	forces	of	good	and	of	evil.	In	the	rhetoric of	evil,	Manichaeism	is	harnessed	for	political	purposes-one's	own	group	is claimed	to	embody	the	forces	of	good,	and	the	opposing	group,	the	forces	of	evil. Through such attributions, which are inherently nationalistic or ethnocentric, one's political aims are justified as being in the service of the good. What Ricoeur calls philosophical pleading for subjectivity I want to call phenomenology. As Atwood and I have shown (Stolorow & Atwood, 2017), the phenomenological study of language can be effective in deconstructing metaphysical illusions, including those that support totalitarian ideologies. Heidegger (1927/1962), for example, carries out his phenomenological investigation of the meaning of Being in conjunction with a "destruction" (p. 44) of traditional ontological concepts in which Being is regarded as some sort of metaphysical entity. As distinct from a metaphysical essence that inheres in entities themselves, Heidegger conceives of the Being of entities in terms of how they are intelligible or understandable to us as the entities they are. The Being of entities thus depends on human understanding-the "clearing" that lights up their intelligibility. Heidegger argues that because an unarticulated, pre-philosophical understanding of our own Being is constitutive of our kind of Being, we humans can investigate our own kind of Being by investigating our understanding (and lack of understanding) of that Being. Accordingly, it follows that his investigative method is to be a phenomenological one, aimed at illuminating the fundamental structures of our understanding of our Being: "Only as phenomenology, is ontology possible" (p. 60). In this formulation, the positing of 4 metaphysical entities and essences gives way to a phenomenological investigation and illumination of how entities, including especially we ourselves, are intelligible. Soon after the publication of Being and Time, Heidegger turned his attention from the Being of entities to Being as such, a phrase that seems to point in a metaphysical direction. Indeed, inspired by the poet Holderlin as his guide to a spiritual awakening, he characterizes Being as such as a divine force or energy, "sent" to the properly receptive human being (Heidegger 1968/1972). In recent years a debate has been taking place among members of the Heidegger Circle as to whether the later Heidegger remained dedicated to phenomenological inquiry or turned instead to a form of metaphysical realism. The crux of the debate concerns the question of whether Being as such remains dependent on the human being (phenomenology) or is independent of the human beings who experience it (metaphysical realism). Over the years proponents of both sides of the debate have marshaled plausible support from Heidegger's original texts. Perhaps we can conclude that this debate reflects a conflict within Heidegger himself over these two opposing conceptions, a conflict rooted in his own experiential world. There is one context, however, in which Heidegger's pivot toward metaphysical realism is undeniable-namely, his embrace of Nazi ideology. Heidegger's version of Nazism reflected his own dream of Being, whereby he seemed to experience the Nazi takeover of Germany as an upsurge of Being itself bursting forth in historical reality. He envisioned a "second beginning" in the history of Being (the first occurring in ancient Greece) in which he himself would be a spiritual leader. Returning to the claim made by Ricoeur, how can phenomenology help emancipate people from such metaphysical illusions? In a chapter co-written with George Atwood 5 and Donna Orange (in Stolorow, 2011, chapter 9), we argued that for Heidegger Nazism was an example of what we called resurrective ideology, which served to restore a sense of agentic selfhood dismantled by a series of devastating traumatic occurrences. A similar restorative purpose can be served on a socio-political scale by destructive ideologies that take form in the wake of collective trauma-witness, for example, the rise of Manichean rhetoric in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (Stolorow, 2009). How can phenomenological inquiry loosen the grip of such restorative ideological illusions? It can do so by helping people understand and dwell in the traumas-individual or collective-that underpin them, thereby providing the emotional devastation with a dialogical home in which it can be held and better borne (Stolorow, 2016), rendering the evasive resurrective ideological illusions less necessary. If, as Braver (2012) quips, "Phenomenology lets metaphysicians heal themselves" (p. 31), perhaps it can do something similar for ideologues. References Arendt, H. (1951). Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt. Braver, L. (2012). Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson. New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927) Heidegger, M. (1972). Time and being. In On Time and Being, ed. J. Stambaugh. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-24. (Original work published 1968) Ricoeur, P. (1977). Patocka, philosopher and resister. Telos, 31:152-155. 6 Stolorow, R. D. (2009). Identity and resurrective ideology in an age of trauma. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 26, 206-209. Stolorow, R. D. (2011). World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge. Stolorow, R. D. (2016). Pain is not pathology. Existential Analysis, 27(1), 70-74. Stolorow, R. D. & Atwood, G. E. (2017). The phenomenology of language and the metaphysicalizing of the real. Language and Psychoanalysis, 6(1), 4-9.