Heidegger Circle Proceedings

Volume 55, 2021

Sustainability, Technology, Anthropocene

Earth and Planet
Heidegger’s Confrontation with Jünger

In light of the contemporary climate crisis, this paper argues that it is important to look at the distinction between earth and planet in Martin Heidegger confrontation with Ernst Jünger. To do so will point out an essential confrontation between earth and planet, revealing their respective essences. For Jünger, the global spread of technology is planetary in scale, which allows for the emergence of meaning through the figure of the worker. Heidegger, however, argues against the conception of the planet in favor of the earth, here rendered as the self-concealing withdrawal of the sensuous, which both makes possible and grounds planetary thinking. Insofar as art is that which indirectly reveals the earth, I will argue that Heidegger’s account of the origin of the artwork helps us to think against the planetary, and therefore against Jünger. I will conclude by presenting some reflections on the earth as a way of thinking the planetary catastrophe accompanying climate change.