Decisionism at the intersection of ontology and politics: A study in the thought of Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt

Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt are two of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. They also were members of the most reprehensible political movement of that century. From this historical point and a basis in certain aspects of Platonic thought, this thesis argues that the ontological decisionism of Heidegger, in Being and Time, finds a complementary political decisionism in Schmitt's Political Theology and The Concept of the Political.;First, an examination of Being and Time is undertaken. This examination concludes that Dasein, Heidegger's term for the being which human beings are, makes its decisions entirely free from principles which could be called normative, correct, or justified. Second, Schmitt's political theory as expressed in Political Theology and The Concept of the Political is examined, and, similar to the examination of Heidegger, this section concludes that Schmitt presents a political decisionism in those books. The third and final section attempts to present those two theories as complementary. In this way, Heidegger and Schmitt are taken together as presenting an onto-political decisionism, one not found in either of the two thinkers' works taken by themselves. Finally, this onto-political decisionism is shown as a response to the Platonic assumption under which the thesis as a whole is carried out.