Abstract

This dissertation concerns the excess that attends the determinations of thinking. My problematic is the non-homogeneous touch of indeterminacy with determination. The first chapter shows how Aristotle, in his account of soul in De Anima, both assigns a priority to touch and thinks of soul as without touch. This exposition opens the possibility of thinking touch otherwise than exclusively as touch of bodies, and for considering touch as constitutive for thinking. One can thus think touch in the difference of determination and indeterminacy that occurs in thinking. This difference occurs as thinking is determined by language but is lost when one thinks solely by reference to determination. Indeterminacy attends any determination of thinking, such that thinking occurs as a touch of determination and indeterminacy that is excessive of any articulated determination. ;In chapters 2-6, I explore the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. In the context of questions concerning history and language, I develop and elaborate the occurrence of touch that I problematized in chapter 1. The combination of determination and indeterminacy in touch gives rise to a tragic dimension in Nietzsche's and Heidegger's thought. Tragedy is important for both Nietzsche and Heidegger as an art of exposing the vulnerability of human thought-determinations to the excess attending them. The thought of Nietzsche and Heidegger reveals the touch of determination and indeterminacy, and the inevitable losses that occur in and through that touch