At Home in the World: Two Western Models of Mindfulness

Abstract

This article offers a schematic description of two models for mindfulness, a Stoic and a Heideggerian one, focusing on the different ways they theorize well-being, emotions, and the role of unhomelikeness and homelikeness. It shows that Stoic mindfulness would have to aim at well-being qua oikeiōsis through a form of attention, which would involve the extirpation of passions. On the contrary, Heideggerian mindfulness would have to aim at well-being as an interplay of unhomelikeness and homelikeness, through anticipatory resoluteness. Heideggerian mindfulness would not only not aim at the extirpation of passions but would rather be motivated by a passion (angst) and embrace the passion. Heideggerian mindfulness is shown to involve not the sovereign prevalence of unhomelikeness (and angst) but rather a reconnection that involves a certain rehabilitation of homelikeness, expressed through “unshakable joy.” Heideggerian mindfulness is shown to involve a certain reversal of Stoic mindfulness with respect to homelikeness. However, it is also shown that in some respects, Heideggerian authenticity and mindfulness would involve a rehabilitation of the Stoic idea of oikeiōsis, as is revealed for example by the homology between oikeiōsis and Befindlichkeit, where both non-conceptually disclose the organism’s constitution to itself.