Part 3
When Da-sein is being ahead of itself in such a way that it is being towards its ownmost possibility - which is death - the possibility of being free for authentic existentiell possibilities is opened up. The anticipation of death provides a resoluteness that drives off every trivial possibility; this resoluteness that exists in the moment – rather than some kind of isolated present – is Da-sein’s ability to be free for authentic existentiell possibilities, as opposed to the possibilities that Da-sein just finds lying around in the public realm.
Attunement and falling prey, as temporal, correspond to having-been and making-present. Attunement can either be retrieve, or forgotteness, which is the vulgar past. Falling prey temporalizes as making-present or the Moment, and understanding temporalizes as awaiting or anticipation, corresponding to the vulgar future. The three are a unity; they interpenetrate each other as an ecstatic unity. For example, attunement temporalizes as the “past,” but still temporalizes itself as a future that makes present.
The anticipation of death and the resolute projection upon authentic existentiell possibilities is known as anticipatory resoluteness. This is how Heidegger brings together the ontic and the ontological, the existential and the existentiell, authentic temporality meeting authentic possibilities. I’ve heard it argued that this is analogous to Kant’s schematism, in which Kant brings together intuition and the categories.
Since the possibility of Da-sein’s being-a-whole lies in anticipatory resoluteness, this resoluteness must have a temporal structure. It is being towards Da-sein’s ownmost possibility. This is a coming-toward-itself which is the “primordial phenomena of the future.” This is not a point that could be described as somehow spatially distant, or a potential that is “not yet” actual, but rather Da-sein’s ability to come towards itself. (BT 299)
Anticipatory resoluteness also understands Da-sein as guilty, as being thrown and not mastering its ground. This is what will be known vulgarly as the past. Da-sein, understanding itself as thrown, is how Da-sein can be “in the way that it already always was.” This is Da-sein’s “having been.” There is a unity here with coming-towards; only because Da-sein has been can it come towards itself futurally – “authentically futural, Da-sein is authentically having-been.” (BT 299) By anticipating death, we see ourselves as already having been and able to act in the moment.
I’m going to go over one more topic and make 2 points about it – vulgar time, which is basically the linear time of common sense that we all know and love. The origin of vulgar time lies in Da-sein’s average, everyday inauthenticity. The common concepts of future, present and past represent genuine phenomena, but it is a derivative one. Because temporality is not an aggregate of nows, these nows cannot be said to stretch into infinity. If time is finite, then what do we do with the time that apparently continues? Heidegger is not denying that “time goes on,” he is saying that the belief in a time that moves out of the indefinite past and into the indefinite future is the result of a vulgar notion of time. Commonly, time is seen as infinite, but this conception is really only possible on the basis of temporalizing finitude. (BT 304)
In section 66, Heidegger lays the ground of what will become the datability of time. In an average, everyday way, care is about taking care of things. When using things, Da-sein uses time. In other to use time, it must be datable and calculable. (BT 306) In this way, innerworldly beings are encountered in time; their temporal quality is “within-timeness.” There is a critique of Bergson here that I’ll just mention – this within-timeness is an actual phenomena, not an externalization of a qualitative time into space. I have nothing to say about that, but someone else might.
For Heidegger, all datable time is public time and lies on top of primordial temporality. The public “orients” itself towards this time, “so that it must somehow be available for everyone.” (BT 378) Time can be taken care of in terms of events and innworldly beings, but this occurs in a horizon of “time-reckoning,” which always involves astronomical and calendrical time. The essence of taking care of time is not about measuring quantities or assigning numbers to periods of time. Measured time arises because of thrownness; primordially, temporality is Da-sein reckoning with time. (BT 378)
Public time always presupposes the structure of “then” and “when.” When the term ends, it is time to hand in essays. This public “then” is the structure of significance, which is part of understanding and interpretation, so “it constitutes the worldliness of the world.” (BT 380) This “time for” is what Heidegger will call world time. World time is not an inner worldly being, of course, but rather the condition of such. World time is presupposed when we use clocks, when we calculate and measure time. By saying what I’ve said, I’ve tried to point out how there is an authentic temporality that underlies our common notions of time, and all our calculation of it.
By way of conclusion, I’ve tried to summarize how both Da-sein’s a priori, existential structures and datable public time become meaningful and intelligible only on the basis of an underlying, unifying temporality.
Showing posts with label Philosophy: Heidegger's Being and Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philosophy: Heidegger's Being and Time. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Being & Time II, Part 3: Enter The (Temporal) Dragon
Part 2
In the third chapter of Division II, Heidegger will reach the idea that temporality, as the ontological meaning of care, is the unifying element of Da-sein. Everything I’ve just said has a temporal meaning; consider the projecting forward of understanding. “Meaning” is the horizon upon which something is intelligible as the thing that it is. Temporality is the horizon upon which care becomes intelligible. (BT 298) So what I’ll do now is bring out the temporality of what I’ve just spoken about.
With temporality, Heidegger describes the totality of Da-sein: “ahead-of-itself-already-being-in (a world) as together-with (beings encountered within the world.” (BT 300) None of this is about being earlier or later; all three work together to reveal themselves as the “ekstaticon par excellence” an ecstatic unity of temporality. (BT 302) It is not a sequence moving from now to another now, not an aggregate of the ecstasies. While the future is the primary ecstasy, all three move within one another. This “unified phenomena of the future that makes present in the process of having-been” is temporality. It is a unified structure that cannot be divided into a series of moments. It also cannot be seen as a path upon which historical events trod.
Heidegger will present the ecstasies as authentic or inauthentic. The structural elements of being-in-the-world are understanding, attunement and falling prey. Each of these elements temporalizes as a different ecstasy. Understanding is the projection towards a possibility; it discloses potentiality so that Da-sein knows what is going on.
We are always, in fact, projecting into possibilities. Da-sein always understands itself in terms of projects that it projects into. Because Da-sein projects forward, it is always ahead of itself. Ontologically speaking, Da-sein is always not yet. Primordially, Da-sein exists from the future. There is always something outstanding. What is outstanding is death. Death is Da-sein’s ownmost, not to be bypassed possibility, and it is unrelated to anything in the referential totality. It is not a logical possibility in the world. It is what is always outstanding for Da-sein. The anticipation of death is the authentic future, while the understanding that comes towards itself only in terms of the world taken care of is an awaiting that makes present. (BT 310)
Rather than an awaiting that makes present, authentic anticipation discloses a present that is held in authentic temporality called the moment. The moment is not another “now” that appears in a series of nows, but rather it is a part of the ecstatic unity of temporality. The moment temporalizes itself out of an authentic future, which is part of the “ecstatic unity [to which] a corresponding having-been must belong.” (BT 311) In this authentic moment, Da-sein brings itself forth to its ownmost potentiality, and this is called retrieve.
In the third chapter of Division II, Heidegger will reach the idea that temporality, as the ontological meaning of care, is the unifying element of Da-sein. Everything I’ve just said has a temporal meaning; consider the projecting forward of understanding. “Meaning” is the horizon upon which something is intelligible as the thing that it is. Temporality is the horizon upon which care becomes intelligible. (BT 298) So what I’ll do now is bring out the temporality of what I’ve just spoken about.
With temporality, Heidegger describes the totality of Da-sein: “ahead-of-itself-already-being-in (a world) as together-with (beings encountered within the world.” (BT 300) None of this is about being earlier or later; all three work together to reveal themselves as the “ekstaticon par excellence” an ecstatic unity of temporality. (BT 302) It is not a sequence moving from now to another now, not an aggregate of the ecstasies. While the future is the primary ecstasy, all three move within one another. This “unified phenomena of the future that makes present in the process of having-been” is temporality. It is a unified structure that cannot be divided into a series of moments. It also cannot be seen as a path upon which historical events trod.
Heidegger will present the ecstasies as authentic or inauthentic. The structural elements of being-in-the-world are understanding, attunement and falling prey. Each of these elements temporalizes as a different ecstasy. Understanding is the projection towards a possibility; it discloses potentiality so that Da-sein knows what is going on.
We are always, in fact, projecting into possibilities. Da-sein always understands itself in terms of projects that it projects into. Because Da-sein projects forward, it is always ahead of itself. Ontologically speaking, Da-sein is always not yet. Primordially, Da-sein exists from the future. There is always something outstanding. What is outstanding is death. Death is Da-sein’s ownmost, not to be bypassed possibility, and it is unrelated to anything in the referential totality. It is not a logical possibility in the world. It is what is always outstanding for Da-sein. The anticipation of death is the authentic future, while the understanding that comes towards itself only in terms of the world taken care of is an awaiting that makes present. (BT 310)
Rather than an awaiting that makes present, authentic anticipation discloses a present that is held in authentic temporality called the moment. The moment is not another “now” that appears in a series of nows, but rather it is a part of the ecstatic unity of temporality. The moment temporalizes itself out of an authentic future, which is part of the “ecstatic unity [to which] a corresponding having-been must belong.” (BT 311) In this authentic moment, Da-sein brings itself forth to its ownmost potentiality, and this is called retrieve.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Being & Time II, Part 2: The They's Understanding and Care
Da-sein is dispersed into the they and thrown into possibilities. The they has its own modes of understanding and interpretation. These are idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity.
Discourse shares what is disclosed - but the mark of idle talk is that it does not go back to the original disclosure. It is discourse that only offers the most average, leveled down understanding. It’s almost like speaking for the sake of speaking; it has no relation to the being being spoken of. Because idle talk offers a leveled down understanding, it can understand everything.
Curiosity corresponds to sight as a mode of disclosing. Just like idle talk understands everything, curiosity sees everything. Ambiguity has the same sort of thing going on. Ambiguity is what “everyone knows.” It knows what everyone else thinks and feels. These three elements sound very much like common sense.
Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity constitute the entanglement of Da-sein. This is how Da-sein is in the world, initially and for the most part. Da-sein is fallen prey into the world. It’s an absorption in the they. This entanglement is the inauthenticity of Da-sein. This entanglement is Da-sein not being itself. Heidegger says Da-sein is “tempted” into falling prey; it confuses Da-sein into thinking all of its possibilities are open to it, when in fact they are leveled.
It is important to note that Da-sein be falling prey only because it is concerned, understanding, attuned being in the world.
Now, Being in the world is a structure that is primordial and constantly whole. Until now, the structure’s moments have all been discussed individually. Understanding, attunement, disclosure, etc. But how is the totality of the structural whole to be described? What unites everything that’s been said so far?
Care. Care is the unity of the structural totality of Da-sein BitW. Care is actually BitW as such. This isn’t the same as wishing, urging, watching, etc; these things are founded on care. But what discloses care as fundamental? What is Da-sein’s fundamental attunement?
Angst. Angst is what provides the basis for grasping the totality of Da-sein. Remember the description of fear? Fear is fear of something. One can find this desk fearsome. It’s something present, something in the world. What distinguishes Angst from fear is that angst does not have an object. Angst is anxious over nothing. Literally, the nothing. Nothing definite, nothing present. Angst is anxious about being in the world as such. It is in fact angst that individualizes Da-sein; it does not create an isolated subject, it merely brings Da-sein back before itself out of the they. The world loses its significance, and Da-sein is brought back before itself out of dispersion in the they.
The basis of the structural totality of Da-sein, care lies “before” every attitude and position of Da-sein. Care is the a-priori condition of both theory and praxis. Political and social action are only possible for a being that is unified by care.
So the unity of Da-sein lies in the fact that it is concerned in its being about that being. BitW itself is care. Being with things is taking care of them and being with the Mitda-sein of others is concern. Being concerned about its being, Da-sein is always being ahead of itself, projecting forward into possibilities.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Slouching Towards Division II: Recapitulating Being-In
I've already presented a summary of the first half of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time; you can see a link to it on the side bar. Last semester I had to present on Division II to a class that I was certain hadn't read B&T, so I tried to set up Division II with some discussion of Division I. This next series is, you guessed it, that presentation. I'll just include it under the Being and Time label.
What I’ll do with this presentation is go over some material from Division I, setting up terms, and then move to Division II, re-reading those terms temporally.
So last week we already discussed how Da-sein is the entity that we must inquire into in order to ask after the meaning of being. This is because it already has something like an understanding of being, a pre-ontological understanding of being. This understanding is a way of being; this isn’t a question of epistemology. We understand the “is” without being able to conceptually define it. This is what makes Da-sein different from other beings - we are concerned in our being about being. Da-sein is related to existence understandingly; the structures by which we do this are existential structures. You might hear echos of Kant’s a-priori transcendental structures here.
Da-sein understands itself in terms of existence, as well. It understands itself through possibilities that come to it through various means; these are existentiell possibilities. These are the possibilities we understand ourselves through; it is an existentiell possibility to be a student.
Rephrased, existentiells are our projects. The stuff we do. They are ontic characteristics specific to Da-sein. Existentials, on the other hand, are what you might think of as our ontological side; the way(s) in which we exist understandingly. One example is mood, attunement.
Da-sein’s relation to itself is mediated by its relation to the world, but this is not to suggest that being-in stands between a present world and a present subject. Being-in is a unified phenomena. It is disclosure; a clearing, an illumination. There are three aspects to being-in as such: attunement, understanding and discourse. These are not three aspects that are separate things; they are equiprimordial. There are the interiority of each other.
Now, Attunement is Heidegger’s ontological term for what would ontically be “mood.” It’s how you’re doing. Attunement is what makes things matter. It discloses things in a particular way. In being in a mood, Da-sein is disclosed as that being which it is.
The primary discovery of the world is also through attunement — not the senses. It is because the senses belong ontologically to an attuned being that they can be “touched.” Heidegger himself will suggest a comparison with Kant’s intuitions; we do not have spacial or temporal intuitions because we have the five sense. Kant’s intuitions are, if this can be said, a non-sensual form of sensibility.
Heidegger’s big example of attunement is fear. There are three aspects to fear. The first is “what” one is afraid of - it is a thing of whatever sort. A spider, a disease, a ghost. A fearsome thing. The second aspect is “fearing” itself; this clarifies what is fearsome. And why are we afraid? Because we are concerned in our being for our being. Only a being concerned with its own being can be afraid. What about animals? I have no clue. What marks fear as attunement is that it discloses things in their ability to threaten.
The second element of being in is understanding. Like I’ve already said, Da-sein exists understandingly. Understanding is what discloses our possibilities as possibilities. This is not a cognitive process of making choices; it isn’t choosing between being a lawyer or doctor when you grow up. It discloses those possibilities in the first place. It’s also not an empty set of logical possibilities; we are always already in a possibility. We are always, in fact, projecting into possibilities.
Now, understanding always has its own possibilities. Understanding has the possibility of understanding itself - this is interpretation. Interpretation is understanding’s self-understanding.
Interpretation is also the actualization of possibilities that understanding discloses. Da-sein projects onto possibilities, then interprets itself as these possibilities. What is interpreted, what has been explicitly understood, always has the structure of something as something. A table is explicitly understood as a table.
Interpretation has a threefold structure: fore-having, fore-seeing and fore-conception. These, again, are all bound up with each other.
The fore-having is the referential totality; it is the interpretation operating within that totality of reference which itself has already been understood. When something is understood but still veiled, still unclear, still implicit, it becomes explicit through an act of appropriation - the fore-seeing. The fore-having reveals what is to be understood, the fore-seeing works specifically upon what is to be understood. This interpretation is already decided upon by a definite conceptuality - this is the fore-conception.
The interpretation of something as something is grounded in fore-having, fore-seeing and fore-conception. This is a circle, but it is not a vicious circle to be avoided; the trick is to enter the circle in the right way; this is why Heidegger had that whole discussion of the structure of the question at the beginning of the book.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
B&T 10: Truth and the End of Division I
Part 9
Remember the question of the meaning of being? Well, we’re back to it. That question is only possible if something like an understanding of being already is. An understanding of being belongs to Da-sein.
This section is about the source of a great many philosophical problems. The understanding of being - both ontically and ontologically - initially orients itself to innerworld beings. That’s how being as such is passed over for things that are objectively present. Being = reality. This section has some great stuff about the problems of reality, but I think it’s basically build up to Heidegger’s discussion of truth as aletheia.
The question is, what connection does truth have with being? Heidegger says three things about the traditional concept of truth. First, its traditional position is in the proposition. The judgement. Sentences are where truth “happens.” What truth is, is agreement of the judgment with its object. The correspondence theory of truth. And it was Aristotle that initiated both of these ideas when he created logic.
Heidegger begins his critique of the traditional idea of truth by saying that the concept of “agreement” is entirely general and empty. What exactly this “agreement” is is obscure. It is meant to be a formal relation of the ideal content of the mind to the real thing about which one judges. What corresponds is two ontic things. The content of a statement is related to an object; these are two things that can have a formal relation to one another. What Heidegger ends up saying is that correspondence isn’t so much wrong as it is insufficient. This is the best example of the movement I mentioned at the beginning; the common sense version of truth is taken, and deepened.
Rather than correspondence, truth is aletheia. Disclosure. Truth lets being appear in themselves; a true statement discovers a showing that already existed. Truth is both opening and closure - for example, when you see an apple as an apple, you close off seeing it as a pear.
It might be useful here to recall the three aspects of disclosure - understanding, interpretation and discourse. We exist understandingly; we exist in the truth.
Now, all three of these elements are, initially and for the most part, fallen. They are fallen into publicness. This means that Da-sein is usually disclosed to itself as something that it is not - this is inauthenticity. Because disclosure is fallen, Da-sein is also in untruth. Da-sein is both in truth and untruth.
Constituted by disclosedness, Da-sein is in the truth. There is truth only insofar as Da-sein is. This applies to everything, including something like scientific truths. To say there is eternal truth is not proven until one proves Da-sein is itself eternal.
That's the end of Division I. Eventually I'll do a single post on Division II, which is where the book gets really hard. The three ecstasies of temporality! Anticipatory resoluteness! All that good stuff.
Remember the question of the meaning of being? Well, we’re back to it. That question is only possible if something like an understanding of being already is. An understanding of being belongs to Da-sein.
This section is about the source of a great many philosophical problems. The understanding of being - both ontically and ontologically - initially orients itself to innerworld beings. That’s how being as such is passed over for things that are objectively present. Being = reality. This section has some great stuff about the problems of reality, but I think it’s basically build up to Heidegger’s discussion of truth as aletheia.
The question is, what connection does truth have with being? Heidegger says three things about the traditional concept of truth. First, its traditional position is in the proposition. The judgement. Sentences are where truth “happens.” What truth is, is agreement of the judgment with its object. The correspondence theory of truth. And it was Aristotle that initiated both of these ideas when he created logic.
Heidegger begins his critique of the traditional idea of truth by saying that the concept of “agreement” is entirely general and empty. What exactly this “agreement” is is obscure. It is meant to be a formal relation of the ideal content of the mind to the real thing about which one judges. What corresponds is two ontic things. The content of a statement is related to an object; these are two things that can have a formal relation to one another. What Heidegger ends up saying is that correspondence isn’t so much wrong as it is insufficient. This is the best example of the movement I mentioned at the beginning; the common sense version of truth is taken, and deepened.
Rather than correspondence, truth is aletheia. Disclosure. Truth lets being appear in themselves; a true statement discovers a showing that already existed. Truth is both opening and closure - for example, when you see an apple as an apple, you close off seeing it as a pear.
It might be useful here to recall the three aspects of disclosure - understanding, interpretation and discourse. We exist understandingly; we exist in the truth.
Now, all three of these elements are, initially and for the most part, fallen. They are fallen into publicness. This means that Da-sein is usually disclosed to itself as something that it is not - this is inauthenticity. Because disclosure is fallen, Da-sein is also in untruth. Da-sein is both in truth and untruth.
Constituted by disclosedness, Da-sein is in the truth. There is truth only insofar as Da-sein is. This applies to everything, including something like scientific truths. To say there is eternal truth is not proven until one proves Da-sein is itself eternal.
That's the end of Division I. Eventually I'll do a single post on Division II, which is where the book gets really hard. The three ecstasies of temporality! Anticipatory resoluteness! All that good stuff.
Monday, August 27, 2007
B&T 9: Care and Angst
Part 8
On the first page of chapter 6, Heidegger summarizes everything that has been said thus far. On the basis of attunement, Da-sein has a mode of being in which is brought before itself - it is disclosed to itself in attunement. It is disclosed to itself in its thrownness. Thrownness is a way of being of a being that is its possibilities; it understands itself from them, and in them. It projects itself upon its possibilities. Being in the world involves both taking care of things and being with others. The self is, initially and for the most part, dispersed in the they and entangled in the world. So, the average everydayness of Da-sein can be described as, and I quote from page 170, “entangled-disclosed, thrown projecting being in the world which is concerned with its ownmost potentiality in its being together with the world and in being-with the others.” Easy as pie.
So what is the point of this chapter? Being in the world is a structure that is primordial and constantly whole. Until now, the structure’s moments have all been discussed individually. Understanding, attunement, being with, etc. But how is the totality of the structural whole to be described? What unites everything that’s been said so far?
Care. Care is the unity of the structural totality of Da-sein BitW. Care is actually BitW as such. This isn’t the same as wishing, urging, watching, etc; these things are founded on care. But what discloses care as fundamental? What is Da-sein’s fundamental attunement?
Angst. Angst is what provides the basis for grasping the totality of Da-sein. Remember the description of fear? Fear is fear of something. One can find this desk fearsome. It’s something present, something in the world. What distinguishes Angst from fear is that angst does not have an object. Angst is anxious over nothing. Literally, the nothing. Nothing definite, nothing present.
Tranquilization makes one feel at home; angst interrupts this feeling. Angst makes one feel uncanny. Falling prey does not run from possibilities or things, but to them, in order to find tranquilization. Angst thwarts this; angst is anxious about being in the world as such. It is in fact angst that individualizes Da-sein; it does not create an isolated subject, it merely brings Da-sein back before itself out of the they. The world loses its significance, and Da-sein is brought back before itself out of dispersion in the they.
So the unity of Da-sein lies in the fact that it is concerned in its being about that being. BitW itself is care. Being with things is taking care of them and being with the Mitda-sein of others is concern. Being concerned about its being, Da-sein is always being ahead of itself, projecting forward into possibilities. When Da-sein is being ahead of itself in such a way that it is being towards its ownmost possibility - which is death - the possibility of being free for authentic existentiell possibilities is opened up.
In Division 2, this is what will come to be known as anticipatory resolutness - the being towards death that individuates one, allows one to pursue one’s own possibilities as opposed to the possibilities handed over to it by the they.
Because that possibility is determined by freedom, one is just as free to leave one’s possibilities entirely to the they. Do everything the way one does things.
Now, the basis of the structural totality of Da-sein, care lies “before” every attitude and position of Da-sein. Care is the a-priori condition of both theory and praxis. Political and social action are only possible for a being that is unified by care.
In section 42, which I looked at midnight last night, Heidegger relates a roman myth about care. If there’s one point in Being and Time that has no need to exist, this is it. Every time I look at that chapter I think Heidegger must have had Stephen King’s editor. Anyways, the point of the chapter is that care rules Da-sein’s “temporal sojourn in the world.”
On the first page of chapter 6, Heidegger summarizes everything that has been said thus far. On the basis of attunement, Da-sein has a mode of being in which is brought before itself - it is disclosed to itself in attunement. It is disclosed to itself in its thrownness. Thrownness is a way of being of a being that is its possibilities; it understands itself from them, and in them. It projects itself upon its possibilities. Being in the world involves both taking care of things and being with others. The self is, initially and for the most part, dispersed in the they and entangled in the world. So, the average everydayness of Da-sein can be described as, and I quote from page 170, “entangled-disclosed, thrown projecting being in the world which is concerned with its ownmost potentiality in its being together with the world and in being-with the others.” Easy as pie.
So what is the point of this chapter? Being in the world is a structure that is primordial and constantly whole. Until now, the structure’s moments have all been discussed individually. Understanding, attunement, being with, etc. But how is the totality of the structural whole to be described? What unites everything that’s been said so far?
Care. Care is the unity of the structural totality of Da-sein BitW. Care is actually BitW as such. This isn’t the same as wishing, urging, watching, etc; these things are founded on care. But what discloses care as fundamental? What is Da-sein’s fundamental attunement?
Angst. Angst is what provides the basis for grasping the totality of Da-sein. Remember the description of fear? Fear is fear of something. One can find this desk fearsome. It’s something present, something in the world. What distinguishes Angst from fear is that angst does not have an object. Angst is anxious over nothing. Literally, the nothing. Nothing definite, nothing present.
Tranquilization makes one feel at home; angst interrupts this feeling. Angst makes one feel uncanny. Falling prey does not run from possibilities or things, but to them, in order to find tranquilization. Angst thwarts this; angst is anxious about being in the world as such. It is in fact angst that individualizes Da-sein; it does not create an isolated subject, it merely brings Da-sein back before itself out of the they. The world loses its significance, and Da-sein is brought back before itself out of dispersion in the they.
So the unity of Da-sein lies in the fact that it is concerned in its being about that being. BitW itself is care. Being with things is taking care of them and being with the Mitda-sein of others is concern. Being concerned about its being, Da-sein is always being ahead of itself, projecting forward into possibilities. When Da-sein is being ahead of itself in such a way that it is being towards its ownmost possibility - which is death - the possibility of being free for authentic existentiell possibilities is opened up.
In Division 2, this is what will come to be known as anticipatory resolutness - the being towards death that individuates one, allows one to pursue one’s own possibilities as opposed to the possibilities handed over to it by the they.
Because that possibility is determined by freedom, one is just as free to leave one’s possibilities entirely to the they. Do everything the way one does things.
Now, the basis of the structural totality of Da-sein, care lies “before” every attitude and position of Da-sein. Care is the a-priori condition of both theory and praxis. Political and social action are only possible for a being that is unified by care.
In section 42, which I looked at midnight last night, Heidegger relates a roman myth about care. If there’s one point in Being and Time that has no need to exist, this is it. Every time I look at that chapter I think Heidegger must have had Stephen King’s editor. Anyways, the point of the chapter is that care rules Da-sein’s “temporal sojourn in the world.”
Saturday, August 11, 2007
B&T 8: Disclosure, Idle Talk, Ambiguity, Curiousity
Part 7
The final aspect of being in is discourse. This isn’t language - it is the ontological condition of language. That which is disclosed by attunement and understanding is articulated by discourse. Discourse is a shared event; the listener understands the speaker because they are articulating meaning that is already there. Spoken disclosure is to share what is disclosed.
It’s already been said that Da-sein is dispersed into the they and thrown into possibilities. Da-sein is thrown into the they. The they has its own modes of understanding and interpretation. These are idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity. All three of these sound derogatory, but Heidegger insists this isn’t cultural criticism.
Discourse shares what is disclosed - but the mark of idle talk is that it does not go back to the original disclosure. It is discourse that only offers the most average, levelled down understanding. It’s almost like speaking for the sake of speaking; it has no relation to the being being spoken of. It’s like gossip, or “passing the word alone.” Because idle talk offers a leveled down understanding, it can understand everything. Quantum physics? No problem. I watched What the bleep do we know. Chaos theory? No problem. I watched Jurassic Park. It’s not about deception... it’s just rootless talk.
Curiosity corresponds to sight as a mode of disclosing. Just like idle talk understands everything, curiosity sees everything. Remember, BitW is initially absorbed in taking care. We take care of the things around us. Curiosity only wants to see - not see and take care. It is restless; always seeking novelty. Jumping from new possibility to new possibility. The newest theory comes out of Europe... gotta jump on it! Curiosity sees everything and idle talk understands everything. This can be confused with a “lively life.” Being able to do 10 000 things in a piecemeal way rather than dwelling with one thing.
Ambiguity has the same sort of thing going on. Ambiguity is what “everyone knows.” It knows what everyone else thinks and feels. It also knows what is going to happen and what should be done. Political opinions are usually a pretty good example of this; everyone knows what the significance of the Iraq War is. When something actually does happen, we all knew it was going to happen that way, too.
Ambiguity dominates being-with, as well. The other is “there” in terms of what we have heard about them. Gossip, piecemeal opinions, these things all too often dominate our relations with others.
Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity constitute the entanglement of Da-sein. This is how Da-sein is in the world, initially and for the most part. Da-sein is fallen prey. It’s an absorption in the they. This entanglement is the inauthenticity of Da-sein. This entanglement is Da-sein not being itself. Heidegger says Da-sein is “tempted” into falling prey; it confuses Da-sein into thinking all of its possibilities are open to it, when in fact they are leveled. This is tranquillizing. Tranquilization is not stagnation, but busyness. Again, this is like the lively life. Always running to and fro, finding new things to distract one’s self. Being tranquilized makes feel at home.
Heidegger actually sets up an early critique of something like multi-culturalism here. This belief that all possibilities are open leads to the belief that understanding and synthesizing foreign cultures will lead to the “enlightenment” of Da-sein. Because Da-sein is tranquilized and entangled, it is alienated from its ownmost possibilities. This is inauthenticity; a loss of one’s own possibilities.
It is important to note that Da-sein be falling prey only because it is concerned, understanding, attuned being in the world.
The final aspect of being in is discourse. This isn’t language - it is the ontological condition of language. That which is disclosed by attunement and understanding is articulated by discourse. Discourse is a shared event; the listener understands the speaker because they are articulating meaning that is already there. Spoken disclosure is to share what is disclosed.
It’s already been said that Da-sein is dispersed into the they and thrown into possibilities. Da-sein is thrown into the they. The they has its own modes of understanding and interpretation. These are idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity. All three of these sound derogatory, but Heidegger insists this isn’t cultural criticism.
Discourse shares what is disclosed - but the mark of idle talk is that it does not go back to the original disclosure. It is discourse that only offers the most average, levelled down understanding. It’s almost like speaking for the sake of speaking; it has no relation to the being being spoken of. It’s like gossip, or “passing the word alone.” Because idle talk offers a leveled down understanding, it can understand everything. Quantum physics? No problem. I watched What the bleep do we know. Chaos theory? No problem. I watched Jurassic Park. It’s not about deception... it’s just rootless talk.
Curiosity corresponds to sight as a mode of disclosing. Just like idle talk understands everything, curiosity sees everything. Remember, BitW is initially absorbed in taking care. We take care of the things around us. Curiosity only wants to see - not see and take care. It is restless; always seeking novelty. Jumping from new possibility to new possibility. The newest theory comes out of Europe... gotta jump on it! Curiosity sees everything and idle talk understands everything. This can be confused with a “lively life.” Being able to do 10 000 things in a piecemeal way rather than dwelling with one thing.
Ambiguity has the same sort of thing going on. Ambiguity is what “everyone knows.” It knows what everyone else thinks and feels. It also knows what is going to happen and what should be done. Political opinions are usually a pretty good example of this; everyone knows what the significance of the Iraq War is. When something actually does happen, we all knew it was going to happen that way, too.
Ambiguity dominates being-with, as well. The other is “there” in terms of what we have heard about them. Gossip, piecemeal opinions, these things all too often dominate our relations with others.
Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity constitute the entanglement of Da-sein. This is how Da-sein is in the world, initially and for the most part. Da-sein is fallen prey. It’s an absorption in the they. This entanglement is the inauthenticity of Da-sein. This entanglement is Da-sein not being itself. Heidegger says Da-sein is “tempted” into falling prey; it confuses Da-sein into thinking all of its possibilities are open to it, when in fact they are leveled. This is tranquillizing. Tranquilization is not stagnation, but busyness. Again, this is like the lively life. Always running to and fro, finding new things to distract one’s self. Being tranquilized makes feel at home.
Heidegger actually sets up an early critique of something like multi-culturalism here. This belief that all possibilities are open leads to the belief that understanding and synthesizing foreign cultures will lead to the “enlightenment” of Da-sein. Because Da-sein is tranquilized and entangled, it is alienated from its ownmost possibilities. This is inauthenticity; a loss of one’s own possibilities.
It is important to note that Da-sein be falling prey only because it is concerned, understanding, attuned being in the world.
Friday, August 10, 2007
B&T 7: Attunement, Understanding, Interpretation
Part 6
Now we’re getting to chapter 5 - Being-in as such. Da-sein’s relation to itself is mediated by its relation to the world, but this is not to suggest that being-in stands between present world and a present subject. Being-in is a unified phenomena. It is disclosure; a clearing, an illumination. There are three aspects to being-in as such: attunement, understanding and discourse. These are not three aspects that are separate things; they are equiprimordial. There are the interiority of each other.
Because being-in is not about a subjects relationship to objects around it, disclosure is not some kind of individual perspective; it’s not a mental state. There is only one clearing. The “Da” of Da-sein is its “Da,” but there is also the Da. Being there and the there of being. In my self disclosure, I am part of the disclosure of being in general. In Da-sein’s self-disclosure, it is a part of the disclosure of being in general. Being can only be disclosed through entities. That jargony paragraph hopefully helps clarify why the question of the meaning of being must “pass through” Da-sein, so to speak. In disclosing the world, in disclosing itself, Da-sein is a part of the disclosure of being.
Anyways, let’s talk attunement. Attunement is Heidegger’s ontological term for what would ontically be “mood.” It’s how you’re doing. Attunement is what makes things matter. It discloses things in a particular way. If you’re happy, than the world is a happier place. The trick is to understand that this isn’t some kind of projective psychology - you’re feeling happy and then you project onto the world your happiness. That would be an ontic psychological process; ontological attunement is disclosure. Da-sein is always already in a mood; if when you’re just relaxing, letting the wheels go round and round. In being in a mood, Da-sein is disclosed as that being which it is.
Disclosure doesn’t mean “known” as such. Da-sein actually usually avoids what is disclosed. Da-sein in fact flees from what is disclosed; what is disclosed is that Da-sein is thrown into the world. We always find ourselves in a mood; this is not the result of a seeking but rather a fleeing. We don’t encounter ourselves through rational reflection, because rational reflection is always directed to towards objects - Da-sein is not an objectively present object.
The primary discovery of the world is also through attunement — not the senses. It is because the senses belong ontologically to an attuned being that they can be “touched.” Hardcore empiricism is not able to banish mood; all it can do is flatten everything down to objective presence.
Heidegger’s big example of attunement is fear. He choose this for a specific reason that we’ll come across later. There are three aspects to fear. The first is “what” one is afraid of - it is a thing of whatever sort. A spider, a disease, a ghost. A fearsome thing. The second aspect is “fearing” itself; this clarifies what is fearsome. And why are we afraid? Because we are concerned in our being for our being. Only a being concerned with its own being can be afraid. What about animals? I have no clue.
What marks fear as attunement is that it discloses things in their ability to threaten.
So that’s attunement. Attunement is known ontically as mood; it isn’t the relation of a psychological subject to its world but rather an ontological disclosure. It is what discloses the world and Da-sein to itself; as such it is a part of the disclosure of being. It is one of the three equiprimordial elements of being-in.
The second element of being in is understanding. Like I’ve already said, Da-sein exists understandingly. Understanding is what discloses our possibilities as possibilities. This is not a cognitive process of making choices; it isn’t choosing between being a lawyer or doctor when you grow up. It discloses those possibilities in the first place. It’s also not an empty set of logical possibilities; we are always already in a possibility. We are always, in fact, projecting into possibilities. Da-sein always understands itself in terms of projects that it projects into. Because Da-sein projects forward, it is always ahead of itself. Ontologically speaking, Da-sein is always not yet. Primordially, Da-sein exists from the future. There is always something outstanding. Da-sein is the possibility of being free for... death! Death is Da-sein’s ownmost, not to be bypassed possibility, and it is unrelated to anything in the referential totality. It is what is always outstanding for Da-sein. A fuller explanation of this will remain outstanding for the time being.
Now, understanding always has its own possibilities. Understanding has the possibility of understanding itself - this is interpretation. Interpretation is understanding’s self-understanding.
Interpretation is also the actualization of possibilities that understanding discloses. Da-sein projects onto possibilities, then interprets itself as these possibilities. We take up the project of being students, then interpret ourselves as students with all the attendant frills that go with that; books, alcohol, etc.
What is interpreted, what has been explicitly understood, always has the structure of something as something. A table is explicity understood as a table.
Interpretation has a threefold structure: fore-having, fore-seeing and fore-conception. These, again, are all bound up with each other. The fore-having is the referential totality; it is the interpretation operating within that totality of reference which itself has already been understood.
When something is understood but still veiled, still unclear, still implicit, it becomes explicit through an act of appropriation - the fore-seeing. The fore-having reveals what is to be understood, the fore-seeing works specifically upon what is to be understood. This interpretation is already decided upon by a definite conceptuality - this is the fore-conception.
The interpretation of something as something is grounded in fore-having, fore-seeing and fore-conception. This is a circle, but it is not a vicious circle to be avoided; the trick is to enter the circle in the right way; this is why Heidegger had that whole discussion of the structure of the question at the beginning of the book.
Now we’re getting to chapter 5 - Being-in as such. Da-sein’s relation to itself is mediated by its relation to the world, but this is not to suggest that being-in stands between present world and a present subject. Being-in is a unified phenomena. It is disclosure; a clearing, an illumination. There are three aspects to being-in as such: attunement, understanding and discourse. These are not three aspects that are separate things; they are equiprimordial. There are the interiority of each other.
Because being-in is not about a subjects relationship to objects around it, disclosure is not some kind of individual perspective; it’s not a mental state. There is only one clearing. The “Da” of Da-sein is its “Da,” but there is also the Da. Being there and the there of being. In my self disclosure, I am part of the disclosure of being in general. In Da-sein’s self-disclosure, it is a part of the disclosure of being in general. Being can only be disclosed through entities. That jargony paragraph hopefully helps clarify why the question of the meaning of being must “pass through” Da-sein, so to speak. In disclosing the world, in disclosing itself, Da-sein is a part of the disclosure of being.
Anyways, let’s talk attunement. Attunement is Heidegger’s ontological term for what would ontically be “mood.” It’s how you’re doing. Attunement is what makes things matter. It discloses things in a particular way. If you’re happy, than the world is a happier place. The trick is to understand that this isn’t some kind of projective psychology - you’re feeling happy and then you project onto the world your happiness. That would be an ontic psychological process; ontological attunement is disclosure. Da-sein is always already in a mood; if when you’re just relaxing, letting the wheels go round and round. In being in a mood, Da-sein is disclosed as that being which it is.
Disclosure doesn’t mean “known” as such. Da-sein actually usually avoids what is disclosed. Da-sein in fact flees from what is disclosed; what is disclosed is that Da-sein is thrown into the world. We always find ourselves in a mood; this is not the result of a seeking but rather a fleeing. We don’t encounter ourselves through rational reflection, because rational reflection is always directed to towards objects - Da-sein is not an objectively present object.
The primary discovery of the world is also through attunement — not the senses. It is because the senses belong ontologically to an attuned being that they can be “touched.” Hardcore empiricism is not able to banish mood; all it can do is flatten everything down to objective presence.
Heidegger’s big example of attunement is fear. He choose this for a specific reason that we’ll come across later. There are three aspects to fear. The first is “what” one is afraid of - it is a thing of whatever sort. A spider, a disease, a ghost. A fearsome thing. The second aspect is “fearing” itself; this clarifies what is fearsome. And why are we afraid? Because we are concerned in our being for our being. Only a being concerned with its own being can be afraid. What about animals? I have no clue.
What marks fear as attunement is that it discloses things in their ability to threaten.
So that’s attunement. Attunement is known ontically as mood; it isn’t the relation of a psychological subject to its world but rather an ontological disclosure. It is what discloses the world and Da-sein to itself; as such it is a part of the disclosure of being. It is one of the three equiprimordial elements of being-in.
The second element of being in is understanding. Like I’ve already said, Da-sein exists understandingly. Understanding is what discloses our possibilities as possibilities. This is not a cognitive process of making choices; it isn’t choosing between being a lawyer or doctor when you grow up. It discloses those possibilities in the first place. It’s also not an empty set of logical possibilities; we are always already in a possibility. We are always, in fact, projecting into possibilities. Da-sein always understands itself in terms of projects that it projects into. Because Da-sein projects forward, it is always ahead of itself. Ontologically speaking, Da-sein is always not yet. Primordially, Da-sein exists from the future. There is always something outstanding. Da-sein is the possibility of being free for... death! Death is Da-sein’s ownmost, not to be bypassed possibility, and it is unrelated to anything in the referential totality. It is what is always outstanding for Da-sein. A fuller explanation of this will remain outstanding for the time being.
Now, understanding always has its own possibilities. Understanding has the possibility of understanding itself - this is interpretation. Interpretation is understanding’s self-understanding.
Interpretation is also the actualization of possibilities that understanding discloses. Da-sein projects onto possibilities, then interprets itself as these possibilities. We take up the project of being students, then interpret ourselves as students with all the attendant frills that go with that; books, alcohol, etc.
What is interpreted, what has been explicitly understood, always has the structure of something as something. A table is explicity understood as a table.
Interpretation has a threefold structure: fore-having, fore-seeing and fore-conception. These, again, are all bound up with each other. The fore-having is the referential totality; it is the interpretation operating within that totality of reference which itself has already been understood.
When something is understood but still veiled, still unclear, still implicit, it becomes explicit through an act of appropriation - the fore-seeing. The fore-having reveals what is to be understood, the fore-seeing works specifically upon what is to be understood. This interpretation is already decided upon by a definite conceptuality - this is the fore-conception.
The interpretation of something as something is grounded in fore-having, fore-seeing and fore-conception. This is a circle, but it is not a vicious circle to be avoided; the trick is to enter the circle in the right way; this is why Heidegger had that whole discussion of the structure of the question at the beginning of the book.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
B&T 6: The They
Part 5
I’ve already said that Da-sein is not a question of “human.” This leaves us with what is still basically a negative statement. Just who is this Da-sein? Chapter 4 of Division I answers this very question. The chapter is entitled The They.
Now, Da-sein is a being with I myself always am. Da-sein is always mine. This indicates an ontological constitution, but also an ontic one. “I am this Da-sein, not another one.” Here’s the problem: if Da-sein is not objectively present, then what could that ontological statement mean? Maybe in an average, everyday way, the who of Da-sein is not myself. Maybe the “I” isn’t an obvious given. It is one thing to make an ontic statement about the I... but ontologically speaking, the average everyday way of being of Da-sein is exactly the opposite? Maybe it is a way of being in which the I has lost itself. Perhaps are others are are not those that I am most clearly distinguished from - perhaps others are those that I mostly don’t distinguish myself from.
Da-sein has two equiprimordial structures that are relevant here. Being-With (BW) and mitda-sein.
Being-in-the-world (BitW) always has others. There are always other people assumed in work; the shoes referenced earlier are made for an other. The lecture I’ve written refers to the listeners. The parking lot refers to car owners. An isolated “I” - the good ‘ol cogito - is never given. Da-sein is always being-with, even on a desert island. Being-with, because it is an existential and not a Kantian catagory, has nothing to do with how many humans are standing next to you.
Now, handiness and objective presence are modes of being for beings unlike Da-sein, so others aren’t handy or present anymore than my own Da-sein is. The BW of others is mitda-sein.
A few times through this presentation it has been mentioned that Da-sein understands itself in terms of what it is not. Da-sein doesn’t first discover itself - an act of self-reflection, I think therefore I know I am - than the world. Da-sein actually first discovers itself by looking away from itself into taking care of the world. We take care of inner worldly beings around us.
BW is different. We don’t have care towards other Da-sein, but concern. There are many modes of concern - being against, not mattering to one another, being-for - these are all ways of concern.
There are two extreme possibilities of concern. One can leap in for another and take their care away; take care for them, Do their work. Make them dependant on you. This is a subtle form of domination. The other extreme is leaping ahead; this is giving care back to the other. Freeing them for their possibilities. Concern can be guided by considerateness and tolerance, or inconsiderateness and a tolerance that more resembles indifference.
Heidegger says that in a group of people all working on similar tasks, the BW is often founded on a mode of mistrust. Think competitive academics. I know I certainly don’t trust any of you. However, there is a different mode - that of an authentic alliance. Truly taking up a task in common first, as Heidegger says, “makes possible the kind of objectivity which frees the other for himself in his freedom.”
But this idea that the others are those that I mostly don’t distinguish myself from... this is still unclear. What might this mean? There is a certain distantiality here - I am so close to the others as to lose myself in them. Da-sein stands in subservience to the others; that is, all of Da-seins everyday possibilities are connected to others. Not any particular others, but rather the generalized mass - the They. A little bit like the They of “they say.” Heidegger describes the They as an “inconspicuous and unascertainable dictatorship” We do things the way “they” do. This is one of those points in B&T that I think most people can relate to, easily enough. We all tend to act according to the way One acts in a given situation. From gender roles to proper classroom conduct. I.e., I’m not sitting here shirtless. Or for a less disturbing example, when one goes to a funeral, one does not wear a t-shirt that says “Life is so rad.”
In addition to this distantiality, the They is concerned with averageness. A certain mediocrity, even. Why was The Departed such a great movie? Because they said so. It also seeks to level down all possible ways of being. Keeping a lid on things. These three things - distantiality, averageness and leveling - constitute publicness.
One of the best things about the They is that events happen in such a way that no particular person did them. No one did it. The They disburdens Da-sein of responsibility; accommodates Da-sein slacking off. Possibilities are closed off; Da-sein is told what it is. It does not have to interpret itself. One does what one does.
When Da-sein is dispersed in the They, when all its possibilities are dominated by the They, Da-sein is said to be inauthentic. When Da-sein has grasped itself, it is authentic. Now hearing this next bit for the first time might seem a bit strange, but authenticity is not somehow a more valuable or higher stage of development for Da-sein than inauthenticity is. It’s not a state of Da-sein that manages to detach itself from the They. This isn’t Sartre’s bad faith. Authenticity is in fact an existentiell modification of the They as an essential existential structure. One of the texts we’ve already read this year pretty clearly had an influence on Heidegger, at least in terms of vocabulary - Augustine’s Confessions. Book 8, I think.
So, re-capping. Just like there isn’t a world and a Da-sein that are somehow just added together like a sum, but rather being a unitary phenomena, there isn’t an isolated Da-sein that is surrounded by other Da-sein - sometimes one, sometimes 5, sometimes none; rather, BW is a fundamental constitution of Da-sein. Da-sein exists in a With-World - mit-velt, in the German. Da-sein is always mine, but as most of its possibilities come to it from the They, it is dominated by and dispersed into the They; Da-sein loses itself and its ownmost possibilities. Taking its possibilities from the They, Da-sein is in the mode of inauthenticity and must recover itself. It’s worth pointing out here that the phrase “ownmost possibility” is one of those points that projects forward into the book.
I’ve already said that Da-sein is not a question of “human.” This leaves us with what is still basically a negative statement. Just who is this Da-sein? Chapter 4 of Division I answers this very question. The chapter is entitled The They.
Now, Da-sein is a being with I myself always am. Da-sein is always mine. This indicates an ontological constitution, but also an ontic one. “I am this Da-sein, not another one.” Here’s the problem: if Da-sein is not objectively present, then what could that ontological statement mean? Maybe in an average, everyday way, the who of Da-sein is not myself. Maybe the “I” isn’t an obvious given. It is one thing to make an ontic statement about the I... but ontologically speaking, the average everyday way of being of Da-sein is exactly the opposite? Maybe it is a way of being in which the I has lost itself. Perhaps are others are are not those that I am most clearly distinguished from - perhaps others are those that I mostly don’t distinguish myself from.
Da-sein has two equiprimordial structures that are relevant here. Being-With (BW) and mitda-sein.
Being-in-the-world (BitW) always has others. There are always other people assumed in work; the shoes referenced earlier are made for an other. The lecture I’ve written refers to the listeners. The parking lot refers to car owners. An isolated “I” - the good ‘ol cogito - is never given. Da-sein is always being-with, even on a desert island. Being-with, because it is an existential and not a Kantian catagory, has nothing to do with how many humans are standing next to you.
Now, handiness and objective presence are modes of being for beings unlike Da-sein, so others aren’t handy or present anymore than my own Da-sein is. The BW of others is mitda-sein.
A few times through this presentation it has been mentioned that Da-sein understands itself in terms of what it is not. Da-sein doesn’t first discover itself - an act of self-reflection, I think therefore I know I am - than the world. Da-sein actually first discovers itself by looking away from itself into taking care of the world. We take care of inner worldly beings around us.
BW is different. We don’t have care towards other Da-sein, but concern. There are many modes of concern - being against, not mattering to one another, being-for - these are all ways of concern.
There are two extreme possibilities of concern. One can leap in for another and take their care away; take care for them, Do their work. Make them dependant on you. This is a subtle form of domination. The other extreme is leaping ahead; this is giving care back to the other. Freeing them for their possibilities. Concern can be guided by considerateness and tolerance, or inconsiderateness and a tolerance that more resembles indifference.
Heidegger says that in a group of people all working on similar tasks, the BW is often founded on a mode of mistrust. Think competitive academics. I know I certainly don’t trust any of you. However, there is a different mode - that of an authentic alliance. Truly taking up a task in common first, as Heidegger says, “makes possible the kind of objectivity which frees the other for himself in his freedom.”
But this idea that the others are those that I mostly don’t distinguish myself from... this is still unclear. What might this mean? There is a certain distantiality here - I am so close to the others as to lose myself in them. Da-sein stands in subservience to the others; that is, all of Da-seins everyday possibilities are connected to others. Not any particular others, but rather the generalized mass - the They. A little bit like the They of “they say.” Heidegger describes the They as an “inconspicuous and unascertainable dictatorship” We do things the way “they” do. This is one of those points in B&T that I think most people can relate to, easily enough. We all tend to act according to the way One acts in a given situation. From gender roles to proper classroom conduct. I.e., I’m not sitting here shirtless. Or for a less disturbing example, when one goes to a funeral, one does not wear a t-shirt that says “Life is so rad.”
In addition to this distantiality, the They is concerned with averageness. A certain mediocrity, even. Why was The Departed such a great movie? Because they said so. It also seeks to level down all possible ways of being. Keeping a lid on things. These three things - distantiality, averageness and leveling - constitute publicness.
One of the best things about the They is that events happen in such a way that no particular person did them. No one did it. The They disburdens Da-sein of responsibility; accommodates Da-sein slacking off. Possibilities are closed off; Da-sein is told what it is. It does not have to interpret itself. One does what one does.
When Da-sein is dispersed in the They, when all its possibilities are dominated by the They, Da-sein is said to be inauthentic. When Da-sein has grasped itself, it is authentic. Now hearing this next bit for the first time might seem a bit strange, but authenticity is not somehow a more valuable or higher stage of development for Da-sein than inauthenticity is. It’s not a state of Da-sein that manages to detach itself from the They. This isn’t Sartre’s bad faith. Authenticity is in fact an existentiell modification of the They as an essential existential structure. One of the texts we’ve already read this year pretty clearly had an influence on Heidegger, at least in terms of vocabulary - Augustine’s Confessions. Book 8, I think.
So, re-capping. Just like there isn’t a world and a Da-sein that are somehow just added together like a sum, but rather being a unitary phenomena, there isn’t an isolated Da-sein that is surrounded by other Da-sein - sometimes one, sometimes 5, sometimes none; rather, BW is a fundamental constitution of Da-sein. Da-sein exists in a With-World - mit-velt, in the German. Da-sein is always mine, but as most of its possibilities come to it from the They, it is dominated by and dispersed into the They; Da-sein loses itself and its ownmost possibilities. Taking its possibilities from the They, Da-sein is in the mode of inauthenticity and must recover itself. It’s worth pointing out here that the phrase “ownmost possibility” is one of those points that projects forward into the book.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
B&T 5: Tools
Part 4
Useful things are the objects we encounter in the course of our projects; like my laptop. They are always nested in a referential totality; a little like those Russian nesting dolls. Your pen, the paper, this table, these are all inner worldly beings that refer to one another and the project of being a student. The totality is like an empty structure that our specific projects fill in. Every totality has a “for the sake of which, which signifies an in order to, the in order to signifies a what for, the what for signifies a what-in of letting something be relevant, and the latter a what-with of relevance.”
Tools are “together... with...” For example, the pen goes together with your paper. Or think of game pieces, like chess; the individual pieces all exist within a referential structure. The pawn is not a piece of carved wood; it is a position within a structure. The activity of work always involves a totality; Heidegger’s example is production. Making a shoe implies the existence of one who will wear it. The actual production uses leather, nails, etc; the leather and the nails each refer to their respective sources, etc. Each of these pieces are interconnected; a totality is discovered.
Useful things are either handy or objectively present. Think about your experience when working intently on something. Furiously typing away on your keyboard, are you thinking about typing? Are you thinking about your keyboard? No, you’re not. The tool that you’re using recedes; it becomes transparent. This is the mode of handiness. This isn’t a significance that we project onto the entity; it is a mode of being. This is the way things are, initially and for the most part; everything just recedes into the background; this is how things are “in themselves.”
There are three possible ways this can change. Tools can become damaged or unusable; in which case, they enter the mode of conspicuousness. If your pen breaks or my laptop suddenly shuts down, they cease to be handy. It becomes objectively present. When a tool is missing, not in its proper region, our awareness of its absence discovers the properly placed parts of the totality as present; everything becomes obtrusive. And finally when something is in the way, when it is in a place it shouldn’t be, or when we don’t have time for it, what is to be taken care of is obstinate.
Conspicuousness, obtrusiveness and obstinacy bring to the fore the objective presence in the inner worldly beings at hand. This disrupts the chain of references; when your pen runs out of ink, the handy connection to the paper is disrupted. The referential structure of “for the sake of which, in order to,” etc, comes to the fore.
Part of the chapter on the worldliness of the world involves a discussion of Descartes’ notions of the world. Substance, and what not. I’m not going to pay much attention to this chapter except to point out something on page 89. I point this out because it relates back to Chris’s Nietzsche presentation. When Descartes describes the world in terms of substance, the sole access to this world is in terms of math and physics. What math makes accessible in a being constitutes its being. Remember the bridge example; Sturdy Gurdy holds up because the engineers used what amounts to brute force - an extremely solid structure. However, if the proper formulas were developed, than a bridge could be built that would “go with the flow.” Brute force would no longer be needed. In Descartes’ world, that formula would constitute the being of the bridge, rather than being an ontic description of it.
Ok, so I’ll toss in another brief recap here. Da-sein is being in the world. In this world, Da-sein enters into projects in order to understand itself; it encounters useful things that can either be disclosed as handy, or in breakdown conditions, objectively present. These inner worldly beings are always part of a referential totality; each thing refers to another thing.
Useful things are the objects we encounter in the course of our projects; like my laptop. They are always nested in a referential totality; a little like those Russian nesting dolls. Your pen, the paper, this table, these are all inner worldly beings that refer to one another and the project of being a student. The totality is like an empty structure that our specific projects fill in. Every totality has a “for the sake of which, which signifies an in order to, the in order to signifies a what for, the what for signifies a what-in of letting something be relevant, and the latter a what-with of relevance.”
Tools are “together... with...” For example, the pen goes together with your paper. Or think of game pieces, like chess; the individual pieces all exist within a referential structure. The pawn is not a piece of carved wood; it is a position within a structure. The activity of work always involves a totality; Heidegger’s example is production. Making a shoe implies the existence of one who will wear it. The actual production uses leather, nails, etc; the leather and the nails each refer to their respective sources, etc. Each of these pieces are interconnected; a totality is discovered.
Useful things are either handy or objectively present. Think about your experience when working intently on something. Furiously typing away on your keyboard, are you thinking about typing? Are you thinking about your keyboard? No, you’re not. The tool that you’re using recedes; it becomes transparent. This is the mode of handiness. This isn’t a significance that we project onto the entity; it is a mode of being. This is the way things are, initially and for the most part; everything just recedes into the background; this is how things are “in themselves.”
There are three possible ways this can change. Tools can become damaged or unusable; in which case, they enter the mode of conspicuousness. If your pen breaks or my laptop suddenly shuts down, they cease to be handy. It becomes objectively present. When a tool is missing, not in its proper region, our awareness of its absence discovers the properly placed parts of the totality as present; everything becomes obtrusive. And finally when something is in the way, when it is in a place it shouldn’t be, or when we don’t have time for it, what is to be taken care of is obstinate.
Conspicuousness, obtrusiveness and obstinacy bring to the fore the objective presence in the inner worldly beings at hand. This disrupts the chain of references; when your pen runs out of ink, the handy connection to the paper is disrupted. The referential structure of “for the sake of which, in order to,” etc, comes to the fore.
Part of the chapter on the worldliness of the world involves a discussion of Descartes’ notions of the world. Substance, and what not. I’m not going to pay much attention to this chapter except to point out something on page 89. I point this out because it relates back to Chris’s Nietzsche presentation. When Descartes describes the world in terms of substance, the sole access to this world is in terms of math and physics. What math makes accessible in a being constitutes its being. Remember the bridge example; Sturdy Gurdy holds up because the engineers used what amounts to brute force - an extremely solid structure. However, if the proper formulas were developed, than a bridge could be built that would “go with the flow.” Brute force would no longer be needed. In Descartes’ world, that formula would constitute the being of the bridge, rather than being an ontic description of it.
Ok, so I’ll toss in another brief recap here. Da-sein is being in the world. In this world, Da-sein enters into projects in order to understand itself; it encounters useful things that can either be disclosed as handy, or in breakdown conditions, objectively present. These inner worldly beings are always part of a referential totality; each thing refers to another thing.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
B&T 4: Being-in-the-World
Part 3
Now, since Da-sein is the being that must be interrogated in order to ask after the meaning of being, an analysis of Da-sein must be completed. It is the analysis of Da-sein that is meant to yield a horizon to investigate the meaning of being. This means going over several concepts. Da-sein and its possibilities, the world / referential totality, the average everyday “who” of Da-sein, and an introduction to care.
So Da-sein is not objectively present; it does not have a way of being in the way a “thing” does. Analyzing Da-sein’s existential structure is thus not a question of psychology, anthropology, biological, neurology, etc. These disciplines all taken humans as an objectively present object to be studied. Heidegger isn’t dismissing their activities; he merely wants to do what Kant might have called an “ontological analytic of the subjectivity of the subject.” I mention Kant because Heidegger’s project has a similar a-priori interest.
If you want to ask about what Da-sein is, the answer is that Da-sein is its possibilities. That is, Da-sein’s average understanding of itself is in terms of what it is not - the world. It takes up projects and roles and understands itself in terms of them. Heidegger characterizes the fundamental constitution of Da-sein as being-in-the-world.
That’s a loaded sentence. Being-in-the-world sounds as if Heidegger is saying Da-sein is inside a world - like we are inside this room. This obvious interpretation needs to be dispelled immediately. That kind of spatial idea - of things next to one another - is a category. Relationships in three dimensional space is a matter for objectively present entities.
Rather, being-in-the-world (BitW) is an existential. It’s not about the location of your body; it’s not something we have and could do with out. BitW is described as something like “dwelling” or a “familiarity” with the world. The world here is an ontological concept; just like “being-in” is not about being in this room, and just like Da-sein is not human, Heidegger’s “world” is not the Earth.
Rather, BitW is about being absorbed in the world; Heidegger will eventually refer to this as fallenness. The relationship between Da-sein and the world is not a subject/object relationship; Da-sein is not a subject that somehow needs to get out to the world. This is Heidegger’s major rebuke to the Cartesian view of things; a dualism between mind and extension has no place in B&T. We are absorbed in the projects and possibilities that we find in the world. We encounter useful things that exist as part of the referential totality of the world. The upshot of this is that our closest association with the world is not a perceptual cognition, but a taking care.
Now, since Da-sein is the being that must be interrogated in order to ask after the meaning of being, an analysis of Da-sein must be completed. It is the analysis of Da-sein that is meant to yield a horizon to investigate the meaning of being. This means going over several concepts. Da-sein and its possibilities, the world / referential totality, the average everyday “who” of Da-sein, and an introduction to care.
So Da-sein is not objectively present; it does not have a way of being in the way a “thing” does. Analyzing Da-sein’s existential structure is thus not a question of psychology, anthropology, biological, neurology, etc. These disciplines all taken humans as an objectively present object to be studied. Heidegger isn’t dismissing their activities; he merely wants to do what Kant might have called an “ontological analytic of the subjectivity of the subject.” I mention Kant because Heidegger’s project has a similar a-priori interest.
If you want to ask about what Da-sein is, the answer is that Da-sein is its possibilities. That is, Da-sein’s average understanding of itself is in terms of what it is not - the world. It takes up projects and roles and understands itself in terms of them. Heidegger characterizes the fundamental constitution of Da-sein as being-in-the-world.
That’s a loaded sentence. Being-in-the-world sounds as if Heidegger is saying Da-sein is inside a world - like we are inside this room. This obvious interpretation needs to be dispelled immediately. That kind of spatial idea - of things next to one another - is a category. Relationships in three dimensional space is a matter for objectively present entities.
Rather, being-in-the-world (BitW) is an existential. It’s not about the location of your body; it’s not something we have and could do with out. BitW is described as something like “dwelling” or a “familiarity” with the world. The world here is an ontological concept; just like “being-in” is not about being in this room, and just like Da-sein is not human, Heidegger’s “world” is not the Earth.
Rather, BitW is about being absorbed in the world; Heidegger will eventually refer to this as fallenness. The relationship between Da-sein and the world is not a subject/object relationship; Da-sein is not a subject that somehow needs to get out to the world. This is Heidegger’s major rebuke to the Cartesian view of things; a dualism between mind and extension has no place in B&T. We are absorbed in the projects and possibilities that we find in the world. We encounter useful things that exist as part of the referential totality of the world. The upshot of this is that our closest association with the world is not a perceptual cognition, but a taking care.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
B&T 3: Questioning, Da-sein
Part 1
Part 2
Heidegger begins the book with a discussion of exactly why this question of being has been covered over throughout the tradition. Part of the answer is that we always already understand being, as I’ve said. There are, however, prejudices that lie in the way of asking this question; being is seen as either being a universal concept, an indefinable concept, or the most self-evidence concept. Heidegger’s retort is that none of these prejudices actually take being as a problematic; they cover it over with the covert judgements of common sense.
Because we are concerned here with questioning, we must start with the structure of the question itself. You don’t ask questions about subjects of which you are 100% ignorant, and you don’t ask random sources. You look for a likely place to enquire. So there are 3 elements here. You need an idea of what you are asking after - being. An idea of what you are actually asking - the meaning of being. And who you are asking. The very structure of questioning answers the “who” – only one being actually asks anything.
The who is Da-sein. Literally in the German, there-being. Being there. Da-sein is the human way of being; thus it is not the same as human. Da-sein is not homo-sapien. Keep in mind the ontological difference here; ontically, homo sapien; ontologically, Da-sein. It’s very easy to slip into equating Da-sein and homo sapien, but to do so is to miss the whole point of the ontological difference; calling Da-sein human or vice versa is to equate an entity with its being.
Why is Da-sein the privileged entity? Because it already has something like an understanding of being. Da-sein has a pre-ontological understanding of being — this is strictly separate from knowledge. It’s not cognitive, either. Understanding is a way of being; this isn’t a question of epistemology. We understand the “is” without being able to conceptually define it. This is what makes Da-sein ontically different from other beings - we are concerned in our being about being. Da-sein related to existence understandingly; the structures by which we do this are existential structures. You might hear echos of Kant’s a-priori transcendental structures here.
Da-sein understands itself in terms of existence, as well. It understands itself through possibilities that come to it through various means; these are existentiell possibilities. These are the possibilities we understand ourselves through; it is an existentiell possibility to be a student.
Rephrased, existentiells are our projects. The stuff we do. They are ontic characteristics specific to Da-sein. Existentials, on the other hand, are what you might think of as our ontological side; the way(s) in which we exist understandingly. One example is mood, attunement.
So here we have Da-sein as the privileged entity that we can question. The problem is that Da-sein is entangled in a particular tradition - a philosophical tradition that covers over the ontological difference and the question of being. What Heidegger wants is a “productive appropriate” of the tradition - a destructuring. It’s worth emphasizing that Heidegger’s intended destructuring is a positive move; it does not “bury the past in nullity.” Heidegger is the hero of the tradition; he’s saving everyone from themselves. This discussion of destructuring and the tradition’s concern over presence appears on pages 20 to 22, for the Derrida fans here.
I guess we all have a passing familiarity with the whole metaphysics of presence thing. Well this is where it appears. The tradition - beginning with Parmenides - takes the objective presence of beings as the guide for interpreting being. This is a rephrasing of what has already been said about onto-theology; the tradition takes a being, a being that is present - in both a spacial and temporal way - and uses this to discuss being as such. This is a “making present.” This table, here, now, is our guide to being. Really.
This presence is to Heidegger only one way of being. This German phrase Vorhandenheit is variously translated as present to hand or objective presence. Another way of being is Zuhandenheit - translated as ready to hand, or handiness. This refers to a particular usefulness of an entity, within a certain kind of context, which Heidegger calls the referential totality of the world. I’ll elaborate on both of this later, but for now I’ll just say that both objective presence and handiness are ways of being for entities that are unlike Da-sein. Da-sein cannot be made present and cannot become handy. This will all be elaborated later on; I just want the terms introduced here.
All right, I’ll pause here to summarize the terms and claims that will continue to be important.
The ontological difference is that difference between being as such and entities. Being is the background upon which something appears as the thing that it is. Entities are basically things - anything you care to name is an entity. All entities have being, but the being of an entity is not itself an entity. This difference has been ignored by the tradition since Plato; entities (usually one entity in particular) are always privileged over being. That entity is judged in terms of its objective presence; all that is real is seen as fully present. Heidegger wants to ask after the meaning of being; the entity that must be asked is the only entity that is concerned about being in its being - Da-sein. Da-sein relates to the world understandingly through ontological existential structures; it relates to itself through ontic existentiell projects.
Part 2
Heidegger begins the book with a discussion of exactly why this question of being has been covered over throughout the tradition. Part of the answer is that we always already understand being, as I’ve said. There are, however, prejudices that lie in the way of asking this question; being is seen as either being a universal concept, an indefinable concept, or the most self-evidence concept. Heidegger’s retort is that none of these prejudices actually take being as a problematic; they cover it over with the covert judgements of common sense.
Because we are concerned here with questioning, we must start with the structure of the question itself. You don’t ask questions about subjects of which you are 100% ignorant, and you don’t ask random sources. You look for a likely place to enquire. So there are 3 elements here. You need an idea of what you are asking after - being. An idea of what you are actually asking - the meaning of being. And who you are asking. The very structure of questioning answers the “who” – only one being actually asks anything.
The who is Da-sein. Literally in the German, there-being. Being there. Da-sein is the human way of being; thus it is not the same as human. Da-sein is not homo-sapien. Keep in mind the ontological difference here; ontically, homo sapien; ontologically, Da-sein. It’s very easy to slip into equating Da-sein and homo sapien, but to do so is to miss the whole point of the ontological difference; calling Da-sein human or vice versa is to equate an entity with its being.
Why is Da-sein the privileged entity? Because it already has something like an understanding of being. Da-sein has a pre-ontological understanding of being — this is strictly separate from knowledge. It’s not cognitive, either. Understanding is a way of being; this isn’t a question of epistemology. We understand the “is” without being able to conceptually define it. This is what makes Da-sein ontically different from other beings - we are concerned in our being about being. Da-sein related to existence understandingly; the structures by which we do this are existential structures. You might hear echos of Kant’s a-priori transcendental structures here.
Da-sein understands itself in terms of existence, as well. It understands itself through possibilities that come to it through various means; these are existentiell possibilities. These are the possibilities we understand ourselves through; it is an existentiell possibility to be a student.
Rephrased, existentiells are our projects. The stuff we do. They are ontic characteristics specific to Da-sein. Existentials, on the other hand, are what you might think of as our ontological side; the way(s) in which we exist understandingly. One example is mood, attunement.
So here we have Da-sein as the privileged entity that we can question. The problem is that Da-sein is entangled in a particular tradition - a philosophical tradition that covers over the ontological difference and the question of being. What Heidegger wants is a “productive appropriate” of the tradition - a destructuring. It’s worth emphasizing that Heidegger’s intended destructuring is a positive move; it does not “bury the past in nullity.” Heidegger is the hero of the tradition; he’s saving everyone from themselves. This discussion of destructuring and the tradition’s concern over presence appears on pages 20 to 22, for the Derrida fans here.
I guess we all have a passing familiarity with the whole metaphysics of presence thing. Well this is where it appears. The tradition - beginning with Parmenides - takes the objective presence of beings as the guide for interpreting being. This is a rephrasing of what has already been said about onto-theology; the tradition takes a being, a being that is present - in both a spacial and temporal way - and uses this to discuss being as such. This is a “making present.” This table, here, now, is our guide to being. Really.
This presence is to Heidegger only one way of being. This German phrase Vorhandenheit is variously translated as present to hand or objective presence. Another way of being is Zuhandenheit - translated as ready to hand, or handiness. This refers to a particular usefulness of an entity, within a certain kind of context, which Heidegger calls the referential totality of the world. I’ll elaborate on both of this later, but for now I’ll just say that both objective presence and handiness are ways of being for entities that are unlike Da-sein. Da-sein cannot be made present and cannot become handy. This will all be elaborated later on; I just want the terms introduced here.
All right, I’ll pause here to summarize the terms and claims that will continue to be important.
The ontological difference is that difference between being as such and entities. Being is the background upon which something appears as the thing that it is. Entities are basically things - anything you care to name is an entity. All entities have being, but the being of an entity is not itself an entity. This difference has been ignored by the tradition since Plato; entities (usually one entity in particular) are always privileged over being. That entity is judged in terms of its objective presence; all that is real is seen as fully present. Heidegger wants to ask after the meaning of being; the entity that must be asked is the only entity that is concerned about being in its being - Da-sein. Da-sein relates to the world understandingly through ontological existential structures; it relates to itself through ontic existentiell projects.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
B&T 2: The Question of Being
Part 1
On roman numeral page 19, the page right before the introduction begins, Heidegger tells you everything that’s in Being and Time. This page is the little chestnut that the whole tree grows from. His quote from Plato. “For manifestly you have been long aware of what you mean when you use the expression ‘being.’ We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.”
Heidegger takes this statement very seriously. Do we have a serious, adequate answer as to what we meaning by being? No. No we don’t. So we need to ask this question again: what is the meaning of being?
But the questioning doesn’t begin there. Heidegger says we don’t even realize the question needs to be asked in the first place. So, we need to reawaken an understanding for the meaning of this question. Two things to say here. First, the word reawaken is pretty loaded. It is not offer an explanation for the understanding of the meaning of this question. It is not developing an argument in the sense of stringing together propositions. There’s a path and process here. Following the spiral is an attempt to have the question reawakened - not necessarily answered.
Secondly, it’s not just high minded intellectual obfuscation to point out we don’t even have an understanding of the question, never mind an answer to the question. For example, consider how often being is written with a capital B. In German, of course, all nouns are capitalized. But when it is translated into English and the capital B remains, all this does is suggest that being is somehow a first principle or a substance, - perhaps a euphemism for God. What lurks behind this is the idea that being is a thing, an entity - finally on the same plane as this table.
Explaining why that’s a bad thing offers an opportunity to give an introduction to the ontological difference. There is a difference between being and beings. Being is always the being of a being and the being of a being is not itself a being. Which is to say, being is always the being of a thing, an entity and the being of an entity is not itself an entity.
Being is that from which something is understandable as the thing that it is. Everything that is has being - this chair, the thoughts in your head, numbers these are things that have being. The ontological difference is between ontic things and their ontological being.
This is the tradition’s blind spot, as Heidegger sees it. Being is always taken as the universal, empty concept; an assumed category that is not thought about further. The tradition consistently takes an ontic entity, capitalizes the first letter, and says “viola, this is the thing that defines all reality!” A common version of this is to say everything relates back to God - hence a snappy name for the tradition is “onto-theological.” No matter how you predicate your ontic thing - no matter how powerful and super your posited God is - it is still a thing, and the matter of being remains unthought.
So the question needs to be reawakened. Like Plato said, we have been long aware of what we mean by “being.” The thing is, this is basically true. We are always already living in an understanding of being - it just happens to be a pre-ontological understanding. We’re all perfectly capable of using the verb “to be”; we just don’t have an ontological grasp on being.
So The aim of this book is to work out the question, to gain an ontological understanding of being; the provisional aim is the interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of being.
Notice the reticent language. It’s working out the question, not the answer. There is a “provisional aim,” not a final one. Time is a “possible horizon.” Heidegger is very much concerned with questioning - the question tends to have priority over the answer. The reticence is also interesting in light of the fact that B&T is an incomplete work. Whether for practical reasons - like the need to publish to get a job - or for philosophical reasons - ie the recognition that B&T is still a transcendental project or an alleged recoiling from the imagination - B&T is only a fraction of what is laid out in the introduction.
On roman numeral page 19, the page right before the introduction begins, Heidegger tells you everything that’s in Being and Time. This page is the little chestnut that the whole tree grows from. His quote from Plato. “For manifestly you have been long aware of what you mean when you use the expression ‘being.’ We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.”
Heidegger takes this statement very seriously. Do we have a serious, adequate answer as to what we meaning by being? No. No we don’t. So we need to ask this question again: what is the meaning of being?
But the questioning doesn’t begin there. Heidegger says we don’t even realize the question needs to be asked in the first place. So, we need to reawaken an understanding for the meaning of this question. Two things to say here. First, the word reawaken is pretty loaded. It is not offer an explanation for the understanding of the meaning of this question. It is not developing an argument in the sense of stringing together propositions. There’s a path and process here. Following the spiral is an attempt to have the question reawakened - not necessarily answered.
Secondly, it’s not just high minded intellectual obfuscation to point out we don’t even have an understanding of the question, never mind an answer to the question. For example, consider how often being is written with a capital B. In German, of course, all nouns are capitalized. But when it is translated into English and the capital B remains, all this does is suggest that being is somehow a first principle or a substance, - perhaps a euphemism for God. What lurks behind this is the idea that being is a thing, an entity - finally on the same plane as this table.
Explaining why that’s a bad thing offers an opportunity to give an introduction to the ontological difference. There is a difference between being and beings. Being is always the being of a being and the being of a being is not itself a being. Which is to say, being is always the being of a thing, an entity and the being of an entity is not itself an entity.
Being is that from which something is understandable as the thing that it is. Everything that is has being - this chair, the thoughts in your head, numbers these are things that have being. The ontological difference is between ontic things and their ontological being.
This is the tradition’s blind spot, as Heidegger sees it. Being is always taken as the universal, empty concept; an assumed category that is not thought about further. The tradition consistently takes an ontic entity, capitalizes the first letter, and says “viola, this is the thing that defines all reality!” A common version of this is to say everything relates back to God - hence a snappy name for the tradition is “onto-theological.” No matter how you predicate your ontic thing - no matter how powerful and super your posited God is - it is still a thing, and the matter of being remains unthought.
So the question needs to be reawakened. Like Plato said, we have been long aware of what we mean by “being.” The thing is, this is basically true. We are always already living in an understanding of being - it just happens to be a pre-ontological understanding. We’re all perfectly capable of using the verb “to be”; we just don’t have an ontological grasp on being.
So The aim of this book is to work out the question, to gain an ontological understanding of being; the provisional aim is the interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of being.
Notice the reticent language. It’s working out the question, not the answer. There is a “provisional aim,” not a final one. Time is a “possible horizon.” Heidegger is very much concerned with questioning - the question tends to have priority over the answer. The reticence is also interesting in light of the fact that B&T is an incomplete work. Whether for practical reasons - like the need to publish to get a job - or for philosophical reasons - ie the recognition that B&T is still a transcendental project or an alleged recoiling from the imagination - B&T is only a fraction of what is laid out in the introduction.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Martin Heidegger's Being and Time Intro
Martin Heidegger's Being and Time is one of the monsters of 20th century philosophy. Its influence ranges far and wide, and the extent of this influence is matched by the extent of its difficulty. It is an attempt to answer the stereotypical philosopher's question, "what is the meaning of being?"This is the text of another assignment, just like the Theory of Religion posts. It was written for classmates who hadn't yet read Being and Time, so it shouldn't be too technical. This is only an introduction to roughly the first half of the book, since that was all that was assigned. Still, there's an awful lot of meat.
When I was thinking about how to begin this introduction, one particular difficulty kept coming back to me. Part of the reason this book is such a pleasure to read is the way the ideas move; the form and the content of Being and Time (B&T) reflect one another. We’ve seen this in other readings this year - for example, in the way Spinoza’s Ethics works in a geometrical fashion. Definitions followed by explanations followed by axioms followed by scholia; the form and the content work together. B&T has an entirely different set of internal movements. It is not a linear progression of arguments; individual chapters are not self-contained works that can be read on their own. My presentation won’t mimic that, of course. To try and compensate for this, I’m going to talk about three movements that take place in the text; I think being able to watch out for these movements will help you read it.
If one were going to spatially represent the overall movement of ideas in this book, it would have to be in the form of a spiral. Like I said, it’s not a linear movement, and absolutely nothing is self contained, like one might be able to say for Kant’s Critique. The part is the whole and the whole is in the part. If you only read the first half of a more typically structured book, then you’re just missing the end. You don’t know whodunnit, you don’t know why the cosmological argument for the existence of God doesn’t work, etc. etc. If you only read Division I of Being and Time, then what you’re doing is erasing half the spiral. There are all these little points that where its almost as if Heidegger stopped halfway through the sentence. I don’t say that to suggest a clumsiness or a fault, but to say that the book only works as a whole.
A second movement involves repeated demonstration of the ontological difference. I’ll explain that term below. Anyways, Heidegger very often takes a common concept; explains our usual notions of it, and then shows how that typical, common sense notion isn’t so much wrong as insufficient. For example, truth as correspondence; what exactly this “correspondence” is supposed to be is entirely obscure. So Heidegger moves underneath this to find the ontological basis. I’d suggest this offers a good way to read B&T for the first time; find the common sense notions that you already have, than follow Marty to their foundations. I’ll come to a few more examples later on.
Another movement in the text, the purpose of which I guess doesn’t become obvious until Division II, is the way the text is constantly reaching back and projecting forward. Heidegger is always either saying “remember when we said this? Now we’re going to retrieve this idea and modify it” or he’s dropping hints about the future of the book. It is worthwhile to watch out for this moments while you read, because they offer useful recaps of what has come before.
That’s my little preamble, and ever so subtle injunction to just read the whole freakin’
book.
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