Subject: Re: Being and Time - Div I, Ch 1 questions
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 11:00:11 -0600 (CST)


Ryan Stubblefield wrote:
> I was reading through Chaper 1 of Division I of Being and Time
> (Macquarrie & Robinson trans.), and I had difficulty understanding a few
> passages.
> 
> 1. p69 "This cannot mean, however, that Dasein is to be construed in
> terms of some concrete possible idea of existence."  What is a 'concrete
> possible idea'?  I wonder if something was lost in the translation....

No loss in the translation there--M&R (and Stambaugh, for that matter)
translate it exactly as it reads (_konkreten_moeglichen_Idee_von_Existenz_).

The next sentence clarifies what is meant.  There he states that the
analysis of the existentiality of Da-sein is not to be made in terms of "the
differentiation of a particular existence."  No particular actual way of 
existing is to be the paradigmatic basis for the analysis.  Since an
actual way of existing, distinct from all others, is the actualization of a 
possibility for existing (or more precisely, a potentiality of Being), 
"concrete" designates the actualized status of a possibility for existing.

Heidegger doesn't want to use some concrete possibility of existing as the
paradigmatic basis for his analysis because that would be representational. 
It would be representational both in the sense that metaphysics is
representational, i.e. representation as _Vorstellung_ (and I think this is 
why he calls the way of existing taken as a paradigm an _idea_); and in the 
sense that the concrete way of existing, as a way of existing in which only 
some engage and can engage, is made to stand in for all the others, i.e.
representation as _Vertretung_ (cf. the remarks on _Vertretung_ as a trait
of everydayness in Section 47 [p. 239-240 in the German pagination]).

The analysis, in Heidegger's view, should rather begin with some possibility
of existing that, while no doubt actual and therefore concrete, is
nonetheless indifferent.  It should be a way of existing in which everyone
engages in the same way and to the same extent no matter what their distinct
way of existing is, therefore providing no differentiation on the basis of
which representation (in either sense) can take place.  That's what
_Besorgen_ ("concern" in M&R, "taking care" in Stambaugh) is intended to be.

> 2. The first paragraph on p70, and the first full paragraph on p72. 
> They both seem to be saying somthing important, but I cannot, for the
> life of me, puzzle them out.

My copy of M&R is stowed away--would you mind indicating the German
pagination, or at least give some idea of what the paragraphs are speaking
of?

> 3.  p70-71, he discusses and contrasts 'Exestentialia' and
> 'categories'.  I assume by 'categories' he is referring to Aristotelian
> / Kantian style categories.(?)  If not, then to what is he referring?

I don't think it's necessarily anything so complicated as that.  
Existentialia are basic concepts that pertain to Da-sein and only to 
Da-sein (examples would be the three elements of Being-in), while 
categories are basic concepts that pertain to beings other than Da-sein and 
only to them (examples would be handiness (_Zuhandenheit_) and objective
presence (_Vorhandenheit_)).  These types of basic concepts differ in kind
because the beings they respectively designate differ in kind.  Da-sein is
not the kind of being that can be handy or objectively present, nor are
other, innerworldly beings the kinds of beings that can be attuned or
understand or discourse.

I suppose that "category" alludes to Aristotelian or Kantian categories. 
But that would be because Aristotle and Kant address themselves primarily to
innerworldly beings and address Da-sein in terms of innerworldly beings, as
Heidegger goes on to say in the paragraph to which you refer.  But that
allusion is, I take it, not his primary point in the paragraph in question. 
It is rather to call into question the metaphysical supposition of a common 
beingness for all beings, whether Da-sein or otherwise, with respect to 
which the differences between kinds of beings are, if you will, only
differences in degree.  By sharply distinguishing existentialia from
categories, Heidegger insists on the phenomenal fact that Da-sein and
innerworldly beings show themselves as differing in kind and as having
nothing in common.  Insofar as one adheres to the phenomena, one will not be
disposed to represent one kind in terms of the other.

HTH.

Later...

--
         Ronald M. Carrier -- rcarrier-AT-{suba.com,hecky.acns.nwu.edu}
                       http://www.suba.com/~rcarrier/
              "If one does nothing but listen to the new music,
        everything else drifts, goes away, frays."--Donald Barthelme



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