Subject: Re: Being and Time - Div I, Ch 1 questions
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 11:41:53 -0600 (CST)


<aglynn-AT-idirect.com> wrote:
> Ryan Stubblefield <vorpal-AT-iname.com> said:
> >The first paragraph is in Section 9, second full paragraph of p. 44 in
> >the German.  It begins with "But the explication of Dasein in its average
> >everydaynes..." and ends "...certain ontological characteristics of an
> >authentic Being of Dasein.
> 
> I think this points forward in the book towards the ability to 'get'
> Dasein in one's grasp ontologically as-a-whole, and to ascertain
> characteristics of a potential authentic Dasein distinct from Dasein in
> its everyday averageness, despite everyday averageness being the starting
> point of the analysis.

I agree.  Everydayness is averageness because in it there is no significant
difference between particular existing Da-seins.  As a way of existing that
particular Da-seins all have in common, the differences between this Da-sein
and that Da-sein in everydayness are differences that make no difference. 
But while particular Da-seins are indeterminate in this way with respect to
their common everydayness, it does not follow that everydayness as a way of
existing is itself indeterminate.

Everydayness is ontically average (and to that extent indeterminate) because
the differences between particular everyday Da-seins are ontical
differences.  But everydayness is not ontologically average, because it is
one of two determinate ways in which the existing of Da-sein can show
itself, and the inferior one to boot.  These two ways of existing, 
inauthenticity and authenticity, are the two ways in which the Being of 
Da-sein is actualizable.  They are the two ways in which Da-sein can relate 
itself to its Being, and therewith to Being as such.  The analysis of 
everydayness is the analysis of inauthenticity, but the aim of the analysis 
is to get hold of the common structure of inauthenticity and authenticity, 
i.e. the relating to (its) Being.

Perhaps this paragraph (and _BT_ as a whole) would be a little clearer if,
every time you see "inauthentic" or "authentic," you read it as "improper"
or "proper."  This would be a somewhat more literal translation of the
German, one that ties in to Heidegger's remark in Section 7 (p. 38 in the
German) that the transcendence of the Being of Da-sein enfolds the potential
for individuation.  To be authentic (proper) is to individuate oneself, so
that one's existing is proper to oneself.  In authenticity the difference
between oneself and another Da-sein is one that makes a difference, since
what is proper to oneself as an individual need not be proper to another. 
There will still be a commonality of ontological structure between
particular Da-seins that exist properly, but this commonality is not, in
Heidegger's view, a matter of averageness.

> >The second is the first full paragraph of p. 46 in the German, beginning
> >"At the same time it is of course misleading..." and ending "...in
> >designation those entities which we are ourselves"
> 
> Heidegger is pointing out that he is not simply analysing the historiology
> of philosophy but jumping away from it by using the term Dasein,
> "Existence", a neutral term that allows Heidegger to both bring the
> entities which we are ourselves in a relation to Being (Being/Existence),
> and avoid any claims that Dasein is an actual thingly present-at-hand
> extant object.

It's true that Heidegger is analyzing the history of philosophy in a
critical way, and to that extent distancing himself from the presuppositions
of philosophy he discovers in the analysis.  I think it's wrong, though, or
at best misleading, to say that "Da-sein" is a neutral term, if only because 
Heidegger is not simply avoiding the claim that the beings designated by 
"Da-sein" are objectively present beings (Stambaugh's translation of 
_Vorhandenen_) but actively denying it.

"Da-sein" has a double sense that is not neutral but rather is based in
Heidegger's fundamental presuppositions concerning Being, namely
phenomenality and the ontological difference.  On the one hand, "Da-sein"
means "existence," and therefore expresses the distinctive Being of the
beings we ourselves are.  "Existence" can't be meant neutrally here, because
for Heidegger existing, relating oneself in one's Being to one's Being, can
only be phenomenal.  It's true that Heidegger takes over the term from the
tradition in which he found himself, but it's just as true that the term
doesn't have the same meaning when he uses it as it does in the tradition.

On the other hand, "Da-sein" means "there-Being."  It expresses, not the
Being of the being that exists, but Being as such.  That is, it expresses
the whole of possibilities of beings as a whole wherein Da-sein exists and
to which it relates itself in existing.  In a word, "Da-sein" as there-Being
designates the world (in the sense in which the later Heidegger uses this
word, not the sense in _BT_, which applies only to beings whose Being is not
existence).  To the extent that there is existing (and therewith handiness
[Stambaugh's translation of _Zuhandenheit_) and objective presence], there 
is also and necessarily the world wherein existing occurs, the way in which
existing and handiness and objective presence are gathered together into a
whole.  The difference between existing and the world is the ontological
difference.  Heidegger calls the beings we ourselves are "Da-sein" not only
because we are the beings that exist, but also (and perhaps primarily)
because we are the place where the ontological difference can show itself.

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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