Chapter 5: Being-in As Such
This chapter will attempt to 'step back' from the previous analyses and investigate, on a more primordial level, the unitary phenomenon of Being-in-the-world.
It will address itself to this phenomenon from the side of Dasein and attempt to uncover the structural moments which ground and make possible something like Being-in-the-world i.e., something like Dasein's concernful circumspection with things ready-to-hand and its tarrying along with others.
Only because Dasein is essentially Being-in (In-Sein) can there 'be' something like Being-in-the-world. Being-in is that constitutive moment of Dasein which exhibits the Being of Dasein must directly. And so this chapter will be devoted to a phenomenological interpretation of Being-in as such.
Section 28 (Mostly preparatory and methodological)
Three points are discussed: (a) Disclosedness (Erschlossenheit), (b) the notion of the equiprimordial, (c) an overview of the chapter.
(a) one way of characterizing the depth of this chapter is to say that it is going to investigate the 'Da' of Dasein -- the 'there' in which something like an occurrence of 'world' can take 'place'.
132/171 Heidegger says that Dasein is itself its 'there'.
Dasein has the character of being a 'place' (and not merely in the sense of its existential spatiality, but further, as a place for the occurrence of Being i.e., for the occurrence of transcendental structure).
By emphasizing the aspect of the 'there,' the 'place,' we could say that Dasein has the character of not being closed off. Dasein is not 'sealed off' within itself such that it would lack openness to itself and other beings. Rather, Dasein exhibits a radical openness -- it is disclosive. Indeed, Dasein is the place of Disclosedness (Erschlossenheit).
This is what is meant by the lumen naturale. The lumination by which Dasein has access to itself and other beings is a natural human 'illumination.' Dasein is the place of disclosedness in the sense of a lighted clearing...
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But all this is rather metaphorical and obscure at the moment -- we must investigate the sense of this disclosedness i.e., the way in which Dasein can open up to the world and also open up the possibility of the world i.e., the way in which Dasein can be the place, the 'Da' for the occurrence of world.
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(b) Heidegger will say that there are three primary moments of Dasein's being a place of disclosedness. Now in saying this he is indicating that the structural unity of Being-in-the-world has its ground in a multiplicity (viz., the 3 moments).
This multiplicity will be "ground" in the sense that each moment will be equiprimordial.
(c) The structural moments: The Being (Sein) of the 'Da'.
The existential constitution of the 'Da' has two fundamental moments that receive their 'articulation' in a third -- all of which occur, for the most part, in the Being of everydayness.
(I)
(1) Befindlichkeit. Phenomenal confirmation: moods (especially fear and anxiety)
(2) Verstehen. Phenomenal confirmation: interpretation and assertion
(3) Both are 'determined' by Rede (Logos).
All occur, proximately and for the most part in:
(II)
Verfallen: The everyday Being of the 'Da'.
Section 29
Being-there as Befindlichkeit ("How one finds oneself")
Befindlichkeit: ontological-existential structure
Stimmung (moods): ontic manifestation -- an 'attunement' to the world.
Heidegger -- moods are disclosive (and hence linked up to Erschlosenheit): ontically, they tend to disclose 'how one is' and 'how one is faring'
In broad terms -- moods disclose Dasein's throwness (Geworfenheit), which means Dasein's facticity (note distinction.: Faktizitat/Tatsachlichkeit).
Throwness and facticity express Dasein's existential situation viz., that it is always already headed over to a world.
Looking at this further -- the 'how' and 'what' of such disclosure:
The 'how':
Moods have the power of disclosure, the power of disclosing something in a non-theoretical way. Moods are not mere 'subjective feelings', but a certain kind of attunement which discloses.
The 'what':
(1) Dasein's throwness
(2) Dasein's Being-in-the-world as a whole, the manner of 'direction' which Dasein takes (not to particular things but) to things in general.
(3) It is within such a thrown directionality towards a whole, that things 'affect' Dasein and matter to it.
To unify and thematize these three moments we could say that Dasein is always already given over to a world (facticity) from which it bases a directionality (Angeweisenheit) towards the world as a whole and in which it can encounter things that 'matter' to it.
This will constitute the moment of Dasein's throwness, of its facticity -- of 'how it finds itself.' Heidegger will investigate this more concretely in the mood of fear.
Note on method: 'listening into' the matters themselves (139-140/179)
Section 30 Fear as a mode of Befindlichkeit
Briefly, 3 structural movements:
(1) that in the face of which we fear -- some 'thing' in the world (even though it might be quite 'indefinite', it is a definite 'something').
(2) the fear itself -- fearing itself is grounded upon the possibility for fear i.e., upon a being for whom something can matter (and thus become threatening), i.e., Dasein
(3) that which the fear fears about -- ultimately, Dasein itself: it is Dasein that is afraid 'for itself'.
To thematize: fear has a way of throwing Dasein back upon itself -- to have a mood is to discover something more than ontical: in fear Dasein realizes that it 'is', its attention has been drawn to the fact that 'it is in the world' (in the sense of its contingency, its facticity e.g., that it can get 'hurt')
141/181 fearing about something discloses entities within the world and Dasein -- the former as threatening, the latter as threatened.
What is important here, and what will become more important later, is the fact that in fear it is something in the world that 'matters' to Dasein. The phenomenon of fear 'takes place', if you will, within the world.
Section 31 Verstehen
143/182-145/184
(A) General Description of Verstehen ('Understanding')
(1) As an equiprimordial structure (with Befindlichkeit)
(2) How this term is to be 'understood': not as a cognitive activity.
Understanding is an existential which involves that moment of Dasein's Existenz in which Dasein comports itself to its 'to be able to be.'
Understanding is the Being of this Sein-konnen, it is the element of transcendence, of possibility in Existenz. With reference to 1: the reciprocal structure of 'how one finds one's self in possibilities': i.e., thrown possibility.
(3) The two 'directions' of Verstehen (cf. esp. 146/186)
(a) towards the world i.e., significance (as the referential totality of involvements) -- understanding that which is not our own (i.e., entities within the world) i.e., 'inauthentic understanding'
(b) towards the 'for-the-sake-of-which; i.e., Dasein i.e., understanding that which is our own i.e., 'authentic understanding' (viz. a self-understanding).
(B) More specific description
(a) Verstehen and possibility (Moglichkeit): The connection between verstehen and possibility occurs because verstehen has the character of projection (Entwurft)
Projection (as Verstehen) is constitutive for the possibility of (ontic) possibilities: it is Dasein's movement through the world; a movement, however, that always takes place within a world.
(b) Thus, (i) Dasein is more than it factually is (i.e., physiology and body, anatomy) (since it projects itself beyond itself) (ii) yet this projection takes place within Dasein's facticity.
To anticipate: Dasein is ahead of itself always already in a world.
This dual structure will yield what we shall later call Dasein's finite transcendence.
(C) Heidegger calls this projective character of the understanding sight (sicht) and notes how it is essentially involved in our Being-in-the-world (as Umsicht [circumspection] and Rucksicht).
Since this 'sight' of Dasein belongs to its understanding and since understanding can direct itself to the for-the-sake-of-which i.e., Dasein itself, there can be the possibility of Dasein becoming transparent to itself (Durchsichtigkeit).
Thus Dasein not only 'understands' entities, but can also 'understand itself': this would be a 'knowledge of the self' in the traditional force of the term and it is this kind of understanding that the Dasein Analytic is after.
More specifically, the 'sight' of Dasein can gain access to beings (Seiende) or Being (Sein) -- and it is this latter access (which Heidegger calls Seinsverstandnis) that is the task of the present treatise.
But this 'metaphysical' description of Dasein's understanding needs to be more concretely worked out -- we must analyze more closely this structure of Verstehen.
Section 32
The understanding, as we have just indicated, has the possibility of referring back to itself -- of understanding itself, if you will. Heidegger speaks of this reflexivity as the understanding's possibility of developing itself and such a development is called interpretation.
In interpretation, Heidegger writes, the understanding 'becomes itself.'
Now, since the understanding can project itself upon either entities or Dasein itself, there will accordingly be different kinds of interpretation (most broadly, an interpretation of the world, an interpretation of 'the self').
Heidegger chooses to begin with the former mode of interpretation...
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Copyright: Robert Cavalier
Department of Philosophy / Carnegie Mellon University