The Da of Dasein

Posted on July 7, 2008
Filed Under Philosophy | 12 Comments

Here’s a nice little quote I encountered while reading Thomas Sheehan’s “A Paradigm Shift in Heidegger Research” the other day. This is from Continental Philosophy Review, 32, 2, 1-20. There he argues that there’s a new way of looking at Heidegger that goes beyond the approach most followed after Richardson’s Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. Sheehan argues a lot of this rethinking comes out of the availability of Contributions to Philosophy (Beiträge zur Philosophie). Although he is skeptical about it being the second major work of Heidegger’s. His main complaint is that too many Heideggerians have transformed Being in its various guises into a ridiculous metaphysical construct.

Whether one agrees with him about the shakeup I think the following quote is still quite good.

Heidegger insists that the verbal emphasis in the word Dasein falls on the second syllable: Da-sein, “having-to-be open” (Zollikon, 157.8, 188.14). His point is that human beings are the Da not occasionally or by their own choice, but of necessity. We cannot not be the open (the possibility of taking-as) just as we cannot not be our own minds. In Heidegger’s early language, we are always already thrown-open (geworfen). We are not thrown “into” the open, as if the Da/Lichtung/Welt already existed without us; we are not open “to” the open, as if it were something separate from us; we do not “transcend to” the open as if we had to cross from here to there; and we do not “project” the open as if we brought it about as our own personal achievement. Without us, there is no open at all; but with us, the open is always apriori operative. In that regard some of Heidegger’s terms can be misleading. “Being-in-the-world” actually means “being-the-world” (die Lichtung-sein: GA 69, 101.12), and “thrownness into the world” means being-the-world of necessity, i.e., apriori.

Beiträge shows that the later Heidegger was focused on the same central topic as the earlier: the apriori openedness of the open-that-gives-being. In the early period this openedness of the open was termed Geworfenheit, whereas in the later period it is called Ereignetsein. Thus Beiträge equates geworfen with ereignet (GA 65, 239.5 and 304.8) and with zugehörig der Er-eignung (252.24), and it reformulates die Übernahme der Geworfenheit as die Über-nahme der Er-eignung, without changing the issue (GA 65, 322.7 and 327.7; cf. GA 2, 431.13). What Heidegger is expressing in both the earlier language of Geworfenheit and the later language of Ereignis is that being-open is the ineluctable condition of our essence, not an occasional accomplishment of our wills. It is our “fate,” the way we always already are (GA 2, 431.16-17). This is the central issue of his thought, and it does not change between Heidegger I and Heidegger II. To-be-the-open is to be apriori opened, and only as such can we take-things-as. Dasein is “erschließend erschlossenes” (GA 27, 135.13), able to open up other things only because it itself is already opened up.

I’d add that I think in all this focus on opening, openness, and to-be-opened one can see that in a certain way Heidegger is pursuing the basic vision of Husserl. Heidegger radicalizes this thrust by relating how we can go to the things themselves as Husserl sought. Husserl’s basic Cartesian stance just couldn’t do it. It has to be understood in terms of an openness.

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12 Responses to “The Da of Dasein”

To me there is a difference between H I and H II. The key to H1 is the Ontological Difference, and the key to H2 is Beyng–within which the OD is noticed. I’m still studying Beyng, but it is apparent to me that there is a turn in H2, but not quite the type of turn described by Richardson; he translates Kehre as “reversal”. There is no reversal, away from the OD, but instead a turn in the spiral that is our understanding of how ontology happens. I think Sheehan is correct, that the opening of the open is there in both H I and H II.

Interesting. While I’ve read a lot of the latter Heidegger I find it much more difficult and tend to mainly focus on the stuff from the pre-war era.

I confess I’ve always seen Beyng as tied to the Ontological Difference. So perhaps that’s why I favor Richardson. I’d thought that way before reading Richardson so he really solidified my views.

What texts do you see as best providing an argument against this reading?

Mark Wrathall has recently been talking about how the later Heidegger actually rejects the ontological difference as still too “metaphysical.” He’s basing a lot of this on the Le Thor lectures, which I haven’t had the chance to go through even a tenth as thoroughly as I’d like. He’s supposed to be working on a paper or something on this, which I look forward to reading. But, yes, I would certainly agree that there is a turn, a change in Heidegger’s thought. The distinction between H I and H II is there, but not as noticeable as some would think.

Kevin, where in the Le Thor lectures are you thinking of?

I confess I haven’t read the Four Seminars. Is it worth picking up?

One other thing I’d add is it’s interesting to ask about the kind of openness involved with the authentic mode of being and then the kind of opened openness that characterizes Dasein. I’d tried a while back talking about the former while I think a few took me as talking of the latter. I’ll see if I can’t whip out a post on this after I get some of the free will posts completed.

That Beyng enowns Dasein (Das Seyn er-eignet das Da-sein–be-ing en-owns Da-sein, in Contributions, S 271) is hinted at in the latter essays, but it is in his manuscripts from the late 30s–Contributions (1999) and Mindfulness (2006) have been translated–that Heidegger elaborates the new ontology, including why it’s not a reversal of the OD. That’s the best source, but those texts is somewhat daunting, like diving in B&T unprepared. The secondary literature is developing. Polt’s Emergency of Being is full of useful explanations and a good survey, but there’s nothing like the multitude of guides to B&T for neophytes. Also, the Dreyfus lectures on the later Heidegger tease out the pertinent themes from the texts.

I’ll check out Polt and I notice Charles Scott has a book on Contributions as well. I’ve put it on my Amazon list for the next time I get a coupon. Unfortunately I don’t know when I’ll get to it as I have a backlog of books right now. I definitely want to finish getting back into Davidson first.

The one thing I worry about is that Contributions appears to be more aphorisms and the like. One thing I like about the pre-war Heidegger is how he provides arguments or at least quasi-arguments via a trace of a phenomenological path. That is much rarer with the latter Heidegger. This is roughly from that earlier period but appears to partake more of that latter style.

With that latter style, as much as I might agree with what Heidegger sees I’m always left asking, “but why should I assume this is right?” So it’s very hard not to be skeptical.

“…why should I assume this is right?”

The phenomenology, Clark. Use the phenomenology.

Heidegger’s tries many different ways to articulate beyng enowns dasein. You can judge how successful any is by interrogating the phenomenon described. I end up discarding or setting aside many passages, but some have that ability (as with bits of B&T) of cutting through the accumulated metaphysical chaff and revealing a simple ontological kernel.

Right, but that’s sort of my point. The phenomenology seems to work better in the early stuff. There is latter stuff where it works. (Say On the Origin of the Work of Art or What is a Thing) But then there are some where it’s more difficult (at least for me). The stuff where he waxes on about the Fourfold in particular. (Which I try to think through via a phenomenological inquiry into the four kinds of causality in Aristotle – but he does it in an odd way unlike his readings of philosophers in the earlier periods)

Yes, phenomenology is front-and-center in the earlier texts, and rarely mentioned in the later, but that doesn’t preclude readers from using it for their own analysis. In his early years, on his way up the university heirarchy, the master phenomenologist, Husserl, controlled tenure decisions, so it makes sense he’d emphasize it in his texts.

The fourfold deals with the phenomena present for particular dasein, a Bavarian peasant, say. An Eskimo’s would have a different manifold; maybe a threefold, or ice instead of earth. I don’t find the fourfold that interesting, but the other week I read/saw/heard someone use a diagram of the fourfold–the intersection of the lines between man and gods, and earth and sky–to cross out “being” in the center. I thought it was a neat trick, but I’m easily amused like that.

Is it true that “Dasein” was Heidegger’s name for the ironist, as Rorty claims?

I thought the thing was in the center of the four-fold and not being.

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