Dasein is a German word which means "being there" or "presence" often
translated in English with the word "existence". It is a fundamental concept
in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger particularly in his magnum
opus Being and Time. Heidegger uses the expression Dasein to refer to the
experience of being that is peculiar to human beings. Thus it is a form of being
that is aware of and must confront such issues as personhood, mortality and the
dilemma or paradox of living in relationship with other humans while
being ultimately alone with oneself. Heidegger's re-interpretation
In German, Dasein is the vernacular term for "existence", as in "I am pleased
with my existence". The term Dasein has been used by several philosophers before
Heidegger, most notably Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, with the meaning of
human "existence" or "presence". It is derived from da-sein, which literally
means being-there/there-being - though Heidegger was adamant that this was an
inappropriate translation of Dasein. Dasein for Heidegger was a way of being
involved with and caring for the immediate world in which one lived,
while always remaining aware of the contingent element of that involvement,
of the priority of the world to the self, and of the evolving nature of the
self itself. Its opposite was the forfeiture of one's
individual meaning, destiny and lifespan, in favour of an immersion in
the public everyday world – the anonymous, identical world of the They
and the Them. In harmony with Nietzsche's critique of
the subject, as something definable in terms of consciousness, Heidegger
distinguished Dasein from everyday consciousness in order to emphasize the
critical importance "Being" has for our understanding and interpretation of the
world. "This entity which each of us is
himself…we shall denote by the term “Dasein”".
"[Dasein is] that entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue…".
Heidegger sought to use the concept of Dasein to uncover the primal nature of
"Being", agreeing with Nietzsche and Dilthey that Dasein is always a being
engaged in the world: neither a subject, nor the objective world alone, but the
coherence of Being-in-the-world. This ontological basis of Heidegger's work
thus opposes the Cartesian "abstract agent" in favour of practical engagement
with one's environment. Dasein is revealed by projection into, and
engagement with, a personal world - a never-ending process of involvement with
the world as mediated through the projects of the self.
Heidegger considered that language, everyday curiosity, logical systems, and
common beliefs obscure Dasein's nature from itself. Authentic choice means
turning away from the collective world of Them, to face Dasein, one's
individuality, one's own limited life-span, one's own being. Heidegger
thus intended the concept of Dasein to provide a stepping stone in the
questioning of what it means to be – to have one's own being, one's own death,
one's own truth. Heidegger also saw the question of
Dasein as extending beyond the realms disclosed by positive science or in the
history of metaphysics. “Scientific research is not the only manner of Being
which this entity can have, nor is it the one which lies closest. Moreover,
Dasein itself has a special distinctiveness as compared with other
entities[...] it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its
very Being, that Being is an issue for it”. Being and Time stressed the
ontological difference between entities and the being of entities: “Being is
always the Being of an entity”. Establishing this difference is the
general motif running through Being and Time.
Some scholars disagree with this interpretation, however, arguing that
for Heidegger "Dasein" denoted a structured awareness or an institutional
"way of life". Others suggest that Heidegger's early insistence on the
ontological priority of Dasein was muted in his post-war writings.
Origin and inspiration Some have argued for an origin of Dasein
in Chinese philosophy and Japanese philosophy: according to Tomonobu
Imamichi, Heidegger's concept of Dasein was inspired — although Heidegger
remained silent on this — by Okakura Kakuzo's concept of das-in-der-Welt-sein
expressed in The Book of Tea to describe Zhuangzi's philosophy, which Imamichi's
teacher had offered to Heidegger in 1919, after having followed lessons with
him the year before. Karl Jaspers' Dasein and Existenz
For Karl Jaspers, the term "Dasein" meant existence in its most minimal
sense, the realm of objectivity and science, in opposition to what Jaspers
called "Existenz", the realm of authentic being. Due to the drastically
different use of the term "Dasein" between the two philosophers, there is
often some confusion in students who begin with either Heidegger or Jaspers
and subsequently study the other. In Philosophy, Jaspers gave his view of
the history of philosophy and introduced his major themes. Beginning with modern
science and empiricism, Jaspers points out that as we question reality, we
confront borders that an empirical method can simply not transcend. At this
point, the individual faces a choice: sink into despair and resignation, or
take a leap of faith toward what Jaspers calls "Transcendence". In making this
leap, individuals confront their own limitless freedom, which Jaspers calls
Existenz, and can finally experience authentic existence.
Other applications Eero Tarasti considered Dasein very
important in Existential Semiotics. Jacques Lacan turned in the 1950s to
Heidegger's Dasein for his characterisation of the psychoanalyst as
being-for-death:. Similarly, he saw the analysand as searching for authentic
speech, as opposed to “the subject who loses his meaning in the
objectifications of discourse...[which] will give him the wherewithal to forget
his own existence and his own death”. Alfred Schutz distinguished between
direct and indirect social experience, emphasising that in the latter “My
orientation is not towards the existence of a concrete individual Thou. It is not
towards any subjective experiences now being constituted in all their
uniqueness in another's mind”, Criticism
Theodor W. Adorno criticised Heidegger's concept of Dasein as an idealistic
retreat from historical reality. Richard Rorty considered that with
Dasein Heidegger was creating a conservative myth of being, complicit
with the Romantic elements of National Socialism.
See also References
External links Martin Heidegger