Being And Time

“The term phenomenology expresses a maxim which can be formulated as ‘To the things themselves!’” 

Heidegger, using a slogan from Husserl, gives a provisional definition of phenomenology. It suggests a return to the way things are originally experienced, prior to ossified theoretical assumptions about them. However, the apparent obviousness and simplicity of this statement belies a far more complex and problematic reality that will confront any genuine attempt to “return to the things themselves.”

“[…] it is one thing to give a report in which we tell about entities, but another to grasp entities in their Being. For the latter task we lack not only most of the words but, above all, the ‘grammar.’”

The task of phenomenology is already starting to look more difficult. Ordinary language and grammar contain certain sedimented ontological assumptions relating to the primacy of presence. As such, we cannot straightforwardly rely on ordinary means of expression to develop the ontological problematic.

“The essence of Dasein lies in its existence.” 

This phrase is similar to Sartre’s “existence precedes essence” and a reason Being and Time is sometimes regarded as an existentialist text. It indicates that Dasein does not have any pre-given nature or “essence.” Rather, it creates its essence, what it is, through its specific engagement and negotiation with the world, or “existence.”

“Dasein is never to be taken ontologically as an instance or special case of some genus of entities as things that are present-at-hand.” 

Dasein is not to be understood in terms of an ontology of presence. That is, it is not to be viewed in terms of an object or an “is” to which it is possible to ascribe attributes. This is the case even if we ascribe to it “special” properties such as subjectivity or reason.

“To the Being of any equipment there always belongs a totality of equipment, in which it can be this equipment that it is.” 

Equipment cannot be understood in terms of distinct present-at-hand objects that we then use in isolation. Rather, equipment makes sense only in terms of a complex of relations and contexts. For instance, a chef’s knife is a chef’s knife because it is constitutively related to the chopping board, the kitchen as a work context, and the Dasein chopping.

“When its unusability is thus discovered, equipment becomes conspicuous.”

While we use equipment, we are, on one level, absorbed in it. Our experience transcends the specific elements of equipment towards the goal at hand, say of cooking a meal. For this reason, the equipment is inconspicuous. It only becomes conspicuous when a problem with the equipment disrupts our absorption.

“It does not vanish simply, but takes its farewell, as it were, in the conspicuousness of the unusable.”

When equipment breaks down, its character as equipment starts to disintegrate. We then end up confronting a distinct present-at-hand, broken object. However, this process does not occur instantaneously, and the character of equipment is revealed as it is vanishing.

“Others are encountered environmentally.” 

We do not experience others in the first instance as distinct people in the world, say as “the man over there.” Rather, we encounter others initially as they are revealed through our lived environment. For instance, we encounter the other through a building, since we apprehend it as a dwelling for another Dasein.

“In utilizing public means of transport and in making use of information services such as the newspaper, every Other Dasein is like the next.” 

The equipment of the world is organized in such a way that it must take account of the “average Dasein,” and its average capabilities, for it to be usable. Thus, in utilizing such equipment, we enter the mode of an interchangeable Dasein. Our doing so is what then sets up the possibility of a total absorption in the public world, and in the they.

“This Being-with-one-another dissolves one’s own Dasein completely into the kind of Being of ‘the Others’, in such a way, indeed, that the Others, as distinguishable and explicit, vanish more and more.”

The being-with-others that characterizes the they makes us indistinguishable from other Dasein. In this way, it dissolves the distinctions between Daseins and their unique relations to each other and the world. It makes it increasingly impossible to see either these distinctions, or the process of covering over itself. 

“Pure beholding, even if it were to penetrate to the innermost core of the Being of something present-at-hand, could never discover anything like that which is threatening.” 

Moods and emotions have a special way of revealing the world. They can disclose the world in terms of our relation of care to it. This is not something that any amount of staring at a present-at-hand object can reveal.

“Only an entity for which in its Being this very Being is an issue, can be afraid.” 

Having discussed moods in general, Heidegger next investigates the specific emotion of fear. What is revealed with fear is that Dasein is caught up with the world in a special way. An entity that did not possess such a concerned relation to the world could not be afraid.

“In the language which is spoken when one expresses oneself, there lies an average intelligibility […] and (this) can be understood to a considerable extent, even if the hearer does not bring himself into such a kind of Being towards what the discourse is about as to have a primordial understanding of it.” 

Heidegger is describing the origins of the specific mood and mode of discourse that belongs to the they. This is idle talk, and it works by exploiting the way in which language allows one to understand and talk about something without having direct experience of it.

“In it, out of it, and against it, all genuine understanding, interpreting, and communicating, all re-discovering and appropriating anew, are performed.” 

True understanding is not an absolute break from the they and from idle talk. Such a break is not possible. It is rather a resisting of it that is constantly having to struggle against the they and its influence. Part of this process is also that of coming to terms with and understanding that very influence.

“No one can take the Other’s dying away from him.”

There are many ways in which one Dasein can take the role of another, and in which Dasein are interchangeable. For instance, someone else can do my job as a teacher, or even take my role as a friend or lover. However, my death is the one thing that no other can ever appropriate or “stand in for.” 

“Someone or other ‘dies’, be he neighbour or stranger.” 

Heidegger is here discussing the inauthentic relation to death that is encouraged by the they. With this attitude, we acknowledge death, but as an abstract possibility for “one,” always happening to an anonymous other. In this way, death is stripped of its disturbing and individualizing quality.

“Conscience discourses solely and constantly in the mode of keeping silent.”

The call of conscience has no linguistic content. It communicates rather through the very absence of content, through “silence.” In this way it can avoid being incorporated into the idle chatter of the they.

“Not only can entities whose Being is care load themselves with factical guilt, but they are guilty in the very basis of their Being.” 

The call of conscience discloses a sense of guilt. This is not guilt about any specific action or misdeed. Rather, it is guilt over our very nature as fallen in the they.

“When the call of conscience summons us to our potentiality-for-Being, it does not hold before us some empty ideal of existence, but calls us forth into the Situation.”

The call of conscience does not work by inspiring us to pursue some general or abstract ideal of individuality. It calls us instead to reclaim our own unique possibilities and relations to the world and others that already exist. This is what Heidegger means by “situation.”

“Along with the sober anxiety which brings us face to face with our individualized potentiality-for-Being, there goes an unshakable joy.” 

The tenor of Heidegger’s account so far has made authenticity seem somber and difficult. It has involved death, guilt, and conscience. Here, he points out that, despite this, reclaiming our true selves can also bring with it a deep and certain joy.

“In working out the temporality of Dasein as everydayness, historicality, and within-time-ness, we shall be getting for the first time a relentless insight into the complications of a primordial ontology of Dasein.” 

Through authenticity, Dasein has been revealed in its fundamental temporality. It is therefore necessary to return to the analyses of Division 1, but with this new awareness of temporality in mind. This process will reveal how problematic any attempt to understand Dasein must fundamentally be.

“That world within which they belonged to a context of equipment and were encountered as ready-to-hand and used by a concernful Dasein who was-in-the-world. That world is no longer.” 

Heidegger is discussing what makes an entity “historical.” It is neither its age nor any specific present-at-hand aspect of it. Rather, it is the fact that it is separated from a meaningful context of equipment.

“But when historicality is authentic, it understands history as the ‘recurrence’ of the possible.” 

An authentic relation to history does not see the past as something “dead” or as a collection of present-at-hand facts about a past state of affairs. Instead, it grasps the past as possibility. This framing leads us to seek a recurrence or repetition of such possibility in our own lives.