Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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Burning ghost
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by Burning ghost »

Fool -
I don’t think that this is correct. Asking the question of Being is one of the possibilities of Dasein’s being. He says that authentic existence is to “become what you are”
But I can interpret what I said as saying that too. That is part of my point. He was trying to be precise about something we don't have language for, and cannot call "something." If he is talking about what is "innate" then he should say that.

When I said it has "no being" I meant it is more like a process that requisite or ourcome; both of which leave numerous problems when it comes to putting such an idea to use.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by Burning ghost »

I think I am correct, and I am pretty sure Heidegger says this using slightly different wording.

Dasein is the Being's regard toward being. What you appear to be saying is RAA, that is dasein is that directed toward dasein, directed toward dasein, etc.,.

Heidegger's primary approach is through the structure of language and the historism of worded concepts. No problem, but it is necessarily limited being essentially an etymological approach interspersed with psychology.
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JamesOfSeattle
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by JamesOfSeattle »

[Based on this discussion, and never having read Heidegger personally, I would suggest Dasein is a reference to the functional/subjective perspective of a conscious agent, and that perspective, being functional, can't be logically tied to a specific physical entity, but can only access the functionality of the agent.]

[Nothing to see here. Move along]

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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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JamesOfSeattle wrote: February 9th, 2018, 3:49 pm [Based on this discussion, and never having read Heidegger personally, I would suggest Dasein is a reference to the functional/subjective perspective of a conscious agent, and that perspective, being functional, can't be logically tied to a specific physical entity, but can only access the functionality of the agent.]

[Nothing to see here. Move along]

*
That makes more sense than what Heidegger says :D To be fair he is worth a read. Some of the extrapolations are interesting. I spent some time trying to decipher "dasein" then gave up and just read the rest of the book. It was really good in parts and mind numbingly tedious in others - but thoroughly worthy of reading.

I have previously referred to the whole book being the definition of "dasein." I don't really believe that now though, but he certainly tried.
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by Judaka »

First Foucault and now Heidegger, is this a crusade on postmodernism? Just wondering since I know you are a fan of Jordan Peterson :D.

I never read either of them but I am becoming interested in the idea of postmodernism, at least so far as it is a rejection of how science-based philosophy has become, completely misunderstanding the meaning and function of subjectivity. I like Jordan Peterson in that he makes arguments based on practical benefit but I don't really agree with his critique of postmodernism, think he misrepresents the problem with Western civilization. Which is more about moral distinctions and justice being more important than practical benefit.
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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Nope, this most was made LONG before I'd even heard of Peterson.

Like every category of thought, it has some value. I read Heidegger after I read Husserl - that is besides the point though. THIS thread is precisely what I said it is about.

I don't think Heidegger gives a solid and concise definition of "dasein" anywhere in his work and then goes on to blather about it as if the reader has the concept fully formed in their head.

If you've not read Being and TIme then give it a go and see what you make of the introduction.
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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Well perhaps the translation is at fault, in any case I'm not going to read a book about ontology since I'm only interested in practical philosophy and I want to develop my own ideas and not study other peoples'. Even postmodernism i'm only interested to find out how similar it is to my own opinions.
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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Judaka wrote: February 11th, 2018, 10:15 am Well perhaps the translation is at fault, in any case I'm not going to read a book about ontology since I'm only interested in practical philosophy and I want to develop my own ideas and not study other peoples'. Even postmodernism i'm only interested to find out how similar it is to my own opinions.
Good on yer! I agree with that position completely! Think as long and hard as you can about what interests you before sullying those thoughts with those of others. When you do read other people's works they'll be all the more richer for the effort you've put in prior to looking at them. I got as far as I could then read Kant and then moved to Heidegger (after dabbling in Husserl.) If you read Heidegger you'll come to realise that your most outrageous and badly articulated thoughts were nothing compared to this guy! haha! In that respect he helped me.
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by Consul »

"DASEIN. Mark Twain complained that some German words seem to mean everything. One such word is da. It means 'there' ('There they go') and 'here' ('Here they come'), as well as 'then', 'since', etc. Prefixed to sein, 'to be' it forms dasein, 'to be there, present, available, to exist'. In the seventeenth century the infinitive was nominalized as (das) Dasein, originally in the sense of 'presence'. In the eighteenth century Dasein came to be used by philosophers as an alternative to the latinate Existenz ('the existence of God'), and poets used it in the sense of 'life'. Darwin's 'struggle for survival' became in German der Kampf ums Dasein. Colloquially it is used for the being or life of persons. (Dasein in Heidegger is quite distinct from Dass-sein, 'that-being' (XXVI, 183, 228f.).)

In early lectures Heidegger often uses Leben, 'life', in speaking of human beings and their being, but Dasein occurs in the BT [Being and Time] sense in 1923 (LXIII, 7; XVII, 3, but here he still speaks of the Dasein of the world, 42). In BT he uses (das) Dasein for 1. the being of humans, and 2. the entity or person who has this being. In lectures he often speaks of das menschliche Dasein, 'human Dasein', and this too can mean either the being of humans or the human being (e.g. XXIV, 21). As a nominalized infinitive, Dasein has no plural. It refers to any and every human being, in much the way that das Seiende, lit. 'that which is', refers to any and every BEING. When more than one person is in play Heidegger speaks of (the) other(s) or Dasein-with (Mitdasein). He revives the original sense, 'being there', often writing Da-sein to stress this. Dasein is essentially in the WORLD, and lights up itself and the world. The 'There [das Da]' is the space it opens up and illuminates: 'The "There [Das 'Da']" is not a place [...] in contrast to an "over there" ['dort']; Da-sein means not being here instead of over there, nor here and over there, but is the possibility, the condition of oriented being here and being over there' (XXVII, 136). Later, Da-sein sometimes means not 'being there', but 'there where being dwells', when it arrives: 'This Where as the There of the abode belongs to being itself, "is" being itself and is thus called Da-sein' (Nil, 358/niv, 218).

In BT every man, however inauthentic, is Dasein. 'Man' (Mensch) includes women: Dasein, though neuter, is sexually differentiated in virtue of the body; sexual relations depend on its original BEING-WITH; we can only understand sex if we first understand Dasein in its neutrality (XXVI, I73ff; XXVII, 146f.). Children and early man are to be understood 'in a privative way', by noting how they fall short of fully fledged Dasein (XXVII, 123ff.). Heidegger often uses Mensch in lectures, but avoids it in BT: it presents us as one biological species among others, the 'rational animal', and neglects our peculiar understanding of being. For this reason, he invariably distinguishes his own 'analytic of Dasein' from 'philosophical anthropology', which 'is no longer a fashion but an epidemic' (XXXI, 122; cf. BT, 45ff; K, 205ff./140ff.). Dasein unifies man, avoiding the traditional tripartition into body, soul (Seele, the life principle) and spirit (Geist, the intellectual principle) (BT, 48). It does not locate man's essence in some specific faculty such as reason: one of Dasein's central features, along with THROWNNESS and FALLING, is EXISTENCE, and this means that it has to decide how to be, and is not essentially and inevitably rational. Since Dasein exists and is not PRESENT-AT-HAND, it is inappropriate to ask 'what' it is; we should ask 'who' it is, and the answer will depend on, even consist in Dasein's decision: it may be I myself or it may be 'the Nobody to whom every Dasein has already surrendered itself in being among one another' (BT, 128; cf. BT, 45; XXXIX, 57f: 'Whatever one constandy takes part in, practises [e.g. teaching], determines what he is [e.g. a teacher]. But if we know what we are, do we thereby know who we are? No.').

Dasein is 'in each case mine. [...] one must always use a personal pronoun when addressing it: "I am", "you are"' (BT, 42). Every man is 'for the sake of himself, [...] his own end, as Kant says. This "For the sake of himself constitutes the self as such' (XXVII, 324; cf. BT, 84, 147). The significance of the world is underpinned by Dasein's needs and purposes. Is Dasein an isolated, egotistical individual? ONTOLOGICALLY yes, ONTICALLY no: Dasein's neutrality 'means a peculiar isolation of man, but not in the factual, existentiell sense, as if the philosopher were the centre of the world; it is the metaphysical isolation of man' (XXVI, 172). Only because Dasein is 'in its metaphysical essence determined by selfhood, can it as a concrete entity expressly choose itself as self or 'forgo this choice' (XXVI, 244). 'This selfhood is its freedom, and freedom is the egoity [Egoität] which first enables Dasein to be either egoistic or altruistic' (XXVI, 24). It does not help to introduce the I-Thou relation. This would only replace an individual solipsism by a 'solipsism of a couple' (XXVII, 146; cf. XXVI, 241f.). Dasein's egoity lies deeper than this contrast; Dasein functions both as I and as you. Because Dasein is always 'mine', it is not an instance of a genus in the way that a present-at-hand entity is (BT, 42; cf. LX, 11).

Later, man is distinguished more sharply from Dasein. Dasein is not man, but a relationship to being that man acquires and may lose. Man may be simply a SUBJECT or a rational animal (LXV, 62; XLIX, 36). Moreover Da-sein is 'between' man and the gods rather than coincident with man himself (LXV, 28f., 31). 'Da-sein exists for the sake of itself, but this now means that it exists for die sake of being, since it is essentially 'guardianship' of being (LXV, 302). It is now man, radier than Da-sein, that should not be viewed as an instance of a genus (LXV, 61); we ask 'who' we are or who man is (LXV, 438ff.), not who Da-sein is. Da-sein has become too impersonal to allow such questions (but cf. LXV, 303). Heidegger assigns die two senses of Dasein, the traditional and his own, respectively to the 'first' and die 'odier' beginning (LXV, 295ff.).

The later divergence from BT should not be exaggerated. In BT Dasein transcends to world: 'But if it is die world, in surmounting to which selfhood first ripens, then die world proves to be diat for the sake of which Dasein exists' (ER, 84). Dasein may stand in the centre of tilings, but it is itself 'ecstatic, i.e. eccentric' (ER 98 n.59; XXVII, 11). BT is no more anthropocentric than Heidegger's later work."

(Inwood, Michael. A Heidegger Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. pp. 42-4)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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"BEING-THERE (Dasein). In Being and Time, being-there is the formal indication of the entity that is ontologically distinguished from all other entities by the fact that, in its very existence, the challenge and meaning of existing is an issue for it. Being-there is a way of being of human beings, which harbors the possibility of raising the question of being. Being-there is determined in its existence as care and as the structure of being-in-the-world. From Contributions to Philosophy onward, Heidegger understands being-there as the 'there' (Da) or place for the unconcealment of being."

(Schalow, Frank, and Alfred Denker. Historical Dictionary of Heidegger's Philosophy. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010. p. 71)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Burning ghost
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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In Being and Time, being-there is the formal indication of the entity that is ontologically distinguished from all other entities by the fact that, in its very existence, the challenge and meaning of existing is an issue for it.
That was the gist I pulled out of it. The question is why not just say this if that is what he meant? Why not make the term more clear to the reader?

When I get back home I'll go over the distinction he makes between the "ontic" and "ontological."
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by Fooloso4 »

BG:
The question is why not just say this if that is what he meant? Why not make the term more clear to the reader?
Some think it is the task of the philosopher to make himself understandable to the casual reader. Others think that it is the task of the reader to understand the philosopher. It is a question of whether we demand of them that they come down to our level or if we demand of ourselves that we struggle to raise ourselves up closer to theirs.

An eminent scholar of Plato, Jacob Klein, once said of Heidegger:
When I heard him lecture, I was struck by one thing: that he was the first man who made me understand something written by another man, namely, Aristotle.
I think this is notable for two reasons: first, it runs contrary to the image of Heidegger as an obfuscator, and second,it speaks volumes about our lack of understanding of what may appear to be clear to the reader. We do not understand because we have not discovered what it is we stand on. We may assume that by standing on the shoulders of giants we can see further, but we thus stand further away and removed from, our roots and foundations. Some see this as a matter of progress, but it is nothing more than parochialism to either disregard the past or attempt to understand it in terms of the present.

It is not a matter of establishing an easily graspable concept of Dasein but rather of thinking immersed within our historical situatedness, of thinking within time, with regard to past, present, and future. One word engenders a thousand pictures.

Heidegger is often associated with “postmodernism” but a list of some of his most prominent students points to a depth this association belies. The list includes Hans Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas, Jacob Klein, Karl Löwith and Leo Strauss, none of whom are “postmodern”.
If you read Heidegger you'll come to realise that your most outrageous and badly articulated thoughts were nothing compared to this guy! haha!
With all due respect, do not blame him for your failure to understand; a failure that is at least in part the result of not recognizing the respect he is due.
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by JamesOfSeattle »

To follow in Fooloso4’s direction, I have to admit I never had much interest in Heidegger just because of the difficulty of the language, and as far as I could tell the content wasn’t useful in my understanding of anything. Not being a professional philosopher I can get away with that.

Having said that, in lieu of actually reading the man I have been going through the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Heidegger and making discoveries. Once I accepted an understanding of Dasein with respect to my model of consciousness (mentioned previously in this thread), some of his concepts, like presentness-to-hand, fit right in, but more importantly, some, like readiness-to-hand, actually extend my model in interesting ways. I’m actually looking forward to see what else he can tell me about my model.

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Burning ghost
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

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Fool -
With all due respect, do not blame him for your failure to understand; a failure that is at least in part the result of not recognizing the respect he is due.
Did I? I am simply asking for someone to point out the instances where he defines "dasein" (without any contradiction.)

With all due respect SHOW me where he defines "dasein". Reference pages. The point is it is vague. I understand his work as hermeneutical phenomenology, nothing more.

He uses words to cover up the failings of verbal articulation to phenomenal experience. He doesn't get rid of the problem, merely holds it up as one of language only.
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Re: Heidegger and "Da-sein"

Post by Fooloso4 »

BG:
With all due respect SHOW me where he defines "dasein". Reference pages.
The text is an explication of Dasein. Who Dasein is is not something that can be laid bare in a definition. If I were to ask: “Who is Burning ghost?” you might respond by providing a biography, but how would you respond if I complained that nowhere in that biography do you define “Burning ghost”? Is who you are something that can be shown by defined?
He uses words to cover up the failings of verbal articulation to phenomenal experience. He doesn't get rid of the problem, merely holds it up as one of language only.
The question of being is not limited to phenomenal experience. Phenomenal experience requires a being who experiences. He does not hold it up as a problem of language only. It seems to me that with your demand for a definition it is you who misunderstands the problem of being as one of language only.
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