(mass)think!

[Rembrandt's Lucretia]

[Follows "Dasein, Not (T)Ego"]

[Based on Martin Heidegger’s “On the Essence of Grounds,” “On the Essence of Truth,” and, most importantly, Being and Time, as interpreted by Greg Schufreider]

What you’re like, in so far as your being is disclosed/dis-covered/unconcealed, which consists in you being-in-the-world, insisting in the midst of beings, yet with a pre-ontological notion of being (this difference (between beings and their being) is what is termed the ontological difference), such that you are (ek-sistently) free to transcend (existent) beings to let them disclose/unconceal/present themselves as the beings that they are. Dasein, in other words, is the being—unlike other beings—(this difference among different beings, including the difference of Dasein from other beings, is the ontic difference) that knows (or better: intuits) being (the ontologically different), such that it can then switch back and forth between different modes of being in its dealings with particular (ontic) beings (that are no longer intended, as in Husserl, but unconcealed).

But this is not the only difference between Dasein and other beings. Once again, in its integration with beings (the table, the pen, the paper) other than itself, Dasein confuses its temporality with the temporality of those other beings (hence Husserl’s present, which is pregnant, but still present, i.e. when perceiving, the present (the right side of the table) contains the past (the front) and anticipates the future (the back) to then form a coherent picture of the table, as organized in the present). While this orientation in time may be true for Dasein and the other beings (it is involved in that particular instance) in in the mode of objectivity (its time orientation then coincides with the time orientation of other beings), it is not always the case. In the mode of instrumentality, for example, when you are using the table (say, you’re writing something), things (your activity, your relationship with the table, your position in relation to it) are not centered in the present, but are organized by the future (namely, your purpose, what product it is you anticipate to produce). You don’t think of one-sided perspectives of the table, or how it looks like; in fact, you hardly notice the table. It’s there, you are related to it, only in so far as you are trying to accomplish your purpose, i.e. for the fulfillment of what it is you anticipate in the future (the paper). Your awareness of the being of the table, in other words, is organized by the future rather than the present. (An even more illuminating example would be a piece of wood, which, when you’re trying to produce a table out of it, you don’t look at in terms of one-sided perspectives, but its usefulness for the table you plan to construct.) Thus, in contrast with Husserl’s fixation on objectivity that centers on the present, Heidegger points out that it depends on the being of beings on what aspect of time temporality centers. In other words, the being of beings is prior to a particular mode of being.

The centering of temporality on the future is even truer for Dasein, der Mensch, the human being. Dasein is not only being-in-the-world; Dasein is already being-ahead-of-itself. Thus, Dasein is (ontically) different (from other beings) not only spatially, but also temporally. Dasein is always already looking towards, projecting into the future. As Dasein freely separates itself from other beings as it figures out its relationship with them, it is revealed that der Mensch is not only unique in its understanding of being, but that it is oriented towards the future, where it then encounters the limit of that future: its own being-towards-death. This then causes Dasein anxiety, which has no object, for it is over nothing: death. Dasein recognizes, moreover, that this is not just any death or death in general, but this-death-that-makes-me-feel-anxiety, i.e. its own death, as something unique to him/her (and him/her alone), i.e. individual.

Without this experience, der Mensch remains (like instruments, e.g. the table) inauthentic. It is only in relation to death that Dasein can come back to the present as an authentic being. Dasein comes back then—to the present, the current situation, in the midst of other beings—but different: now with a sense of its ownness, a sense of its individuality. Dasein comes back as the opening of being (a hole rather than a substantial subject), in the clearing, in the midst of other beings, the place where things happen, and can affirm the truth of that being, the world, in so far as it can retain its ownness with a certain urgency that then calls it to act in the world. What acts then Dasein repeats, what makes truth consistent for Dasein, is the resoluteness to see that his/her decisions confirm the continuity of his/her selfhood—and the possibility to take back / withdraw / change the notion of truth—the particular mode of being that he sees in beings, for example—if what s/he’s resolved (the particular mode of being s/he is letting other beings unconceal) does not work.

In other words, what makes Dasein see truth is the commitment to a certain resolution to see beings in a particular mode of being and the ability to withdraw from that mode if that resolution does not confirm his sense of selfhood (the concrete determination that happens to Dasein when it resolves to maintain its ownness). This is determined, first and foremost, by performing concrete actions, i.e. through acts. All this depending upon the structure of time, which, for Dasein, comes from the future, death, that gives it a sense of uniqueness, its sense of itself. Dasein, then, is a concrete spatial being-in-the-world, where the world serves as the place for possible actions paving way, in disclosing possible choices, for possible authenticity, as revealed by a certain structure of time in Dasein being-towards-death.