Dasein - Original Meaning and Heidegger's Interpretation

Original Meaning and Heidegger's Interpretation

The word 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-here/here-being, though Heidegger was adamant that this was an inappropriate translation of Dasein. In German, Dasein is the vernacular term for existence, as in I am pleased with my existence (ich bin mit meinem Dasein zufrieden). According to Heidegger, however, it must not be mistaken for a subject, that is to say, something definable in terms of consciousness or a self. Heidegger was adamant about this distinction, which carried on Nietzsche's critique of the subject. Dasein, as a human being that is constituted by its temporality, illuminates and interprets the meaning of Being in Time. Heidegger chose this term as a synonym for "human entity" in order to emphasize the critical importance "Being" has for our understanding and interpretation of the world. Some scholars disagree with this interpretation, arguing that for Heidegger "Dasein" denoted a structured awareness or an institutional "way of life".

This entity which each of us is himself…we shall denote by the term “Dasein.” (BT 27)

that entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue…(BT 68)

In the question about the meaning of Being, what is primarily interrogated is those entities which have the character of Dasein. (BT 65)

…it is possible to individualize very precisely for any particular Dasein. (BT 63)

…Dasein is essentially an entity with Being-in, it can explicitly discover those entities which it encounters environmentally, it can know them…(BT 84)

As we can see from these quotations from Heidegger's Being and Time, the replacement of "Dasein" with "awareness" or "way of life" would render the ontological difference between entities and the being of entities incoherent. Establishing this difference is the general motif running through Being and Time.

Heidegger used the concept of Dasein to uncover the primal nature of "Being" (Sein). Like Nietzsche, Heidegger criticized the notion of substance, arguing that Dasein is always a being engaged in the world. The fundamental mode of Being is not that of a subject or of the objective but of the coherence of Being-in-the-world. This is the ontological basis of Heidegger's work. There can be no Cartesian "abstract agent" - the agent emerges out of his environment.

On Heidegger's account, traditional language, logical systems, and beliefs obscure Dasein's nature from itself. Beings are Dasein even when they are ontologically wrapped up in a tradition which obscures the authentic choice to live within and transmit this tradition. In this case Dasein still authentically chooses the tradition when it is confronted by a paradox within the tradition and must choose to dismiss the tradition or dismiss the experience of being confronted with choice.

Heidegger attempted to maintain the definition of Dasein as we all are, in our average everydayness. Dasein does not spring into existence upon philosophical exploration of itself. Heidegger intended Dasein as a concept, in order to provide a stepping stone in the questioning of what it means to be. When Dasein contemplates this, what seems (absurdly) circular in ontic terms, is recursive in ontological sense, because it brings the necessary appearance of time to the center of attention.

In Being and Time, Heidegger opens by positing that the potentialities of Dasein's Being extend 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 " What distinguishes Dasein from other existent entities is that " in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it." Dasein's very nature poses a philosophical (or ontological) problem for it. Thus, we see Heidegger, being Dasein, attempt to tackle this innate dilemma in his philosophical works.