According to “Iambiguous” (correct me if I’m wrong here), there are objective facts and subjective judgements and nothing inbetween. Communal values then, would be merely consensus with respect to individual values. There are no “emergent” communal values, or if so, Iambiguous takes an eliminativist position: communal values are reducible to personal values, but no further. Authentic personal values are pure and inviolable, while “communal values” are messy conglomerations of personal values at odds (or not) with each other.
My question is this - isn’t this version of ethics rooted in the notion that the individual is some kind of isolated, homogenous entity with no real connection to others? - that there can be authentic individuality, but not authentic community since a community is not a real entity (merely a collection of real entities), while an individual really is a real entity? But individuals are not isolated, and are not homogenous.
Assuming that this author does Heidegger justice, isn’t Heidegger then asserting that there is an aspect of the individual which is not part of the world, and that this aspect is “authentic”? Isn’t he then asserting a very Christian notion - that of the soul, which is real or authentic, while that which is not the soul is unreal or inauthentic?
From “Husserl, Heidegger, and the crisis of philosophical responsibility”, by R. Philip Buckley:
Iambiguous, if this is way off the mark, totally irrelevent to your own ideas, or shows a complete lack of understanding of Heidegger, please let me know. I find Heidegger to be pretty opaque, so I’m over my head here - and I know nothing about the authors I’ve quoted. My assertion, whether or not it’s correct, is that Heidegger’s (and your) ideas regarding individuals and communities, subjectivity and objectivity, are impoverished because they are, at root, mistaken. Given such a philosophy, it is natural to conclude that there is no “we” except from the top down. All other versions of “we” are seen as hopelessly shadowy and entangled. But if there is no “we”, there is likewise no “I”. There is no “ownmost self”, and this “uncanniness” is nothing other than a sense of alienation, ennobled.
Being a vague, unthinking part of some sort of ‘we’ starting with being one with your mother seems to me to be absolutely prior to being an ‘I’.
Further more becoming an ‘I’ is a continous, emergent, process that goes on your whole life - some don’t make it, some make it part ways etc.
I’ve just never understood how this politicaly/socially constructed ‘in duh vidual’ ‘subject’ of late capitalism could bear any realtion to real social existence - whether from Christianity, Descartes, Chomsky or right wing appologists for how the self serving ‘units’ behave in a ‘free market’ it seems an utter misrepresentation of what it is to experience humanly.
So my tuppance is quite right we experience ourselves firstly and primarily as a part of a something - a ‘self’ then gradually emerges as ‘a story a tell myself about myself’ (Douglas Hofstadter from ‘i am a starnge loop’- very roughly ) always mediated within a social context.
Thanks though possibly Freud should get the credit there really - but yes it seems to me that the ‘I’ is something that builds not something we’re born with.
Very interesting indeed … I can’t speak for iambiguous, especially as I think we read Heidegger rather differently, but here’s my attempt to defend Dasein as a concept:
Actually, it doesn’t. The question doesn’t really apply to this kind of ontology, and that I presume would explain how Heidegger scholars tend to not address it explicitly. While terms like “I”, “we”, “subject”, etc, are metaphysical, the question of what they mean or how they relate to Dasein it is also secondary. It always already presupposes existence, which (alongside the question of the meaning of being) is the primary concern of fundamental ontology. But that is not to say it doesn’t have to be answered. Let’s see:
Firstly, there is no “subject” at all in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. In fact, it is a reaction against subject/object-oriented metaphysics (or traditional ontology) in general. Instead, Dasein denotes the being of such beings as ourselves, which is not that of entities but rather one of relating to entities, whereas the term “subject” tends to cloud that aspect on pain of reifying beings such as ourselves. Secondly, since Dasein is existence as such (or the standing-out of a being always otherwise than the world in which it is always already immersed), it has no “I” and there is no “we” except for the possibility of being-together (or Mit(da)sein). [But this is problematic. Strictly speaking it has nothing to do with fundamental ontology, it’s a mistake on Heidegger’s part to include it at all, but we’ll get back to that later.] “I” and “we” are metaphysical accidents, so to speak: they pertain to existence only given that existence already is. The “ownmost self”, thus, does not mean “that which is mosly me” – much like anon says, if there is no “I” there can’t be any “mostly me” – but existence qua the possibility of existence or qua existentiality. Much like krossie says, the self as “I” emerges through the experience of being-in-the-world, and especially the social experience of forgetfulness by falling into das Man. When the disentangled Dasein realises this, or rather: when Dasein experiences its own uncanniness (in that it is always otherwise than, say, things, and that it is always Other in relation to other beings like it), it is also faced with the possibility of its own death. As the negation of existentiality, death is the “possible impossibility” of Dasein as such.
So, in a way Dasein is alienation ennobled given, of course, that it realises and moreover accepts that it is always a mortal stranger in a strange world. This nobility, as it were, presupposes authenticity. However, “authenticity” (or in the original German, eigentlichkeit) means making this strangeness one’s own or to recognise it as a consequence of existentiality: as I am Dasein, I am also a stranger, and this I have to accept fully. Otherwise I am deluded or still with das Man. (This is where existentialism takes off – and, ironically, this is also where existentialism breaks with Heidegger: existentialists, notably Sartre, distorts Dasein into a subject or something that is for-itself.) In another way, given the possibility of being-with which rings like an existential (i.e, an always already realised ontological possibility exclusive to existence), Dasein is always part of a more or less homogenous society. But, and here’s one of Heidegger’s mistakes, being-with cannot be an existential because i) it is not an always already realised possibility, and ii) death individuates Dasein and makes it the perpetual Other. Instead, being-with is at most an ontic or metaphysical possibility: a group of persons can be a “we”, much like someone telling oneself a story about oneself begets the self or the “I”, but they do not share their existentiality as such. It is the world of meaningful relations as such that they share. Thus is does not belong the way “talk”/“banter” (ways of sharing the world) or “curiosity”/“understanding” (ways of exploring the world) does. These existentials are always already realised, as they underlie actual ontic possibilities.
The thing is, even as fundamentally alien, Dasein is a social being always part of something else: the core of Dasein’s being-in-the-world is that it consists of meaningful relations to things and other beings like it. The structure of these relations is the structure of existentiality.
In conclusion: terms like “subject”, “I”, “self” and “we” actually follow from fundamental ontology, as their meaning and being (which on this account is pretty much the same) can be explained by it.
Now, Heidegger’s 1933 rectoral address is another mistake of his. His politics are not separate from his philosophy (and neither is Nazism as such motivated by it), it is just that he drew premature conclusions that only superficially follows from the account of Being and Time. Basically, he thought he could save science by providing a stable ontology on the basis of which it wouldn’t suffer crises – a mistake which, combined with a rather megalomanic personality complete with authoritarian tendencies, proved devastating. Now, the philosophical problem is that the very project of fundamental ontology is not stable, as it is always in a crisis of its own – that of always, and by necessity, having to revolve around the same question(s) over and over again. (NB, that does not invalidate it. The point is for it to revolve around the question of being: it strives not toward an explanation of the meaning of being, but toward an interpretation of it. And, as the method of the project is explicitly phenomenological-hermeneutical, its subject matter has to be ever re-interpreted.)
(For those interested in the reasons for Heidegger’s membership in NSDAP, I recommend Iain Thompsons essay “Heidegger and National Socialism” which is included in the anthology A Companion to Heidegger, edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark Wrathall. Great stuff.)
EDIT: Added a few remarks on certain existentials.
EDIT II: Some polishing. Still not happy with certain sencences, but this will have to do.
I’m pretty sure iam’s dasein isn’t Heidegger’s, by his own statements. And Skymning has (against all odds) given Heidegger’s views quite the degree of comparative clarity, so my profound congratulations there
I agree with you, anon. The alienation of the Rational Thinker as an ahistorical island locked inside a particular head is a pathology prevalent particularly (although certainly not exclusively) in Western philosophy. I don’t think it helps much that a lot of great thinkers were solitary types with social difficulties… I can only think of David Hume, Bertrand Russell and Freddie Ayers who could be described as party people
Of course, one of philosophy’s primary jobs is overturning foundational preconceptions and prejudices, and so it is wise for philosophers to separate themselves emotionally from community commitments. But if philosophy is to be grounded in life, it needs to relate to those commitments, and to see them for what they are and what they provide us. Such as the language with which to form philosophies in the first place, and the values that our moral theories try to explain.
I think Heidegger and Wittgenstein (and later, the Ordinary Language school and the rise of virtue ethics) can in significant part be seen as reactions against this self-other schism, although neither H or W went full-on into any sort of communalism (although having seen this quote regarding the former’s address, I could well be mistaken there), and what I’ve managed to glean from H is still a fairly solitary philosophy. I’ll leave comment to those who are more into his approach to handle, though.
Sounds very interesting. I read another essay of his once, “The being-with of being-there”, in which he gives an insightful critique of Mit(da)sein. If I remember correctly, it amounts to what I said above: it just doesn’t belong, or it’s wishful thinking. But his reasoning is much more interesting than mine. (I’ll find a link for it shortly.)
Monooq brought this to my attention. I’m sorry I missed its original appearance.
In between objective facts and subjective value judgments are the intersubjective points of view embedded in historical and cultural communities that may contain any number of objective facts.
For example, over time and across space [place] there have been communities that viewed the morality of abortion in conflicting and contradictory ways. Even within any given community there may be a diversity of opinion.
But there are plenty of objective facts here. Someone either has an abortion at a particular time and in a particular place or she does not. Someone either performs this particular abortion or she does not. This particular pregnancy resulted from a particular set of circumstances—not practicing safe sex, a faulty contraceptive device, a rape. The particular abortion is legal or it is not.
Still, the interaction between individual and communal values here will always be complex and ever evolving. After all, where exactly is the precise dividing line between “I” and “we” pertaining to any particular circumstantial context? That is like trying to assess a precise dichotomy between nature and nurture in understanding any particular behavior.
The individual comes into the world predisposed by a particular biological genealogy and is then always situated out in a particular world rooted in particular historical and cultural variables. And then engages in particular interpersonal interactions with a particular family embedded in a particular ethnological and anthropolocal demography. As a consequence, no two daseins are ever alike.
Here, contingency, chance and change prevail.
Again [from another thread of mine], this reflects my own understanding of “dasein”:
[i][b]a man amidst mankind…
That is the paradox, right? I am an individual…a man; yet, in turn, I am but one of 6,500,000,000 additional men and women that constitutes what is commonly called “mankind”. So, in what sense can I, as an individual, grasp my identity as separate and distinct from mankind? How do I make intelligent distinctions between my personal, psychological “self” [the me “I” know intimately from day to day], my persona [the me “I” project – often as a chameleon – in conflicting interactions with others], and my historical and ethnological self as a white male who happened adventiously to be born and raised to view reality from the perpective of a 20th century United States citizen?
How does all of this coalesce into who I think I am? And how does this description contrast with how others grasp who they think I am? Is there a way to derive an objective rendering of my true self? Can I know objectively who I am?
No, I don’t think so.
Identity is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables—some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are “thrown” into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of “reality” suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.
On the other hand:
In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.
But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my “self” is, what can “I” do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknolwedging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we “anchor” our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.
Is it any wonder that so many invent foundationalist anchors like Gods and Reason and Truth? Scriptures from one vantage point or another. Anything to keep from acknowledging just how contingent, precarious, uncertain and ultimately meaningless our lives really are.
Or, of course, is that just my foundation?[/i][/b]
And:
[i][b]More on the problematic nature of human identity:
Bob and Barry are brothers. As a young child, Bob is in a plane with Mom and Dad and the plane crashes near a remote Montagnard village in Vietnam. Mom and Dad die but Bob survives and is raised by the Montagnards to be one of them. Meanwhile 25 years later Barry has managed to finally tract his brother Bob down. He learns the Montagnard langauge and arranges to meet him. Barry was raised by his Aunt Jean and Uncle John who are Wall Street investment bankers. He is about to follow in their footsteps.
Can you imagine their conversation as they exchange “realities”? Which set of value judgments is closest to “the truth”? Which is the more “authentic” or “progressive” or “rational” or “moral” self?
What prompts this speculation is the film The Emerald Forest. I just watched the DVD again this evening.
Something like the above actually happened to a boy who was kidnapped by an indigenous tribe in the Amazon Rainforest. It was dramatized in the film. The father tries to track the boy down over and again; finally he finds him as a young man and is ready to take him home. But in the end he lets the boy stay. He realizes this is the only world the boy has known. It is a world the boy loves with a family and a community he loves in turn. It is made clear that his “primitive” identity is really no better or no worse than the “modern” one he would acquire back in New York City.
Isn’t “I” just a particular existential contraption we all construct in different ways in different historical and cultural contexts?
And what has always intrigued me is this: what can philosophy tell us about “I”? Is there a way in which to understand human identity “optimally”?[/i][/b]
In this context, however Heidegger might have approached the “authenticity” of Dasein – or the equivalent of the Christian “soul” – I embrace none of that. Dasein is largely an existential “contraption” to me.
Actually, what matters to me here is none of this. Instead, I’m curious only as to how these points seem relevant or irrelevant to you existentially. In other words, does it make sense given how you have come to understand your own interaction with others “out in the world”?
iambiguous: I’m sorry, but your use of “dasein” really has nothing at all to do with Heidegger. Therefore I would suggest you come up with another term in order to avoid confusion. For one thing, the term Dasein is intended to capture precisely what is common to all beings of that category. It is after all shorthand for the being of those beings. Neither is Dasein a label that can be used metaphysically and in lieu of, say, subject/ego/I/consciousness/person.
If you want to stress the differences between, for a lack of better word, persons, you must also concede that these are accidental. anon is right on the money. So the question is what supports them, i.e. what is common, as opposed to what differentiates them.
(As it happens, I’m currently reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics, wherein he on several occasions argues convincingly against the possibility of a science (read: “systematic research”) of accidentals. If you want exact references just tell me and I’ll look them up.)
“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.”
I fail to see how this contradicts Iam’s take on Dasien.
From what I have got from him, he has always recognized a kind of spectrum between what can be said to be not true and what seems to be true. But what he has always seemed to recognize, like me, is that no matter how true a thing might seem to be, the foundation under it is never as solid as we would like to think it is, that, ultimately, it rests on the nothingness out of which it projected.
That is not what I mean at all. Obviously, folks who are born and raised in the same historical, cultural and experiential contexts will have considerable overlap in their lives. But they will never overlap exactly. There are simply too many existential variables [within a family, within a community, within a circle of interpersonal relationships etc.] that can precipitate many, many, many possible permutations. You might read a book or have a unique personal expereince or meet someone no one else you know meets etc. There are endless ways in which our lives can take off in all sorts of conflicting directions.
Did you even read my points above? I don’t see how someone can and then come to conclude that I actually believe “nobody has anything in common”.
Da-sein literally means “being there”. And, perforce, being there in time. As opposed to, say, being somewhere else at some other time? And that is crucial because depending on where we are “thrown” by fate at birth – and when historically – can have an enormous impact regarding what we are indoctrinated as children to believe “reality” is.
Also, others used dasein before Heidegger did. In particular, Ludwig Feuerbach, who construed it as “presense”. But, again, presense when and where?
Besides, I don’t capitalize it.
In any event, the idea that any particular human being has a Being in common with all others is preposterous to me. Dasein is an endless becoming instead. It is deeply rooted in particular worlds rooted deeply in turn in contingency, chance and change.
Not only do I concede fortuity, I stress it. We come into this world and for years are brainwashed by others to view “I” in a particular [and profoundly prejudiced] manner. But this is entirely depended on sheer chance. We have no say whatsover regarding when and where we come into the world. That this is so is utterly crucial regarding how we come to internalize a particular reality.
What I then note is this:
…one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.
And from that [in my view] follows this:
…what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my “self” is, what can “I” do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknolwedging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we “anchor” our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.
So, what do you think is applicable here regarding your own sense of reality?
Yes, I am well aware. It is colloquial German for existence or, indeed, presence. Feuerbach (or Kant, for that matter) does not use it as a technical term – it retains its colloquial meaning. But Heidegger does use it technically, and that makes all the difference – especially since it is immediately connected with his project, not with Feuerbach’s or anyone elses, in non-German philosophy. (Point of inquiry: Why do you not capitalise the term? I’m afraid it only looks like a misspelling to me.)
Anyway, the main difference is that where Heidegger stresses the structure of existence, or Da(-)seins constitution/structure of existentials (from Ger. Existenzial), you stress existential (from Ger. existenziell) factors. And that is a big difference. In Sein und Zeit/Being and Time (1927) Heidegger makes it abundandly clear that his philosophy of the structure of existence is not, nor can it ever be, Existenzphilosophie comparable to, say, Kierkegaard’s. But nearly twenty years later, with his Being and Nothingness, Sartre apparently missed that point. From there on, SZ has been seen as the bible of existentialism – ironically enough. Existentialism has more in common with metaphysics than with ontology.
Therefore I think something similar to Sartre’s terminology would be a better fit for what you are after, as for instance “subject” (or being-for-itself) unproblematically lends itself to the kind of analyses you do. Don’t get me wrong here, I think you may well be onto something. Still, using metaphysical/existentialist terminology by necessity means departing with Heidegger and Dasein, hyphenated or not.
Have you read Being and Nothingness, by the way? I think you would find it very rewarding.
