What is Dasein?

What does it mean “to exist”…

Or, rather, how on earth can this be wholly/fully grasped until an ontological understanding of Existence itself is within reach? And only then can we grapple with discovering the extent to which there is [or is not] a teleological component to Existence. Which most folks call God.

The bottom line here is that [to the best of my own knowledge] we are not privy to the extent to which the human brain/mind is even capable of answering such questions as, “why does something exist rather than nothing at all?” or, “why does this something exist rather than another something?”

Cue, among other things, Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”.

Then there are the quandaries embedded in solipsism, cartesan demons and sim worlds.

Or the enigmatic nature of human choice in a wholly determined universe.

What’s crucial for me though regarding Dasein/dasein is that whatever it means for any particular “I” to exist, it exists here and not there, now and not then.

And, going back to the biological birth of any particular “I”, what does it mean to have been born “here and now” rather than “there and then”? How are historical, cultural and experiential memes relevant in understanding that particular value judgments “I” comes to embody on a particular [and profoundly unique] existential sojourn from the cradle to the grave?

What can be communicated to others regarding “I” that reflects an objective description of what is in fact true? True for all of us. And what is instead rooted subjectively/subjunctively in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

And, most important of all, how are the technical arguments derived here by “serious philosophers” intertwined in actual human interactions that do come into conflict over value judgments?

Just came in to read a few posts.
I was away doing some serious readings and research on Heidegger’s Being and Time.
I have just finished reading one round of the complete book with a fine-tooth comb but that is just a preliminary rough understanding of the book. Looks like I need to read the book more than 5 times or more together with references to various secondary sources and the writings of the later-Heidegger.

Since you are using the term ‘Dasein’ or ‘dasein’ you need to understand Heidegger’s Being and Time [BT] fully and thoroughly otherwise you are very intellectually dishonest on this issue.

If you have understood Heidegger’s BT you would not have presented your philosophy in terms of Dasein in such a bastardized manner, sick and perverted way you do.

Within the framework of BT, you are living the inauthentic existence of the ontic world which in your case is so messy that it is concealing the true essence of dasein and preventing it from termporalizing temporality ontologically to realize existence’s true potentials and possibilities of positiveness.

I am not going to waste time discussing with you on this. You have to read Heidegger’s Being and Time and understand it fully and thoroughly especially on those very nuanced elements related to ‘death’.

Thanks and noted your points and link.

Since the OP I have now ventured to read Heidegger’s Being and Time [BT] [Joan Stambaugh’s translation converted to a Word file]* more seriously with a fine-tooth comb. I have just finished reading the whole book one round [highlighting and compiling notes] and I believe I have to read it a few more times, >5 times? or more? and hopefully not the 50 times I read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to grasp the philosophy of the book reasonably.

  • also have the Macquarie and Johnson in PDF format.

To understand BT fully is really tough going due to the voluminous quantity of new concepts, perspectives and ideas introduced and their ‘gymnastic’ combinations.

Okay, after you have accomplished this task please come back and note for us the extent to which your new understanding of both Heidegger and Dasein has impacted the life that you actually live.

In particular relating to two things:

1] the manner in which your new understanding impacted any particular behaviors you had involving conflicting value judgments as this relates to what you construe “here and now” to be “progressive” behaviors.

2] the manner in which you imagine Heidegger himself might react to the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

All I ask here is that you bring your assessment down to earth. As it pertains to a context that most are likely to be familiar with. As this relates to 1] identity 2] conflicting goods and 3] the role of power [politics] in human interaction.

Power embodied in “might makes right” agendas, “right makes might” agendas and/or “moderation, negotiation and compromise” agendas.

Also, how has your reading to date had any practical consequences regarding the manner in which you choose to live your life? Any possibility [in the interim] that you might be willing to focus the beam on actual existential conflicts that you have had, or have come upon “in the news”?

Admittedly, I’m not an authority on the German language but to the best of my knowledge Martin didn’t invent the word “dasein”. He merely insisted on capitalizing it in order to ascribe an “ontic/ontological” meaning “technically” [to a being in time] as a “serious philosopher” in a “philosophical tome”. That infamous didactic/scholastic distinction between the en-soi and the pour-soi. Going all the way back to Plato’s noumenal/phenomenal contraptions.

Also, as I noted above, my interest here revolves around the willingness of those who do claim to “fully and thoroughly” understand what he meant by it, to bring that meaning “out into the world” of actual conflicting human behaviors.

As with Karpel Tunnel on another thread…
[b]
This is bordering on “huffing and puffing”. Making me the issue. You level these charges against me but my chief concern is still the same: bringing your own “epistemology” down to earth and testing it “out in the world” of actual conflicting behaviors.

Instead, you are slipping more and more into a subjunctive reaction that exposes much more about you than about me. Why the sudden outburst of chagrin? Why do you feel it necessary to reconfigure the discussion into an attack on me?[/b]

Why don’t we take this to another thread. Maybe in the “rant” forum? :wink:

As for this…

…I’ll leave it to others to decide for themselves the extent to which my arguments here may or may not be deconstructing the Intellectual Contraption that you yourself have constructed “in your head” over the years.

Though, like me, in your own No God world, you still have oblivion to look forward to.

So what’s the point then, to make sure that even after your own particular “I” is on its way back to “star stuff”, you will have created your own collection of Capital Letter Words that will be around long after you – the flesh and blood you – has been obliterated.

Most folks deal with this through God and religion. They “live on” “soulfully” in one or another rendition of the afterlife. But you and I don’t have access to that. So I suspect that psychologically this quest to truly grasp the meaning of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time [on this side of the grave] revolves around…around what exactly?

In German, all nouns are capitalized. So MH wasn’t “insisting” on anything by capitalizing “Dasein”.

Okay, though I suspect that were this not the rule, he would have capitalized it anyway. :wink:

After reading BT one full round, noted there’s lots of good things therein but I don’t agree with everything Heidegger proposed.
Generally what is in BT has no great impact on me since I am already very familiar and practicing what good things/views are in BT. The difference with BT and other positive views I have gathered is merely presentation of the same thing [in principle] from different and novel perspectives.

I suggest you read BT and understand it thoroughly [not necessary to agree]. One thing you will gather is your views below are entangled, ensnared and are a mess which is contributing to your mental suffering.

I have already addressed the above issues in previous and I am not going to waste time on it again.

Your recipe in being very defensive is so simple, i.e.
Whatever ‘you’ [or others] proposed = useless intellectual contraption.

That is purely a discussion killer.

Whatever I had proposed earlier in response to your question and dilemma is in line with whatever progressive steps are proposed in Being and Time which is;
basically one has to dig very deep beyond the ontically average everydayness [Being-in-the-World] into the ontological structures [from ‘care’ to ‘temporality’], i.e. root cause analysis, and resolve the issues at the root level.

In line with his total view of ‘existence’ Heidegger wanted to emphasize his views are different from the typical understanding of ‘Dasein’.

Okay, let’s explore these “good things/views” from BT that you are practicing here and now out in the world of conflicted human behaviors. Don’t you ever have any? Aren’t you aware of the hundreds and hundreds issues that bring men and women into conflict from day to day to day? Just follow the news for a week or so. They are everywhere.

Now, my own take on these moral/political conflicts revolves to a significant degree around my understanding of dasein above.

How then would someone like Heidegger react to my argument?

You either can/will intergrate Hediegger’s take on Dasein into these existential interactions or you won’t.

Note to others:

I challenge you to link me to but one substantive example from him on this thread.

At best he comes back to "chattel slavery"and “proves” it is inherently outside of the parameters of “progressive” behaviors by quoting history. Then I quote my own rendition of history here. Then what? How has he demonstrated that all rational men and women are obligated [philosophically] to think and to feel about chattel slavery as he does?

How is this issue not in turn rooted existentially in history and culture…in narratives revolving around the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein and conflicting goods and political economy?

No, here I make that crucial distinction between a discussion that revolves around something that can in fact be demonstrated to be true for all of us – Trump wants to build a wall on the border with Mexico – and our moral reaction to this fact that precipitates all manner of conflicting political agendas.

Is constructing this wall a progressive behavior or not? You tell me.

Instead, we get this:

Not to get to technical but, “are you fucking kidding me?!” #-o

But, okay, let’s tackle that then. What might be the “root level” understanding that all rational men and women are obligated to share in order finally resolve those conflicted political agendas with respect to Trump’s immigration policy and the wall?

Removed

Appreciate if you will shut out the vulgarity to avoid unnecessary tit-for-tats.

You talk much about Dasein which is generally and essentially referred to Heidegger’s but you do not seem to understand Dasein thoroughly as in BT, that is the reason for the very superficial ‘fire-fighting’ questions you raised above.

To get to the ‘good’ things in BT is not easy where one need to grasp the whole complex system.
To give you an idea, I suggest you get familiar with Anticipatory Resoluteness,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/#AntRes
This is digging very deep below the ‘everydayness’ you are entangled in [being-in-the-world] and spouting about above.

Your problem is you understand very little of existentialism [Heidegger’s and others] to the extreme that you [like many others] are swayed/seduced by the incomplete part which happened to very negative and pessimistic, thus digging that very big and deep whole for yourself. It is very pitiful.

It is much better to do as Prism does: insult the other person without vulgarities. This miraculously does not lead to tit for tats. It leads to elegant ad homs and insults. For example paragraphs filled with implicit and explicit condescension, as in the post above mine, is a nice way to skirt the rules, while getting smaller, but many more in total, moments of catharsis. That’s right, you can subtly display dominance behavior, enjoy that, but when you avoid vulgarities, the moderators can’t do much, you appear not to have lost your cool - which might damage your self-image as purely rational and not guided by emotions like, say, theists are - and it gives you yet another arena in which to indicate your superiority. You not only know Heidegger better, you not only are not guided, like other, by emotions, you are not only right about the topic, but you ALSO have the best approach to insulting others and satisfying the emotions you judge so much in others.

One more category of reproach and superiority.

It’s a win win approach.

Well, for the person using it.

Cake and eat it too. Dasein as denial.

One good analogy of the situation you are in and being lost is that of the lotus flower in a pool of dirty mud and sewage.

In BT and Dasein terms you are stuck in the mud and sewage without the understanding of the potentiality of being of the lotus flower that has the potential to rise above the dirty mud & sewage to bloom to its full potential

We’re just going around in circles. No, I don’t thoroughly understand what Heidegger meant to convey by Dasein.

As I have noted before with regard to Heidegger:

[b]I use the term dasein because I was struck by Heidegger’s conjecture regarding “thrownness”. We are each and everyone of us “thrown” adventitiously into a particular world at birth – historically, culturally, experientially. Being “here” and not “there”, being “now” and not “before” or “later”.

Thus: to what extent is that relevant or irrelevant relating to the manner in which we come to acquire a particular identity, a particular moral and political narrative?

What [using the tools of philosophy] can be determined as [essentially] true here for all of us objectively and what becomes considerably more intertwined [existentially] in a set of personal opinions/prejudices. [/b]

Unless and until you are willing to situate this intellectual contraption out in a particular world in which you construe behaviors in an actual context as either being or not being “progressive”, I’m really not interested.

Call this “the problem” if you will and move on to others.

You just can’t help it, can you? You dump these “general descriptions” on me and then refuse to note how [existentially] you are not in that hole yourself.

By, say, becoming a Nazi?

In this particular case, you should not use the term ‘Dasein’ and ‘thrownness’ without understanding the complete picture within BT.

In BT terms, ‘Dasein’ and ‘thrownness’ are very specific with its related intentions and should never be used by themselves individually but should be dealt within a system which include a way out of that ‘quagmire’ and dilemma.

Your problem is you used the terms and concepts of ‘Dasein’ and ‘thrownness’ in a half-cooked manner and is stuck with them in a deep shit hole.

I believe this is what those [existentialists] who are very pessimistic and depress are doing when they feast on and are attune to those depressive concepts that suit their existing psychological state but ignore the optimistic side where whatever is existentially problematic can be modulated [not get rid of]. Note the confirmation bias in this case.

This is like the evil prone believers who feast merely on the evil laden elements within religious texts and ignoring [blind] to those 'good-laden elements.

Note you are the one who asked for the good things within BT. This is why your problem lies, i.e. refusal to even understand the clue I have introduced.

Your expectations in going into specific situations in this particular case is not a wise philosophical move, i.e. you are expecting to be fed with fishes all the time by others instead of learning how to fish yourself.

I have always asserted ALL humans has the potential to be caught in an existential dilemma or crisis. This potential is expressed in various degrees within different people.
Note Buddha’s generic “Life IS Suffering” [applicable to ALL people] but the Buddha provided a way to modulate [not get rid] of this inherent problem within human life.

Existentially, all humans are faced with a fundamental and all sorts of problems of various degrees BUT there is no way I need to surrender in being stuck in a deep shit hole like the one you are in and whining about.

Note there is a big difference between ‘knowing and doing,’ and between ‘theory and practice.’ Surely you are well aware of this point. Why you did not take this into account in your above response?

It is SO common there are many super coaches who had developed trainees of the highest caliber but they themselves are not necessary the best performers. The coach who taught Usain Bolt how to run is not able to run at the speed Bolt was doing in setting his records.

There are many good books on self-development which has benefited many but that did not guarantee the authors were good in practicing in what they wrote about.

It is the same with Heidegger and his philosophy. So Heidegger came up with good philosophical theories but he could not practice them personally holistically.

On reading BT I note Heidegger provided a good system of philosophy [theoretical] from raising the question and the problem of existence, and theorizing the solutions to them but he did not go into the details of how to practice to get effective results.

Heidegger mentioned [among others] ‘resoluteness’ and even ‘equanimity’ [which I suggested to you earlier] but he did not provide methods to be practiced to develop these good qualities within the brain of the person.
This is in contrast to Buddha’s holistic set and system of theories and extensive practices to achieve the intended results.

So I am not surprised at all that Heidegger joined the Nazi Party given his mental and social circumstances during his time.

I believe the typical resorting to the ‘Nazi’ excuse to condemn Heidegger’s philosophy is not a wise philosophical move, rather it reflect philosophical immaturity especially in a philosophical discussion.

In the literal sense you Great Mind. We love that type of energy to combat logic with logic. [Understanding With Understanding.] You out of all these ‘Philosophers’ know better than most. Not everything can be explained to the simplest of notions. Yet, My take on Dasein…? Well, It is as Prismatic567 clearly explained. That which determines such significance towards actual attention. For Example (THE BIG BIRD.) Have it not be the little bird. Which was more out of the ordinary? More ‘ambiguous’? <— lol a little play on words/usernames. But to be honest it really is just exemplifying something to have more of a defining and clearly visible or understood; obviously lucid distinction. To be blunt about it. Yet, mind you this is only my take on ‘Dasein’. Have it be more scientific? It takes on an extremely important part of physics. You should read up on it. Iambigious was throwing links to you guys.

Yes, so you keep telling me. But until you and others eager to claim that they have come to undertand Heidegger’s points in BT, are willing to integrate this academic understanding into a context involving actual conflicting goods, out in a particular world, I’ll pass.

Do that or, by all means, go looking for others here more intent on being thought of as a “serious philosopher”.

Those I construe [rightly or wrongly] to be but one more god-awful rendition of Will Durant’s “epistemologists”.

This is just my own personal opinion – clearly an existential contraption – but you truly do strike me as just one objectivist/authoritarian autodidact. An abstractionist ever intent on keeeping the exchange up in the stratosphere of definitions and deductions.

A technical, analytic understanding of dasein/Dasein?

Okay, but then bring it down to earth.

Either show me how you are not yourself in a “quagmire” when your own values come into conflict with others or I’m moving on.

Consider for example this from your post on “Functional Morality” thread:

[b]Note 200 years ago no one would forecast the possibility of legal banning of ‘Chattel Slavery’ in all nations in the World. Whilst this is only pertaining to Laws [not practice], it is a definite ‘moral’ achievement and progress for humanity. Such an evolution is not by natural selection re normal evolution.

What is critical is how can we abstract a sound Framework and System of Morality and System
[with groundings and principles] from the reality of what is within the ongoing progress of morality.[/b]

Chattel slavery again. And [of course] the Capital Letter Words.

You are [to me] the very embodiment of an Intellectual Framework here at ILP.

Unless of course you’re right.

As I have always stated, we must addressed the theory first before we go into the practice. You seem to jump into practice without proper theoretical foundations. Maybe that was the thing to do thousands of years ago but that is not what is with the present. This is why we have Philosophy as the necessary base to optimize life and living.

Point is even when you try to incorporate theory, they are half-baked and bastardized ones.

When one read BT one can sense the arrogance and egoism of Heidegger in brushing off every other ‘Western’ philosophers engaging in the subject-object dichotomy and thus presenting ‘useless’ philosophy. Note Heidegger condemned only Western Philosophy since Plato to Hegel to Bergson but not Eastern Philosophy [which is admire]. Infact he was accused of plagiarizing his main theme from Eastern Philosophy. Note my main approach is from Eastern Philosophy.

Your problem is you have been brainwashed by Heidegger’s supporters, e.g. William Barrett, with the same sense of arrogance and egoism but unfortunately got stuck with his antimonies but not understanding the solutions given by Heidegger to get out of those antimonies.

With false arrogance you set out to condemn others as objectivists with useless intellectual contraptions. Note this is such a simple way out even a child can do that!

Note in modern times the most effective approach to solving whatever problems [personal or otherwise] always starts with theory and analysis then to implement practical solutions. You insist in the opposite and thus is stuck in a very deep hole.

Btw, I have already proposed with theories and supported by practical solutions but your default is whatever is presented by others are merely useless intellectual contraptions.

You seemingly have this drive of OCD i.e. ‘It is My WAY or No Way’ without any proper philosophical justification to support your urge.

Yours remind me of the various case of obese men and women who will eat themselves to death despite all the advice given by doctors, kins and friends, e.g.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3141122/A-pizza-man-key-Carers-brought-junk-food-1-000-month-benefits-65st-Karl-allowed-eat-death-taxpayer.html

Presumably these obese people [driven by Prada-Willi Syndrome] continue to do what their urges drive them to do and treat all advice and warnings by doctors and others as useless ‘intellectual contraption’ re dangers of obesity.
It is the same with religious fundamentalists who will treat whatever that do not fit their doctrine as ‘intellectual contraptions’ i.e. in this case, satanic.