So according to Heidegger, Dasein has to do with dwelling (verweilen), which includes the building of the dwelling-place, and suggests peace and cultivation in that place. But the whole argument that is put forth in those ten pages is a matter of semantics, since, as Heidegger noted, the original meaning of the words has been lost.
It would be interesting though, to ask ourselves whether we dwell because we are conscious beings, or is it natural for animals to dwell as well. It appears that many of them do, albeit they do not cultivate themselves or the ground around them. I have been in houses where animals would feel at home (and very often they can be found there) whereas a cultivated human being would find it unpleasant and contrary to cultivation. Does this mean that in spite of our consciousness, in many cases we choose not to cultivate? Does that suggest that Dasein is not one thing, but has variances?
Actually, dwelling is a translation of Wohnen.
Curious isn’t it, that English doesn’t have a real word for this. It would have to be “living” (“Ich wohne hier” is “I live here”, but “Das ist meine Wohnung” could be “that is my dwelling”.)
It is certainly not semantics, it is a rather thorough philological exercise offering an opportunity for a modern continuation of Presocratic philosophy.
Birds build nests, otters build dams, ants build hills, and many animals groom themselves and each other.
Humans are quite quick to overlook the work of animals, but without the cultivating work of bees alone we’d go extinct.
When a burglar comes you’d say
Mein Haus! Raus und geh, schleich dich!
One could also translate bauen wohnen denken (Jesus what a battle with autocorrect) as building living thinking btw -
rather acquire a little extra meaning than a lot less.
Point to note though is that Deggerdegger is not translatable.
Not even into language, really.
Only into grass, cows, huts, ploughs, clouds, rain, farmers markets and Japan.
But we can give a negative definition of Dasein as building, dwelling and thinking, and in German, no less. Nicht-Dasein
dwell (dictionary.com/browse/dwell?s=t)
[ dwel ]
verb (used without object), dwelt or dwelled, dwell·ing.
to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside.
to live or continue in a given condition or state: to dwell in happiness.
to linger over, emphasize, or ponder in thought, speech, or writing (often followed by on or upon): to dwell on a particular point in an argument.
(of a moving tool or machine part) to be motionless for a certain interval during operation.
There is a case for my translation of dwelling as “verweilen”, even though in the colloquial it will always be regarded as “wohnen”. Reside may also translate as “wohnen”, but if I write in German that I “verweile” somewhere, I suggest that it is a lingering, tarrying, or is temporary, “sich an einem bestimmten Ort für eine Weile aufhalten, für eine kürzere Zeit bleiben“ as against saying “ich wohne”, which is definitely “to live” somewhere.
I didn’t mean to reduce the text in any way, but don’t you get the feeling that philology can get caught up in semantics? I have a friend who is a philologist and he has opened biblical texts in a fascinating way, showing the depth of Hebrew and Greek in comparison to Latin. A text tends to mean a lot more when he adds his perspective. But he too suggested that we not get caught up in ancient texts too much, because otherwise we get caught up in an ivory tower and lose contact with life. He said that his studies were much like the internet (before there was an internet) in which he could spend hours and forget to eat or drink.
[/quote]
This is what I mean. There is cultivation that comes from how creatures are “wired” to do something and cultivation that brings societies progressively forward. Agriculture, for example, helped overcome the daily struggle to find something to eat, although primitive culture was around when performing the rituals connected to hunting. Today, I get the feeling that we are forgetting the culture and instead, submitting ourselves unconsciously to sub-cultures, thereby foregoing the progress that culture has brought us as a society, and we fail to learn the lessons that got us there. If we had to pick up the pieces after some kind of conflict, we would probably start over again.
This is what I mean. There is cultivation that comes from how creatures are “wired” to do something and cultivation that brings societies progressively forward. Agriculture, for example, helped overcome the daily struggle to find something to eat, although primitive culture was around when performing the rituals connected to hunting. Today, I get the feeling that we are forgetting the culture and instead, submitting ourselves unconsciously to sub-cultures, thereby foregoing the progress that culture has brought us as a society, and we fail to learn the lessons that got us there. If we had to pick up the pieces after some kind of conflict, we would probably start over again.
dwell (dictionary.com/browse/dwell?s=t)
[ dwel ]
verb (used without object), dwelt or dwelled, dwell·ing.
to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside.
to live or continue in a given condition or state: to dwell in happiness.
to linger over, emphasize, or ponder in thought, speech, or writing (often followed by on or upon): to dwell on a particular point in an argument.
(of a moving tool or machine part) to be motionless for a certain interval during operation.
There is a case for my translation of dwelling as “verweilen”, even though in the colloquial it will always be regarded as “wohnen”. Reside may also translate as “wohnen”, but if I write in German that I “verweile” somewhere, I suggest that it is a lingering, tarrying, or is temporary, “sich an einem bestimmten Ort für eine Weile aufhalten, für eine kürzere Zeit bleiben“ as against saying “ich wohne”, which is definitely “to live” somewhere.
I didn’t mean to reduce the text in any way, but don’t you get the feeling that philology can get caught up in semantics? I have a friend who is a philologist and he has opened biblical texts in a fascinating way, showing the depth of Hebrew and Greek in comparison to Latin. A text tends to mean a lot more when he adds his perspective. But he too suggested that we not get caught up in ancient texts too much, because otherwise we get caught up in an ivory tower and lose contact with life. He said that his studies were much like the internet (before there was an internet) in which he could spend hours and forget to eat or drink.
[/quote]
This is what I mean. There is cultivation that comes from how creatures are “wired” to do something and cultivation that brings societies progressively forward. Agriculture, for example, helped overcome the daily struggle to find something to eat, although primitive culture was around when performing the rituals connected to hunting. Today, I get the feeling that we are forgetting the culture and instead, submitting ourselves unconsciously to sub-cultures, thereby foregoing the progress that culture has brought us as a society, and we fail to learn the lessons that got us there. If we had to pick up the pieces after some kind of conflict, we would probably start over again.
[/quote]
dwell (dictionary.com/browse/dwell?s=t)
[ dwel ]
verb (used without object), dwelt or dwelled, dwell·ing.
to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside.
to live or continue in a given condition or state: to dwell in happiness.
to linger over, emphasize, or ponder in thought, speech, or writing (often followed by on or upon): to dwell on a particular point in an argument.
(of a moving tool or machine part) to be motionless for a certain interval during operation.
There is a case for my translation of dwelling as “verweilen”, even though in the colloquial it will always be regarded as “wohnen”. Reside may also translate as “wohnen”, but if I write in German that I “verweile” somewhere, I suggest that it is a lingering, tarrying, or is temporary, “sich an einem bestimmten Ort für eine Weile aufhalten, für eine kürzere Zeit bleiben“ as against saying “ich wohne”, which is definitely “to live” somewhere.
I didn’t mean to reduce the text in any way, but don’t you get the feeling that philology can get caught up in semantics? I have a friend who is a philologist and he has opened biblical texts in a fascinating way, showing the depth of Hebrew and Greek in comparison to Latin. A text tends to mean a lot more when he adds his perspective. But he too suggested that we not get caught up in ancient texts too much, because otherwise we get caught up in an ivory tower and lose contact with life. He said that his studies were much like the internet (before there was an internet) in which he could spend hours and forget to eat or drink.
This is what I mean. There is cultivation that comes from how creatures are “wired” to do something and cultivation that brings societies progressively forward. Agriculture, for example, helped overcome the daily struggle to find something to eat, although primitive culture was around when performing the rituals connected to hunting. Today, I get the feeling that we are forgetting the culture and instead, submitting ourselves unconsciously to sub-cultures, thereby foregoing the progress that culture has brought us as a society, and we fail to learn the lessons that got us there. If we had to pick up the pieces after some kind of conflict, we would probably start over again.
Yes, indeed - I am Dutch and speak a fair bit of German having lived in Vienna, and the languages being quite close.
Indeed, the argument against “verweilen” here, which does intuitively very much compute with “dwelling” is that it isn’t permanent, that one isn’t cultivating a home.
I would argue that getting lost in such powerful ancient works is life - very much so! I find the ancient languages I have some teaching in to be very refreshing and often bring a more acute sense of reality than the language in which we are used to … verweilen.
It breaks automatisms, of our nation, and in general of modernity. But more than that, there simply is such immense life in much ancient literature.
Translation:
Hegel defines Dasein in his Encyclopaedia as determinate being (quality), as “the unity of being and nothingness, in which the immediacy of these determinations and thus in their relation their contradiction has disappeared, - a unity in which they are only moments”.
Because Dasein is subject to becoming, to arising and passing away, and is to be regarded as something changeable, in Hegel’s dialectic logic it is the basic determination of every something. For him, a something set in this way is what it is only through its boundary with respect to others. However, he points out that he does not mean the quantitative, but the qualitative limit.
I think that this is important because it isn’t a particular mode of being, except seen from the outside by others, but a Werdegang (development) in someone’s life. That is, it can seem to be a particular something from the outside, but speaking from the experience of Dasein, it is part of a flowing process.
It shows that clarification is needed when using the word, and that, taking Hegel and Heidegger as examples, it doesn’t mean one thing for all.
So true, yet it is probably why Heidegger made that point about the dual definition of das ein & dasein.
I make no excuses in not being able to refer to it without search, it has become a process like that which describes the condition of the mathematician programming inherently incapable of not being fully conscious of deriving the quadratic equation. before applying it.