old notes

Complete notes...primarily brief summaries of each section...for Heidegger's Being and Time. Links to additional (better) overviews can be found at the end.
From the Stambaugh translation.

Division 1 of 2.

Intro

(being and time is made up of 2 divisions, with six chapters in each division)

Dasein = a human existence (it goes both capitalized and uncapitalized in these notes for no particularly good reason)

historicity = dasein's individual interpretive framework; the customary interpretations one grows into (p 20, 21)

many of these interpretive threads are passed down or instilled, i.e. they are traditional artifacts. Dasein can uncritically live within traditional frameworks or critically examine them, but in either case we to some degree grasp that we are entangled in these traditional modes of interpretation. Initially, our historicity is obscured and we see a world and concepts and values that seem “obvious”.

With regards to the question of being, heidegger (H) therefore calls for a “destructuring of the history of ontology”, just a shaking off of the fossilized, traditional concepts so that the basics can be re-examined. For him, this is not a negative process, not a destruction or tearing down; it is rather a positive process where present “now” stuff is brought to light

part I.

H begins by making a distinction between things in the world (i.e. "objective presence”) and a person, Dasein. Things are characterized by thatness...Dasein is characterized by “being”, which contains elements of temporality. Dasein is not just a thing, it is existence.

Dasein is always its own being; it is “being-mine”. two characteristics then- being (existence) and being for itself, being-mine.

Consequence of 1^st characteristic- attributes of a table are its shape, color, texture and so on. A table is its attributes. Dasein on the other hand is its existence, not its objective attributes. Existence has priority over essence (an idea sartre would later make catchier).

Because dasein is my own being, all possibilities are my own. And all possibilities are therefore either chosen or neglected. Dasein is either authentic or inauthentic. But it begins with “averageness”, day to day non-reflective entanglement. (41). this averageness provides info about structures of existence. Most inquiries skip over this; philosophy and science, for example, traditionally set aside daily life for more theoretical concerns. h thinks day to day life is where we gain the most information about existence.

Existentials = dasein stuff

categories = world stuff

beings are a who (existence) or a what (objective presence)

rest of part 1- separating ontology from modern human sciences, why the modern stuff skips over the analytic of dasein, etc

part II

being-in-the-world for physical objects means being objectively in a specific physical location. “being-in” for dasein means to “dwell near”, to be “familiar with”. Its in-ness is qualitatively different from the in-ness of things. Therefore the “world” is something that only occurs for dasein. A chair against a wall is not “touching” the wall; it simply is. “touching” is a relational concept that arises out of dasein as an organizing perception.

Daein's mode of being-in-the-world is “care”. Care, which he will define in more detail (and is the key concept in the book), is a foundational structure of existence. H turns it into a term with a meaning unique to his philosophy, so it should not carry its usual connotations.

Dasein's being-in “worlds the world”...it establishes relational structures and care is our mode of navigating those webs of relation. In its simplest form, care is basically using stuff, using the things and objects around us, but h connects it to the meaning-systems that those things are a part of.

Because in our everyday lives we see things and ourselves amongst those things, we take this to mean that we are merely objects amongst objects; this is the mistake we make, and that traditional philosophy has made. This is the origin of subject/object thinking.

Subject/object thinking causes dasein to overlook its worlding, the fact that it generates the relational structures of the things and contexts around us. This error makes being-in-the-world, its nature, invisible to us.

Dasein is not “in” its consciousness...and it does not then go “outside” to the world to gather data about things. Dasein is being-in-the-world. It is always already outside in-the-world, entangled with it as a unity.

Knowing- defined as the attitude of examining, a subject/object mindset; it misses the dasein/world unity.

Part III

world- that “in which” a particular dasein lives.

When one inspects a particular object or has a mindset of focusing on objectively present things, they de-world their world. Meaning that things in the world can never make the world of existence intelligible.

Traditional ontology makes this very mistake and loses sight of the world. For h, traditional ontology is over. (this is one of the primary purposes of being in time: ending traditional philosophy, re-starting it with an orientation towards basic, fundamental questions that H feels have always been overlooked.)

How do we recover the world and better understand existence? By looking at dasein's most common states, that is, its most common points of contact with the “world”, i.e. our average, daily attitudes and actions. (this leads to h's analysis of existential spatiality, 62)

everyday being-in-the-world = “association with”, that is, we find our self associating with a variety of things, beings, tasks, etc.

care- “taking care”- is a mode of being-in-the-world and one that does not need interpretation or analysis (since analysis just repeats the subject/object dead end). It is a pre-thematic understanding of existence and therefore offers a look at dasein, world, etc.

what we find in everydayness are things...and things in their use-value exist in a state of reference. Things are “in order to”, they are a reference of something to something.

“a totality of useful things is always already discovered before the individual useful thing.”

staring at a hammer...staring at it's shape, color, texture...de-worlds it. Using it, on the hand, means the hammer is in the “in-order-to” relationship. The in-order-to is our original relationship to things. Theoretical analysis causes us to step out of the very world that the analysis intends to discover.

When we use things, we are subordinate to the in-order-to. Gaining an awareness of this fact, of these use-value reference systems, h defines as circumspection.

The things in use value systems are characterized by “handiness” and this, then, is the definition of beings as they are “in themselves”. Handiness refers to things in their use value/use system state.

(present at hand = there, objectively present. ready at hand = useful, absorbed on reference contexts)

Dasein begins to sense things in their objective presence...as mere things...only when their use value breaks down. (the hammer breaks, and is then just a lump...electricity goes off, the computer is a heap of plastic and wires). If an item doesn't work (defined as conspicuousness) or a needed item is missing (obtrusiveness) or if a thing is in the way of a task or disruptive in some way (obstinancy), then we see things as an objective presence (the broken hammer, dead computer)...that is, we see a thing outside of its use-value system.

This disruption is significant because it makes us conscious of the use-value systems that we live in. it makes us conscious of that system of references of things that dasein is usually absorbed in.

a disruption doesn't make us discover the reference world...it makes us realize that we have always, already been in it and that, in a moment of disruption, we are momentarily outside of it (this is what he later develops into the discussion on boredom and anxiety).

Or, to put it differently: in stuff disruption, we don't discover the world/matrix...we discover that it has already been discovered by us in our using of the things...we sense our previous absorption in the use-value reference system. (overview 69, 70)

world- not the things around us. In fact, when we notice things individually, it means the world is disrupted (when things break, go missing, etc). World is the system of references in which things are absorbed, inconspicuous...and dasein, in taking care, using those things, is absorbed in the system as well.

Traditional philosophy always tried to discover the world by focusing on the attributes of things...for h, the moment you do this you lose the world. The in-itself cannot be found in a solitary things, but only through an understanding of the phenomenon of “world”, i.e. the use/reference system (71)

“taking care of things always already occurs on the basis of a familiarity with the world. In this familiarity dasein can lose itself in what it encounters within the world and be numbed by it.”

discussion of references, signs begins on 71

signs indicate. Indicating is a type of referring. To refer means to relate (and so on, this part makes my head hurt).

One aspect of signs (like directional arrows on a car) is that they hint at the spatial nature of things in the relational systems. Signs enable orientation, giving a view of the spatial qualities of the world.

By explicitly referring to things, signs provide hints to dasein about the reference systems it lives within; the nature of the “world” can be glimpsed in signs (and spatiality) (77).

“signs are something ontically at hand which, as this definite useful thing, functions at the same time as something which indicates the ontological structure of handiness, referential totality and worldliness.”

signs- ontic

reference- ontological, part of the fundamental structure of the in-order-to systems.

On relevance:

the nature of beings at hand is reference. Things “refer to”, within their use-systems. They are relevant “together with” something else. Reference then leads us to the fundamental being of inner-worldly beings...that is, relevance. “to be relevant means to let something be together with something else.”

relevance points to the “what-for” of dasein. The relevance of things in their totality is the what-for. Dasein is not merely one of the things in the use-systems...it is what these systems point back to. That is, things in their relevance point to existence, to the fact that existence is what binds them into the what-for totality.

The relationship between the structures within these world totalities is a relationship of “signifying”. The signifying unites these various components into a “primordial totality”(81).

The signifying (interlocking) is what gives dasein it's pre-understanding of its own being-in-the-world.

(signification defined as significance)

conclusion- “dasein always means that a context of things at hand is already essentially discovered with its being. In that it is, dasein has always already referred itself to an encounter with the world.”

this is basically his critique and counter-point to descartes. It's not “i think therefore I am”, it's “i go about my day, using things that interlock into a referential totality that form a world that refers back to the organizing self that I am.”

In later sections of part 2, H switches to analysis of Descartes' view of ontology. Descartes defines world and being, basically, as attributes (he uses the term "extension"). And for him, math is the best way to pin down the nature of attributes. As mentioned, H sees this as skipping over the fundamental nature of Dasein and world; it's a leap into subject object thinking.

One positive in Descartes' analysis: he does skip over the world, but by defining being as "extension", he does get close to the existential concept of spatiality...that is, the interconnectedness of things oriented around Dasein...this, then, H plans to salvage and develop.

The use-systems arrange things as a result of their handiness. Things aren't just "there", they are in particular places and distributed according to their use-value within a referential totality.

Where they are, in this totality, is called "nearness". And the nearness of things divides into "regions". (95)

Things in their nearness divide into regions which interlock into the aroundness of Dasein's world. Conversely, these regions, spaces, determine the place of things, based on their use value.

What this means is that we do not live in consistent, regular math-like units of space. We live in a space arranged and ordered by these use-value systems, these referential networks of handiness. Dasein's spatiality is given the name of "de-distancing".

De-distancing is not a categorical. It is not a measure of space units. It is an existential. It is a relational organizing of space (as in, chair not "touching" the wall, since "touching" is a relational concept of Dasein).

Handiness, care, is our relationship to things; de-distancing is our relationship to space, the way spaces are grouped into use-categories and arranged.

You can measure a short and long path. But the short path on a day with bad weather can feel much longer than the long path in nice weather. When we notice things like this, we get glimpses of de-distancing, of existential spatiality. Again, we noticed that our world refers back to us. "Dasein is spatial in the manner of de-distancing."

Example (99): the glasses on a person's nose are generally "invisible", further from the person than a conspicuous object across the room. De-distancing is the lived spatiality of a person.

As the glasses example indicates, things in their nearness and/or familiarity can become inconspicuous. Our use of things de-distances them.

H adds that these spaces, arranged by handiness, nearness and de-distancing, naturally form into an orientation towards the world, that is directionality. Directionality is part of the structure of the world; overview 102.

end part 3

part IV

begins with the question, "What is the self; the I?"

Is it simply the I we discover when we reflect? H asks, "Who is it who is in the everydayness of Dasein?"

We find in our interactions with world the being of Mitda-sein. Mitda-sein = others. Things, in their reference systems, reference others. Things made, for example, imply...the maker, the user, etc...others, along with Dasein, are interlocked into the references.

We are not with people in the same way that we are with things. The others are "those from whom one mostly does not distinguish oneself." (111, laying groundwork for "they self"). We are amongst things, next to them, but we are "with" people. "Being-in is being-with others."

Traditional philosophy tries to find "self" by looking inward, at an isolated "I". H says the opposite is the correct approach- we find our self in what we do, need, etc, in our entanglement with the world. The self  is initially when it is in the world, in its habits and behaviors and this also means our self is first in the world, with others.

Self is not a solitary self that then enters the world; the "I" is already "over there", interlocked with the referential totality of things and people.

"taking care" is the nature of our being with things- but "concerned" is our attitude towards self and others.

Since Dasein is initially entangled in the world and with others, Dasein is not initially itself. Who is it, then? The they. (118)

In being-with-one-another, Dasein is one of the others. We are absorbed in the they.

Others function as life metrics. We see we are like or unlike others; we see we are doing worse or better, etc. The various distances we feel in relation to others, H calls this "distantiality". It's one of the primary ways we are absorbed in the they (126, 127)

By comparing ourselves to one another, we naturally tend towards states of "averageness". Our concerns that arise when we compare ourselves lead to similar behaviors, to avoidance of novelty, and so on. The they generates averageness. All human possibilities experience a "levelling down".

All together these factors (distantiality, averageness, levelling down) create "publicness". Publicness controls the interpretive framework of Dasein, limits its possibilities of being.

"Everyone is the other and no one is himself. The they, which supplies the answer to the who of everyday Dasein, is the nobody to whom everyday Dasein has always already surrendered itself in its being-among-one-another."

By establishing limits and metrics and boundaries, the they "disburdens" Dasein, makes life choices for it. This providing of all choices, H calls an "accommodating" of Dasein; life is made easier, more shallow, less complex.

The self of everyday Dasein is the they-self. Initially, "I" am not...I am others.

part V

With world and who described in some detail, H now focuses on being-in. This, in turn, will tell us more about the nature of care.

Dasein always finds itself in a "there"; an opening is disclosed. "Dasein is its disclosure."

dis-close: opposite of close, an opening, which connects to the Greek concept of "alethia", truth as opening, clearing, light.

this section = analysis of "there" and what "there" means in its everyday state; overview 126.

Ways to be "there":

1. attunement
2. understanding.

Once analyzed, H will describe a fundamental mode of "there", entanglement.

Attunement = mood; the ebb and flow of day to day moods. Mood discloses one's self. Seeking moods that cover up the burden of selfhood (distraction, for example) points to 1. the desirability of remaining concealed and therefore 2. your individual self. "In the evasion itself there is something disclosed." (127)

When mood discloses a self disconnected from absorption in the world, we experiences thrownness; Dasein is thrown into its there. We are delivered over to ourselves. (synopsis 128)

(concept of movement...existential movement...is important, and will continue to be developed over next few sections; throwness is first example of self as movement; later you get "plunge", "eddying", etc; keep these concepts connected in terms of awareness of self, angst, etc)

We don't find self by looking for self. We find it by fleeing from it. Our day to day attunement steers us away from, and therefore reveals, itself.

"Attunement discloses Dasein in its thrownness, initially and for the most part in the mode of an evasive turning away."

Mood is not an inner psychological state that shapes our view of self and world. "Mood assails. It comes neither from 'without' nor from 'within' but rises from being-in-the-world itself as a mode of that being." (that is, as a mode of being-in-the-world; mood is what discloses being-in-the-world as a whole).

Our navigating the things of the world in their use-contexts, reference systems, is made possible via attunement. Attunement is our meshing with those contexts, as evidenced by the reaction to things that break; they briefly kick us out of those use-systems and our customary "taking care". (129) (particularly true today with tech, when tech breaks)

Next bit: Understanding is the being of attunement.

Understanding is what lays the groundwork for Dasein's potentiality of being, of "possibility". It's sort of the point of contact with Dasein's field of possibility in any given moment.

Understanding has the character of "project". It connects Dasein to the totality of things, the use-totalities, in a mode that unlocks their possibilities. (H's verb for project = projecting)

"As projecting, understanding is the mode of being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities."

Understanding can be authentic- aware of its absorption in and ownership of possibilities- or inauthentic (what Sartre would call "bad faith")

The seeing of things in their potentiality, H terms "sight". The seeing of self as potentiality = "transparency". Dasein is its "there." Thrown, it projects itself into its there. Being-in-the-world = thrown-projecting (this section is super jargony; focus more on the role of mood and attunement...concealing of self, projecting  into possibilities of self and activities, and the role those projects have in organizing the world into use-contexts; and the fact that these projects conceal self, in publicness, but in doing so also hint at the authentic self being concealed).

Projecting = not just using the reference-systems but organizing them, unlocking their possibilities

As understanding, Dasein projects itself upon its possibilities. The development of projecting is "interpretation". Interpretation is the development of possibilities projected in understanding.

"In interpretation, understanding does not become something different, but rather itself." (138)

Interpretation is our knowing "what something is for". Dasein is interpretive. We don't see things "as they are", but in their interpretive frameworks.

Again, all of this is hinting at things missed, skipped over, in subject/object thinking. He's offering counter-explanations for the usual responses of traditional philosophy. The question of how we perceive things- in thought? by ascertaining universal attributes? in senses? H breaks from all of this, says we first see things via the interpretive navigating of referential totalities. (and in doing so begins to create the bridge from phenomenology to existentialism)

Interpretation does not throw a layer of meaning over objectively present things. Rather, "what is encountered in the world is always, already in a relevance which is disclosed in the understanding of world, a relevance which is made explicit through interpretation."

Interpretation does not generate connections; we already are in-the-world. It operates instead on a "fore-having". Things interpreted are understood beforehand. How is this possible? H breaks down the structure of fore-having on 140, 141.

This fore-having...the fact that we don't walk into a room and have to pause, identify each object, then puzzle out how to do things, use things...the fact that we already always are in projects, so familiar with objects that they become invisible to us...this fore-having is what makes "meaning".

Meaning is the fore-having structures that make things intelligible for interpretation. (point here is just to lay down jargon and groundwork for how Dasein is, in it's everydayness...meaning built upon fore-having, fore-having built upon interpretation, interpretation built upon understanding, understanding guided by attunement, attunement connecting self to world in projecting, etc)

Expression of meaning happens with "statements", language, discourse and so on; this section breaks down what these mean, and digs into the original Greek conception. Again, the point is to develop concept of understanding and attunement and look at how they operate in day to day life; statement, discourse and such being what these factors look like as we interact with others and make sense of our world.

Statement is pointing out...it establishes a predicate of what is stated, and at the same time it is a communication. In indicates a thing or being in the form of a communication. "Statement is a pointing out which communicates and defines".

H focuses on these elements of statement to demonstrate that statement is a modification of interpretation. Interpretation is how we make sense of the referential totalities that we navigate, use...and statement is a way to narrow down the totality, to focus only on a particular being, or whatever is being indicated in the statement.

"This levelling down of the primordial 'as' of circumspect interpretation to the 'as' of the determination of objective presence is the speciality of statement".

Continues to develop vocabulary for how we communicate, the existential structures of understanding as it exists in daily life...discourse "is the articulation of intelligibility", and therefore "lies at the basis of interpretation and statement". Our ability to make sense of being-in-the-world and articulate that meaning is "discourse." H uses this understanding of discourse and it's existential nature to critique language studies of the time, basically repeating his critique of traditional ontology in a different context. In breaking language down, you skip over it's nature.

Goes more and more specific with meaning, understanding and how it is filtered through discourse.

Most common, original, every day state of Dasein's language is "idle talk". Idle talk is language absorbed in publicness, in they self. Idle talk is Dasein "uprooted"...it is cut off from its self, kept in a sort of existential suspension.

In its they state, Dasein flees from itself...this flight requires an endless progression of input from publicness. What it needs is novel experiences, topics, projects, etc...so that it can remain in a state of detachment from the sting of selfhood. This detachment, H terms "not-staying"...and the mindset of seeking distraction is "curiosity". Curiosity is the guiding interest in new topics, projects...it is how we achieve "not-staying".

"In not-staying, curiosity makes sure of the constant possibility of distraction. It has nothing to do with contemplation...it has no interest in wondering...Rather, it makes sure of knowing, but just in order to have known." i.e., it only seeks short term, superficial involvement with any particular topic or project.

"The two factors constitutive for curiosity, not-staying ...and distraction by new possibilities, are the basis of the third essential characteristic of this phenomenon, which we call never dwelling anywhere. Curiosity is everywhere and nowhere."

(more true today, with internet, all topics being superficially discussed by all people, in assembly line fashion; topics drifting by, all people feeling qualified to make comments on all topics...there is a sort of everywhere/nowhere quality to it)

Idle talk drives curiosity...curiosity drives idle talk.

This results in: "ambiguity".

All they-generated information is just stretched out, made easy to discuss, have opinions about, made easy to pass over superficially before moving on to the next vague topic. Reality, the world, becomes ambiguous.

"When in everyday being with one another, we encounter things that are accessible to everybody and about which everybody can say everything, we can soon no longer decide what is disclosed in genuine understanding and what is not. This ambiguity extends not only to the world, but likewise to being-with-one-another as such, even to the being of Dasein towards itself."

This ambiguity leads to discomfort...we sense the underlying complexity of existence, but do not understand it and flee from it, into the comfort of publicness. Which in turn fuels the ambiguity and unease.

"Everyone keeps track of one another...Being-with-one-another in the they is not at all a self-contained, indifferent side-by-sideness, but a tense, ambiguous keeping track of each other, a secretive, reciprocal listening-in. Under the mask of the for-one-another, the against-one-another is at play."

obviously this is one of my favorite sections in the book.

Idle talk + curiosity + ambiguity = entanglement. Entanglement is the every day being of dasein. It is absorption in the world it takes care of, predicated on all of the various structures of attunement and understanding.

For the they reasons just described, this every day being of Dasein is one where it is detached from itself.

This absorption in the they world, Dasein's initial and most common state = "falling prey"

"Falling prey to the 'world' means being absorbed in being-with-one-another as it is guided by idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity."

Falling away is a falling away from self. summary 165

Being-in-the-world is "tempting". Dasein, in engaging with curiosity and they self, gives in to the "temptation" of falling prey.

The comforts of theyness, of publicness...the vague sense of having knowledge of most subjects, the absorption in idle talk, and so on...these comforts "tranquilize" Dasein.

(This is a key moment, as it lays the groundwork for alienation, which he will later develop into angst.)

This tranquilization is not a passive state...it is a comforting mode of being that one has to constantly work to maintain. This requires "busyness", constantly immersing in the stream of distractions and various they activities.

This constant temptation, and constant seeking out of tranquil theyness...the sense that one must remains always busy...it "aggravates entanglement".

"Entangled being-in-the-world is not only tempting and tranquilizing, it is alienating." This causes Dasein to sometimes leave its entanglement with the world, and become entangled in itself. "self-entangling"

These factors all characterize the process of falling prey. Falling prey is a movement...movement towards the they, absorption into the world and publicness; alienation pulls it out of this world, sends Dasein into itself, which in turn fuels the need for distraction, busyness.

"We call this kind of 'movement' of Dasein in its own being the plunge."

The plunge is falling out of the they world. The impulse to flee self, correct the plunge, and hover forever in theyness...this H calls "eddying", just sort of remaining stuck in this middle ground of vague, ill defined selfness.

conclusion: Tempted, tranquilized, pulled into entanglement with the they world; meanwhile, this restless push for constant tranquility fuels anxiety, which drives Dasein into itself...and this move toward self-entanglement is called "the plunge." The anxiety reveals self...and eddying is the always needful effort to return into theyness.

end part V

Part VI

summary thus far: “Being-in-the-world is always already entangled. The average everydayness of Dasein can thus be determined as entangled-disclosed, thrown-projecting being-in-the-world which is concerned with its ownmost potentiality in its being together with the “world” and in being-with with the others.” 170

We know that dasein is disclosed to itself but remains in various states of concealment. H asks: what might allow dasein full disclosure of self? The answer: angst.

Angst is what reveals to us the totality of existence (care). Dasein is care. Angst is the access point for understanding this fact.

Continues to examine flight from self into theyness; H emphasizes that flight from self reveals self. “But in turning away from it, it is 'there', disclosed.”

With angst, Dasein feels the sting of self. It turns away from self. Fear is what happens when we fear inner worldly things. Angst is what happens when we fear self, feel that sting of consciousness. It is a “turning away” from self.

Since angst is not a reaction to a particular thing “what angst is about is completely indefinite”. The world in moments like this loses its usual ability to provide us with a point of contact with useful things and contexts. We are in a moment of angst, we have a free-floating fear of something, and the thing we fear is literally none of the world things, none of the things around us. The world, then, loses its relevance, its absorbing qualities that we are usually engaged in. “It collapses”.

“The fact that what is threatening is nowhere characterizes what Angst is about. Angst 'does not know' what it is about which it is anxious”...what is threatening “is so near that it is oppressive and stifles one's breath- and yet it is nowhere.”

The uncomfortable thing that is causing this fear is not a thing in the world, so that in this moment the world is empty. Signification systems drop away...the insignificance of the world is oppressive. Put another way: not relevant in that moment, the world becomes nothing...its nothingness becomes manifest.

“that about which angst is anxious is being-in-the-world”...with the world falling away in moments of angst, what is also being lost is the interpretations and understandings that the world usually provides us; theyness, the self caught up in the world, that is lost for a moment. Angst takes away our habitual falling prey.

“Angst individuates Dasein”...we are cut off from possibilities that are usually controlled by habitual theyness. We are basically face to face with our own authentic possibility state...we are this individual self, in a state of perpetual possibility, no longer coasting through tranquilized, easy group think states we are accustomed to. “Angst discloses dasein as being-possible.”

The Nothing.

Angst is characterized by “uncanniness”. “Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which dasein finds itself involved in with Angst initially finds expression: the nothing and the nowhere.” The losing of the world, in these moments, leaves us nowhere, as Angst nullifies the comfort of falling prey.

Tranquil they self is entangled flight from the uncanny not-being-home of Dasein. Meaning, uncanniness precedes tranquility. That is, tranquility is predicated on a need to flee ourselves. 177

Angst discloses the “world” that one is always “in” emptied of its meaning systems. Dasein, kicked out of its they self, discovers the nature of its “being-in”, its world; we discover that the world is always, already, this empty field of possibility. It is nothingness.

The tranquility of entanglement - “being at home”

The individuated “nothing” world of Angst = “not being at home”, uncanniness.

H angst summary on 178

Being-in-the-world does not mean a world of stuff is welded to an existence. Rather, existence is a whole, a unity, with the world. Being-ahead-of-itself = this unity. H is developing the critique of traditional philosophy and the idea that a subject goes out towards objects...the inside vs. outside thinking. He's establishing that existence is a self/world unity; that is, world is a structure of existence. Being-ahead-of-itself is another way of phrasing this, since the world is our template for possibilities of our being...we are ahead of ourselves, already in these possibilities.

“More completely formulated, being-ahead-of-itself means being-ahead-of-itself-in-already-being-in-a-world.”

And when you bundle all of these structures together, all of the structures of existence, you have care. Care is the being of dasein. All of these descriptions are happening as a way of filling out the structures of care. Care is prior to all of these structures, everything else is predicated on care...and H goes into more detail demonstrating this fact, explaining why this and that facet of life is an extension of care (starting on 184)

Theyness mutes possibilities of self, and this is how we begin and generally live life: entangled, suppressed by they interpretations. Point is that care is initially entangled, so added to his formulation of care is being-together-with. It then becomes “being-ahead-of-itself-in-already-being-in-as-being-together-with.” Which is fun.

On 183, H first begins to establish that existence, and all of its bundled structures...is time. Ultimately, you can formulate, in an extremely crude way, the conclusion of the book as “Existence is time”, and he connects all of these descriptions so far with time in section 42. he relates an ancient Greek parable that weaves all of this together as a way to close out division one, set up division two.

Our “temporal sojourn in the world” rules and characterizes what existence is, although he has yet to formulate why this is so. That's what division two is for.

Before moving on, H feels compelled to deal with two questions that generally pop up in traditional philosophy. What is reality? What is truth?

H is not really interested in these questions, as he feels that, in answering them, we lapse into subect/object thinking and completely miss the actual modes of existence that tell us what we need to know about reality and truth. The remainder of division one is quickly looking at these questions and establishing why they are not really a barrier for his project here. The writings on truth are particularly valuable as they lay down the groundwork for his later writing...the defintion of life as “disclosedness”, “opening”...the Greek concept of alethia...this will all be developed in his later works, even though he only briefly touches up on it here.

Reality.

192, most conceptions of reality lapse into realism or idealism. What we know of the world comes from the things of the world, or in our ability to think and examine concepts. Realism, idealism.

H on idealism: it “constructs the interpretation of reality in a vacuum.” It sets aside beings of the world, does not address the fact that dasein, factically, is a being in the world, so that at its base, idealism is just turning a blind eye to the very question it is trying to answer.

H feels Dilthey offered a useful concept in his description of reality...Dilthey stated that “the real” offers resistance...reality is resistance. We will, we strive, we engage in projects- we find things not currently in the state we prefer for life, so we alter reality, work against the resistances to shape it to our liking...we push and navigate and so on, and what H finds within Dilthey's concept of resistance is the seeds of “disclosedness”. To navigate this reality, we must first have an understanding of it. We see what it is, since we feel its resistance to our will...and this means we have some grasp of world, some point of contact with it; we don't need to “discover” it. We always, already are in it, navigating it.

Dilthey's “resistance” is H's “disclosed being-in-the-world”.

In terms of “what is reality”, this is one of the few ways H finds to make the question interesting for himself; for the most part, realism goes to innerworldly things and sets aside the being that discloses those things in the first place. And this is what H wants to return to...the being that discloses innerworldy beings. He feels like this disclosure of world that is given to existence precedes all specific things that the disclosure can show us...so we should get sidetracked by what is disclosed; philosophy needs to zero in on existence and its nature as care, the disclosure that is already-in, together-with, etc.

Put another way: care precedes the concept of reality. The “real” and questions relating to it only occur after being-in-the-world.

Truth.

“From time immemorial, philosophy has associated truth with being.” H proceeds to outline how he will look at this...begins sorting through traditional definitions, leading up to his own framing of it. Outline of this chapter 197

Traditional concept of truth focuses on judgment. Truth is located in judgment. More specifically, truth is located in the “agreement” between judgment and its object. Agreement = correspondence.

H points out that correspondence requires a relation. Truth is a relation. Gives useful example 200.

We express our judgment in statements. Statements and judgment, then, orient us to things and things demonstrate the validity of our knowledge. “To say that a statement is true means that it discovers the beings in themselves. The being true (truth) of the statement must be understood as discovering.”

For H, Truth is not agreement between subject and object. More fundamentally, it is discovering a being in itself.

(Humorously, discussing lazy philosophy, H warns, “we must guard against uninhibited word mysticism”. This is fun.)

Once you have truth as discovery, you can then connect it with the preceding descriptions of existence as care; as disclosedness, opening. “In that dasein essentially is its disclosedness, and, as disclosed, discloses and discovers, it is essentially 'true'. Dasein is 'in the truth'.”

Truth is of the nature of dasein...but being born into theyness and false interpretations of self and world, truth can also be untruth. Both are of the nature of dasein.

Conclusion: “The statement is not the primary locus of truth, but the other way around.” Truth, being our existence as disclosedness of world, makes statements/judgments, etc, possible. Truth is not accurate beliefs, statements...it is discovery.

Example: “Before Newton's laws were discovered, they were not 'true'...The laws became true through Newton, through them beings in themselves became accessible for dasein. With the discoveredness of beings, they show themselves precisely as the beings that previously were. To discover in this way is the kind of being of 'truth'.”

It's not creating truth, it's discovering already-existing things as they are, at which point they join the being-in-the-world of dasein.

This ending of division one, focusing on traditional questions and why traditional answers have failed...and their illuminating of H's description of dasein as care...raises questions that set up division two. That list of questions 211.

“What does it mean that being 'is', where being is, after all, supposed to be distinguished from all beings?”

“The answer to the question of the meaning of being is still lacking”

end part VI.

end division 1.

Division II

intro

“We have found the fundamental constitution of the being in question, being-in-the-world, who essential structures are centered in disclosedness. The totality of this structural whole revealed itself as care. The being of Dasein is contained in care.”

H asserts that we have examined dasein's initial state...inauthenticity...to round out this analysis, we must now examine authenticity.

One problem for any attempt to grasp existence in it's wholeness is that we always have possibilities in front of us. There is an inherent incompleteness in living. Death, then, must be considered within the analytic of existence because it is the end of those possibilities. It brings dasein into a state of completeness/wholeness. Which sets up part 1.

I.

“As long as dasein is a being, it has never attained it's 'wholeness'”.

Death = end of possibilities = wholeness.

Begins sorting through various understandings of death, discarding ones that are not helpful for an existential analytic. For example, the death of others cannot help us better understand the “wholeness” of Dasein; “we do nt experience the death of others in a genuine sense; we are are at best always just 'there'”. Death belongs only to each individual, not to others.

H wants a complete description of existence, but existence is choice, change, moving through possibilities; it is incomplete until death is reached. And death is an individual experience.

So, what is my death?

The things ahead of us, in life, are the not-yet...the not-yet is outstanding. “Outstanding, as lacking, is based on a belongingness.” The not-yet is mine.

What not-mean means...what outstanding means...is that things that belong together (and that will be together) are not yet joined. Gives an example on 226...unripe fruit. The ripe state is the not-yet, the outstanding...it is not an outside state that the fruit has to find and absorb...it is one with itself, just not-yet. “Dasein, too, is always already its not-yet as long as it is.”

Life not traversed is the not-yet. This also means that the things not traversed are Dasein...again, not an outside state that we take in...but it is us, with are unified with the not-yet. This includes death. Death is the end of life...it is part of it. Dasein is death, as it is all of its possbilities.

“just as Dasein constantly already is its not-yet as long as it is, it also always already is its end.”

H establishes why medical, theological and other methods are not helpful for an existential study of death, since “existential analysis is methodologically prior” to these other frameworks. We are, first, then we investigate. H is predicating this analysis on the “we are”. 230

Since death has entered into your understanding of Dasein, as it brings about its wholeness...death must fit into the preceding descriptions of existence. H sets about meshing death, as he defines it, with care and the various other structures he examined in Division I.

“We must...make it clear in a preliminary sketch how the existence, facticity and falling prey of dasein are revealed in the phenomenon of death.”

First, some new terminology: death is a non-relational state. Upon dying, you relate to nothing, live in no states of relation, no systems of meaning and so forth and so on. Also, you will die. It is a possibility that is yours, individually...a not-yet that is ensured. “Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein”

So, H terms death the “ownmost non-relational possibility not to be bypassed.”

Death is not a random event that happens at a random time. It is part of the structure of existence. As we are thrown into life...and all of its structures...we are thrown into death.

Idle talk and theyness cover over the significance of death. The fact that it is structured into existence and mine and not to be bypassed...this gets the they treatment and death becomes tranquilized, turned into a vague ambiguity. “'Dying'” is levelled down to an event which does not concern Dasein, but which belongs to no one in particular...Indeed, the dying of others is seen often as a social inconvenience, if not a downright tactlessness, from which publicness should be spared.”

All of this covering over is typical of the state of falling prey. Entangled being-toward-death is flight from death. Like self, death is something we flee...yet are therefore always aware of, turning away from. Angst is what reveals the nature of death to us...we know it is our own not to be bypassed, non-relational possibility...therefore we work to cover over this awareness. Angst, again, is the key to grasping these states we usually turn away from.

“That from which one flees has been made visible...” 236

To be alive is to be dying. We know this and therefore adopt attitudes towards death, initially the vague “they” interpretations...but H emphasizes that we are, at all times, even when lost in publicness, choosing an attitude. Realizing this fact, feeling out our lostness in surface interpretations, opens up the possibility for an authentic engagement with our own being-towards-death (which is necessary in order to grasp one's life, one's self).

“As the end of dasein, death is the ownmost nonrelational, certain, and, as such, indefinite and not to be bypassed possibility of dasein. As the end of dasein, death is in the being of this being-toward-its-end.”

Put develops this a bit further: “As thrown, being-in-the-world, dasein is always already delivered over to its death. Being toward its death, it dies factically and constantly as long as it has not reached it's demise.” (as in, we are always dying and he asserts we therefore always adopt attitudes towards death)

So, given this relation to death...what would authentic grasping of death look like? First, he writes, “we must characterize being-toward-death as a being toward a possibility.”

The possibility of death that we anticipate is the possibility of non-existence being actualized. It is the impossibility of possibility become reality.

“...death gives dasein nothing to 'be actualized' and nothing which it itself could be as something real.” 242

We anticipate death. We anticipate the end of our possibilities. In this anticipation “dasein discloses itself to itself.”

We know of and feel as an unavoidable possibility our end...this emphasizes the possibilities that lie before that end, that is, our existence. Anticipating our own non-existence reveals our possibility-state that terminates with the arrival of non-existence. Our lifespan, our existence and the fact that it is mine and mine alone, becomes apparent. Authenticity becomes ours. Anticipation reveals authenticity...anticipating death reveals that all of the possibilities belong to dasein, at which point dasein is individuated, ripped from theyness.

“Anticipation of its nonrelational possibility forces the being that anticipates into the possibility of taking over its ownmost being of its own accord.” 243

Anticipation of death dislodges us from entanglement, allows dasein to assume ownership of existence. grasping the possibility not to be bypassed discloses all possibilities lying before that final not-yet.

Initially, Angst was loss of relevance structures...being individuated in such a way that “world” collapses. More fully understood, Angst is feeling our finiteness due to the certainty of death. Angst is being individuated in the sense of grasping that death is mine alone...unavoidable...and it is a possibility that sits at the end of all possibilities that make up my life, and every one of those possibilities are also mine and mine alone.

“In Angst, dasein finds itself faced with the nothingness of the possible impossibility of its existence...Being-toward-death is essentially Angst.”

H considers all of these concepts to be ontological considerations. But none of this tells us what it would look like, ontically...in the way we would live it, experience it in daily life. What would ontic authenticity look like?

For all of this to be valid, H needs to find an ontic state of dasein that attests to the authentic existence.

Attested = proof that can be found in life, as lived.

II.

Extracting self from the they self: this is the task of dasein. 247

“I myself am not for the most part the who of dasein, but the they-self is. Authentic being-a-self shows itself to be an existentiell modification of the they which is to be defined existentially.”

Since we are initially lost in theyness...how do we even identify our self? Answer: the “voice of conscience”. Conscience indicates something...points to something.

Conscience, call, discourse, summoning...some H jargon for you: Conscience is a call. “Calling is a mode of discourse. The call of conscience has the character of a summoning dasein to its ownmost potentiality-of-being-a-self, by summoning it to its ownmost quality of being a lack”

The choice to listen to this call...the decision to attend to your authentic self and detach from theyness...this requires “resoluteness”. This is the term that signals the shift from theyness to authenticity. Next few sections are an explication of resoluteness, what it means/requires for dasein.

“Conscience discloses”- what this means is that conscience belongs to H's previous articulation of thereness. Thereness, disclosure and conscience are all threads of the same existential framework.

This is meaningful because conscience is what brings us to the “there”...the moment that is our moment, to the opening that reveals to us our possibilities. The reason we are not initially “there” is because we are lost in theyness. Instead of the voice of conscience, what we tend to hear is the voice of theyness...that public, group voice covers over our own inner voice. We are taken away from disclosure of thereness...and lost to entanglement.

“This listening must be stopped, that is, the possibility of another kind of hearing that interrupts that listening must be given by dasein itself.”

So, entanglement gains an additional feature...it's not just absorption in theyness...it is more specifically a “listening” that covers over our own “voice”.

Theyness is noise...it buries our conscience, its call. To hear the call of conscience, what we have to do is not “hear” it...but to stop listening to theyness. The opposite of theyness is silence.

“The call must call silently” 2511

This silence...this call of self...is a mode of discourse, since it is a disclosing. It is a self-disclosing of self to self. “The call reaches the they-self of heedful being-with with others. And to what is one summoned? To one's own self.”

Angst collapses world. In a similar fashion, the call collapses the they. Publicness we are entangled in falls apart and we find ourselves individuated. However, this does not mean we are being called out of the external world, into an internal world. The opposite is true. The call summons us to a full grasping of being-in-the-world.

The call also does not tell us information about self and world...it is not an inner-argument, self talking to itself. The call says nothing. It is silent. “Conscience speaks solely and constantly in the mode of silence.”

So...if it is silent...what do we know about the call? Who specifically is being called? And who specifically is the caller?

The call “not only fails to answers questions about name, status, origin...but also leaves not the slightest possibility of making the call familiar for a...'worldly' orientation. On the other hand, it by no means disguises itself in the call.”

Stepping back (this happens on 255), H has established that the “thereness” of Dasein is something that is disclosed...existence means belonging to the disclosedness of the there. As such, we are attuned...we are “there” and engaged with the meaning systems, navigating them in the mode of care. But this same attunement that characterizes our engagement with the world also conceals the nature of our “thereness”...the fact of our thrownness is covered up in they entanglement. We flee thrownness and take comfort in the tranquility of theyness. We do this because finding ourselves in this “thereness” that is unbearably ours and ours alone leaves us with a full awareness of the uncanniness of existence. Flight into theyness is a flight away from uncanniness. And it is Angst that reveals this uncanniness to us. Angst is the tether that prevents us from fully evading uncanny thrownness.

H then asks, “What if dasein, finding itself in the ground of its uncanniness, were the caller of the call of conscience?”

It's not enough to say the call is self. Because every mode of being is self. The call is more specifically individuated, unworlded self...uncanny, not at home self.

“In its who, the caller is definable by nothing 'worldly'. It is dasein in its uncanniness, primordially thrown being-in-the-world, as not-at-home, the naked 'that' in the nothingness of the world. The caller is unfamiliar to the everyday they-self, it is something like an alien voice.”

Adding: “The calls speaks in the uncanny mode of silence.”

Engtangled, tranquilized they-self is called, silently, by the inescapable strangeness of uncanny, individuated selfhood.

“uncanniness pursues dasein and threatens its self-forgetful lostness”.

Summary: “Conscience reveals itself as the call of care: the caller is dasein, anxious in thrownness...about its potentiality-of-being. The one summoned is also Dasein, called forth to its ownmost potentiality-of-being...And what is called forth by the summons is Dasein, out of falling prey to the they.”

The call is half of the equation. Hearing it is the other half. We develop numerous ways to ignore it, avoid it. These methods of avoidance are modes of dasein. H examines these in the next section.

258

The call implies that something needs to change...it elicits a feeling of guilt. What is guilt?

H is always seeking for starting points in daily attitudes, behaviors, so he sorts through average conceptions of guilt, tries to find what they lead back to. Ultimately, he decides that “lack” is the persistent feature found in every definition of guilt. Guilt happens when “something which ought to be and can be is missing”. Or: “the quality of the not is present in the idea of 'guilty'”.

This notness is how H defines guilt existentially. Guilt is “being-the-ground of a nullity”. Something that should be is absent; guilt ensues.

Finding ourselves existing, we take up possibilities...but we are not those possibilities. We are always, already “thrown ground”.

Or: finding that we exist, we take over the project of this existence. Care is this “taking over”...it is our navigating of our potentiality of being. The “ground” is our “thereness” that we find ourselves in with existence. We did not choose or establish it, but we take up the burden of this ground, this “thereness”.

As thrown, an existence finds itself in a “there”...but that existence lags behind all possibilities that it then throws itself into. We choose and navigate our possibilities, but we remain in a state of thrown ground. We are not our possibilities, these come after the fact of our thereness. Guilt is the knowing that we are not the things we are...guilt is structured into the existence of dasein.

“Care, the being of dasein, thus means, as a thrown project: being the (null) ground of a nullity”.

“This not belongs to the existential meaning of thrownness”. 262

Call of conscience creates sense of guilt in a surface way, relating to absorption in theyness. But underlying this guilt is a more fundamental truth: all possibilities are not Dasein; finite, worldless, individuated self is always the nature of existence. This notness is not a true lack or absence...it is part of the structure/nature of Dasein.

“The summons calls back by calling forth: forth to the possibility of taking over in existence the thrown being that it is, back to thrownness in order to understand it as the null ground that it has to take up into existence.”

“Understanding the call, Dasein listens to it's ownmost possibility of existence. It has chosen itself.”

So, the call of conscience is a summons to guilt. Guilt isn't falseness, it is a call toward authenticity.

Listening to the call, becoming silent...leaving the chatter of theyness: H terms this “reticence”.

“Wanting to have a conscience becomes a readiness for Angst.”

Silence as a disengaging from lostness in entanglement = reticence. And “reticent projecting oneself upon one's ownmost being-guilty which is ready for Angst” = resoluteness. After heeding the call, resoluteness is next step. Resolutness is the moment when Dasein claims it's possibilities...it is the moment of becoming “authentic”.

Despite the movements here, resoluteness does not mean “leaving” the world...it is not a state of detachment. Resoluteness is what, finally and truly, frees the world for Dasein. It is an obtaining of one's own being-in-the-world.

Obtaining one's own being-in-the-world places one fully in thereness...this authentic being there H calls “the situation”. Situation is the grasped thereness of Dasein. It is contrasted with the vague, “general situation” of the they. They creates ambiguity. Situation creates the opposite of that.

“For the they, however, situation is closed off. They they knows only the 'general situation'”.

“This makes it quite clear that the call of conscience does not dangle an empty ideal of existence before us...but calls us forth to the situation.” 276

III.

Begins by asking, “What is the relationship between resoluteness and anticipation? What happens when they are combined?

H then offers a preview of things to come: “Temporality is experienced as a primoridal phenomenon in the authentic being-a-whole of Dasein, in the phenomenon of anticipatory resoluteness.” He offers this preview in order to establish that anticipatory resoluteness will lead us to temporality...and temporality will be a fundamental concept later in the book.

Resoluteness has been defined as the “reticent self-projecting upon one's ownmost being-guilty, and as demanding Angst of oneself. Resoluteness is rooted in a grasping of one's own finitude...of death. Resoluteness is shaped fundamentally by anticipation.

To put this a different way: Dasein is in a state of being towards death. Anticipating the end of Dasein's possibilities (death) discloses these possibilities as Dasein's. Since resoluteness is taking full ownership of one's ownmost possibilities, resoluteness is anticipatory.

“Understanding the call of conscience reveals the lostness in the they. Resoluteness brings Dasein back to its ownmost potentiality-of-being-a-self. One's own potentiality-of-being becomes authentic and transparent in the understanding being-towards-death as the ownmost possibility.” 383

What you've grasped with resolutness...the certainty you've claimed...what is it? What does certainty mean in the context of resolutness? It is a seizing of disclosure. The being of “being true” is given to dasein in resoluteness.

One result of anticipatory resoluteness is that, not only are dasein's possibilities revealed...but their nature as authentic or inauthentic is also revealed. “Dasein holds itself open for its constant lostness in the irresoluteness of the they...a lostness which is possible from the very ground of its own being”. Resoluteness can again lose itself in theyness.

Resolutness leads to anticipation. Anticipation leads to the grasping of dasein's wholeness. Resolutness, then, also equals wholeness. Wholeness here being factical, lived possibilities that dasein navigates. This is significant because what H is pointing to here...finite, individuated wholeness of dasein...is a factical, real possibility that dasein experience in anticipatory resoluteness...it is not a detached concept, not a broad, universal ideal...it is a seizing of one's moments from their disperal in theyness.

287

Don't we always have to rely on some degree of pre-supposition when trying to define existence? Is there a true “grounding” where we can fully grasp existence and not be influenced by one assumption or another?

The difficulty: “The being that we ourselves always are is ontologically farthest from us. The reason for this lies in care itself”.

It's difficult to find a beginning because, as care, we are bound up with the world and others from the start. So, given that we are they-entangled, how do we establish guidelines for they-influenced interpretive errors?

People asking these questions generally want to avoid the “circle” of interpretation, where your assumptions are founded on more assumptions. There is believed to be an inescapable logical fallacy in questions about existence.

H counters with: “But the 'charge of circularity' itself comes from a kind of being of Dasein...our attempt must aim at leaping into this 'circle' primordially and completely, so that even at the beginning of our analysis of Dasein, we make sure that we have a complete view of the circular being of Dasein.”

His answer is not to find some way to avoid the circle...but to fully and completely accept the circle. That's where the existential totality originates and remains.

So...this unity that we are...this full circle of existential structures and world and theyness and individuated self...how do we grasp this unity? (Grasping unity = attaining authenticity)

The I, the self, holds existential structures together. What is the relationship between the I and care? This would give us an answer to the question of 'how can dasein exist as a full, authentic unity?'” So the next step is to define 'I'.

In this section (294) H provides overview of Kant's definition of I.

For Kant, “the I is the subject of logical behavior, of binding together. The 'I think' means I bind together...That means the I think is not something represented, but the formal structure of representing as such, and this formal structure alone makes it possible for anything to be represented”.

H rejects this. Kant's definition of I makes the I a subject. And the recurring problem w/ subject/object thinking is that it makes subject into substance (a thing like entity amongst other thing like entities, all inside of a world). The nature of Dasein is skipped over and misinterpreted as substance, a pile of objective categories.

H defines I more simply as persistence...but he roots this persistence in being-in-the-world...as a structural, existential totality and not just a disconnected subject.

We generally just feel like people amongst people...as free-floating anyones that live, generally, in a mass of anyones. We think this because of the nature of theyness...this interpretation is the one we most often live in, so we feel disconnected from our own individuated self, we live in the vague generality of publicness.

Persistence...our nature as I...is the authentic counter-point to theyness.

“The constancy of the self in the double sense of constancy and steadfastness is the authentic counter-possibility to the lack of constancy of irresolute falling prey. Existentially, the constancy of the self means nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness...Dasein is authentically itself in the mode of primordial individuation of reticent resoluteness that expects Angst of itself. In keeping silent, authentic being-one's-self does not keep saying I, but rather 'is' in reticence the thrown being that it can be”.

So, I is persistence, but this has the more fundemental meaning of individuated, grasped persistence rooted in being-in-the-world. It's not a self that looks from inside of a world and see other entities and selves. “Care does not need a foundation it a self...The structure of care, conceived in full, includes the phenomenon of selfhood.”

H next wants to more fully explicate the meaning of care. He asks: what is the nature of care? What is projecting...being projected upon...how does meaning disclose and unify the processes of care?

“If we say being 'have meaning', this sigifies that they have become accessible in their being...Beings 'have' meaning only because...they become intelligible in the project of that being, that is, in terms of the upon-which of this project. The primary project of the understanding of being 'gives' meaning.”

project = projecting = project.

Full relationship between Dasein and care: “The meaning of being of Dasein is not something different from it, unattached and 'outside' of it, but is self-understanding Dasein itself.”

And the fullest expression of existence...of self-understanding...is authenticity, grasping one's own potentialities that always, already belong to Dasein. “anticipatory relsolutness is the being toward of one's ownmost, eminent potentiality of being”.

The “being toward” is emphasized here because, existing, we are fundamentally futural. The possibilities that are us, yet that are not-yet, are what we project our existence towards as we persist.

Future = “the coming in which Dasein comes toward itself in its ownmost potentiality-of-being”.

So, in authenticity, we obtain our not-yet possibilities...which are one and the same as our has-been possibilities. The structural whole of existence is grasped once it is individuated by authenticity.

“In a way, having-been arises from the future.”

When the whole is gained, what you have always been belongs fully to Dasein. The future, futurally being = grasping, owning authentically the not-yet.

“We call the unified phenomenon of the future that makes present in the process of having-been temporality...Temporality reveals itself as the meaning of authentic care”.

Existence is time.

The seizing of the not-yet, and the fact that the past is one and the same as the not yet, in that it reveals the wholeness of existence and the fact that it belongs to dasein alone...all of this brings these temporal threads (past/future) into the present moment. This is the result of authenticity: a pulling together of past/future possibilities into the present.

Here is H's full articulation of existence:

“The totality of being as care means: Ahead-of-itself-already-being-in (a world) as being-together-with (being encountered within the world). In first establishing this articulated structure, we referred to the fact that with regard to this articulation the ontological question had to be taken back further to the exposition of the unity of the totality of the structural manifold. The primordial unity of the structure of care lies in temporality. Being-ahead-of-oneself is grounded in the futured. Already-being-in makes known having-been. Being-together-with is made possible is making present.”

Seizing possibilities and the meaning frameworks, seeing that the individuated existence belongs to Dasein, puts Dasein fully in the present. The lived moment becomes Daseins. We don't reach this 'present' in the current moment, but in grasping death. From the end of existence, we obtain wholeness, so that the not-yet reaches back and gives wholeness authentically to Dasein. This process...this movement...this entire structure of existence that grasps death and then reaches back to unite the past and give the full wholeness to the present...this is called temporality.

The existence structures from Division I...the various modes of being, like theyness and falling prey and signification and everything else...all of this can now be placed in their temporal forms. They need to be repeated within the framework of temporality.

H emphasizes that temporality is not a being, “but rather temporalizes itself.”

“Temporality temporalizes, and it temporalizes possible ways of itself. These make possible the multiplicity of the modes of being of Dasein”.

Future = not yet, the not yet that we already are. (this is why he mentioned the fruit/ripening example earlier in the book...ripeness is not some outside thing added to a fruit at a later time...the fruit is all of it's duration, from unripeness to ripeness).

Past = having-been, the fact that thrownness means we find ourselves already having-been.

In these temporality structures, future has priority.

In being-toward-death, Dasein grasps its finiteness...not as something that will stop, but as a span of time, a duration. Anticipatory resoluteness grasps this temporality.

Summary p- 305. Set up for part four on same page. Basically, having discovered the temporal nature of existence in a look at the impact of authenticity, now needs to go back and look at inauthentic temporality. Care can only be established as time if it holds true for all aspects of existence. So, he now turns to temporality and inauthenticity.

307

IV (temporality and everydayness)

Begins by stating we need to find the “temporalizing of temporality”, the way existence generates timeness, in understanding, attunement, entanglement and discourse.

Understanding carries within itself a grasping of time in that it reveals the sequential time-ness of a possibility. “When one understands oneself projectively in an existentiell possibility, the future underlies this understanding”

Mostly dasein is inauthentic. Its possibilities belong to theyness. Authenticity brings possibilities fully back to dasein. Resoluteness is futural...it grasps what lies ahead and what belongs fully to dasein. Awaiting that authentic future, the grasped future, H once again terms “anticipation”...he keeps the term in this switch to temporality. “the future must first win itself, not from a present, but from the inauthentic future”. 310

Anticipation is the owning of possibilities and accepting that death belongs to dasein. “Awaiting” is the opposite, it is the inauthentic version of anticipation. Death, for inauthentic life, is awaited, not owned.

“We call the present that is held in authentic temporality, and is thus authentic, the Moment. This term must be understood in the active sense as an ecstasy. It means the resolute raptness of dasein, which is yet held in resoluteness, in what is encountered as possibilities and circumstances to be taken care of in the situation.”

Dasein's possibilities are bundles in the Moment. “The Moment...temporalizes itself out of the authentic future”.

The Moment is not just the “now”. It is the authentic present, it is dasein grasping its present and all of the futureness and possibilities it contains.

We are our lived (past) and future possibilities, but we forget this in entanglement. Authenticity is resuming your individuated self knowingly. H terms this...this authentic having-been, where one's timeline is grasped: retrieve.

Again, we forget our solitary, individuated self...this is our natural state, initially, before we absorb into the they. But despite the forgetting, the true nature of dasein as individuated makes possible a remembering...a retrieval. It creates the temporality of having-been.

Mood, attuenement, is rooted in our having-been. Mood reveals our thrownness, that dasein always, already is this being.

“Understanding is primarily grounded in the future; attunement, on the other hand, temporalizes itself primarily as having-been.” 313

H asks, “what should moods have in common with time?” Answers with “The thesis that 'attunement is primarily grounded in having-been' means that the existential fundamental nature of mood is bringing back to...We solely want to show that moods are not possible...except on the basis of temporality”.

Angst and time.

One: Fear is free-floating, inauthentic anxiety about particular things. Angst is authentic grasping of thrownness and uncanny individuation.

Two: The entity which one feels Angst about is already “there”...it is your own self, existence.

Three: “What is the temporal meaning of this revealing?” Angst brings one back to one's own naked, individuated existence. It is not yet a grasping or owning of self. Rather, it is:

Four: “Angst brings one back to thrownness as something to be possibly retrieved...Bringing before the possibility of retrieval is the specific exstatic mode of attuenement of the having-been that constitutes Angst.”

Five: Again, Angst is not yet a full grasping of self, it is just a possible retrieval. So it is not yet within The Moment. Angst “holds The Moment in readiness”.

One through five combined = “Understood temporally, this 'arising' of Angst from dasein means that the future and the present of Angst temporalizes themselves out of a primordial having-been in the sense of bringing us back to the possibility of retrieve.”

Now and future arise out of our authentic grasping of having-been, i.e. attunement.

Falling prey has its roots in the present. To establish this, H looks at the concept of curiosity.

Curiosity = how the they self “makes present”...it is the opposite of the Moment, a corrupted version of the Moment.

General, vague curiosity of the they is predicated on a reducing of experiences to a hazy, endless now.  

I like this description, from 320:

“Initially, the throw of being-thrown-into-the-world does not authentically get caught by dasein...Dasein is swept along in thrownness, that is, as something thrown into the world, it loses itself in the 'world' in its being factically dependent on what is to be taken care of. The present, which constitutes the existential meaning of being swept along, never acquires another ecstatic horizon of its own accord, unless it is brought back from its lostness by a resolution so that both the actual situation and thus the primordial 'boundary situation' of being-toward-death are disclosed as the held Moment”

temporality of discourse 320

The disclosedness of the There is articulated through discourse. So, H temporalizes “there” via discourse.

“since discourse is for the most part spoken in language...making present has, of course, a privileged constitutive function.”

The disclosedness of the There, articulated in discourse, as well as the other possibilities of Dasein described over this section...are rooted in temporality. But this disclosedness also finds its roots in being-in-the-world. The temporal unity is also a unity of being-there.

(very good summary of the unity of temporality on 321. )

H emphasizes the concept of unity because it reinforces the idea that the temporal structures of existences are not sequential. It is not past, then now, then future.

The temporal structures of existence are not in a certain order...they are unified as care and generate temporality in a unified, whole fashion.

Temporality is the ground of care...H now wants to elucidate the temporality of taking care, which grows out of this foundation.

“Taking care” is not about having dealings with specific things, but about things within their use-contexts. The relevance of things is determined by the relational character of dasein, by networks of use-contexts that arise out of Dasein.

Therefore (324): “If letting things be relevant constitutes the existential structure of taking care, and if the latter as being together with...belongs to the essential constitution of care, and if care in its turn is grounded in temporality, then the existential condition of the possibility of letting something be relevant must be sought in a mode of the temporalizing of temporality”.

In other words, if taking care creates use-contexts...and care is grounded in temporality...then we must seek how this is possible in a mode of being that produces time. What is the time generating mode that we live in and that makes all of this possible?

Answer:

Taking care is a 'making present' that awaits and retains. It awaits and retains meaning-contexts and the specific uses within that context.

When tools work, we absorb in tasks. When they break, the task is interrupted and the tool, task and context become conspicuous. So, relevance unities/contexts work or break...making present ebbs and flows. Time is produced out of our taking care of things. These actions are not “in” time, they produce it.

H now examines different ways of discovering “world” and what it says about temporality. He wants to know, first, how circumspect, every day “taking care” of things makes possible the theoretical attitude towards the world.

In taking care, we find ourselves among objectively present things. Science and theoretical understanding arise from this state. Having looked at the the temporal nature of “taking care”, H spends this section examining the temporal nature of science and theory. 327

Example: deliberation, examing, is a bringing near. It discloses an entity, which Dasein must then adapt its understanding of. Thus, a future, a not-yet, that has-been is made present.

(Taking care – praxis, the practical using of things)

Transcendence of world.

3 Ecstasies. One: For the sake of itself (future)

Two: having-been (past)

Three: in-order-to (present)

Referring to the 3 ecstasies: “We st forth the connections of these relations as significance. Their unity constitutes what we call world.”

“Existing, Dasein is its world”.

The 3 ecstasies = disclosure of a world that belongs to dasein's “there”.

“The world is transcendent, grounded in the horizonal unity of ecstatic temporality. It must already be ecstatically disclosed so that innerworldly beings can be encountered from it”.

In other words, World is already there, in temporal, existential structures; we then thematize objects, order them, arrange them into relational contexts. Dasein is world. Subject/object thematizations are made possible by this fact. Again, Existence precedes essence.

Space

If existence is temporal...if Dasein is world...then spatiality must also have a temporal basis.

Only within the world of being-in-the-world can space be discovered. Meaning contexts, their making present, arrange dasein's spatiality.

Entangled, we more easily see space, things arranged in it, and forget that we are generating that space and the relational/meaning systems that arise out of our existential temporality.

For the next section of the book, H wants to examine the temporality of everydayness.

V.

341

Between birth and death, we persist in a series of nows. What does it mean to persist? What is it that persists? We “stretch along” between birth and death...we constantly hold ourselves together as an identity, so H wants to examine this “connection of life”.

We're not a sum...not a collection of nows. H works through some of the more commonplace definitions of constancy, rejects them.

Rather, the “between” of birth/death is unified and “lies in the being of Dasein”.

Birth and death are connection...Dasein is the between, the connection. Just as death is not a future event, but a condition that is build into structure of life, birth is similarly not a post event, but structured into Dasein. They are the edges/ends of a whole, to put it crudely. Dasein, as care, is the world/time generating whole. World/time end when Dasein ends.

Dasein is the persisting whole...time is the horizong over which it persists. Care is the being of Dasein and that which produces the being/time unity.

Stretching and occurrence = constancy of self.

The temporal stretching of Dasein = occurrence. The structure of occurrence = historicity.

Our self-constancy over time makes us historical beings. Our historicity is rooted in existential structures, yet gets confused with commonplace, vulgar understandings of “history”.

We generate temporality, but also live within the time we create. Within-timeness is where we develop the they, average understanding of time. We generally forget, are not aware, of our role in generating that time.

“our next goal is to find the point of departure for...the existential construction of historicity” 346

The past is not just events/things that are “no longer”. Antiques, ruins, objects in museums, are from the past yet still exist. So what makes them “past”? “Past” means that a world has expired (ancient egypt, Napoleanic France, etc)...not the things from that world. They are no longer merged with meaning-contexts within a network of use-relationships.

Relics, ruins and so on therefore provide clues about Dasein's worlding and temporalizing.

We create the wrold contexts that make things hitorical. Being-in-the-world temporalizes, historicizes.

Authentic grasping of death reveals our possibilities but does not provide them. Where are these possibilities arising from?

Definition stuff:

Destiny = “the occurrence of a community, of a people”

“The fateful destiny of Dasein in and with its 'generation' constitues the complete, authentic occurrence of Dasein.”

Fate = Dasein's grasped possibilities that belong to Dasein alone.

Destiny = Fates, plural. Fates of a community, a people.

Fate is the historical ground of existence.

We live in They interpretations, and fetch (re-interpret) authentic potentialities out of that temporal environment. We retrieve possibilities, hand them down to ourselves. So the stuff we create values out of is re-purposed from our historical setting.

On the idea of handing possibilities, meanings, down to ourselves as we extricate our lives from entanglement: Dasein as being-in-the-world and the generator of that temporalized world is the “powerless higher power”.

We grasp the having-been only when we fully understand the not-yet of death, making Dasein's authentic historicity futural.

We live dispersed, disconnected. Authentic historicity unities Dasein's finitude, re-connects existence. It pulls the temporal horizon into the Moment.

This process, retrieval, the pulling together of possibilities, gets back to H's question about the nature of constancy and connectedness. “Constancy is not first formed either through or by 'Moments' adjoining each other, but rather the Moments arise from the temporality, already stretched along, of that retrieve which is futurally in the process of having-been.”

H briefly examines what the science of history...the traditional study of history...tells us about the historicity of Dasein. Basically concludes that the temporal nature of Dasein, it's 3 components and various structures, make possible a historical conceptualization of humans, their history, etc. Traditional history is predicated on Dasein's historicity. 362

VI.

In this final chapter of Division II, H just wants to flesh out his description of temporality as it is experienced in daily, inauthentic existence. Specifically, he wants to look at the everyday understanding of time, what he calls “within-timeness”. 371

Every reference to time includes a reference to something specific. This relational structure is called “datability”. An event is framed within a specific date.

H asks, “What is that to which such datability essentially belongs and what is datability based upon?”

Time references and discloses innerworldly beings. Datability is rooted in our being-together-with, which in turn is connected with our making present. Time is our “thereness” and we therefore interpret in a temporal manner. Time is how we are and how we understand. Expressions of time, sense of time, is temporality interpreting itself.

Care = self-interpretation of temporality.

Existence = time disclosing being-in-the-world temporally.

The They views time as assorted events. It loses time in this scattering. Authentic Dasein pulls the not-yet into the Moment. It retains all time. “The existence of the Moment temporalizes itself as fatefully whole”. 377

sorts through they time. “Public time turns out to be the time 'in which' innerworldly beings at hand and objectively present are encountered. This requires that we call these beings unlike Dasein beings within-time.”

Origin of public time: movement of sun provides a sequential structure to our being together with things. “Taking care makes use of the 'handiness' of the sun giving forth light...This dating of things in terms of the heavenly body giving forth light...and in terms of its distinctive 'places' in the sky, is a way of giving time which can be done in our being-with-one-another 'under the same sky'.”

In its thereness and being-with, Dasein co-exists with natural divisions of night and day, a “natural clock”, which leads to ever-more calculated, artificial clocks and measurements of time.

Consequently, the temporality of thereness precedes what we think of as time. Time isn't in us, our objectively out there in the world...it originates in Daseins disclosedness of being, its thereness. “Time is neither objectively present in the 'subject' nor in the 'object'...neither inside nor outside and it is prior to every subjectively and objectivity, because it presents the condition of the very possibility of this prior.” Again, most divisions we make between subject/object...inside consciousness/outside world...take place after our unified being-in-the-world. Time is the foundation of that unity, it precedes all thematic characterizations, is the ground for the possibility of all such thematic divisions.  

Implied in the function of clocks is the temporal 'making present' of care. Past, present, future of existence in the now underlies public time.

The connectedness of 'nows' and temporality is lost in the common persception of time...and it is lost for the reason all such forgetting happens: in our flight from the sting of finitude, from death awareness. “Time as endless nows” is Dasein's they-self way of evading finitude.

H concludes the book by critiquing Hegel's concept of time and space.

Distributed as “now-points”, space, in Hegel's writing, is time.

Time isn't just a series of 'nows'. It is thought separating passing nows and not-yet nows. The marking of the present now requires thought. Time is “intuited” (for Hegel).

Nows enter non-being by either passing or not having arrived. The present now, disclosed to Dasein, is therefore the negation of non-being. It is becoming, the “negation of negation”.

So, time is a negation of negation. And thought is negation of negation. Hegel sees time and thought as the same force. (sorry, I'm mangling this, I'm not up on Hegel).

Point of this section: “Whether Hegel's interpretation...is correct...cannot be discussed now. However, that the formal and dialectical construction of the connection of spirit and time can be ventured at all reveals the primordial kinship of both.” H is finding hints of existential temporality in Hegel.

H's summary of the Hegel chapter: “Spirit does not first fall into time, but exists as the primordial temporalizing of temporality. Temporality temporalizes world time, in whose horizon history can appear as an occurrence within time.” and so on.

Conclusion of Being and Time (397-398): Time has revealed itself as the meaning of being of care...as the nature of existence, to put it crudely. H repeats that these considerations...grasping the nature of existence...have been ignored for most of Western philosophical history. The task of philosophy has not even properly begun. It's time to end philosophy as we know it (and the dead end of subject/object thinking), and begin grappling with the fundamental questions of life. What is existence? Why is there something instead of nothing?

End part VI.

End Division II.

Further readings:

The shortest, most accessible overview of Being and Time is likely Critchley's brief, 8-part Heidegger series that was written for The Guardian. The series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 

Also, for a better understanding of Heidegger, Being and Time and the historical context within which the book was written, Safranski's biography of the philosopher is highly recommended. Click here for the Amazon page. Offers detailed information about his involvement with the Nazi party.

Heidegger's "black notebooks" are currently being published...for a look at what these contain and what they tell us about his worldview, The Guardian has two articles on the topic: 1, 2.

(note written on the back of my copy of Being and Time, which I no longer recall the significance of:

teacup )