Please choose one of the following topics; of course, you may also write more than one essay, but there will be no extra credit~
1. Discuss the relation between “authenticity” and inauthenticity in *Being and Time*.
2. Briefly explain the intellectual intention of *Being and Time*, and give your evaluation. (From the description of Dasein itself to the description of Being)
3. Choose your own topic. This is not recommended; unless it is especially well written, it is hard to get a high score.
Requirements: 1. Stay close to the text; only with paraphrase can there be evaluation. 2. No fewer than 5,000 characters.
The Road Toward “Authenticity”
——On the Intellectual Intention of *Being and Time*
The Road
What is the purpose or intellectual intention of *Being and Time*?
At the beginning of the book, Heidegger says: “The question of the meaning of Being must be posed again. … The meaning of this question must be understood anew. The aim of the present work is to expound concretely the question of the meaning of ‘Being’.” (p. 1, p1)
At the end of the book, Heidegger again states clearly: “A way must be sought and taken along which the fundamental question of ontology can be illuminated. … The foregoing investigation is moving in the direction of this sole aim.” (Section 83, p. 512, p437)
So the matter seems very clear: the purpose or intention of *Being and Time* is “to clarify on principle the question of Being itself.” (Section 6, p. 29, p23[①])
However, “correct” does not necessarily mean “true.” Although describing the intention of *Being and Time* as “posing anew and investigating the question of Being” is not wrong, that way of putting it still does not genuinely display Heidegger’s intention.
Notice that both at the beginning and at the end of the book, Heidegger describes the inquiry he is carrying out as a “road.” “A path, and not a book” — thus Heidegger spoke of his *Collected Works* on his deathbed[②].
When we ask what a person’s intention was in writing a certain “work,” the answer can be that the book raised or investigated what question, advanced what claim or method, and so on; however, when we ask why someone sought out and set foot upon a certain road, what concerns us is not what he discussed or proposed, but rather: where does this road lead?
Heidegger says that the “sole aim” of this “road” is “to illuminate the fundamental question of ontology”; so what is the “fundamental question of ontology”? Heidegger says: “If the interpretation of the Being of Dasein is to become the foundation for solving the fundamental ontological question, then, if it is to be primordial, it must first of all bring into relief the possible authenticity and totality of Dasein’s Being in an existential way.” (Section 45, p. 281, p233) Simply put, the fundamental question of ontology is “how to bring Dasein’s ‘authenticity’ into the open.”
At the same time, we should also note that the point of the phrase “to illuminate the fundamental question of ontology” is not “the fundamental question of ontology,” but “to illuminate,” or rather, “to bring into relief” — that realm of light, that cleared space[③], in other words, that “unconcealment” or “truth,” is the true goal of this road. Perhaps the question Heidegger asks at the end of the essay “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking” is especially apt to quote here — “Then would the title for the task of thought no longer be ‘Being and Time,’ but Clearing and Presence?”[④]
I will later explain in more detail Heidegger’s distinctive conception of “truth,” but here it is worth noting in advance that for Heidegger, “truth” is also “clearing,” and seeking “truth” is also seeking “authenticity.”
Heidegger says: “As understanding, Dasein can understand itself in terms of the ‘world’ and of others, or in terms of its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. The latter possibility means that Dasein discloses itself to itself in and as its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. This authentic disclosedness shows the most primordial phenomenon of truth in the mode of authenticity. Such disclosedness is the truth of existence. By the same token, the most primordial and authentic disclosedness in which Dasein, as a potentiality-for-Being, can be, is the truth of existence. Only with regard to Dasein’s authenticity can the truth of Being get its existential-ontological determination.” (Section 44, p. 267, p221)
In this passage, Heidegger explicitly states that “Dasein’s authentic state” is the “truth of existence,” the necessary road to “truth.”
Thus the question “What is the intellectual intention of *Being and Time*?” leads us to the core concept of “authenticity.” To understand the real concern of *Being and Time*, one must understand “authenticity” and its relation to inauthenticity,
In this passage, too, we notice that the so-called “authentic state,” as opposed to understanding oneself through the “world,” means understanding oneself from one’s ownmost aspect. How should we understand such concepts as “Dasein,” “world,” “understanding,” “potentiality-for-Being,” and “existence”? Why is it said that this very work, *Being and Time*, can serve as a road leading to the “authentic”? In what follows I will explain these matters step by step.
Truth
“Truth,” together with “Being,” has always been a theme of traditional Western philosophy, and these two words have often been intertwined to such an extent that in the whole history of Western philosophy, truth and Being have almost been the same question.
The close relation between the question of truth and the question of Being does not change in Heidegger. Heidegger acknowledges that “truth is indeed originally connected with Being” (Section 44, p. 257, p213). Yet Heidegger overturns the understandings of truth and Being in modern philosophy, and the reinterpretation of truth and Being is precisely the main task of *Being and Time*.
Heidegger believes that philosophy has always thoroughly “missed the Greek concept of truth.” (Section 7, p. 43, p34) He points out: “In the Greek sense, ‘true’ means [perceptual] simple sensuous seeing of something (and this is more primordial than the logos). So long as a seeing is simply directed toward its own [idea], that is, toward those entities which are accessible only through it and for it by nature, for instance, a seeing directed toward colors, then the seeing is always true.” (Section 7, p. 42, p33)
“Truth” is from the very beginning linked with “logos,” that is, with “discourse,” and further with concepts such as “statement,” “judgment,” “concept,” “proposition,” “reason,” and “ground.” In Heidegger’s view, this is because “logos” can “let something be seen, to let the entities talked about be seen” (Section 7, p. 43, p34) — the truth of logos lies in “taking the entities talked about out of their hiddenness and letting them be seen as unconcealed, that is, uncovering those entities of which one talks.” (Section 7, p. 42, p33)
In short, “‘is true’ (truth) means the same as ‘is uncovering.’” (Section 44, p. 264, p219)
Heidegger points out that “‘true’ is more primordial than the logos” (Section 7, p. 42, p33), and that “the most primordial ‘truth’ is the ‘place’ of assertion” (Section 44, p. 267, p222), and that logos cannot “be taken as the proper ‘place’ of truth” (Section 7, p. 42, p33). Yet traditional philosophy has always reversed the order of the two, taking truth to arise from discourse, and then conceiving truth as judgment or proposition; this is how the so-called problem of truth as “correspondence” came into being.
To say that a statement is true is not to say that this statement corresponds with its “object.” The thing that the statement is about is not “sitting there ready-made for one to look at.” Before any uncovering takes place, there is no such ready-made object before our eyes; it is precisely the statement, as an “act of uncovering,” that “says” the entity, “displays” it, and thereby “lets one see” it. (Section 44, p. 263, p218)
However, although truth is not a statement or judgment, we still need to ask: how do we judge whether a statement is true or false? Can truth be reduced to the “self-evident” and thus evade the question of truth? Of course not. In fact, the very purpose of the whole of *Being and Time* is to indicate the direction in which truth can be reached.
Truth is “showing,” “presenting,” “letting one see”; yet in a certain sense, “untruth” also “lets one see.” Heidegger says that “the false” is “(in the mode of letting-be-seen) putting something before something else, and thereby letting this thing appear as what it is not.” (Section 7, p. 42, p33)
In this way, we can understand why Heidegger says that “the essence of truth is freedom”[⑤], because “truth” is letting things present themselves, rather than having them present themselves by way of something else. Of course, to reach some thing one may need to make use of certain other things, but all such assistance can only function as “guidance” or “signposts,” and cannot become the determination of truth itself.
Heidegger once mentioned: “The corresponding activity of the traffic sign opposite is the ‘avoidance’ or ‘stop’ of vehicles approaching the sign. … When we authentically ‘grasp’ this sign, it is precisely not when we look at the sign, not when we determine it as something displayed lying there.” (Section 17, p. 98, p79)
By this point, we can understand why Heidegger was unwilling to use the word “work,” and instead called his book a “road” or a “signpost.” For once we regard them as “works,” it is as if they have become ready-made things “lying there” for people to “look at”; according to Heidegger, this way of “looking” is not the “authentic” way of “grasping,” which means that the signpost that serves as guidance instead becomes an obstacle blocking the true goal.
For Heidegger, “truth” is “awareness,” “uncovering,” “disclosing,” “unconcealment”; in short, “truth” is no longer a noun but has become a verb. What is uncovered is “true” only insofar as it is “seen” in the state of being uncovered; and once it is detached from that simple, immediate, and “practical” “seeing” and becomes “ready-to-hand” — for example, when it is recorded or constructed and becomes a “fact” or a “theory” — it is no longer “truth.” Therefore, if one wants to seek a road to truth, one must begin with “seeing” itself, with the act of uncovering itself.
Heidegger says it plainly: “The uncovering which belongs to a being-in-the-world is itself a way of Being. … Only in a secondary sense do entities within-the-world have this quality [of truth], that is, when, and only when, they are uncovered. Primordially, ‘true’—that is, uncovering—is Dasein.” (Section 40, p. 265, p220)
Dasein is such a special entity because it is not merely the “thing uncovered,” but also the one who uncovers. Just now we spoke of “being in truth,” that is, “being in uncovering”; thus, “as long as Dasein, as disclosed Dasein, is disclosing and uncovering, it is essentially ‘true.’ Dasein is ‘in truth.’” (Section 44, p. 266, p221)
The reason this entity is called “Dasein” is precisely that “it exists in the way of being its there. It is ‘illuminated in itself,’ which means that, as being-in-the-world, it is itself in its very Being the clearing, not because of the lighting-up of some other entity, but because: it is itself the clearing.” (Section 28, p. 163, p133)
Since Dasein itself is truth, to reach truth does not require borrowing some path outside Dasein; it is enough to let Dasein unfold itself. At the same time, only Dasein raises the question of “Being” or “truth,” and the ability to ask about it means that Dasein already has some understanding of Being or truth — “Understanding of Being is itself a determination of being of Dasein. The distinctive character of Dasein as compared with all other entities lies in the fact that it is ontological.” (Section 4, pp. 15–16, p12)
Thus we see that “Dasein” becomes both the entrance to and the direction of the road to truth; the question “How can truth be reached?” is brought into the question of “How does Dasein come to understand itself?”
Earlier I mentioned that “true” and “untrue” are both “disclosure,” except that the former freely discloses itself “without borrowing[⑥] from outside,” while the latter, through the disclosure of something else, obscures what ought to be disclosed. Similarly, Dasein is always “understanding,” but the question is whether this understanding is truly free or borrowed from something else — or, put differently, whether it is “authentic” or “inauthentic.”
Let us recall the passage quoted at the end of Chapter One: “As understanding, Dasein can understand itself in terms of the ‘world’ and others, or in terms of its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. …” In another place, Heidegger says: “Dasein can understand itself initially and on the whole from its world, but understanding can also primarily throw itself into the ‘for-the-sake-of-which’; that is to say, Dasein exists as it is, authentically. Understanding can be authentic, arising from the ownmost Self as such. Understanding can also be inauthentic. This ‘in-’ does not signify that Dasein cuts itself off from itself and ‘only’ understands the world. The world belongs to Dasein’s own Being, and Being-in-the-world is being-with-one-another. Both authentic and inauthentic understanding can again be genuine or non-genuine understanding as the potentiality-for-Being pervaded throughout by possibilities. Being attuned to one of these two basic possibilities of understanding does not preclude the other possibility.” (Section 31, p. 178, p146)
In this passage, Heidegger explicitly distinguishes between “authentic understanding” and “inauthentic understanding,” two fundamental possibilities belonging to Dasein’s way of existing — once again we are led to the concept of “authenticity.” This passage also suggests the relation between “authenticity” and “inauthenticity”: the latter is “initial and usual,” and the two are not mutually exclusive. What exactly these statements mean is what I will now explain step by step.
Inauthenticity
In the passages quoted above, we have already seen that Heidegger repeatedly emphasizes understanding of the world as inauthentic understanding (Section 44, p. 267, p221; Section 31, p. 178, p146; see also Section 32, p. 182, p148)
“World means the ‘public’ we-world or one’s ‘own’ closest (domestic) environment.” (Section 14, p. 81, p65)
For Heidegger, “being-in-the-world” is Dasein’s fundamental existential state, and the everyday world is the starting point of ontological inquiry. He points out that “everyday being-in-the-world is to be examined, and as long as one clings phenomenologically to everyday being-in-the-world, the phenomenon of world will come into view.” (Section 14, p. 82, p66) Heidegger emphasizes that in the interpretation of Dasein, “precisely because average everydayness constitutes the present ontical condition of this entity, it has been repeatedly passed over in previous interpretations of Dasein.” (Section 9, p. 55, p43)
Heidegger states plainly: “Primordially, Dasein understands itself in terms of the world and the Being of entities within-the-world which it itself is not, but which it encounters within its own world; and, in so doing, it also understands itself as being-in-the-world.” (Section 12, p. 73, p58)
In other words, Dasein cannot skip over “inauthentic understanding” and go straight to an authentic state; Dasein is first and always ruled by “others.” Because we exist in the world, we can know ourselves; because we are with others, we can learn language; “the domination of the public way of interpreting already decides even the possibilities of moods, that is, decides the basic modes in which Dasein is disclosively related to the world. The ‘looking’ which it lets be seen has already been sketched out beforehand by the public way of interpreting.” (Section 35, p. 206, p169)
Although “Dasein is always mine,” in average everydayness, that is, in the inauthentic state, Dasein’s “I” is completely ruled by “others.” Here, “others” is not some specific object; any one other person can stand in for these others, yet once someone is required to step forward and assume responsibility, there is “no one.” This is the “they” that serves as the “I” of everyday Dasein.
Heidegger says: “The ‘they’ is an existentiale and belongs as a primordial phenomenon to Dasein’s positive constitution.” (Section 27, p. 158, p129) The “positive” here can be understood as “affirmative”; correspondingly, the authentic state is rather “negative,” because Heidegger then says: “The ‘others’ initially manifest themselves in their ‘they’-selves. … Dasein is proximally and for the most part the they. If Dasein discloses the world authentically and if it brings itself into the world in its ownmost Being, then this disclosing of the ‘world’ and this bringing about of Dasein is always a leveling of every concealment and hiding, a debunking of the disguises with which Dasein bars itself from itself.” (Section 27, p. 159, p129)
As discussed earlier, Heidegger interprets truth as “unconcealment” and “unhiddenness”: “true” is understood precisely through the negative of the negative in “without borrowing.” Here, if Dasein is to move from the “they” toward the “authentic,” it can only do so through the path of “unconcealment” and “stripping away”; if it takes the route of construction and positing, it only adds concealment instead of removing it.
We can by no means first find a pure land of freedom and then build the edifice of truth upon it; however one looks at it, our point of departure is always this actual, near-at-hand, everyday lifeworld. And this is precisely the phenomenological method Heidegger repeatedly emphasized.
From the outset Heidegger made this research direction, beginning from everyday life, completely explicit: “The being that is to be exhibited in the way in which it is initially and for the most part given—namely, in its everydayness—must be shown as it is in the average everydayness of Dasein. The structures that are to be exhibited in everydayness are not mere accidental structures, but essential ones; and they must retain the character of structures determining the being of Dasein, whatever ontical condition Dasein may be in. By starting with the basic state of everydayness of Dasein, we shall be able to proceed step by step and provisionally to bring out the being of such a being.” (Section 5, p. 21, p17)
Here I might as well note in passing: if one says that what everyday life furnishes is precisely essential structure, if one says that access to truth must proceed through “dismantling” rather than “building,” if one says that “inauthenticity does not mean ‘less’ being or ‘lower’ being.” (Section 9, p. 54, p43) then this base of everyday life should not be merely “preparatory” or “lower,” as though another, higher base still needed to be built above it. Heidegger’s taking “temporality” as the new “foundation,” as the “higher and authentic ontological ground” (Section 5, p. 22, p17) “represents a dangerous tendency, namely the tendency to separate the pure thought represented by temporality from the existential situation of Dasein.”[⑦] I do not intend rashly to pass judgment on the success or failure of the last third of Being and Time, but we do indeed see that this line of thought—of “building a higher foundation”—deviates somewhat from Heidegger’s consistent policy.
But let us return to the point. Since human beings are said to be unavoidably thrown into the world, how can we then get out of “falling,” that is, out of inauthenticity and toward freedom? Does living in seclusion, going one’s own way, suffice to free oneself from “others” and be at ease? Heidegger states plainly that “Dasein’s being-alone is also being-with-in-the-world” (Section 26, p. 148, p121); “being-with” is not a description of an ontical condition of Dasein, “being-with is an existential characteristic of every Dasein of its own.” (Section 26, p. 149, p121) Perhaps one might be born completely isolated from others—but if so, one would be unable to learn language, unable to learn how to “live,” and even more impossible to “question” one’s own existence; that is to say, one could not be a being of the Dasein type. So long as one is “Dasein,” one must be “being-with-in-the-world.”
“Authenticity” does not mean some alternative way of life outside everyday life. One commentator summarizes it thus: “(Authenticity) means, once again, entering the world; it does not open up new realms of human Dasein. Everything may remain exactly as it was, and will remain unchanged; what changes is only one’s attitude toward it.”[⑧]
Heidegger’s formulation is: “Authentic being-one’s-Self does not rest upon an exceptional condition of the subject, a condition that has been detached from the they; it is rather an existentiell modification of the they.” (Section 27, p. 160, p130) “Authentic existence is not something floating above falling everydayness; existentielly it is only a modification of the grasp of everydayness that has fallen.”[⑨] (Section 38, p. 217, p179)
Here we see that the key to authentic existence lies in “grasp.” And grasp means “understanding” and “projection.” In the passages cited repeatedly in the previous chapters, Heidegger is precisely speaking of “authentic” and “inauthentic” as two basic possibilities of “understanding.”
Dasein exists precisely as “understanding”: “Understanding is the existential being of Dasein’s own potentiality-for-being itself.” (Section 31, p. 176, p144) Heidegger says: “As understanding, Dasein projects its being upon possibilities. … The projecting of understanding has its own possibilities in which it discloses itself. We call the development of understanding the interpretation. In interpretation understanding has become its own, understandingly. In interpretation, understanding does not become something else, but itself.” (Section 32, p. 181, p148)
That is to say, how can Dasein possibly “fashion itself”? Or, to put it differently, how is authenticity possible? Heidegger’s guidance is: through “interpretation”—and this is precisely what Being and Time does.
Heidegger remarks: “From where, indeed, should we get the ‘authentic’ existence of Dasein? … Existential interpretation takes over the task of projecting possibilities and constraints in the existence-structure of Dasein.” (Section 63, p. 371, p312) Elsewhere, Heidegger puts it even more clearly: “When a research work, on the one hand, like all research, is itself a mode of being of Dasein that has been unfolded, and, on the other hand, is to shape the understanding of being belonging to existence into a concept, how could such a research work fail to contain what has been spoken of above as the essential projecting activity toward Dasein?” (Section 63, p. 374, p315)
That is to say, the research work carried out in Being and Time itself is precisely this essential projecting activity toward Dasein; in other words, it is the road itself by which one gets out of falling and reaches authenticity. We have long since indicated that the true intention of Being and Time is not to “write a book and establish a doctrine,” but to “point out a road.” The “question of the meaning of being,” of course, is the topic Being and Time discusses and interprets; yet reaching authenticity is the goal of interpretation itself. As for why Heidegger chose the question of the meaning of being as his “target,” he once remarked: “The question of the meaning of being is the most universal and the most empty question. But within this question there is also a possibility, namely that this question can be individualized in the most proper and sharpest way to the Dasein of the present.” (Section 8, p. 43, p29) Elsewhere, Heidegger mentions: “Speech that says itself, that is, communication, has as the goal toward which its being tends: to let the hearer participate in the being that unfolds toward what is spoken of in the discourse.” (Section 35, p. 204, p168)
That is to say, Being and Time, in the form of a book and of “discourse,” hopes, through the interpretation of the question of the meaning of being and through the “communication” of authenticity, to guide each reader to face his or her own existence, to participate in Dasein’s unfolding of itself, and thereby to attain authentic understanding.
Then what guidance and hint does Being and Time in fact provide? Below I shall briefly introduce this road.
Stimmung
We have already made clear that the intention of Being and Time is to indicate a road leading from the inauthentic fallen state to the authentic state of Dasein—namely, to truth, freedom, or the realm of clearing. And this road does not aim to establish or construct anything, but rather to carry out uncovering and dismantling.
But however one says it, Being and Time is after all still a “work,” and Heidegger is after all still “writing books and articulating doctrine.” The key lies in the fact that Heidegger must seek a way that philosophers before him had not attempted: on the one hand, he must establish theses and articulate ideas, yet on the other hand he must avoid setting up new veils and obstacles. What Heidegger wants to provide are “signposts” that indicate a direction—signposts that must be ordinary enough for most people to grasp their meaning, and yet also capable of individually leading each person back to himself; signposts that must be sufficiently “striking,” and yet not cause one to “stop and stare”… Where, then, should such signposts be found?
Heidegger found in “mood” designated as “Stimmung” the breakthrough point. He says: “What we indicate ontologically with the term ‘Stimmung’ is ontically the most familiar and the most everyday thing: mood; being in a mood.” (Section 29, p. 164, p134) “In a state of mind, Dasein is always already disclosed as the being which it is, in a mood… It is precisely in this most indifferent and most trivial everydayness that the being of Dasein can burst forth as the naked ‘it is and has to be’.” (Section 29, p. 165, p134)
“Mood,” as Dasein’s most familiar and most everyday state, is also what lets Dasein come face to face with “itself.” “Dasein is always already in a mood” (Section 29, p. 165, p134), and mood is always Dasein’s most intimate state: “Mood assails us. It comes neither from ‘outside’ nor from ‘inside,’ but rises from being-in-the-world itself as a mode of that being-in-the-world.” (Section 29, p. 168, p136) Heidegger means that “mood” does not originate from some “object,” neither from object nor from subject. On the contrary, the presentation of “objects” itself requires the “affecting” of the state of mind, “only then can one ‘have a feeling for something,’ and only then does what affects us become manifest in an affecting”[⑩] (Section 29, p. 169, p137)—even the cognitive activity of “the purest theory” must pass through mood (see Section 29, p. 169, p138). If mood ultimately has a source at all, that source can only be the existential whole of “Dasein-in-the-world” itself. Heidegger puts it plainly: “Mood has always already disclosed being-in-the-world as a whole and makes it possible first of all to direct ourselves toward something.” (Section 29, p. 168, p137)
Introducing “mood” into the foundation of ontology does not mean siding with “irrationalism.” Heidegger believes irrationalists merely “flee into a refuge” and thereby evade recollection. (See Section 29, p. 167, p136) And although Heidegger overturned the path and method of traditional philosophy, he did not thereby abandon the search for truth. For questions in traditional philosophy such as “reality” and “knowledge,” Heidegger does not simply dismiss them as abuses of language or conceptual confusion and discard them once and for all—that would after all be laziness or evasion. Although Heidegger points out the many mistakes of traditional philosophy, he continually confronts the questions that generations of philosophers have been reflecting upon. Through tracing etymologies and similar means, Heidegger reorders these traditional questions, asks them anew, and answers them anew.
Therefore Heidegger would not treat “mood” as a final refuge and stop there; rather, “mood” is only the “starting point” on the road to authenticity.
Next, Heidegger first briefly discusses the possibility of “fear” as a mode of state-of-mind, as an example and as a foreshadowing for the later discussion of “anxiety”; then he focuses on introducing “care” and “anxiety,” these two special “moods,” as keys “for bringing into view existentially the authenticity and totality that Dasein’s being can possess.”
Although in the deepest sense “authenticity” and “totality” are inseparable, if one speaks of them separately, the structure of “care” emphasizes support for the ontological “totality.” Heidegger hints: “The totality of the ontological elements of the structure of care can no longer be traced back to a ‘basic element’ in the ontical sense, just as being itself certainly cannot be ‘explained’ from entities.” (Section 41, p. 237, p196)
What Heidegger means is that, on the one hand, one cannot be lazy or evasive and give up “explaining” the question of being; and since “being” is essentially total, any explanation of being should likewise be systematic, but such an explanation cannot take entities as its “elements.” Thus, it is a good choice to use “care,” as a mode of state-of-mind, as the “primitive element.”
Taking “care” as the “primitive element,” and then deriving “taking care of things,” “worry,” and “concern,” links the traditional problems of knowledge and reality with the problems of being-in-the-world and being-with, forming an overall whole, and finally, with “care” as this “basic element,” for example, “reality is referred back to the phenomenon of care” (Section 43, p. 255, p212)
Here one can indeed see the shadow of foundationalism or essentialism from traditional metaphysics, but we should avoid blindly interpreting Heidegger through the lens of traditional metaphysics. What must always be kept in mind is that Heidegger is providing us with a “road, not a work.” Heidegger says clearly: “The way in which Dasein is to be brought before itself must be such that it can attain Dasein itself in a certain simplified way. … The state of mind that satisfies these methodological requirements is anxiety.” (Section 39, p. 221, p182) Whether it is “care” or “anxiety,” putting these concepts at the core of ontology is after all only a kind of “simplified way”; the final purpose is not to establish an all-encompassing grand theoretical system, but always to point toward “attaining Dasein itself.”
Now let us see how Heidegger, by entering through “anxiety,” attains “authenticity.”
The Nothing
As modes of state-of-mind, both “care” and “anxiety” are non-objectifying, but “care” can bring objects “out,” letting them “show themselves”: in busy concern Dasein comes face to face with things, and in concernful solicitude Dasein comes face to face with others. “Anxiety,” however, is quite special: it does not let anything present itself, but instead presents “the nothing.” “In anxiety, the ready-to-hand things in the surrounding world, and indeed beings within-the-world as a whole, sink away. ‘The world’ can offer nothing more, nor can the Dasein-with of others. Anxiety robs Dasein of the possibility of understanding itself, as falling, in terms of the ‘world’ and the public way of interpreting things, and it throws Dasein back upon that for which it is anxious, namely, it throws it back upon its authentic potentiality-for-being-in-the-world.” (Section 40, p. 227, p187)
What anxiety is anxious about is not that something is presented, but precisely that nothing is presented. When anxiety strikes, one feels “haunted by no sense of whereabouts” (Section 40, p. 228, p188); this phrase precisely expresses the character of anxiety—it compels Dasein to withdraw from the familiar everyday world in which it has been falling, dismantles everything around Dasein on which it can rely or depend, and throws Dasein into a state of disorientation and helpless isolation, where the only thing Dasein can face directly is itself.
People seek to flee from anxiety “not in order to escape from beings within-the-world, but precisely to escape to such beings, that is, to the beings upon which taking care, lost in the they-self, can linger in a tranquil familiarity.” (Section 40, p. 229, p189) On the other hand, “only when Dasein has been, in its very being, brought before itself through the being-disclosed that belongs to it by nature, can it flee in the face of itself.” (Section 40, p. 224, p185) In other words, what people seek to flee in anxiety is nothing other than their own authentic Dasein. Through “anxiety,” Dasein comes face to face with “the nothing,” that is, it is placed before its own most authentic self.
Heidegger says clearly: “Anxiety individualizes Dasein for its ownmost being-in-the-world, which as understanding projects itself essentially upon possibilities. Therefore, that in the face of which anxiety is anxious reveals Dasein as a being that is potentially individual and that in this individuation is to be itself only from itself.” (Section 40, p. 227, pp.187~188) “This individuation brings Dasein back from its falling, and makes manifest to it both authenticity and inauthenticity as possibilities of its being.” (Section 40, p. 231, p191)
So then, what exactly does Dasein see clearly through anxiety? What does “the possibility of being” refer to? Heidegger shortly thereafter introduces the question of death.
“Death is a possibility of being which Dasein itself has to take over in every case. With death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality-for-being. … In such being towards itself, all relationships to any other Dasein have been undone within it.” (Section 50, p. 300, p250) “Death, as the end of Dasein, is Dasein’s ownmost, nonrelational, certain, and, as such, indefinite, not-to-be-bypassed possibility.” (Section 52, p. 310, p259) “(Death as) the ownmost possibility is nonrelational. This understanding of Dasein in advance … and Dasein can take over this potentiality-for-being only from itself; there is no other way.” (Section 53, p. 315, p263)
The earlier discussion of “anxiety” becomes clearer here: “Anxiety in the face of death is anxiety ‘in the face of’ the ownmost, nonrelational, and not-to-be-bypassed potentiality-for-being.” (Section 50, p. 301, p251) “Anxiety” presents “the nothing,” and “death” is that ultimate “nothing.”
Thus, “attaining Dasein itself” requires facing death directly and refusing the schemes of evasion and concealment that the they-self offers for death—“authentic being-towards-death cannot evade the ownmost nonrelational possibility; it cannot cover up this possibility in such evasion, nor distortively interpret it in order to accommodate the understanding of the they.” (Section 53, p. 312, p260)
“Ordinary people do not let the courage that fears death come to light.” (Section 51, p. 304, p.254) “It busily reverses such fear into a fear before a coming event.” (Section 51, p. 305, p.254) “Ordinary people” first interpret “fear” as “being afraid,” and regard “death,” this utterly possible and uncertain thing, as a determinate event that is “not possible now” — “one must die sooner or later, but not yet”; “since death is still far off, let’s just live well for now.” It is as if “death” were something that happens in some distant future, as though saying, “Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time.” Thus ordinary people never dare to face death squarely; they only know to use the matters of busy everyday toil to block out death, or to shift their gaze toward ideals such as heaven and immortality. Of course, Heidegger is not saying that people should not busily toil away at “getting through life,” nor is he saying that religious theology is entirely without value. Yet no everyday affair and no theological consolation can replace philosophical reflection,
The road to authenticity requires “being-toward-death”; this does not mean that one must “think about death” at every moment. Heidegger points out that “such contemplation of death certainly does not completely cancel out the nature of death as a possibility, … but precisely because it is always calculating how to master death, it weakens the nature of death as a possibility.” (Section 53, p. 313, p.261) “In being-toward-death, this possibility must be understood as a possibility without weakening it, must be cultivated as a possibility, and must be carried through to the end in comportment toward this possibility as a possibility.” (Section 53, p. 313, p.261)
Freedom
So what exactly is this “possibility” that must be understood and upheld? Heidegger says: “The ownmost possibility is the least related possibility. In anticipating it, Dasein understands that in potentiality-for-Being everything is a matter of Dasein’s ownmost Being; and that it can come to grips with this potentiality-for-Being solely in its own way, from itself, and not otherwise. Death is not simply something that ‘belongs’ to one’s own Dasein and then that is all; death demands Dasein as a singular thing, and the utter unrelatedness of death, understood in anticipation, individualizes Dasein down to itself. This individualization is a way of unfolding the ‘there’ for existence. It shows that, where the ownmost potentiality-for-Being is at issue, everything resting in that which is taken care of, and every Being-with of others, is powerless. Only when Dasein is enabled to do this by itself can it exist authentically as itself.” (Section 53, p. 515, p.263) What Heidegger emphasizes is: “To anticipate into the possibility of the unrelatedness … means to drive the existent into a possibility: … from out of itself, from itself, to take over its ownmost Being.” (Section 53, p. 516, p.263)
That is to say, being-toward-death, that is, anticipating into the possibility of utter unrelatedness, means individualizing Dasein. This point has already been stressed many times in Heidegger’s discussion of “fear”; he says: “Fear thus individualizes Dasein and discloses it as [the solus ipse].” (Section 40, p. 228, p.188)
Of course, Heidegger is not leading us toward vulgar solipsism. Vulgar solipsism holds that all things and all others ultimately exist to serve “me”; but quite the opposite, Heidegger is emphasizing that when one faces oneself authentically, no thing and no other person can any longer offer “me” any help. “I” have nothing to rely on; I can only take on myself, plan myself, and be responsible for myself. This is the meaning behind Heidegger’s repeated talk of one having to “take up,” “endure,” and “assume” oneself.
It is worth noting in passing that Heidegger also rejects vulgar altruism. Vulgar altruistic action means “taking over for the other the burden of what is to be taken care of,” which Heidegger calls “acting as a substitute.” “Opposed to this is another possibility of concern, one that is not necessarily acting in another’s stead, but rather setting an example to the other in his potentiality-for-Being [11]; not to take ‘care’ away from him, but first genuinely to give it back to him as care. This concern is essentially authentic care, that is, it concerns the Being of the other, not the ‘what’ of what the other is to take care of. Such concern helps the other to become transparent to himself in his care and to become free for it himself.” (Section 26, p. 150, p.122)
The “solus ipse” Heidegger emphasizes is precisely “freedom.” In the Western philosophical tradition, the “freedom” so often stressed has never had anything to do with laxity or carelessness; rather, it means “autonomy” and “self-discipline.” That is, mastering oneself, being responsible for oneself.
Ordinary Dasein is not free. Dasein is always under the rule of “the They,” and cannot itself take over its own Being; the They “relieves every Dasein of its responsibility in its everydayness.” (Section 27, p. 157, p.127) The They also often “makes choices,” yet “the They tacitly relieves one of the burden of explicitly choosing these possibilities … who ‘really’ does the choosing remains completely indefinite.” (Section 54, p. 321, p.268) And to move toward the realm of authenticity and freedom, one must first “win oneself back from the They.” This “must be accomplished in the mode of making a choice for a choice. But making a choice for a choice means choosing this choice-for-choice, means deciding to be able to exist from out of one’s own self. By means of choosing a choice, Dasein first makes its own authentic potentiality-for-Being possible.” (Section 54, p. 321, p.268)
Conclusion
At this point, Heidegger has already indicated this road to “authenticity” and pointed out the location of the “clearing”: “the realm of freedom that has become anticipating for one’s own death” (Section 53, p. 316, p.264). Yet if this authentic “realm” is indeed traversable, what would traversing it mean? In comparison with everyday inauthentic existence, what is special about the authentic existence reached through freedom?
As mentioned earlier, “authenticity” is only a variant of everyday life; the key lies not in changing some practice or action, but in the sense of understanding, grasping, and planning. And the planning Heidegger speaks of is not “what I plan to do” or “what profession I want to pursue” and the like. Such “planning” directed toward ready-made things is inauthentic; authentic planning refers to “resolving to become oneself.”
But is this not too “mystical”? After saying so much, if one still has not positively explained what authentic existence actually looks like in action, how could that possibly be satisfying? Heidegger admits: “The earlier interpretation starts out from average everydayness and confines itself to analyzing the indifferent or inauthentic modes of existence. Even if this path can reach, and certainly has already reached, a concrete determination of the ontical state of existence, … as long as the existential structure of authentic potentiality-for-Being has not been absorbed into the concept of existence, the fore-having that guides any existential interpretation still lacks primordiality.” (Section 45, p. 289, p.233)
Thus, bringing the “existential structure of authentic potentiality-for-Being” “into the open” became the main task of Part Two of Being and Time. Heidegger attempts to “determine the authenticity of existence” from the positive side. He says: “From where are we to take the standard for such a determination? If we cannot impose upon Dasein, from the ontical condition of beings, the possibility and mode of this authentic existence of Dasein, and if we also cannot fabricate this possibility and mode ontologically, then clearly Dasein itself must provide them in its Being. Conscience provides evidence of a certain authentic potentiality-for-Being. This phenomenon of Dasein, like death, requires a primordial existential interpretation. This interpretation makes plain to us that Dasein’s authentic potentiality-for-Being lies in ‘having a conscience.’ Yet according to its meaning of Being, this possibility in the state of Being tends to acquire existential concreteness through being-toward-death.” (Section 45, pp. 281~282, p.234)
Heidegger develops the structure of Dasein’s authentic state starting from “conscience,” a phenomenon that can also be experienced and confirmed in everyday life, and takes “temporality” as the existential “ground” of this authentic structure — “Only on the basis of temporality can the connected structural totality of care, as the being of Dasein, be understood existentially.” (Section 45, p. 282, p.234)
Conscience and temporality are certainly “signs” by which authenticity can be grasped; yet to take them as positive “proof” or indispensable “ground” is dangerous. We have already discussed that the “true” must be reached through such “negations” as “unfalsehood” and “unconcealment”; the process of pursuing truth is always one of “dismantling” rather than “constructing.” Heidegger clearly emphasizes: “If Dasein authentically reveals the world and brings the world near to itself, if Dasein unfolds its authentic Being toward itself, then this revealing of the ‘world’ and the unfolding of Dasein is always also the dismantling of all concealment and disguise, always also the unmasking of those disguises through which Dasein blocks itself off from itself.” (Section 27, p. 159, p.129) Yet when, in the first half of Being and Time, he finishes the astonishing work of “dismantling” and “unmasking,” only to set his mind on rebuilding a new foundation, he inevitably runs the risk of returning to (foundationalist) metaphysics.
In his later years, Heidegger criticized the rationalization of science: “… does what can be proven exhaust all the openness of beings? Does a stubborn attachment to what can be proven not block the path to beings?” [12] Here too we might ask such a question: if authentic Being is open and cleared, why must it still be positively proven and determined?
Of course, one must not say that the final part of Being and Time is meaningless. In fact, throughout he strives to take the everyday life-world as the starting point and basis, so as to prevent Being and Time from ending merely by pointing to some illusory and mysterious realm. However, I will not discuss this in detail here, because what has been discussed thus far has already provided a general explanation of the thought-intention of Being and Time. How does one “win oneself back from the They” and “reach Dasein itself”? Or, to put it another way, how does one move from inauthentic existence to authentic existence? — This question is the focal point of Being and Time, and the ultimate intention of the work itself is not to “write books and establish doctrines,” but to encourage and guide readers to seek out and set foot upon the road to “authenticity” themselves.
December 31, 2007
Bibliography:
Heidegger: Being and Time, translated jointly by Chen Jiaying and Wang Qingjie, edited by Xiong Wei, Sanlian Bookstore, first edition, 1987.
Heidegger: Being and Time, translated jointly by Chen Jiaying and Wang Qingjie, edited by Xiong Wei, revised by Chen Jiaying, Sanlian Bookstore, third edition, 2006.
Chen Jiaying, ed.: Reader of “Being and Time,” Sanlian Bookstore, 1999.
Chen Jiaying: An Introduction to Heidegger’s Philosophy, Sanlian Bookstore, 2005.
Sun Zhouxing, ed.: Selected Works of Heidegger, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2006,
Rüdiger Safranski: A Master from Germany, translated by Jin Xiping, The Commercial Press, 2007.
Zhang Xianglong: A Biography of Heidegger, The Commercial Press, 2007.
[①] The quotations from Being and Time in this article are taken from the first Chinese translation edition of Being and Time (see Bibliography), and their sources are marked in the main text in the form “Section 6, p. 29, p.23” (that is, Section 6 of Being and Time, page 29 of the Chinese translation, page 23 of the marginal pagination). Individual translations have been slightly altered with reference to the third Chinese edition (revised edition),
[②] See Zhang Xianglong: A Biography of Heidegger, The Commercial Press, 2007, (no page number)
[③] For concepts such as “the clearing,” see Chen Jiaying: An Introduction to Heidegger’s Philosophy, Sanlian Bookstore, 2005,
[④] Sun Zhouxing, ed.: Selected Works of Heidegger, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2006, p. 1261
[⑤] Sun Zhouxing, ed.: Selected Works of Heidegger, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2006, p. 225
[⑥] In Chinese, the original meaning of “false” is “to borrow,” with the sense of “relying on the aid of another”; this happens to fit Heidegger’s statement perfectly!
[⑦] Zhang Xianglong: A Biography of Heidegger, The Commercial Press, 2007, p. 208
[⑧] Rüdiger Safranski: A Master from Germany, translated by Jin Xiping, The Commercial Press, 2007, p. 210, p.196.
[⑨] The first edition rendered it as “a certain variant of mastering the everydayness of falling”; here I am quoting the revised translation.
[⑩] In Chinese, epistemological terms such as “perception” and “sensibility” suggest meanings related to “feeling” and “sensory impression,” that is, meanings concerning “emotion,” which accords with Heidegger’s statement.
[11] In the first Chinese edition, “setting an example” was translated literally as “to strive to be first”; here the translation follows the revised edition (third edition)
[12] Sun Zhouxing, ed.: Selected Works of Heidegger, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2006, p. 1260
Latest comments
- Gu Duo
2008-01-21 18:22:13
This course finally got graded too. 92 points, mission accomplished~
- Suiyuan
2008-01-23 22:04:52 Anonymous 124.17.18.213
Hehe, rejoicing together, congratulations, congratulations…
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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