Heidegger's lifelong project was to answer the "question of Being" (Seinsfrage) (See the Why page). In Being and Time, Heidegger argued that, to understand Being, one must first understand the human kind of being, Dasein ("Being-there"), the kind of Being who asks the question of Being. To even ask the question, remarks Heidegger, implies that at some level the answer is already understood. As a student of Husserl, Heidegger felt that phemenology, which lets the phenomena "show itself from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself," was the only method by which to do ontology, the study of Being. On the other hand, for Heidegger, modern philosophy had forgotten the question of Being; that is, modern philsophy has become concerned with the ontic (beings), and, thus, covers over that which makes such an understanding of beings possible: the "isness" (Being) of beings such that beings can presence. And the concealing-revealing presencing of Being is Dasein. However, contrary to Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology, Heidegger argues that ontology as phenomenology must necessarily be hermeneutic, or interpretive. For Heidegger, truth or aletheia is always both concealing and revealing. When one interpretation is opened up, other interpretations are necessarily closed off. In this sense, ontology is always provisional.

In Being and Time, Heidegger's existential analysis of Dasein, the human kind of Being, reveals that Dasein is uncanny -- that is, "not-at-home" -- as Being-in-the-world. Dasein, Heidegger will conclude, is, proximally and for the part, not as itself as it is lost in the "they." Therefore, as "fallen" into the "they-self," in which Dasein exists in its "average everydayness," Dasein's authentic self as "uncanny" has been "covered up." Dasein's authentic, "ownmost" self as uncanny "pursues" Dasein via the call of conscience through the attunement of anxiety in which Dasein's 'world' is revealed as that which it is unable to fall into.

Heidegger's existential analytic follows the progression from an analysis of Dasein in terms of that which is "closest" to it: its "average everyday," existentiell, pre-ontological, pre- thematic, "lived" understanding of itself, towards the hidden meaning and ground of Dasein's primordial existential structure which lies concealed in its "everyday" understanding. The "who" of "everyday" Dasein is that which is closest to Dasein. Yet, proximally and for the most part, one's own Dasein is not itself. This "who" of "everyday" Dasein is the "they" [das Man], which is characterized by distantiality, averageness and levelling down and constitutes "publicness." The "they" is both everybody and nobody "to whom every Dasein has already surrendered itself in Being-among-one-another." The "they-self" is the "not itself" of Dasein to be distinguished from authentic Dasein. Authentic Being-one's-Self, therefore, is an existentiell modification of the "they" as an essential existentiale, and, therefore, the former is the more primordial disclosure of Dasein.

Heidegger uncovers the Being of Dasein as "care" [Sorge]: "Ahead-of-itself-Being- already-in-(the world) as Being-alongside (entities encountered within the world)." Through his analysis of anxiety, as a state-of-mind which provides the phenomenal basis for explicitly grasping Dasein's primordial totality of Being, Heidegger reveals Dasein's Being to itself as care.

Falling, explains Heidegger, is a turning-away or fleeing of Dasein into its "they-self." This turning-away is grounded in anxiety. Anxiety is what makes fear possible. Yet, unlike fear, in which that which threatens is other than Dasein, anxiety is characterized by the fact that what threatens is nowhere and nothing. In anxiety, Dasein is not threatened by a particular thing or a collection of objects present-at-hand. Being-in-the-world itself is that in the face of which anxiety is anxious. In anxiety, first and foremost, the world as world is disclosed as that which one cannot fall into.

Heidegger defined Being-in as "residing alongside" and "Being-familiar with." This Being-in is understood in the everyday publicness of the "they" as a 'Being-at-home," a tranquillized self-assurance. However, as Dasein falls, anxiety brings it back from its absorption in the 'world' and "everyday familiarity collapses." Thus, Dasein is individualized as Being-in-the-world. Being-in enters into the existential mode of the "not-at-home" of uncanniness. Thus, "Being-not-at-home" is the basic kind of Being of Dasein, even though in an everyday way Dasein flees from this understanding in the tranquillized "at-homeness" of das Man. Yet, what is the nature of this uncanniness which pursues Dasein as the "they"? Dasein, writes Heidegger, is uncanny in that uncanniness "lies in Dasein as thrown Being-in-the-world, which has been delivered over to itself in its Being."

From an existential-ontological viewpoint, uncanniness ("not-at-home") is the more primordial phenomenon, the hidden meaning and ground of Dasein as fleeing into the "they" in its everyday concern and solicitude. In the state-of-mind of anxiety, Dasein's care structure is uncovered from its concealment in which Dasein, as lost in the "they" in its everyday engagement with things, understands itself in terms of the world as a thing present-to-hand. For, anxiousness is a way of Being-in-the-world in which Dasein flees in the face of its thrownness (facticity), has anxiety about its potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world (existentiality), and flees into the "they-self" in its fallenness. Thus, Dasein's care structure is revealed as existentiality, facticity and fallenness. State-of-mind reveals Dasein as it is in its factical thrownness, understanding reveals that Dasein is its possibilities as "Being-ahead-of-itself," and, finally, Dasein's fallenness is its "Being-alongside" as, proximally and for the most part, it is occupied by its average everyday engagement with the world as the "they."

What compels Dasein's flight into the "they" as fallenness? Dasein is tempted into the lostness of das Man by the tranquility which disburdens Dasein from having to face its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. In its inauthentic tranquility, Dasein compares itself with everything and thereby drifts along towards an alienation in which its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is hidden from it. Dasein engages in a downward plunge in which it becomes closed off from its authenticity and possibility. Dasein, as fallen, is characterized by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity which involves a levelling down of all possibilities of Being. In idle talk, the "they" closes off the hidden meaning and ground of what is talked about. In curiosity, Dasein is constantly uprooting itself and concerned with the constant possibility of distraction. As ambiguous, the "they" acts as though it "knows everything," yet, at bottom, this understanding is superficial in that nothing is genuinely understood. The "they" is essentially death-evasive in that it conceals Dasein as Being-towards-death.

Death is a way of Being which Dasein takes over as soon as it is. "Dying," therefore, stands for the way of Being in which Dasein is towards its death. Death, as "Being-towards-the- end," is defined by Heidegger in terms of the basic state of Dasein as care. Death is "the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein." Death reveals itself as that "possibility which is one's ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be outstripped." Dasein stands fully before itself as assigned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being as death, the possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there. Moreover, Dasein will die alone in that death cannot be shared, and, finally, death cannot be avoided. Anxiety, as state-of-mind, discloses Dasein as it exists as thrown Being towards its end. Yet, proximally and for the most part, Dasein covers up its Being-towards-death by falling.

How does Dasein, as its "they-self", "cover up" its Being-towards-death? The 'they" does not deny death, but, instead, understands death in the "indifferent tranquility" in which death is seen as an actuality rather than as possibility. The "they" covers up what is peculiar in death's certainty: that it is possible at any moment. By assigning definiteness upon death (i.e., "I will die someday"), everyday Being-towards-death evades the indefiniteness of the "when" of the certainty of death. When death is understood authentically, it is understood as the possibility of not having anymore possibilities. In anticipation, Dasein is as an authentic Being-towards-death as letting death be as possibility. When we are closest to our death, it is as far as it will ever be as an actuality. If Dasein makes death an actuality, then it is no longer death. Dasein cannot understand death in terms of the world as the "they" -- for death is the possibility which radically individualized Dasein in that it can only be taken up as its own possibility. Death discloses what Dasein cannot have: All the possibilities.

Being-towards-death is essentially anxious. Anxiety is the attunement of anticipation, and, being so, becomes a way for Dasein to understand itself in an authentic disclosure of itself. Anxiety reveals to Dasein its lostness in the they-self in that Dasein is unable to understand itself in terms of the world as concernful solicitude. As lost, Dasein can be brought back to itself since, as fallen, Dasein has neglected to choose itself. Authenticity is an existential modification of the existentiell manner of existing. In terms of its possibility, Dasein is already a potentiality- for-Being-its-self, but it needs to have this attested. This attestation is disclosed as the call of conscience.

Conscience is the call from Dasein's ownmost self to its "they-self" which recalls Dasein from its lostness back to its ownmost, authentic self. In the state-of-mind of anxiety, Dasein is wanting-to-have-a-conscience. The call discourses in the mode of silence. As reticent, Dasein is disinclined from engaging in the idle talk in which Dasein fails to hear itself. The call tells us nothing. It is the voice which Dasein, as "lost in the manifold 'world' of its concern," finds as the "alien" voice of the self which has been individualized down to itself in its uncanniness. The call of conscience calls out "Guilty!" in recognition of itself as a null basis; that Dasein is in the process of not being any more possibilities and must, therefore, eliminate choices whenever it makes a choice. Dasein is revealed as thrown, as delivered over to Being without Being the author of itself. Yet, as this null basis, Dasein is its basis. Conscience calls us to appropriate ourselves as the kind of Being that we are.

Dasein is authentic in its resoluteness: a "reticent self-projection upon one's ownmost Being- guilty, in which one is ready for anxiety." In resoluteness, Dasein is most fully disclosed to the kind of Being that it is. Resoluteness brings Dasein into solicitous Being with others alongside things as one's ownmost self, not as the "they." Dasein's authentic self as uncanny, therefore, pursues Dasein and threatens the "they-self" in which it has become lost. Dasein, at first, understands itself in terms of its concernful solicitude as the "they" in which it understands itself as a thing. This existentiell familiarly, however, covers up Dasein's existential, primordial understanding of itself as uncanny. Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenological approach to his existential analytic of Dasein uncovers the phenomenal structure of existing in such a way that it uncovers what would have been missed had the analysis followed the "order of the sequence in which experiences run their course."

Through this existential analysis of Dasein, Heidegger then pursues an understanding of time, including his understanding of history. For a thorough examination of Heidegger's understanding of history, I recommend my paper, Kuhn in Light of Heidegger as a Response to Hoeller's Critique of Giorgi. In this paper, I also introduce the reader to "later" Heidegger after his "turning." Heidegger had intended to complete a third part of Being and Time (there are two parts), but he never completed the project.

In Heidegger's later writings, he moved away from the kind of humanism that characterized Being and Time. That is, Heidegger no longer placed Dasein at such a central place in the presencing of Being. Rather, the human being is understood as the "shepherd of Being." Though Being is needful of human beings, so that beings can presence, the human being is, consistent with Being and Time, finite. More importantly, Heidegger's understanding of "resoluteness" is replaced by the idea of releasement or Gelassenheit. With releasement, the human being engages in a meditative thinking which is characterized by a profound humility, which understands the "gift" of Being and holds itself open to the "call" of language. With Gelassenheit, Heidegger turned toward the subject of language, the logos, by which beings are gathered and named. Yet, in naming, Being remains concealed. In my opinion, Heidegger's conception of Galessenheit truly reveals his indebtedness to Lao Tzu, whose writings on "wu wei" (non-action) hold greater similarities to Heidegger's releasement-toward-things.


http://mythosandlogos.com/heidegger.html
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/martin1.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger

http://kyberia.sk/id/1503990