Thrownness (German:Geworfenheit)[1] is a concept introduced byGerman philosopherMartin Heidegger (1889–1976) to describe humans' individual existences as being 'thrown' (geworfen) into the world.
Overview
editGeworfen denotes the arbitrary character ofDasein's experience in the sense of its having been born into a specific family in a particular culture at a given moment of human history. The past, throughBeing-toward-death, becomes a part ofDasein. Awareness and acknowledgment of the arbitrariness ofDasein is characterized as a state of "thrown-ness" in the present with all its attendant frustrations, sufferings, and demands that one does not choose, such as social conventions or ties of kinship and duty. The very fact of one's own existence is a manifestation of thrown-ness. The idea of the past as a matrix not chosen, but at the same time not utterly binding or deterministic, results in the notion ofGeworfenheit—a kind of alienation that human beings struggle against,[2] and that leaves a paradoxical opening for freedom:
The thrower of the project is thrown in his own throw. How can we account for this freedom? We cannot. It is simply a fact, not caused or grounded, but the condition of all causation and grounding.[3]
ForWilliam J. Richardson,Geworfenheit "must be understood in a purelyontological sense as wishing to signify the matter-of-fact character of human finitude".[2]: 37 That's why "thrownness" is the best English word forGeworfenheit. Richardson: "[Other] attractive translations such as 'abandon,' 'dereliction,' 'dejection,' etc. [...] are [dangerous because they are] too rich withontic,anthropological connotations. We retain 'thrown-ness' as closest to the original and, perhaps, least misleading."[2]: 37
In his main workThe Principle of Hope (1954–1959), the anti-Heideggerian authorErnst Bloch[4] has correlated the thrownness into the world with a dog's life: hope "will not tolerate a dog's life which feels itself only passively thrown into What Is, which is not seen through, even wretchedly recognized."[5]
In popular culture
editBloch's reference to the life of a dog may have been picked up byThe Doors in a verse of their 1971 song "Riders on the Storm": "Into this world we're thrown / Like a dog without a bone." In 2009,Simon Critchley dedicated his column onThe Guardian to Heidegger's concept of thrownness and explained it using the aforementioned verse of The Doors.[6] Speaking withKrieger andManzarek, the German philosopherThomas Collmer [de] tells how this verse recalls Heidegger's concept of thrownness: in 1963 atFlorida State University inTallahassee,Jim Morrison attended a whole lecture in which philosophers who had examined the philosophical tradition, such asFriedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, were discussed.[7]
Legacy
editIn their 1986 bookUnderstanding Computers and Cognition. A New Foundation for Design, authorsTerry Winograd andFernando Flores applied Heidegger's concept of thrownness to the field of software design.[8]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^Daniel O. Dahlstrom (2013)."Thrownness (Geworfenheit) (pp. 212–215)".The Heidegger Dictionary. London:A & C Black.ISBN 978-1-847-06514-8.
- ^abcWilliam J. Richardson (1963).Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought.The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 37.ISBN 9780823222551.ISBN 978-0-823-22255-1.ISBN 0-82322255-1.
- ^Michael J. Inwood (1999).A Heidegger Dictionary.Hoboken, New Jersey:Wiley.ISBN 978-0-631-19095-0. Now quoted inAgarwal, Naresh Kumar (2017).Exploring Context in Information Behavior. Seeker, Situation, Surroundings, and Shared Identities. Vol. 9. ContributorGary Marchionini.San Rafael, California: Morgan & Claypool Publishers. p. 11.doi:10.2200/S00807ED1V01Y201710ICR061.ISBN 978-1-681-73082-0.
{{cite book}}:|journal=ignored (help) - ^Benjamin M. Korstvedt (2010).Listening for Utopia in Ernst Bloch's Musical Philosophy.Cambridge University Press. p. 44.ISBN 978-0-521-89615-3.
Bloch specifically criticized the futile quiescence inherent in Heidegger's 'mist of illusionary problems and hopeless subjectivism' and made the point that any future 'concrete utopia' will emerge from 'active hope' and 'conscious human work on it,' not end in poetic metaphysics.
- ^Ernst Bloch (1954).The Principle of Hope (in German). Vol. 1. p. 3.
Sie erträgt kein Hundeleben, das sich ins Seiende nur passivgeworfen fühlt, in undurchschautes, gar jämmerlich anerkanntes.
- ^Simon Critchley (June 29, 2009)."Being and Time, part 4: Thrown into this world".The Guardian. Manchester. RetrievedMay 27, 2013.
As Jim Morrison intoned many decades ago, 'Into this world we're thrown'. Thrownness (Geworfenheit) is the simple awareness that we always find ourselves somewhere, namely delivered over to a world.
- ^Heinz Gerstenmeyer (2001).The Doors - Sounds for Your Soul - Die Musik Der Doors (in German). BoD – Books on Demand. p. 196.ISBN 978-3-831-12057-4.
- ^Terry Winograd;Fernando Flores (1988)."3.3. An Illustration of thrownness (pp. 33ff.)".Understanding Computers and Cognition. A New Foundation for Design.Bristol: Intellect Books.ISBN 978-0-893-91050-1.
External links
edit- Heidegger, Martin (1996).Being and Time. A Translation of "Sein und Zeit". Translated byJoan Stambaugh (7th ed.).Albany, New York:SUNY Press.ISBN 978-1-438-40632-9.
- Mcdonough, Richard M. (2006).Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time".Bern:Peter Lang. p. 14.ISBN 978-0-820-45554-9.
- King, Magda (2001). Llewellyn, John (ed.).A guide to Heidegger's "Being and time". Albany, New York: SUNY Press. p. 171.ISBN 978-0-791-49148-5.