"Dasein" (/ˈdɑːzaɪn/;[1]German:[ˈdaːzaɪn]) is a technical term in the philosophy ofMartin Heidegger. Adopted from the ordinary German wordDasein meaning "existence",[2][3] Heidegger used it to refer to the mode ofbeing that is particular to human beings. It is a form of being that is aware of and must confront such issues aspersonhood,mortality, and the dilemma or paradox of living in relationship with other humans while being ultimately alone with oneself.
In German,Dasein is the vernacular term for "existence". It is derived fromda-sein, which literally means "being-there" or "there-being".[4] In a philosophical context, it was first used byLeibniz andWolff in the 17th century, as well as byKant andHegel in the 18th and 19th; however, Heidegger's later association of the word with human existence was uncommon and not of special philosophical significance during this period.[5]
Dasein[6] for Heidegger is a mode of being involved with and caring for the immediate world in which one lives, while always remaining aware of the contingent element of that involvement, of the priority of the world to the self, and of the evolving nature of the self itself.[4]
The opposite of this authentic self is everyday and inauthentic Dasein, the forfeiture of one's individual meaning, destiny and lifespan, in favour of an (escapist) immersion in the public everyday world—the anonymous, identical world ofthe They and the Them.[7]: 64–81
In harmony withNietzsche's critique of thesubject, as something definable in terms of consciousness, Heidegger distinguished Dasein from consciousness in order to emphasize the way that "Being" shapes our entire understanding and interpretation of the world.
"This entity which each of us is himself...we shall denote by the term 'Dasein'" (Heidegger, trans. 1927/1962, p.27).[8]
"[Dasein is] that entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue..." (Heidegger, trans. 1927/1962, p.68).[8]
Heidegger sought to use the concept of Dasein to uncover the primal nature of "Being" (Sein), agreeing with Nietzsche andDilthey[9]: 48 that Dasein is always a being engaged in the world: neither a subject, nor the objective world alone, but the coherence ofbeing-in-the-world. This ontological basis of Heidegger's work thus opposes the Cartesian "abstract agent" in favour of practical engagement with one's environment.[10]: 61 Dasein is revealed by projection into, and engagement with, a personal world[11]: 220 —a never-ending process of involvement with the world as mediated through the projects of the self.[4]
Heidegger considered that language, everyday curiosity,logical systems, and common beliefs obscure Dasein's nature from itself.[12]: 69–70 Authentic choice means turning away from the collective world of Them, to face Dasein, one's individuality, one's own limited life-span, one's own being.[13]: 81–89 Heidegger thus intended the concept of Dasein to provide a stepping stone in the questioning of what it means tobe—to have one's own being, one's own death, one's own truth.[14]
Heidegger also saw the question of Dasein as extending beyond the realms disclosed by positive science or in the history ofmetaphysics. "Scientific research is not the only manner of Being which this entity can have, nor is it the one which lies closest. Moreover, Dasein itself has a special distinctiveness as compared with other entities; [...] it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it."[15]Being and Time stressed the ontological difference between entities and the beingof entities: "Being is always the Being of an entity."[16] Establishing this difference is the general motif running throughBeing and Time.
Some scholars disagree with this interpretation, however, arguing that for Heidegger Dasein denoted a structured awareness or an institutional "way of life".[17] Others suggest that Heidegger's early insistence on the ontological priority of Dasein was muted in his post-war writings.[18]: 44
Some have argued for an origin of Dasein inChinese philosophy andJapanese philosophy: according toTomonobu Imamichi, Heidegger's concept of Dasein was inspired—although Heidegger remained silent on this—byOkakura Kakuzo's concept ofdas-in-der-Welt-sein (being in the world) expressed inThe Book of Tea to describeZhuangzi'sTaoist philosophy, which Imamichi's teacher had offered to Heidegger in 1919, after having followed lessons with him the year before.[19] Parallel concepts are also found inIndian philosophy[20][21] and inNative American lore.[22]
Eero Tarasti considered Dasein very important inExistential Semiotics. In Tarasti's view the term Dasein has been given a "broader" meaning, has stopped meaning the condition of an individual being flung into the world, having instead come to signify an "existential phase" with thesociohistoric characteristics from which signs extensively emerge.[23]: 24–30
From this point of view, transcendence is the desire to surpass realist acceptance of the world as it is and to move towards a political, ethical and planned reality of subjectivity in semiotic relations with the world.
Jacques Lacan turned in the 1950s to Heidegger's Dasein for his characterisation of thepsychoanalyst as being-for-death (être-pour-la-mort).[24] Similarly, he saw the analyst as searching for authentic speech, as opposed to "the subject who loses his meaning in the objectifications of discourse...[which] will give him the wherewithal to forget his own existence and his own death".[25][26]: 60
Alfred Schütz distinguished between direct and indirect social experience, emphasising that in the latter, "My orientation is not toward the existence (Dasein) of a concrete individual Thou. It is not toward any subjective experiences now being constituted in all their uniqueness in another's mind".[27]: 183
Aleksandr Dugin uses Dasein as the foundation for theFourth Political Theory, emphasizing Dasein and its role in Russian society. He puts this in opposition to Western (more specifically American) society, which is far too individualistic with an inauthentic view of individuality.[28]
Heidegger used the concept of Dasein to discussNazi ideology, and to advocate support forHitler. In the context of theGerman election of November 1933 – in which the electorate was presented with a single Nazi-approved list of candidates – he said the following:
The German people has been summoned by the Führer to vote; the Führer, however, is asking nothing from the people; rather, heis giving the people the possibility of making, directly, the highest free decision of all: whether it – the entire people – wants its own existence (Dasein), or whether it does not want it. [...] On November 12, the German people as a whole will chooseits future, and this future is bound to the Führer. [...] There are not separate foreign and domestic policies. There is only one will to the full existence (Dasein) of the State. The Führer has awakened this will in the entire people and has welded it into a single resolve.[29]
Theodor W. Adorno criticised Heidegger's concept of Dasein as an idealistic retreat from historical reality.[30]
Richard Rorty considered that with Dasein, Heidegger was creating a conservative myth of being, complicit with theRomantic elements ofNazism.[31]
According to Julian Wolfreys, "There is no direct 'face'-to-'face' relation for Heidegger; despite his invaluable critique of ontology, he still reduces the relation between Dasein and Dasein as mediated by the question and problematic of being."[32]: 110–111
For any one in search of "philosophemes" common to Heidegger and Vedanta, or of similar-looking ideas in them, there is a great deal to be found regarding man's nature, the world, and man's relationship to it, the unity of Being, the identity between man and Being. (p. 30)
American Indian lore speaks of three miracles. The first miracle is that anything exists at all. The second miracle is that living things exist. The third miracle is that living things exist thatknow they exist. As human beings conscious of ourselves, we represent the third miracle. (Ch. 1 ¶ 1)
