Heidegger and a Metaphysics of Feeling: Angst and the Finitude of Being 9781472546623, 9780826498755, 9781441101525

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For my father who gave me a world, and the world

And as for our future, one will hardly find us again on the paths of those Egyptian youths who endanger temples by night, embrace statues, and want by all means to unveil, uncover, and put into bright light whatever is kept concealed for good reasons . . . We no longer believe that truth remains truth when the veils are withdrawn; we have lived too much to believe this. Today we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and ‘know’ everything. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix in Songs, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974).

Introduction

The Yoking of Angst to Aletheia : Heidegger and a Metaphysics of Feeling

The problem starts with Plato. But never having been recognized as a problem, it continues to plague philosophy, that is, before Heidegger came onto the scene to expose how Western metaphysics had gone awry. The problem is summarized in his essay Plato’s Doctrine Of Truth. It is the problem of metaphysics bequeathed by Plato. Through his reading of the “allegory of the cave,” Heidegger argues that Plato inaugurates a remarkable shift in the essence of truth that simultaneously founds both the essence of Being as “presence,” and the orientation of the human being toward this essence. Prior to the shift, Heidegger’s Greeks understood truth—aletheia—as an “unhiddenness” in relation to a “hiddenness” that remained beyond the grasp of subjective self-assertion. “Truth originally means what has been wrested from hiddenness.”1 However after Plato, “being present is no longer what it was in the beginning of Western thinking: the emergence of the hidden into unhiddenness.”2 After Plato, what originally appeared ceased to show itself in relation to the mystery of the hidden; but instead came to be yoked to the outward appearance of what is made visible by the “idea.” “A ληθεαι comes under the yoke of the ιδεα.”3 Heidegger goes on to explain, by positing the idea as that which brings forth the unhidden as well as that by which the unhidden is recognized, Plato comes to construct truth as correctness in the sense of catching sight of the idea as it is manifest in the world. The idea, particularly the Idea of all ideas, the Good, replaces the hidden as the source of beings that are no longer understood in an “attunement” to the hidden but in terms of perception. “Ever since, what matters in all our fundamental orientations toward beings is the achieving of a correct view of the ideas.”4 According to Heidegger, this shift inherited from Plato founds both the notion of Being as “objective presence” and the notion of truth as correctness that continue to plague Western metaphysics. Inseparable from this change in the essence of truth is a parallel change in the essence of education that “has to do with one’s being and thus takes

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place in the very ground of one’s essence.”5 Plato’s allegory is the documentation of such an education depicted in the four stages of “dwelling” that Heidegger points out in the prisoner’s ascent from the cave.6 Because truth is now oriented toward what can be perceived “as something” through the lens of the idea, education occurs fundamentally with respect to sight. Human nature must subsequently be educated to orient itself toward the outward appearance of things as they may be grasped by the idea lighted by the Idea of the Good. “If our comportment with beings is always and everywhere a matter of the ιδεαν of the ιδεα, the seeing of the ‘visible form,’ then all our efforts must be concentrated above all on making such seeing possible. And that requires the correct vision.”7 With the shift from concealment, or hiddenness, to what can be made present through the lens of the idea, the essence of truth henceforth lies in the correct relation between the outward appearance of a thing and the perception of that thing established by the Idea. This is the message, Heidegger believes, that the “allegory of the cave” is meant to disclose. “Truth is no longer, as it was qua unhiddenness, the fundamental trait of being itself. Instead, as a consequence of getting yoked under the Idea, truth has become correctness, and henceforth it will be characteristic of the knowing of beings.”8 But let us once more re-visit Plato’s cave allegory. Unable to move his head or body while chained in the cave, the prisoner’s gaze is fixed to the wall before him where images that he thinks are “real” are projected. Upon release, the prisoner eventually comes to understand that the life he was living in the cave was an illusion. What he had perceived as real while chained in the cave were actually just shadows. This realization comes to him when he is brought forth before the light of the sun, or the Good. Beneath the light of the sun, surrounded by its warmth, he comes to understand it as the true source of everything that he perceives. But what must he have first experienced, now as an embodied being underneath the light of the sun? What must he have first experienced before coming to an understanding of the Idea as that toward which he must fix his “nonsensuous glance?” Surely it must have been wonder (thaumazein). Perhaps this is why Aristotle says philosophy begins in wonder, and perhaps this is also why it is actually a feeling, the feeling of eros, and not the idea, as Heidegger claims, that Plato uses to arrive at the truth.9 I want to argue similarly, that in Being and Time it is rather Heidegger who attempts a shift in the education of the human being that is simultaneous with a shift in the essence of truth: from correctness, back to what he believes is the originary notion of truth belonging to the Greek experience prior to Plato’s reversal. This shift, perhaps informed by wonder itself, aims

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to reorient the human being toward an understanding of beings in relation to the hidden or concealed ground from which they arise—what Heidegger calls the “truth of Being.” However, rather than “yoke” sight to truth, I shall show that Heidegger instead yokes Angst to aletheia for the purposes that he attributes to Plato of “leading the whole human being in the turning around of his or her essence.”10 Heidegger reorients the human essence from a perception of the unhidden in relation to the idea, which grasps beings on the order of “objective presence”, to an attunement to what does not appear but is the originary ground of beings characterized by the concealment belonging to aletheia and the nothing of Angst. Of all beings, only the human being, called upon by the voice of being, experiences the wonder of all wonders: that beings are. The being that is thus called in its essence into the truth of being is for this reason always attuned in an essential manner. The lucid courage for essential anxiety assures us the enigmatic possibility of experiencing being. For close by essential anxiety as horror of the abyss dwells awe.11 But, while Heidegger’s substitution of Angst for sight allows him to reconceive the relation of humans to beings through a reconception of truth, Heidegger nevertheless maintains the essence of the yoke that he exposes in his analysis of Plato’s doctrine of truth. Instead of positing the Idea as that which yokes sight to the unhidden, thereby establishing truth as correctness in a relation of perception to what is perceived through the framework of the idea, Heidegger yokes Angst to truth. Through this yoke what comes to view does so out of an attunement of mood to the concealment belonging to aletheia. Specifically, by yoking Angst to aletheia Heidegger unites the being of the human being to the horizon and ground of its possibilities. Thus, like Plato’s idea, which not only makes possible what is unhidden but also serves as the mode of access to the unhidden, in yoking Angst to aletheia, Heidegger attributes to mood both the means of access to beings, as well as the possibility for the presencing of beings. This yoke leads to the phenomenon of what I shall call “ontological occlusion.” With the concept of ontological occlusion, I hope to show what may perhaps not be able to be shown at all: the basis of the familiar, yet unreflective background understanding of our everyday engagement with things and others. The concept of ontological occlusion is appropriate because the term occlusion entails both a fitting together as well as a closure. Through a study of Heidegger’s ontology of mood, I will show how Angst attunes the human being to Being in such a way that the two are fitted

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together in a total and complete accord. All understanding, of oneself, of one’s relations to others and of one’s possibilities is rooted in this accord that is struck prereflectively in the yoking of mood with the ground of all possibilities, or Being. This fitting of the human being with Being through mood is what underlies the common background practices of culture and meaning that are hidden and remain tacit in everyday human activities. Mood allows for the ground of these practices to stay in the background. However, while the fitting together of mood and Being prereflectively bounds the human being inseparably to the horizon of its possibilities, it simultaneously occludes, or closes off a relation to a different world that he or she is not attuned or fitted to. It may even be the case that the predispositional bond established by mood, which ties a particular person to a world and with others, is the same bond that might separate that person from the meaningful possibilities belonging to someone from a different world, and therefore from that other individual or community as well in a prereflective and predispositional manner. At the very least, this concept of ontological occlusion may help to bring to the fore the affective foundation that lies at the root of a person’s prereflective openness to a world shared with others and, similarly, the prereflective and predispositional basis for a closing off to the voice of an other that one does not share a meaningful horizon of possibilities with. Arguably, Heidegger’s most important contribution to the history of philosophy, in addition to entrenching the subject in its world and thereby overcoming the subject/object dualism, is the primacy that he accords to mood in his analysis of human existence. Through mood humans gain access to their world, to themselves and to their relations with others in the world in a manner that is prereflective and unthematic. “The moodedness of attunement constitutes existentially the openness to world of Da-sein” (137/129).12 Different from affect or emotion, mood, especially the mood of Angst, has the power to reveal the whole: the whole of how one is in the world and the whole of the world at large. Before Heidegger, Wittgenstein succinctly captured this phenomenon in characteristic terseness. “The world of the happy man is different from that of the unhappy man.”13 But where Wittgenstein leaves mood to the realm of what can’t be spoken about, Heidegger goes so far as to claim that “we must ontologically in principle leave the discovery of the world to ‘mere mood.’” (138/130) Indeed, by using mood to access the whole of what gives meaning to human existence, that is, Being, Heidegger follows perhaps more closely in the footsteps of Plato than even he realizes. Heidegger focuses on the role of educating vision with regard to catching sight of the idea in his analysis

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of “the cave allegory.” But the possibility of grasping the idea for Plato is rather brought about through an education of love taught to Socrates by Diotima in his Symposium. In fact, the education of love significantly trumps the education of sight discussed by Heidegger in on “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth.” For in Plato’s metaphysics it is ultimately eros and not the idea that serves to bridge the “lover of wisdom” to the truth. Only on the basis of an attunement between eros and the Good, an attunement that also requires an education, may a follower of Plato, as Heidegger puts it, be able to correctly catch sight of the idea in perception. In the Symposium, Diotima teaches Socrates the truth about love. She explains that love is the love of a certain understanding of beauty. “Wisdom is one of the most beautiful things, and Love is love of beauty. So Love must necessarily be a lover of wisdom; and as a lover of wisdom he falls between wisdom and ignorance.”14 The identity between love and the being of the lover is here forged under the name “lover of wisdom.” Thus the lover of wisdom occupies the same midway status that Diotima ascribes to love: a state “in between wisdom and ignorance.”15 Significantly, this state of mind shows itself in “having right opinions without being able to give reasons for having them . . . Right opinion, of course, has this kind of status, falling between understanding and ignorance.”16 Thus the significance of love for Plato is that it allows for a level of certainty that bypasses any form of epistemological confirmation based on some kind of cognitive idea. Love provides the lover with a precognitive and pre-reflective certainty that is experienced through mood, or the feeling of being in the world. Diotima shows Socrates that love becomes perfectly revealed only to those pilgrims who have received a proper education in feeling and are thus able to pursue their goal in the right way. By the right use of his feeling for the love of boys, the lover of wisdom observes that the beauty of one particular body is “one and the same” in all bodies.17 This realization frees the lover from the desire for any one particular body and allows him to direct himself towards the contemplation of beauty as it exists in men’s souls, moral practices and institutions. The lover of wisdom progresses to the love of sciences until he finally reaches the region where a good life should be spent contemplating “divine beauty,” or the Good. By becoming a lover of wisdom, then, the educated lover embodies love itself. On the basis of love, which constitutes the totality of the being of Plato’s lover, a unity is forged with the ground of Being. Similarly, it is on the basis of the totalizing attunement of the mood of Angst that Heidegger joins the being of the human being—Da-sein—to the nothing signifying Being and the concealment of aletheia through an education on the nothing in his

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discussion of “being-toward-death.” As quoted above, eros allows for a predisposition that results in “having right opinions without being able to give reasons for having them.” Likewise, the certainty that Da-sein has of its authentic being, first revealed in the mode of existence Heidegger calls “beingtoward-death,” is secured prereflectively by the yoking of Angst to the nothing of Being. Because Heidegger uses mood to bridge a human to the ground of all beings and to what gives meaning to human relations; and further, because he grounds certainty in mood by virtue of linking it to Being, I place Heidegger within a Western tradition of what I call a “metaphysics of feeling,” as well as challenge the division of Heidegger’s thinking into two parts. The term “metaphysics of feeling” is also employed by Quentin Smith in his book The Felt Meanings of the World: A Metaphysics of Feeling. Smith argues for what he understands as a “metaphysics of feeling” by contrasting it to a “metaphysics of reason” that has dominated philosophy and conceived of feeling as inferior to reason’s quest for seeking the “true” meaning of the world. “Feeling cannot have a true relation to the world that reason cannot have in a more clear and direct way; hence a metaphysics of feeling by definition can be no more than an inferior version of a metaphysics of reason.”18 Smith believes it is now time to turn the table and to place a “metaphysics of feeling” at the fore. In this metaphysics knowledge will be experienced in terms of “tonalities,” and meaning will be accompanied by feeling. According to Smith, Wittgenstein and Heidegger came close to such a metaphysics, but failed because each remained within the realm of a metaphysics of reason. He says of the latter, “the metaphysical import of anxiety for Heidegger is not that it reveals the felt meaning of the Being of being, but that it makes possible the question about the reason for the Being of being.”19 But, in fact, a metaphysics of feeling and not of reason has dominated the Western tradition of philosophy from the time of Plato onwards, making Heidegger its most recent representative. While it is beyond the scope of this project to document such a history, it may suffice to point out, in addition to my above mention of Plato, the use of love or Agape in the Christian theological tradition and its function of joining humans to God. Kant’s use of “disinterested pleasure” in relation to beauty as the bridge between understanding and imagination, and as the basis for his idea of sensus communis in the Critique of Judgment. Friedrich Schlegel’s use of love as the means to access human nature and nature at large discussed in his “Philosophical fragments”; and Hegel’s use of desire operating through negativity to encompass Being in his Phenomenology of Spirit. Heidegger seems to have picked up on what was essential to the Greek belief that philosophy begins with wonder. Prior to any questioning

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regarding the Being of a being or of the outward appearance of a thing, is surely wonder that is akin to awe: awe that there is something rather than nothing. Through this awe the human being is brought closer to Being.20 Following Plato, then, who posits feeling as the prereflective mode of access to Being, or truth, upon which all subsequent knowing is based, Heidegger draws upon the prereflective mood of Angst as a bridge to the truth of Being, or the ground of everything that is. This yoking of Angst and aletheia in Being and Time, wherein the finitude of Da-sein will be rooted in an inseparable relation to the finitude of Being, puts into question the division of Heidegger’s thinking into two parts. Much has been made of the so called “turn” (Kehre) in Heidegger’s thought from an emphasis on Da-sein in Being and Time to Being in his later works. William J. Richardson dates this turn with “On the essence of truth” (1943) where he claims that Heidegger first begins “to appreciate the full import of what it means for concealment somehow to precede nonconcealment in the coming-to-pass of” aletheia.21 With this appreciation the transformation of “Heidegger I into Heidegger II” makes itself seen in a “shift of focus from there-being [Da-sein] to Being.” Michel Haar notes the turn in the earlier lecture “What is Metaphysics” (1929). “This text is marked by all the signs of a reversal, in which the link between anxiety and the self-manifestation of being is substituted for the linking of anxiety with extreme, individual enabling.”22 Both Haar and Richardson, like so many commentators on Heidegger’s work, distinguish the earlier Heidegger from the later by claiming that in the later Heidegger Da-sein, or the human being, is the humble recipient of the gift of Being, while in Being and Time the individual authenticity of Da-sein holds the primary place of the locus of meaning—anxiety linked to “extreme, individual enabling.” Thus Richardson implies that a philosophy of existentialism may be retrieved from Being and Time, and wonders: “does Heidegger II have any more right to re-trieve the unsaid of Heidegger I than, let us say, Jean Paul Sartre?”23 Indeed, the existentialist reading of Being and Time has a long history, one that continues to shape the interpretation of Da-sein and finitude in Being and Time.24 As Robert Bernasconi points out: “The familiar accusation against Heidegger that the existential analytic of Da-sein in Being and Time amounts to an egoism is almost as old as Being and Time itself.”25 It is perhaps best summed up by Frederick A. Olafson in his book on existentialism. “Underlying all these conceptions of self-choice is the profound Heideggerian conception of man as the being that founds his own being.”26 Support for this individualist and existentialist reading of Being and Time is

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drawn from the section on “being-toward-death,” where Heidegger first begins to establish the finitude and “individuation” of Da-sein in relation to the nothingness of Angst. For the most part, Heidegger’s notion of finitude is taken at face value, as a consequence of “becoming aware of our death, which is to say our finitude,” as Jonathan Dollimore writes.27 Similarly, Richardson believes “finitude consists in the fact that its end/death is already immanent within it.”28 An understanding of this end—an individual’s physical death—is to reveal to Da-sein that its existence is limited, that is, finite; and this understanding, which Da-sein must carry with it constantly, is supposed to prompt Da-sein to take charge of its life in an authentic manner that is completely its own. This general interpretation is summarized by Sartre’s view that the nothing of Angst reveals that there is no foundation for human choices outside of the individual’s choice itself; and that an individual must bear responsibility for creating his or her existence from nothing. With this idea of finitude, founded on a rendering of being-toward-death as the factical end of Da-sein’s earthly existence, the groundwork for an existentialist interpretation of Da-sein is laid. Thus the early Heidegger of Being and Time is believed to locate finitude strictly within the individual, based on an understanding that this individual will have to face its death alone and in its singularity. Finitude belongs solely to Da-sein, and the division of Heidegger’s thought into two commences with the turn from the finitude of the individual to the finitude of Being in his later thinking. However, such a reading is misguided and fails to recognize the kernel of Heidegger’s essential thought: the truth and finitude of Being. In a reference to Being and Time found in the Beitrage Heidegger states explicitly: “As long as one accounts for this attempt as ‘philosophy of existence’ everything remains uncomprehended.”29 Indeed, the finitude of Da-sein has little to do with an understanding of death as the end or limit of an individual’s existence. Being-toward-death is an existential of Da-sein and, as such, must be an experience available to it throughout its existence, unlike factical death, which is beyond the bounds of experience. As Wittgenstein puts it: “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.”30 Against the standard reading, I argue that rather than gain the self through the experience of being-toward-death, Angst leads to a loss of self signalled by the loss of Da-sein’s relations to others and concerns in the world—a loss that will establish Da-sein as the clearing of Being. Heidegger dissolves the subjective boundaries of an individual through the experience of being-toward-death, an experience which is defined by the loss of all relations to others and to Da-sein’s possibilities brought about by a

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confrontation with the nothing of Angst. Later Heidegger reestablishes the self through its relations in the world with others, thereby joining the fate of the individual to the fate of the world and other Da-seins by yoking Angst to aletheia, the truth of Being, which he will reveal as tradition. Indeed, I will show that Da-sein’s “authentic” self is born as Mitda-sein, the term that Heidegger uses to describe the prereflective understanding of “being-with” others that is inherent in one’s own self-understanding. Therefore, having a world is not a given. The having of a world comes from being-with others in an attunement to the world. Mood, then, becomes essential to the disclosedness of Being, and being-with others becomes vital to Da-sein’s own self-understanding. Both Richardson and Haar correctly point to the crucial concepts of concealment and Angst, respectively, in their roles of decentering Da-sein by positioning it as the “clearing” for the happening of the truth of Being. But the fundamental structure that places Da-sein within the fold of Being, as a recipient of what Being gives, is laid out in Being and Time through the yoking of Angst to the truth of Being. Angst works to clear Da-sein of any sense of individuality and functions to place it in a direct relation to Being. In fact, I want to suggest that without an understanding of the way in which Angst is yoked to aletheia in Being and Time, Heidegger’s project of grounding the being of Da-sein as the site of the happening of the truth of Being and his notion of the finitude of Being in his later writings would be difficult to comprehend. Reiner Schurmann believes that “the correct understanding of his [Heidegger’s] early writings is obtained only if he is read backward, from end to beginning.”31 Heidegger’s writing, style and perhaps even strategy lend themselves to such an interpretation by leaving behind a trail of questions for his readers to follow. Nonetheless, it is rather an understanding of Heidegger’s project in Being and Time, specifically with respect to the relationship between the nothing of Angst and the groundless ground of all beings, that is crucial for an understanding of the finitude of Being in Heidegger’s later works. And while Angst does not play much of a role in Heidegger’s later writings, the nothing that characterizes death nevertheless remains for Heidegger the defining feature of the human being and of Being throughout all of his writings. Indeed, the relation of Da-sein to Being has posed as much difficulty for Heidegger, who simply asserts the relation, as it has for Heidegger scholars, who often repeat Heidegger’s assertions. In an “Addendum” (1956) to his essay “The Origin of the Work of Art” (1935) Heidegger laments over his inability to conceive of this relation. He writes: “the relation of Being and human being, a relation that is unsuitably conceived even in this version” has posed “a distressing difficulty, which has been clear to me since Being and

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Time and has since been expressed in a variety of versions.” In “The Origin of the Work of Art” Heidegger refers us to his discussion of truth in Being and Time. There he states that if the essence of truth belongs to Being, then to the essence of Being belongs the happening of truth wherein “the free space of openness (the clearing of the There) happen.”32 However, Heidegger confesses that this explanation fails to adequately conceive of the relation. In the “Letter on Humanism” (1947), which is addressed as a response to a query posed by Jean Beaufret, Heidegger again attempts to define the relation between Being and Da-sein, but only succeeds in asserting it. “Only so far as man, ek-sisting into the truth of Being, belongs to Being can there come from Being itself the assignment of those directives that must become law and rule for man.”33 And in “On the Question of Being” (1955), where we are directed from the “Addendum” to “The Origin of the Work of Art,” Heidegger discounts the problem entirely, stating that the question regarding the relation between Being and the human being is “inadequate” because in saying that “they” belong together “we continue to let both subsist independently.”34 Instead, he argues, that Being needs humans and concomitantly within the human being is “a relating in the sense of needful usage” to Being.35 However, the phrase “needful usage” does not add much to an understanding of how Being and the human being are to be thought of as interdependent. John Caputo, who has written on the mystical features of Heidegger’s thought, has facetiously voiced his frustration over the difficulty in comprehending this relation between Da-sein and Being. “Though I wait daily by the phone, though I keep my ear close to the ground, I cannot, for the life of me, hear the call of Being. I have been forsaken. (I think Being has discovered that I am American and that I use a computer. I suspect an informer.)”36 In revealing the link between Angst and aletheia in Being and Time, I explain how the finitude of Da-sein is constructed in a dynamic relation to Being. Specifically, by questioning the role of Angst in Heidegger’s discussion of death, I argue that being-toward-death cannot point to the finitude of an individual, as Heidegger claims, because being-toward-death is characterized by the nothing of Angst and the nothing has no boundaries, but is rather unbounded. Nor, contrary to Heidegger’s claims, can Da-sein’s meaningful possibilities be opened up by being-toward-death, as being-toward-death is characterized precisely by the receding of all meaningful possibilities into the nothing of Angst. Rather, it is at the point of the transition from the nothing of Angst back to the world of projects that the

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finitude of Da-sein is established in an inseparable relation of mood to Being by virtue of the possibilities and relations to other Da-seins that Being grounds. My discussion is divided into four chapters followed by a conclusion. In Chapter 1, I provide a general introduction to Heidegger’s project of seeking out the meaning of Being in Being and Time and his commitment to establishing a tie to what he understands as the Ancient Greek tradition of thinking that lies latent in the Western questioning about the meaning of Being. I give a description of the essential ontological structures of the being of Da-sein: the world, Mit-sein and Mitda-sein, as well as the existential structures of “understanding,” “attunement,” and “discourse” by which Da-sein gains access to its being. The main focus of Chapter 1 is to explain Heidegger’s characterization of “inauthenticity” through Da-sein’s relation to “leveled down” possibilities supported by its prereflective understanding of Being as “objective presence.” As I work to show throughout this book, “authenticity,” against the standard reading, is not characterized by a radical independence of the self, but is brought about by a reversal in Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities and others through a reorientation to Being and aletheia. Readers already familiar with the general project, method and existential structures making up Heidegger’s analysis of Da-sein, as well as his discussion of inauthenticity, may skip this chapter and begin at Chapter 2. In Chapter 2, I argue that being-toward-death, rather than characterizing the mode of existence that reveals the gain of the authentic self is, to the contrary, the mode of existence whereby Da-sein losses its selfhood. Adhering to a strict phenomenological description of being-toward-death revealed in the mood of Angst, I challenge Heidegger’s claim that beingtoward-death opens Da-sein up to its authentic possibilities by underscoring the fact that Angst signals the withdrawal of all meaningful possibilities into the nothing of Angst. To the contrary, Angst renders the individual Da-sein paralyzed and inert through a loss of possibilities and a loss of being-with others. The focus of Chapter 2 is to show how Angst clears the being of Da-sein and establishes an “existential identity” of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein that will later be put into what I have called an ontological occlusion whereby the totality of Da-sein is attuned to a certain world that Heidegger will describe as “heritage.” In Chapter 3 I discuss the second stage of Angst where Da-sein moves out of a paralysis in being-toward-death by taking up the nothing as a ground in the existential that Heidegger calls “being-guilty.” In the “resolution” to exist as a being-toward-death, Heidegger argues, Angst must be “wanted,” “demanded,” “endured” and related to as a possibility at every state of

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existence. However, paradoxically, being-guilty is also revealed to Da-sein through the mood of Angst. The question, then, is how one and the same nothing of Angst that left Da-sein in a paralysis in its being-toward-death may lead to an active engagement in the world with others in being-guilty. Through the temporalization of Angst, I show how Heidegger establishes a difference within the nothing in terms of a directionality that characterizes the “temporality” of Da-sein. The focus of Chapter 3 is to show how Da-sein is “cleared” through a “stillness” made possible in the enduring of Angst, or the holding open of the nothing so to eventually be positioned as the “opening” and “clearing” for the “presencing of Being” that Heidegger elaborates on in his later writings. In Chapter 4, I explain how Heidegger specifically brings Da-sein back into the world and into relation with others by yoking Angst to aletheia. Through this yoke the groundless ground of the nothing circumscribes Da-sein’s relations and possibilities in the manner of “letting-be” (Seinlassen) belonging to aletheia. The understanding of possibilities and Da-sein’s relations to others will therefore be rooted in an accord struck between mood and the ground of meaning supporting all understanding. By way of this accord, the finitude of Da-sein occurs simultaneously to the finitude of Being as a bounding of the unbounded nothing of Angst through the relations that the nothing circumscribes. In the Conclusion, I discuss how the structure of the temporality of Da-sein allows Heidegger to position tradition and heritage as the meaning of the world and therefore the ground of Da-sein’s being. I also discuss the construction of the individual being of Da-sien and show how it is constituted and bounded by the “community.” The social being of Da-sein, or Mitda-sein, will be shown to be primary to that of Da-sein’s individual being. I conclude with the problem of ontological occlusion and what Heidegger’s configuration of mood and Being might tell us about the affective roots that tie humans to their particular traditions.

Chapter 1

Introduction to the Project and Method of Being and Time: Preliminary Outline of the Existential Structures of Da-sein

The Question Regarding the Meaning of Being and the Significance of Being to the project of Being and Time In Being and Time Heidegger prepares the way to ask about the meaning of Being. The question, Heidegger claims, has not only been “forgotten,” it has not even been asked for a variety of reasons. This question has been buried over throughout the history of Western ontology because Being is assumed to be either too universal, too obvious, or too ephemeral to ask about. But since Being is the ground of everything that exists and is already presupposed with every questioning about what “is,” Heidegger insists that the question of Being is the “fundamental question” of all time. “Everything we talk about, mean, and are related to is in being in one way or another. What and how we ourselves are is also in being” (6–7/5). Being is the human being’s most fundamental, yet hidden, interpretive horizon. Being grounds the understanding of all human relations and of everything that is. The self’s relation to itself, to others, and to things in the world are all rooted in a prereflective understanding of Being. Without a tacit understanding of Being we would be unable to situate ourselves in our relations in the world, or be able to grasp the meaning of anything at all. Indeed, it is Being that opens up the range of possibilities that are there before us in the world. Because of Being, humans are able to recognize, comprehend, realize, and entertain certain possibilities, as well as hope for and desire possibilities in the future and remember those from the past. Being grounds the totality of all relations and connections that give to the world the sense of meaning that it has for human existence. “Manifestly it [Being] is something that does not show itself initially and for the most part, something that is concealed . . . But at the same time it is something that essentially belongs to what initially and

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for the most part shows itself, indeed in such a way that it constitutes its meaning and ground” (35/31). While he does not explicitly identify Being with culture, it is this analogy that has most fruitfully helped contemporary readers of Heidegger make sense of his notion of Being. Carol White, for example, suggests that Being is best understood as designating “cultural background practices.”1 In his Foreword to White’s Time and Death, Hubert Dreyfus elaborates on this theme. Being is “invisible,” like a style, and is to Da-sein “like the water to the fish.”2 “Style, while remaining hidden, is what makes everything intelligible and is what Heidegger calls Being.”3 Charles B. Guignon also speaks of Being as a “style,” and explains Being as the hidden and “implicit background of understanding which is the condition of the possibility of encountering anything as given.”4 In this book I am putting forward the thesis that it is mood that is the invisible hand that styles Being and simultaneously weds humans to a style belonging to Being. Like cultural familiarity and background practices belonging to a world, Being is not conceptualizable, nor is it anything tangible. Nevertheless it is there, underlying all human understanding and activity. Heidegger approaches the nature of this unconceptual comprehension of Being through mood. “[B]eing can be unconceptualized, but it is never completely uncomprehended” (183/172). Being is comprehended prereflectively, prethematically and precognitively in mood by way of the beings that it grounds. Being itself, however, is never explicitly known. “Something like ‘being’ has been disclosed in the understanding of being that belongs to existing Da-sein as a way in which it understands. The preliminary disclosure of being, although it is unconceptual, makes it possible for Da-sein as existing being-in-the-world to be related to beings, to those it encounters in the world as well as to itself in existing” (437/398). The nature of this unconceptual comprehension of Being Heidegger approaches through mood, specifically, the mood of Angst, which we explore in our discussion of “being-toward-death.” Being, then, is not a being. It is the ground of all beings, but it is not reducible to a being. “The being of beings ‘is’ itself not a being” (6/5). In fact, the reduction of Being to a being is what Heidegger is trying to address through his critique of Being as “objective presence.” Heidegger attributes this reduction to Plato with his reversal of the role of truth. In “Plato’s doctrine of truth,” as discussed in the Introduction, Heidegger argues that Plato inaugurates a shift from an understanding of truth as aletheia to an understanding of truth as correctness. This shift founds the modern notion of propositional truth (see chapter 4). In propositional truth, the locus of

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meaning moves from Being, which Heidegger claims was originally understood by the Greeks in relation to the concealment of aletheia, to what may be understood in terms of objective presence. Prior to Plato’s reversal what came to presence for human understanding was understood in a relationship to what did not come to presence—Being. The presence of what was unconcealed, or discovered, found its shelter in the concealment of aletheia. By virtue of this shelter, beings reveal themselves as they are—in the selfpresencing belonging to what is most proper to them. And what is most proper to beings is a concealment that is outside of human manipulation and control, a concealment that belongs to Being. In place of aletheia and the self-showing of beings, Plato introduces a metaphysics of the Idea that renders Being to the level of something objectively present. Enframed by the Idea, beings are forced out of hiding and into the light to be seen. After Plato, and ever since, truth has become synonymous with correctness and sight. Beings are no longer characterized by aletheia but by an agreement of ideas established between the subject and an object. This fate of Being, Heidegger believes, is manifest throughout the history of Western ontology. In reducing Being to a being that belongs to the order of objective presence, humans take the place of the locus of meaning and the original ground of meaning, or Being, gets covered over. “What no longer takes the form of a pure letting be seen, but rather in its indicating always has recourse to something else and so always lets something be seen as something, acquires with this structure of synthesis the possibility of covering up” (34/30). Heidegger’s project is to return to Being the dignity of the unknown. As the ontological basis for the understanding of beings and for all relations among beings, Being transcends any particular being. “Being and its structure transcend every being and every possible existent determination of being. Being is the transcendens pure and simple” (38/33–34). Consequently, Heidegger underscores that there is an “ontological difference” between Being and beings. Being is not reducible to something objective. It cannot be weighed, measured, empirically investigated, or verified. This is why Heidegger often uses the word “mystery” to indicate Being’s independence from human manipulation and control. Reducing Being to a being has allowed humans to believe that they can get to the source or origin of all existence and of everything that is. Heidegger intends to disburden humans of this pretension. “The first philosophical step in understanding the problem of being consists in avoiding the mython tina diegeisthai, in not ‘telling a story,’ that is, not determining beings as beings by tracing them back in their origins to another being—as

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if being had the character of a possible being” (6/5). The nothingness about Being that Heidegger wants humans to acknowledge is a nothingness that points to the fact that Being, as the groundless ground of all possibilities, can never be explicitly comprehended. But, as we shall see, the mood of Angst is the vehicle to this nothingness inherent to Being. Therefore, with the forgetting of Being humans are left with the impression that they are the ones that set the standards for determining all that there is. “Thus left, humanity replenishes its ‘world’ on the basis of the latest needs and aims, and fills out that world by means of proposing and planning.”5 But, it is rather the other way around. Planning, proposing, and ordering all belong to the order of the forgetfulness of Being. Again, from his later writings Heidegger states that man “is all the more mistaken the more exclusively he takes himself, as a subject, to be the standard of all beings.”6 In Being and Time, it is the public opinion of “the They” (das Man) that dictates the order of beings, whereas in his later writings it is the enframement of technology that determines the mode of revealing of human goals and needs. Indeed, the way of life that belongs to the They is merely another expression of the consequence of this planning, proposing, and objectification of Being that Heidegger expands upon in his later writings. When the mystery of Being is covered over and everything is revealed as objective presence, both the nature of humans and the nature of Being fall victim to the order of an impersonal force. What Heidegger deems the “authenticity” (Eigentlichkeit) of Da-sein, I shall argue, is a change in the understanding of Being away from objective presence and back to the concealment of aletheia. Heidegger thinks it is crucial to ask about the meaning of Being not only because it is neglectful to forget about the basis of everything that is, but also because there is a danger in forgetting that Heidegger hopes to save humanity from. In pursuing the question about the meaning of Being, Heidegger adheres to a certain method and is guided by a certain directive. The directive that he adheres to is the tradition of Western ontology that he claims encompasses an original understanding of the meaning of Being (5/3). Indeed, the way back to Being lies in the story of origins that Heidegger tells about the first experience of Being that belonged to the ancient Greeks. “This destructuring is based upon the original experiences in which the first and subsequently guiding determinations of being were gained” (22/20). Thus what guides Heidegger’s entire analysis into the question of the meaning of Being is a nostalgia for the ancient ontology of the Greeks that he states still determines the goals and the foundation of philosophical inquiry in the West. Therefore a proper understanding of the

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tradition of Western ontology entails an understanding of the meaning of the forgotten history of Being. Returning, then, as close to the original Greek experience from wherein the question first arose, Heidegger aims to uncover the meaning of Being that he says is implicit in the ontological tradition of the West. “The ontology that thus arises is ensnared by tradition, which allows it to sink to the level of the obvious and become mere material for reworking (as it was for Hegel)” (22/19). In asking about Being, Heidegger by no means intends to overturn this tradition. “The destructuring has just as little the negative sense of disburdening ourselves of the ontological tradition” (22/20). Rather, Heidegger plans to go back to the source of the question and then trace out how it had come to be forgotten. In doing so, he hopes to gain a footing into the most important question regarding everything that is, which belongs to the heritage of the Western tradition of Being. “If the question of being is to achieve clarity regarding its own history, a loosening of the sclerotic tradition and a dissolving of the concealments produced by it is necessary” (22/20). The way back to Being and to the comprehension of the meaning of Being is through the human being—Da-sein. Without Being there is no understanding of anything at all, but without understanding there is no Being. Being and human understanding are therefore, inextricably bound. This is why the question regarding the meaning of Being presupposes an understanding of Being. “[A]lready when we ask, ‘What is being?’ we stand in an understanding of the ‘is’ without being able to determine conceptually what the ‘is’ means” (5/4). Therefore, while Being cannot be known cognitively or thematically, it may be approached by way of the beings and relations that it makes possible. Specifically, Being may be brought nearer through the human being’s understanding of its own existence, which is always a lived existence with others in the world. “[B]ecause . . . being is always the being of beings, we must first of all bring beings themselves forward in the right way if we are to have any prospect of exposing Being” (37/33). The right way is phenomenology. In seeking the proper methodological ground, Heidegger aims to gain a position from which the question of the meaning of Being may be asked. As it is the basis of all human understanding, understanding cannot get outside of Being in order to grasp it. However, since Being is the ground of every being, the way to access the meaning of Being is to begin with a being and to question it with regard to its being. “Being is always the being of a being” (9/7). This means that the questioner asking about the meaning of Being is implicated in Being. “Only

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if an understanding of being is, are beings accessible as beings; only if beings of the kind of being of Da-sein are, is an understanding of being possible as beings [Seinsverstandnis als Seiendes]” (212/196). The most appropriate being that gives us access to the question of Being is, of course, the being of the human being—“Da-sein.” “The question of the meaning of being is possible at all only if something like an understanding of being is. An understanding of being belongs to the kind of being of the being which we call Da-sein” (200/186). Heidegger therefore approaches Being through a phenomenological study of the human being, which already has a prereflective understanding of Being. Substituting the term Da-sein (being-there) for the term subject, Heidegger highlights the interrelationship between Da-sein and Being. Da-sein distinguishes itself from all other beings as the most appropriate place to start “by the fact that in its being this being is concerned about its very being. Thus it is constitutive of the being of Da-sein to have, in its very being, a relation of being to this being” (12/10). Da-sein is also the being that has the affective foundation that will allow access to the prereflective and nonconceptual understanding of Being that underwrites and makes possible the understanding of everything that is. Thus by revealing the meaning of the being of Da-sein, Heidegger will establish the basis for the question regarding the meaning of Being, as Being is the ground of Da-sein’s being, and it is by way of Da-sein that the meaning of Being may be revealed. “The analytic of Da-sein . . . is to prepare the way for the fundamental, ontological problematic, the question of the meaning of being in general” (183/171). Heidegger’s method of choice is phenomenology because phenomenology lets “what shows itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself” (34/30). The maxim of phenomenology is “To the things themselves!” (34/30). Thus to phenomenologically study the being of Da-sein is to let Da-sein show itself as it is in its existence and to provide a description of how Da-sein reveals itself in its existence (Existenz). In accordance with the phenomenological method, “access” to the being of Da-sein must be given by Da-sein itself, which is why Heidegger approaches his investigation of Da-sein by way of its everyday relations and practices in the world (36/32). Heidegger, therefore, does not start out with a hypothesis about the meaning of the being of Da-sein and then set out to prove it right or wrong. To approach Da-sein phenomenologically is to let Da-sein show itself as it itself is by way of its existence. What shows itself must be “directly indicated and directly demonstrated” (35/30).

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“Initially and for the most part,” as Heidegger never tires of saying, Da-sein’s existence is “inauthentic” (uneigentlich). Therefore the true meaning of the being of Da-sein, its authenticity (Eigentlichkeit), is concealed, along with the true meaning of Being. The signal trait of inauthenticity is Da-sein’s evasion of its death, which is disclosed to it in Angst. “Lostness in the they and in world history, revealed itself earlier as a flight from death” (390/356–357). This evasion is evident in Da-sein’s understanding of Being as objective presence and the consequent relation to possibilities that this understanding underwrites. In fleeing from its death, Da-sein loses itself in the world of material possessions and superficial relations. This superficiality is characterized by a failure to take up its authentic history and instead be directed toward the history-making of the present day belonging to inauthentic Da-sein. “Lost in the making present of today, it understands its ‘past’ in terms of the ‘present’” (391/357). Through a phenomenological description of what shows itself in Da-sein’s everyday existence, followed by an interpretation of the underlying meaning of everydayness, Heidegger reveals the authentic ground of Da-sein’s existence so to provide the proper horizon for investigating the meaning of Being. “But freeing the horizon in which something like being in general becomes intelligible amounts to clarifying the possibility of the understanding of being in general, an understanding which itself belongs to the constitution of that being which we call Da-sein” (231/213–214). Heidegger therefore first describes, then later interprets the everyday practices and understanding belonging to human existence so to reveal the “true” meaning of the being of Da-sein that has been “concealed” and must be “wrested” from everyday, inauthentic existence. Ontically, Heidegger states, Da-sein is near “we ourselves are it, each of us” (15/13). But the meaning of the being of Da-sein is “ontologically what is farthest removed” (15/13). Gaining his directive from the tradition that thinks the relation of Being and truth together with time, Heidegger establishes the basic framework of Being and Time. Through a “thematic ontology of Da-sein” he will reveal the “authentic” being of the being that experiences the meaning of Being. And by revealing Da-sein as temporality, he will then seek the primordial and forgotten meaning of Being on the horizon of time. “The existential and ontological constitution of the totality of Da-sein is grounded in temporality. . . . Is there a way leading from primordial time to the meaning of being? Does time itself reveal itself as the horizon of being?” (437/398). As we shall see, Da-sein’s temporality does, in fact, show itself as the horizon of Being in Being and Time.

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The Ontological Structure of the Being of Da-sein: Being-in-the-world and Being-with Others Heidegger breaks from the tradition of Cartesian subjectivity by coining the term Da-sein to capture the way of being belonging to human existence. Da-sein is in every respect the opposite of the Cartesian self-contained and egocentered subject that exists independently of its world and other human beings. According to Descartes, the rational subject is the center of the world. It is in total control of itself, of what it perceives and wills, as well as of what it judges to be true or false. As the basis of all knowledge, the Cartesian subject reduces what it sees to ideas or representations whose truth resides in the human cogito. Knowledge is thus founded upon reason, discoverable by the mind alone, and it occurs on the order of visual perception, as both the perception of innate ideas and as ideas derived from the “external world.” Even other people are relegated to the status of objects or representations in the mind of the Cartesian subject. Through the light of reason, which provides incontrovertible “clear and distinct ideas,” the subject masters its world, others and itself. In this order of knowing all beings become objects amenable to human representation and control. Knowledge is turned into a method wherein thinking becomes calculative, manipulative, and objectifying. In place of the Cartesian subject and its many dualisms between mind and body, or mind and world, Heidegger introduces his notion of Da-sein. Literally translated, Da-sein means Da (there) sein (being), or being-there. Here Heidegger underscores two essential features belonging to the being of Da-sein: the world and being-with (Mit-sein) others, which characterizes Da-sein as a Mitda-sein or Da-sein with. Against Descartes’ claim that knowledge and certainty are independent of the world and based in the cogito, Heidegger argues that Da-sein is inextricably rooted in its world. As with Being, the world is the nonconceptual ground of meaning that provides the horizon of understanding for all of Da-sein’s relations and its possibilities. With its prereflective understanding of its world, Da-sein approaches itself, beings, and other Da-seins. “World is already discovered beforehand together with everything encountered, although not thematically” (83/77). Contrary to Descartes’ claim, for Heidegger the world is not a product of the subject’s rational manipulations or self-assertion, but rather the ground that makes possible Da-sein’s rational manipulations and self-assertions. “The world is already presupposed in one’s being together with things at hand heedfully and factically, in one’s thematization of what is objectively present, and in one’s objectivating discovery of the latter, that is, all these

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are possible only as modes of being-in-the-world” (365/334). To indicate this interrelationship between Da-sein and the world, Heidegger defines Da-sein as “being-in-the-world.” “World belongs to its being a self as beingin-the-world” (146/137). Whereas for Descartes the world is dependent on the subject, for Heidegger Da-sein and the world are interdependent. In every “being-toward” or open comportment toward oneself, others and beings, Da-sein reveals its being-toward the world, which prereflectively organizes and structures its understanding of beings and relations in the world. And likewise, the world shows itself in Da-sein’s relations to others and to beings in Da-sein’s being-in-the-world. Heidegger uses a number of terms to describe the world: “Region,” “totality of relevance,” “relations of relevance,” “referential relations” and “significance.” These terms all characterize the “worldliness” of the world. They name the ways in which the world appears as the unthematic horizon of understanding that gives meaning and context to the things and relations that are of “concern” to Da-sein in its everyday engagements. Through the practical use of a hammer, Heidegger illustrates how the world preserves the implicit background understanding of everyday activities and serves to contextualize meaning for Da-sein as a being-in-the-world. He shows that a hammer is never initially encountered in terms of its objectivity or “thinghood.” The hammer is an “innerworldly being” whose meaning is enrooted in the world within which it has significance. As embedded within a world of meaning, the hammer is understood in terms of its “referential relations” to other tools like nails and wood encountered through the practice of hammering. The hammer, nails, and wood, are further rooted in “relations of in-order-to, what-for, for-that, and for-the-sake-of-which” (364/333). For example, the hammer is used in order to hang a painting for an exhibit that is opening for the sake of art lovers in a certain community. Heidegger calls the thing encountered in our everyday prereflective practical engagement with it “ready-to-hand” (Zuhandenheit), or handiness. He contrasts this understanding with the more derivative understanding of a thing in its conceptual isolation as “presence-at-hand” (Vorhandenheit). What is presence-at-hand is temporarily detached from its use and all of its referential relations, and, as such, stands out in its objectivity. Thus in its everyday practical activities, Da-sein is always already prereflectively engaged in the whole of the world in such a way that things show themselves as meaningful within the context of their practical use. In the absorption of hammering, the hammer is not perceived by Da-sein as a thing, but is rather used as a tool within the context of hammering. The hammer stands out in its stark objectivity when Da-sein cannot find the

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hammer or when the hammer breaks, for example, and Da-sein directs its gaze toward the physical matter of the thing. But the conceptual meaning of a hammer, as Heidegger points out, is not prior to, but derived from the practical understanding of a hammer and its in-order-to, that is, its “serviceability, usability, detrimentality” and overall significance in the world at large (144/135). “To expose what is merely objectively present, cognition must first penetrate beyond things at hand being taken care of. Handiness is the ontological categorical definition of beings as they are ‘in themselves’” (71/67). Just as when one learns to speak a language, the words that one learns are not initially divorced from their use. The word is first understood in relation to the context in which it is used before it is separated out as an individual word. The hammer, then, is there in-order-to, for example, build a house that is ultimately for-the-sake-of-which Da-sein has shelter. A brick is not first encountered as a molded piece of clay from a quarry, but as brick in a wall that is stacked and cemented by a builder to make the façade of the house to the taste and specifications of a particular Da-sein. This Da-sein’s tastes are, in turn, generally in accordance with the ideas and expectations of its community. The same is the case for Da-sein and its relations to others. In our everyday practices and concerns with things, other Da-seins are always already there. “Thus not only beings which are at hand are encountered in the work but also beings with the kind of being of Da-sein for whom what is produced becomes handy in its taking care. Here the world is encountered in which wearers and users live, a world which is at the same time our world” (71/66). Da-sein’s encounter with others through its engagement in everyday practical affairs points to the other constituent of its being: Da-sein’s being-with others (Mit-sein). “Our analysis has shown that being-with is an existential constituent of being-in-the-world. . . . In that Da-sein is at all, it has the kind of being of being-with-one-another” [Miteinandersein] (125/117–118). As a being-in-the-world Da-sein is always already in relation to other Da-seins, whether it is aware of these relations or not. “The clarification of beingin-the-world showed that a mere subject without a world ‘is’ not initially and is also never given. And, thus, an isolated I without the others is in the end just as far from being given initially” (116/109). Thus inherent to the being of Da-sein is a Da-sein-with (Mitda-sein). Mitda-sein is an ontological constitution of Da-sein and points to the fact that Da-sein never understands itself in isolation from others but always in relation to others and to the world within which these others exist alongside with it. “The world of Da-sein is a with-world” (Mitwelt) (118/112). “The disclosedness of the Mitda-sein of others which belongs to being-with

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means that the understanding of others already lies in the understanding of being of Da-sein because its being is a being-with” (124/116). When Da-sein plans, proposes, or reflects upon itself, others are already involved. Mitda-sein belongs to every thinking about oneself because the foundations of all thought lie in being-in-the-world and Da-sein is in the world with others. By rooting the being of Da-sein in its world and to others living with it in the world, Heidegger overcomes some of the problems that have plagued the Western philosophical tradition, at least since Descartes. Da-sein is not with others as an isolated subject that stands before an other isolated subject. Da-sein encounters others and itself from within its world, and indeed already has a relationship to others as a being-in-the-world. “The others are not encountered by grasping and previously discriminating one’s own subject, initially objectively present, from other subjects also present. They are not encountered by first looking at oneself and then ascertaining the opposite pole of a distinction. They are encountered from the world in which Da-sein, heedful and circumspect, essentially dwells” (119/112). Here the question of solipsism, or whether a self-contained subject can gain access to the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of an other selfcontained subject, loses its force. Mitda-sein belongs to the structure of Da-sein’s being-in-the-world and therefore to the ontological constitution of the very being of Da-sein. Just as with the objectification of the hammer, the notion of a self-contained subject in isolation from an other Da-sein is itself a derivative form of understanding oneself and the other. “Encountering a number of ‘subjects’ itself is possible only by treating the others encountered in their Mitda-sein merely as ‘numerals’” (125/118). In his analysis of Da-sein’s everyday practical engagements with its work world, Heidegger shows how others are approached from within Da-sein’s familiar, yet prereflective awareness of its surrounding world. As was already mentioned, the hammer is not initially met as an object, but as a tool that is bound up within a whole system of relations that includes references to other people. Likewise, in Da-sein’s activities and engagements with beings in its everyday practical activities, others are also encountered. The field, for example, along which we walk “outside” shows itself as belonging to such and such a person who keeps it in good order, the book which we use is bought at such and such a place, given by such and such a person, and so on. The boat anchored at the shore refers in its being-in-itself to an acquaintance who undertakes his voyages with it, but as a “boat strange to us,” it also points to others (118/111).

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In fact, even when Da-sein feels alone, or is lonely in the midst of a crowd of people, Heidegger argues, others are “there with” Da-sein: “The beingalone of Da-sein, too, is being-with in the world. The other can be lacking only in and for a being-with. Being-alone is a deficient mode of being-with, its possibility is a proof for the latter” (120/113). Here Heidegger underscores that Da-sein is never an isolated being, like a numeral, but always already understands itself in relation to others. Mitda-sein belongs essentially to Da-sein’s own self-understanding, which is always rooted in a world shared with others. As a consequence of Mitda-sein, then, to know oneself is to know others, as the foundation of one’s own self-understanding is a world shared with others. “Knowing oneself is grounded in primordially understanding beingwith” (124/116). Mitda-sein highlights the fact that an understanding of others is built into Da-sein’s own self-understanding. Therefore, Da-sein does not first come to an understanding of itself in isolation from the world and others and then project this understanding onto its relations to others. Such an encounter presupposes that one’s self-understanding is divorced from one’s relations in the world, and furthermore may translate into an understanding of the self of another. “The relation of being to others then becomes a projection of one’s own being toward oneself ‘into an other.’ The other is a double of the self” (124/117). This doubling of the self is also how Heidegger interprets the everyday understanding of empathy.7 But empathy, he argues, is possible only because Da-sein is already in the world with others and consequently may understand and relate to others through Mitda-sein. “Being toward others is not only an autonomous irreducible relation of being, as being-with it already exists with the being of Da-sein” (125/117). It is important, therefore, not to mistake Heidegger’s analysis of Da-sein and its existential characteristics as an exclusive analysis of the self or of the subject. Integral to every aspect of Da-sein’s being is the world and beingwith others. Da-sein’s knowing of what the other may think, feel, or desire is inseparable from its own possibilities of knowing, feeling, and desiring. This is because the knowledge of others and of one’s own self are equally grounded and derived from being-in-the-world. This is the reading that I am stressing. Rooting understanding in the world dissolves the boundaries between Da-seins in such a way that to know others is to know oneself. Perhaps this is why Heidegger says that authentic Da-sein is never alone but always carries with it “the voice of a friend” (163/153). Later, in the conclusion, I explore the breakdown of Mitda-sein in the encounter with the other that one does not share a world with.

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Da-sein’s Existentiales: Attunement, Understanding, and Discourse Da-sein is disclosed and discloses itself in its relations in the world and with others through three existential structures: “attunement” (Befindlichkeit), “understanding” (Verstehen), and “discourse” (Rede). Disclosedness is how the being of Da-sein shows or reveals itself. “‘To disclose’ and ‘disclosedness’ are used as technical terms in what follows and mean ‘to unlock’—‘to be open’” (75/70). As Da-sein is always a being-in-the-world with others, Da-sein’s disclosure or disclosedness includes its prereflective understanding of the world and of Mitda-sein. “Da-sein is its disclosure,” means that Da-sein is how it understands itself by virtue of its openness to the world and to others in its being-in-the-world (133/125). “Through disclosedness this being (Da-sein) is ‘there’ for itself together with the Da-sein of the world” (132/125). Disclosedness is therefore simply the way that Da-sein shows or reveals itself. It is how Da-sein is revealed in the act of existing. “Falling-prey” also belongs to Da-sein as an existential. Falling prey is what Heidegger identifies as the essential tendency that Da-sein has to succumb to the inauthentic interpretations of the “They” and the possibilities given to it by the public. This fallenness is a result of finding oneself in a world that has reduced Being to the order of objective presence, to what can been seen, weighted, measured, and so on. Falling prey essentially indicates Da-sein’s propensity to want to be like the others, that is, to follow and be a part of the popular public opinion at the time. The most powerful of the three existentiales, which are equiprimoridal and therefore occur simultaneously, is attunement (Befindlichkeit) or mood (Stimmung). Mood is the prevailing existential because mood is how the world opens up to Da-sein as a whole. Mood conditions the mode of access of Da-sein’s understanding of beings and others in the world. Mood “first makes possible directing oneself to something” (137/129). Mood opens up the horizon of the world within which Da-sein finds itself in its relations to its possibilities and to other Da-seins. By opening up the world, mood opens Da-sein up to its being-in-the-world. “The moodedness of attunement constitutes existentially the openness to world of Da-sein” (137/129). How the world matters to Da-sein, how Da-sein will approach its possibilities, and what possibilities it will find are all determined by mood. “In attunement lies existentially a disclosive submission to world out of which things that matter to us can be encountered” (137–138/129–130). “This mattering to it is grounded in attunement, and as attunement it has disclosed the world[.]” (137/129)

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“Indeed,” says Heidegger, “we must ontologically in principle leave the primary discovery of the world to ‘mere mood’” (138/130). Therefore, what matters to Da-sein, what Da-sein concerns itself with, and how the world affects Da-sein are all determined by mood. Mood colors Da-sein’s world. It is inseparable from Da-sein’s understanding, which is always attuned. “Attunement always has its understanding . . . Understanding is always attuned” (142–143/134). Through mood the world is disclosed and on the basis of this disclosure Da-sein understands itself and its relations to others. “Mood makes manifest ‘how one is and is coming along.’ In this ‘how one is’ being in a mood brings being to its ‘there’” (134/127). Significantly, mood does not disclose to Da-sein a part of the world, or certain situations within the world divorced from others. The world as a whole and Da-sein as a whole are disclosed in mood. For example, if one finds oneself in a bad mood after receiving a poor score on an exam, this mood not only discloses the being of the individual in the mood, but the mood points to a world where exams matter to that student. Perhaps this is because exams may be used to place individuals into this or that educational bracket. Presumably, this bracket will determine the student’s possibilities with respect to employment options, subsequent housing location, social status, and so on. In disclosing what matters to Da-sein, mood discloses the world, and vice versa, in disclosing the world, mood discloses what matters to Da-sein in its being-in-the-world. Da-sein, then, finds itself in a mood and also finds itself by virtue of a mood. Mood is there before Da-sein is, so to speak. “Da-sein is always already in a mood” (134/126). When Da-sein feels listless, “tired of itself” and of life in general, mood is there, even if it can’t be identified. “One does not know why. And Da-sein cannot know why because the possibilities of disclosure belonging to cognition fall far short of the primordial disclosure of moods in which Da-sein is brought before its being as the there” (134/127). Mood is not a psychical condition belonging to a self-contained subject. Mood permeates and arises together with the being of the world. “Mood assails. It comes neither from ‘without’ nor from ‘within,’ but rises from beingin-the-world itself as a mode of that being” (136/129). Unlike an emotion that has a cognitive component, mood is prior to reflection, cognition, and willing. In fact, mood is the foundation of all of these acts. “Far from having the character of an apprehension which first turns itself around and then turns back, all immanent reflection can find ‘experiences’ only because the there is already disclosed in attunement” (136/128). Mood characterizes Da-sein’s prereflective openness to the world, an openness that creates the space for the presencing of beings, being-with

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others and Da-sein’s own being with itself. What distinguishes mood and makes it the dominant existential in Heidegger’s analytic of Da-sein is its capacity to grasp the whole of the world together with the whole of Da-sein’s being-in-the-world. The world, which is equivalent in function to Being, cannot be cognitively grasped because it is all pervasive, too ephemeral, and too universal. Understanding cannot get outside of the world to grasp it as a whole because the world permeates every aspect of Da-sein’s understanding and is, indeed, projected by this understanding as its preconceptual ground. Mood, on the other hand, is able to grasp the whole of the world, albeit this grasp will always remain prethematic and prereflective. Mood has the potential to open Da-sein up to Being as a whole. Thus being in a mood is prior to any reflective understanding of oneself or of one’s situations. Rather, mood is the requisite for this reflection because it discloses the world as a whole and how Da-sein is as a whole in its being-in-the-world. As Da-sein is always in the world with others, mood also characterizes the Mitda-sein of Da-sein and is that by virtue of which an understanding of others is possible. “It [mood] is a fundamental existential mode of being of equiprimordial disclosedness of world, being-there-with, and existence because this disclosure itself is essentially being-in-the-world” (137/129). Therefore, preceding all reflection and cognition, mood is there disclosing Da-sein in its being-in-the-world. “That a Da-sein can, should, and must master its mood with knowledge and will . . . must not mislead us into ontologically denying mood as a primordial kind of being of Da-sein in which it is disclosed to itself before all cognition and willing and beyond their scope of disclosure” (136/128). Mood is the vehicle that brings Da-sein before itself, in its relation to others, and before its various possibilities. Mood is how Da-sein and the world are disclosed as a whole in a prereflective relation to each other. Consequently, mood does not arise in response to a particular situation. Rather, mood is the way in which a certain situation initially arises as mattering to Da-sein. In the mood of fear, for example, one does not first identify something as threatening and then respond to it in a fearful manner. What is threatening is not what initially invokes the mood of fear. Rather, fear is the mood by which the threatening is first discovered, or disclosed as threatening. “Circumspection sees what is fearsome because it is in the attunement of fear” (141/132). A knife may not be threatening in a kitchen, but may arouse fear if encountered in the hand of a man in a dark alleyway. The knife itself is not what is threatening, rather it is Da-sein’s being-toward the knife that allows the knife to be approached as either something threatening or not, and this being-toward the knife is

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dependent upon Da-sein’s attuned being-toward the world where the knife is understood within a certain context of relations as either threatening or not. Fear, therefore, brings about that which is threatening, and not the other way around; and this is because mood opens up the world and determines the character of this world from which beings are encountered. Attunement, then, holds together what was never apart, the whole of the being of Da-sein with the whole of the being of the world by virtue of what matters to Da-sein—its possibilities and relations to others. By simultaneously opening up the being of Da-sein to its world and the world to Da-sein, mood conditions the mode of access to possibilities. Indeed, there is never a moment when Da-sein is without a mood because Da-sein is always a being in the world. “[W]e never master a mood by being free of a mood, but always through a counter mood” (136/128). In Da-sein’s everyday, inauthentic existence, public opinion decides upon what matters to Da-sein and therefore dictates the way of its attunement. “The domination of the public way in which things have been interpreted has already decided upon even the possibilities of being attuned, that is, about the basic way in which Da-sein lets itself be affected by the world. The They prescribes that attunement, it determines what and how one ‘sees’” (170/159). But the actual engagement with possibilities that mood attunes Da-sein to is accomplished only by understanding. The understanding is the projective structure of Da-sein and it is always attuned. “Understanding is always attuned” (143/134). Mood opens up the world that is prereflectively understood by Da-sein and within which it finds its possibilities. Understanding is the projection of the world that is opened up by mood. On the basis of this projective, prereflective understanding of the world, Da-sein finds itself in a relation of understanding to others, to beings and to itself. Understanding is therefore not something that Da-sein applies to particular situations retrospectively in order to make sense of them. Understanding is that by virtue of which situations and possibilities initially come to light. Situations and possibilities show up for Da-sein as meaningful within the context of the prereflective understanding of the world belonging to Da-sein. “As understanding, Da-sein projects its being upon possibilities” (148/139). Like mood, then, the understanding of Da-sein is not merely a response to a situation. Rather, situations are made possible and arise together with the attuned understanding of Da-sein to the world because in this attunement the world is projected as a whole, and this world is the prereflective ground of all possibilities. “Projecting discloses possibilities, that is, it discloses what makes something possible” (324/298). Da-sein is not first in

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a world that it then tries to understand. In its projective understanding, Da-sein is in an attuned being-toward the world and grasps this world prereflectively in what Heidegger calls a “fore-having,” which belongs to the hermeneutics of understanding. On the basis of this prereflective understanding of the world, Da-sein engages with its possibilities and with others. “As something factical, the understanding self-projection of Da-sein is always already together with a discovered world” (194/181). Understanding projects the world as the prereflective horizon that makes possible the understanding of possibilities, and this includes Da-sein’s own self-understanding. “It projects the being of Da-sein upon its for-the-sakeof-which just as primordially as upon significance as the worldliness of its actual world” (145/136). Therefore, in every projection of Da-sein’s understanding, the being of Da-sein and the being of the world are simultaneously projected. On the basis of this projection, Da-sein relates to its possibilities. Understanding is a “being toward possibilities” (148/139). However, this projection is not to be understood as a projection arising from the selfhood of Da-sein. To attribute Heidegger’s notion of understanding to the will of a subject unwittingly robs Da-sein of its world and of its being-with others in the world. “As the disclosedness of the there, understanding always concerns the whole of being-in-the-world” (152/142). This whole cannot be mastered by the will or grasped in cognition. The projective structure of understanding, which is always attuned, is prereflective and serves as the backdrop or horizon for reflective understanding. By virtue of its prereflective attuned understanding of the world, Da-sein approaches itself, its possibilities, and its relations to others. In Da-sein’s projective understanding the ground (Being, world) is disclosed prereflectively and prethematically. This ground is projected as the horizon of understanding, that is, as understanding itself wherein what is to be understood is found. Da-sein does not project onto specific possibilities, or understand one possibility in isolation from all others. In the understanding of certain possibilities the totality of the range of possibilities open to Da-sein is disclosed by virtue of Da-sein’s attuned understanding to the whole of the world and the possibilities that this world grants or makes available. Projecting has nothing to do with being related to a plan thought out, according to which Da-sein arranges its being, but, as Da-sein, it has always already projected itself and is, as long as it is, projecting. As long as it is, Da-sein always has understood itself and will understand itself in terms of possibilities. (145/136)

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Therefore, what is projected in the understanding is a prereflective understanding of Being and of the world. This understanding is projected as the backdrop before which all possibilities and relations to others arises. “In projectedness of its being upon the for-the-sake-of-which together with that upon significance (world) lies the disclosedness of being in general. An understanding of being is already anticipated in the projecting upon possibilities. Being is understood in the project, but not ontologically grasped” (147/138). It is important to keep in mind, then, that specific possibilities are not what are projected upon in understanding, but the world within which these possibilities arise and are understood as meaningful. [T]he project character of understanding means that understanding does not thematically grasp that upon which it projects, the possibilities themselves. Such a grasp precisely takes its character of possibility away from what is projected, it degrades it to the level of a given, in-tended content, whereas in projecting project throws possibility before itself as possibility, and as such lets it be. As projecting, understanding is the mode of being of Da-sein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities. (145/136) The third existential belonging to the being of Da-sein is discourse. Discourse constitutes the realm of language in general. It is the interpretive awareness of Da-sein’s attuned understanding. “The attuned intelligibility of being-in-the-world is expressed as discourse” (161/151). Discourse is inseparable from Da-sein’s understanding and from mood. “Discourse is existentially equiprimordial with attunement and understanding” (161/150). Hearing and silence also fall within the realm of discourse. In fact, these modes reveal more clearly the existential disclosedness of Da-sein’s existence, as we shall see with the silent “call of conscience” in Chapter 3. Discourse belongs inherently to Mitda-sein because Da-sein is always in the world with others. “Mitda-sein is essentially already manifest in attunement-with and understanding-with. Being-with is ‘explicitly’ shared in discourse, that is, it already is, only unshared as something not grasped and appropriated” (163/152). As with understanding and mood, discourse is also rooted in the world. Da-sein does not hear sounds or noises that it then assigns meaning to. The sounds it hears are already understood as particular sounds arising from the world that Da-sein shares with others. “‘Initially’ we never hear noises and complexes of sound, but the creaking wagon, the motorcycle. We hear the column on the march, the north wind, the woodpecker tapping, the crackling fire” (163/153). Since Da-sein is a being-toward the world through an attuned understanding, what discourse communicates is Da-sein’s

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being-in-the-world. The world as a whole within which sounds and words have meaning is there in what is heard and said. “Discourse necessarily has this structural factor because it also constitutes the disclosedness of beingin-the-world and is pre-structured in its own structure by this fundamental constitution of Da-sein” (162/151). Significantly, then, because discourse is rooted in Da-sein’s being-in-theworld a certain understanding already belongs to the listening of what is said. “Discourse and hearing are grounded in understanding. . . . Only he who already understands is able to listen” (164/154). To understand what is heard is possible only because Da-sein is a being-in-the-world and has a prereflective understanding of this world. On the basis of this attuned understanding of the world, what is said is essentially already understood. As discussed above, the hammer is known through its use prior to its explicit articulation, for example, as a broken or missing hammer. It requires a very artificial and complicated attitude in order to “hear” a “pure noise.” The fact that we initially hear motorcycles and wagons is, however, the phenomenal proof that Da-sein, a being-in-the-world, always already maintains itself together with innerworldly things at hand and initially not at all with “sensations” whose chaos would first have to be formed to provide the springboard from which the subject jumps off finally to land in a “world” (164/153). As discourse belongs to the being of Da-sein as being-in-the-world and the world is a with-world, discourse is always a discourse with. Discourse “brings about the ‘sharing’ of being attuned together and of the understanding of being-with. . . . Being-with is ‘explicitly’ shared in discourse” (162/152). Stephen Mulhall explains attuned discourse by comparing it to being in harmony with others: “human beings who agree in the language they use are mutually voiced with respect to it, mutually attuned from top to bottom.”8 The possibility of a mutual attunement that is shared explicitly in discourse is rooted in a shared understanding, that is to say, a shared world. When Da-sein is in a being-with others, Da-sein listens understandingly. “Listening to . . . is the existential being-open of Da-sein as being-with for the other” (163/153). But if listening already requires a certain understanding, and if understanding is always attuned, do Da-seins have to be similarly attuned in order to listen to and understand one another? Do they have to be similarly attuned to the same world in order to communicate openly with each other? Are languages themselves already imbued in moods? Indeed, is a shared mood that is attuned to the same world the ontological condition for the possibility of listening to one another? These questions are taken up in the

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conclusion through a discussion of ontological occlusion where it is shown how the relationship between attunement and world helps to explain the prereflective foundation for an openness, as well as a closing off to certain voices and relationships to others.

Inauthentic Da-sein and the Leveling Down of Possibilities The world and being-with others belong to Da-sein’s being as a being-inthe-world. The being of Da-sein shows itself in Da-sein’s existence. “The ‘essence’ of Da-sein lies in its existence” (42/40). Existence reveals the “possible ways for it to be, and only this” (42/40). Being and Time describes how there are essentially two possible ways for Da-sein to be in the world: “two kinds of being” that characterize its existence. Da-sein may exist either authentically or inauthentically. “Da-sein is disclosed to itself authentically or it may exist inauthentically with regard to its existence” (325/298). These two ways of existing are determined by the prereflective and prethematic understanding that Da-sein has of Being and of its world, an understanding that shows itself in Da-sein’s relations to others and to its possibilities in its being-inthe-world. “In every understanding of world, existence is also understood, and vice versa” (152/142). Existence, then, is revealed in the very act of existing. Heidegger begins with the premise that Da-sein has forgotten the meaning of Being. As such, Da-sein exists inauthentically. It understands the world and its possibilities in terms of what has been made objectively present and familiar by the They. “Initially and for the most part, the self is lost in the they. It understands itself in terms of the possibilities of existence that ‘circulate’ in the actual ‘average’ public interpretedness of Da-sein today” (383/351). Thus what characterizes Da-sein’s inauthenticity is the nature of its relations to its possibilities and its being-with others, relations that are determined by its prereflectively attuned understanding of the world where Being is reduced to the order of objective presence. Indeed, authenticity does not lie in a radical independence for one’s own individual choices, as generally assumed, but as already mentioned, in a shift in the understanding of the ground of one’s relations and understanding of possibilities. In its everydayness, Da-sein “falls prey” to the They’s “essential tendency” of “the levelling down of all possibilities of being” (127/119). Specifically, the They do not let possibilities show themselves as they are from out of a shared history of the world—a history that Heidegger will later explain in terms of generations—but as they make Da-sein feel secure in the here and now. The They reduce all possibilities to the level of what can be ordered,

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measured, and controlled. The They are attuned only to what can be seen on the order of objective presence in the here and now. And since factical Da-sein is absorbed and entangled in what it takes care of, it initially understands its history as world history. And since, furthermore, the vulgar understanding of being understands “being” as objective presence without further differentiation, the being of what is worldhistorical is experienced and interpreted in the sense of objective presence that comes along, is present, and disappears (389/356). Instead of being-toward the ground of the world and receiving its possibilities from this world, inauthentic Da-sein lets itself be given its possibilities from the public opinion of the They. This is what it means to fall prey to the world that Da-sein has been thrown into. “Thrownness” is an essential feature belonging to the existence of Da-sein and “is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over” (135/127). With the term thrownness Heidegger points out the phenomenal fact that Da-sein finds itself in a world already organized before its arrival into this world. “Da-sein exists as thrown, brought into its there not of its own accord” (284/262). The manner by which Da-sein takes up its thrownness and being-in-the-world determines the character of its existence as either authentic or inauthentic. This manner is revealed in Da-sein’s relations to its possibilities, in its being-with others, and in its own self-understanding, all of which are rooted in its prereflective, attuned understanding of Being. “Thrown into its ‘there,’ Da-sein is always factically dependent on a definite ‘world’—its ‘world.’ At the same time those nearest factical projects are guided by the lostness of the they taking care of things” (297/274). When Da-sein understands its possibilities within the context of the world that the They have grown comfortable and familiar with, the world into which it has been thrown, Da-sein exists inauthentically. Da-sein “takes its possibilities, initially in accordance with the interpretedness of the they. This interpretation has from the outset restricted the possible options of choice to the scope of what is familiar, attainable, feasible, to what is correct and proper” (194/181). The desire for a certain kind of security, which Heidegger interprets as a defense against death, underlies the They’s tendency to diminish all possibilities to what can be made objectively available, measurable, and therefore calculable, including the possibilities of its relations to others and to itself. They determine the context of meaning for all of Da-sein’s relations and They decide what possibilities are meaningful. “The they itself, for the sake of which Da-sein is everyday, articulates the

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referential context of significance. The world of Da-sein frees the beings encountered for a totality of relevance which is familiar to the they in the limits which are established with the averageness of the they” (129/121). Heidegger is particularly perturbed by the fact that traditions that have long held standing in the world are covered over by the whims of the They and its perpetual movement toward what is new and improved. “Awaiting the next new thing, it has already forgotten what is old” (391/357). In the order of the “business of everyday activities” belonging to the They, Da-seins are defined by what they do, what they take care of, and the possibilities that they encounter that are “nearest at hand” (338/311). “One is, after all, what one takes care of” (322/296). “Da-sein initially finds ‘itself’ in what it does, needs, expects, has charge of, in the things which it initially takes care of in the surrounding world” (119/112). Da-sein first finds itself “ontically in terms of the horizon of taking care of things” and “ontologically defines being in the sense of objective presence” (293/270). Here Heidegger distinguishes between the “ontological” and the “ontic,” and the “existential” and the “existentiell.” What is ontic is the actual way that Da-sein or something in the world shows itself in terms of its “facticity,” as the fact of its everyday way of being in the world. Likewise, what is existentiell defines the specific ways in which Da-sein factically exists in the world, for example, as a musician or as a philosopher. These roles are defined by Da-sein’s existentiell possibilities. Existentiell possibilities belong to Da-sein’s existence in the world with others and are rooted in its prereflective understanding of the horizon of its possibilities. “Existing, it has always already projected itself upon definite possibilities of its existence; and in these existentiell projects it has also projected pre-ontologically something like existence and being” (315/291). Ontologically, Da-sein is defined as “being-possible.” “Da-sein is not something objectively present that then has as an addition the ability to do something, but is rather primarily being-possible. Da-sein is always what it can be and how it is its possibility” (143/134). The statement that Da-sein is what it can be and exists as a possibility has been used to support a Sartrean existentialist reading of Heidegger. However, while Da-sein is always its possibility, Heidegger’s notion of Da-sein as possibility differs significantly from Sartre’s. For Sartre, humans are free to create themselves at any moment anew because the limits to human freedom rest entirely within the self. “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”9 This is why Sartre believes that freedom is a burden, because one is responsible for creating one’s existence ex nihilo. By contrast, Da-sein is not the origin of its being. The limits of its freedom reside in the world with others and not in the self. For Heidegger, as we shall see later on, freedom is ultimately bound up with

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Da-sein’s relation to Being and the concealment belonging to the truth of Being, or aletheia. The nothing that Da-sein exists out of is a nothing that belongs to Being and the nonpersonal mood of Angst, and not exclusively to the self of a particular Da-sein, as with Sartre. Indeed, Heideggerian freedom lies in disburdening oneself of the self by grounding one’s existence in the world with others. Therefore, by defining Da-sein as possibility Heidegger does not mean to indicate that Da-sein is free to create itself as it pleases. Da-sein is not the sole source of meaning of itself or of its relations in the world. To understand possibilities in this light would be to fall into the existentialist interpretation of Da-sein. For Heidegger, Da-sein’s existence is inseparable from its world, the world into which it is thrown. Its possibilities will, therefore, always be circumscribed by the possibilities that the world makes available to it. Consequently, when Heidegger speaks of Da-sein and its possibilities he is always referring to possibilities arising from out of a world to which Da-sein is attuned. But even more importantly, Heidegger does not believe that one is what one does or what one takes care of. As with the example of the hammer, the focus of Heidegger’s thought is not with the what of objective presence, but with the how of existence. Neither does he believe that a person’s worth is to be judged by his or her successes or failures, which are determinable through the measurement of objectively present gains or losses. “Everyday taking care of things understands itself in terms of the potentiality-of-beingthat confronts it as coming from its possible success or failure with regard to what is actually taken care of” (337/310–311). Equating the ontological and existential being of Da-sein with its ontic and existentiell possibilities overlooks the being of Da-sein and the being of the world. It is not the objectively present possibilities that are an issue for Heidegger, but the ground of these possibilities, Da-sein’s being-toward the ground of its possibilities, and Da-sein’s relations to others on the basis of its attuned understanding to this ground. By reducing possibilities to the familiar forms of everyday knowing, Da-sein’s possibilities are robbed of their character of possibility and Da-sein exists inauthentically. According to Heidegger, only an understanding of the existential meaning of death can give to Da-sein a perspective on its authentic possibilities and existence. “Only the anticipation of death drives every chance and ‘preliminary’ possibility out” (384/351). As possible at any moment rather than at one “not yet objectively present” time, death pursues Da-sein and threatens to free it from its everyday, inauthentic way of life. In fact, the hold that the They’s entanglements and affairs have on Da-sein is rooted in the fear of death and the covering over of the Angst that

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discloses to Da-sein its being-toward-death. By reducing possibility to what is merely “real,” everyday Da-sein attempts to gain a certain sense of security by surrounding itself with possibilities that are tangible, manipulable, and calculable in the face of the indefiniteness characterizing the possibility of death. The leveling down of the possibilities of Da-sein to what is initially available in an everyday way at the same time results in a phasing out of the possible as such. The average everydayness of taking care of things becomes blind to possibility and gets tranquilized with what is merely “real.” This tranquilization not only does not rule out a high degree of busyness in taking care of things, it arouses it (194–195/181–182). The They transform their Angst about the indefiniteness of death by sublimating it into a definiteness about possibilities that can be calculated and controlled. By reducing possibilities to what can be calculated and measured, the They express a certain anxiety about death. At the root of the leveling down of possibilities and of inauthenticity, which results in a tranquilization by the known, is a fleeing from death. The leveling down of possibilities to what is tangible, calculable, and manipulable is how the They “entrenches its stubborn dominance” by taking the edge off the indefiniteness of the possibility of death (128/120). “Thus the they makes sure of a constant tranquillization about death” (253–254/235). By reducing all possibilities to the order of objective presence, mystery is no longer sacred. Truth is stripped bare. The unknown becomes known. Death is staved off. In its being, the they is essentially concerned with averageness. Thus, the they maintains itself factically in the averageness of what is proper, what is allowed, and what is not. Of what is granted success and what is not. . . . Overnight, everything primordial is flattened down as something long since known. Everything gained by a struggle becomes something to be manipulated. Every mystery loses its power. The care of averageness reveals, in turn, an essential tendency of Da-sein, which we call the leveling down of all possibilities of being. (127/119) By fixating only on what is objectively present, the They take the element of possibility away from all possibilities, including the possibility of death. In reducing Being to what is merely real, the They comport themselves only to what is familiar and readily available. “Being out for something possible and taking care of it has the tendency of annihilating the possibility of the

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possible by making it available” (261/241). Relating to possibilities that have been interpreted and stabilized by the public, Da-sein gains a sense of security and is able to push death aside indefinitely. “One also dies at the end, but for now one is not involved” (253/234). This satisfies the They’s “tendency to take things easily and make them easy” (128/120). The leveling down of possibilities to what is actual, definite, and real, makes up the essence of the They-self (Man-selbst) and its disclosedness. Existing inauthentically, Da-sein passes over the being of the world and instead understands its possibilities on the order of the referential relations that the They make available to it. What the They-self concern itself with is what everyone else concerns itself with, the tangible and material things that are there for public consumption. In this mode of being, any self is exchangeable with another. “Everyone is the other, and no one is himself” (128/120). Indeed, it requires a great effort to escape from the grip of the They, as the They are everywhere. In utilizing pubic transportation, in the use of information services such as the newspaper, every other is like the next. . . . In this inconspicuousness and unascertainability, the they unfolds its true dictatorship. We enjoy ourselves and have fun the way they enjoy themselves. We read, see, and judge literature and art the way they see and judge. But we also withdraw from the “great mass” the way they withdraw, we find “shocking” what they find shocking. The they, which is nothing definite and which all are, though not as a sum, prescribe the kind of being of everydayness. (126–127/119) Lost in the They, Da-sein is relieved of all responsibility. It takes care of what everyone else takes care of. “The they is everywhere, but in such a way that it has already stolen away when Da-sein presses for a decision. However because the they present every judgement and decision as its own, it takes the responsibility of Da-sein away from it” (127/119). Therefore, in assimilating itself to the They-self, Da-sein relinquishes its responsibility for the world and for itself. But most significantly, the They take away Da-sein’s responsibility to others. Indeed, the They-self is a failure of Da-sein to understand the being of Mitda-sein. Approaching others from the perspective of its everyday absorption with things, Da-sein relates to others as “objectively present thing-persons” (120/113). Being-with the other is then a being with the matters of concern that are engaged in by the other, rather than a being-with the being of the other. Da-sein therefore inauthentically focuses on what the other does, and passes over the being of the other.

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In a rather obscure passage in section 26 of Being and Time, “The Mitda-sein of the others and everyday being-with,” Heidegger describes two modes of being-with, or solicitude (Fursorge) that one can exercise in relation to the other. The first mode of solicitude, belonging primarily to inauthentic Da-sein, Heidegger calls leaping in. To leap in for the other one relates not directly to the other, but to the matter at hand that is of concern to this other. Concern takes over what is to be taken care of for the other. The other is thus displaced, he steps back so that afterwards, when the matter has been attended to, he can take it over as something finished and available or disburden himself of it completely. In this concern, the other can become one who is dependent and dominated even if this domination is a tacit one and remains hidden from him. (122/114) For example, if an individual is worried about writing a paper for a class, the mode of concern called leaping in would address this worry by helping the other to write the paper, or by going so far as to write the actual paper for the other person. What is dominating about this stance is not only that the other becomes dependent on the one giving and is in debt to this caregiver. But rather that the focus of concern is toward something material or objectively present, the finished paper, and not toward the person who is writing the paper. In this mode of solicitude, leaping-in for the other takes the person as a “thing-person” by seeing that person in relation to a thing, the paper. The more authentic mode of solicitude is when Da-sein is said to “leap ahead” of the other (121/115). In leaping ahead Da-sein is not concerned with the specific task that confronts the other, but with the other’s existential well-being in the rootedness of their lived situation. In this mode of concern one does not so much leap in for the other as leap ahead of him, not in order to take “care” away from him, but first to give it back to him as such. This concern which essentially pertains to authentic care; that is, the existence of the other, and not to a what which it takes care of, helps the other to become transparent to himself in his care and free for it. (122/115) With respect to the above example, to authentically recognize the other would mean to address him or her as someone who is engaged in the art of thinking, writing, and creation. To excite the other to write is not to offer

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any particular topic to the writer, although this may stimulate thought, but to help the other to approach a topic from the background practices and worldly concerns that he or she is concerned about. However the inauthentic character of being-with others can most starkly be viewed in Da-sein’s relation, or lack of relation to the death of others. The flight from the other’s death rehearses Da-sein’s flight from its own death. Not only does Da-sein push aside its own death, it experiences the death of others as a “downright” inconvenient imposition in an otherwise carefree and shallow existence. Heidegger’s description of the everyday relation to death takes its inspiration from Leo Tolstoy’s “The death of Ivan Illyitch.”10 No longer valued for what They do and what They can provide, a dying Da-sein is simply superfluous to the tasks and concerns of everyday existence. The evasion of death which covers over, dominates everydayness so stubbornly that, in being-with-another, the “neighbors” often try to convince the “dying person” that he will escape death and soon return again to the tranquillized everydayness of his world taken care of. . . . But, basically, this tranquillization is not only for the “dying person,” but just as much for “those who are comforting him.” And even in the case of a demise, publicness is still not to be disturbed and made uneasy by the event in the carefreeness it has made sure of. Indeed, the dying of others is seen often as a social inconvenience, if not a downright tactlessness, from which publicness should be spared. (253–254/234–235) Through a confrontation with a certain mode of death that is made phenomenally accessible, Heidegger reveals the authentic being of Da-sein. Only death, he claims, can disclose Da-sein’s authenticity because only death can reveal the whole of the being of Da-sein together with the whole of the being of the world. In authentically being-toward-death the being of Da-sein is disclosed in its “totality.”

Moving from Division One and the Inauthentic being of Da-sein to Division Two and the Authenticity of Da-sein In division one of Being and Time Heidegger puts forth the ontological and existential structures that make up the constitution of the being of Da-sein. These structures he reveals through his phenomenological description of Da-sein’s everyday existence. Existence reveals both the being of Da-sein

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and the being of the world in an inseparable and reciprocal relationship to each other. Through Da-sein’s everyday practical engagements in the world and being-with others, the world shows itself. This showing of the world is prereflectively grasped in mood and projected by the understanding. Discourse also belongs to the structure of Da-sein as a way by which it discloses itself in its relations to others. The term that Heidegger uses to characterize the overall being of Da-sein is “care” (Sorge). “The being of Da-sein is care. It includes in itself facticity (thrownness), existence (project) and falling prey” (284/262). The meaning of care is shown to be temporality, the structure that defines the meaning of the being of Da-sein that Heidegger puts forth in division two of Being and Time: “being-aheadof-oneself-already-being-in (a world) as being-together-with (innerworldy beings encountered)” (317/292). Care characterizes the existence of Da-sein with respect to what matters to it, that is, what is of concern to Da-sein. Care is not worry. It is not anything psychological. It designates an ontological structure belonging to Da-sein unifying all of its various ways to be. “Since being-in-the-world is essentially care, being-together-with things at hand could be taken in our previous analysis as taking care of them, being with the Mitda-sein of others encountered within the world as concern” (193/180). Care is defined as being-toward-death, resoluteness and beingguilty (329/303; 285/263). Care is also characterized by Da-sein’s temporality (327/301, 303/281). Initially and for the most part, Da-sein lives inauthentically. As discussed above, Heidegger defines inauthenticity in light of Da-sein’s understanding of its possibilities and its relations to others. When Da-sein projects upon possibilities whose referential relations are defined by the They, Da-sein exists inauthentically. When Da-sein relates to others as it relates to objects, Da-sein is inauthentically being-with others. Underlying all of the relations engaged in by inauthentic Da-sein is its understanding of Being as objective presence. However, if the possibility of a different understanding of Being is to come about, an understanding that is buried in the tradition of Western ontology, Heidegger must reveal the whole of the being of Da-sein in its authenticity. On the basis of this whole, cleared of all obstructions and diversions, the memory of Being may be retrieved and the possibility of asking about the meaning of Being may begin again on authentic ground. One thing has become unmistakable. Our existential analytic of Da-sein up to now cannot lay claim to primordiality. Its fore-having never included

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more than the inauthentic being of Da-sein, of Da-sein as fragmentary. (233/215) In other words, if Heidegger is going to get to the root of the meaning of Being, then he will need to get to the ground of the being that asks about the meaning of Being and that has a prereflective understanding of Being in its authenticity and totality. The problem arises, however, of how Heidegger will be able to gain an understanding of the whole of Da-sein in its totality and in its authenticity. The phenomenological findings exhibited in division one of Being and Time have revealed Da-sein, whose essence lies in its existence, as a work in progress, and as an inauthentic work in progress. As possibility and as existence, the meaning of the being of Da-sein is rooted in its being-in-the-world with others among its possibilities. Da-sein is always in the process of projecting upon possibilities, and therefore exists only so long as it projects upon possibilities in relation to others. So if the whole of Da-sein is to be grasped, it must be grasped after it has exhausted all of its possible ways to be. But this can only happen after its death, when the possibility for it to be is no longer possible. “Eliminating what is outstanding in its being is equivalent to annihilating its being. As long as Da-sein is as a being, it has never attained its ‘wholeness.’ But if it does, this gain becomes the absolute loss of being-in-the-world. It is then never again to be experienced as a being” (236/220). The task of grasping the whole of the being of Da-sein, therefore, appears to be futile so long as Da-sein exists and engages in its relations in the world. “A constant unfinished quality thus lies in the essence of the constitution of Da-sein. This lack of totality means that there is still something outstanding in one’s potentiality-for-being” (236/219–220). If, however, Heidegger is able to grasp the being of Da-sein at its end, that is, if the end of Da-sein were somehow to make itself known, then perhaps the task of exposing Da-sein in its totality would be possible. But how can Heidegger bring the end of existence into view phenomenologically, that is, as an experience belonging to Da-sein that may be interpreted? “What cannot even be in such a way that an experience of Da-sein could pretend to grasp it, fundamentally eludes being experienced. But is it not then a hopeless undertaking to try to discern the ontological wholeness of being of Da-sein?” (236/220). To grasp the whole of the being of Da-sein, Heidegger has to bring this whole into view. The mood of Angst is the vehicle for this exposure. Through the use of Angst Heidegger reveals death as an existential experience of Da-sein, and reveals the totality of Da-sein together with the whole of the

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being of the world. In the nothing of Angst, Da-sein experiences its death in terms of a loss of all possibilities. Through this loss of possibilities in Angst, Heidegger clears the being of Da-sein and repositions it in a different relation to the ground of all of its relations: away from objective presence toward the hidden belonging to aletheia.

Chapter 2

Being-toward-death—Stage one of Angst: The Groundlessness of Being and the Unboundedness of Da-sein

The role that “being-toward-death” plays in revealing the meaning of the being of Da-sein is central to the entire project of Being and Time. How Da-sein understands its death determines whether or not it exists authentically or inauthentically. And how scholars interpret Heidegger’s discussion on death and being-toward-death in part I of division two of Being and Time, decides if there is an earlier Heidegger from which the later turns. The difference in interpretation depends on whether one thinks that the finitude signaled by being-toward-death is based on the physical death of a particular Da-sein, in which case finitude belongs to an individual and the way is open for a subjectivist interpretation of the meaning of the being of Da-sein; or whether one understands finitude as delimiting the ground of possibilities including, equally, the ground of Da-sein’s existence and its relations to others. In this case finitude belongs to Being and to the character of Da-sein’s being-toward the ground of it possibilities. The disparity essentially lies in the interpretation of Heidegger’s notion of death. Being-toward-death is crucial to the project of Being and Time because it holds the key to disclosing the whole of the being of Da-sein. Heidegger ultimately sets out to discover the authentic meaning of the being of Da-sein so that he can establish a secure foundation for asking about the meaning of Being. In order, then, to embark upon the question of the meaning of Being, Heidegger must disclose the totality of the being of Da-sein and attain its authentic meaning. “If the interpretation of the being of Da-sein is to become primordial as a foundation for the development of the fundamental question of ontology, it will have to bring the being of Da-sein in its possible authenticity and totality existentially to light beforehand” (233/215). In Division One, Heidegger discusses Da-sein’s essential structures of world and being-with, as well as the modes by which Da-sein discloses itself

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as a being-in-the-world with others: attunement, understanding, and discourse. However, what Heidegger fails to reveal is the whole of the being of Da-sein in its totality. The everyday understanding that Da-sein has of itself and of its world, its being-in-the-world is “inauthentic” and “fragmentary” (233/215). On the one hand, everyday Da-sein encounters the world with its prereflective understanding of Being as objective presence whereby all possibilities are leveled down to what is tangible, manageable, and calculable. While on the other hand, “Da-sein is always its possibility,” and therefore remains open to experiences until it ceases to exist (42/40). As long as Da-sein continues to live and to project upon its possibilities, the task of disclosing the totality of its existence appears to be a “hopeless undertaking” (236/220). Thus at the end of Division One of Being and Time Heidegger questions if it is at all possible to phenomenologically grasp the whole of the being of Da-sein, as it perhaps “fundamentally eludes being experienced” (236/220). This is why Heidegger turns to death and to Angst. “Angst provides the phenomenal basis for explicitly grasping the primordial totality of the whole of the being of Da-sein” (182/171). In Angst Da-sein approaches a certain mode of death through the detachment from every one of its possibilities and its relations to others. On account of this detachment, being-towarddeath allows Heidegger to bring into view the structural whole of the being of Da-sein, and to reveal this whole as finite. The question is whether beingtoward-death and finitude are defined with regard to the physical death of an individual Da-sein, or whether the emphasis remains on Angst, in which case, I will argue, that at this stage of the discussion of being-toward-death, isolated from “being-guilty” and “temporality,” it is not possible to arrive at a notion of finitude because Angst is characterized by a nothingness that is unbounded. Against the standard reading that derives the finitude of Da-sein from the fact of its individual death, I argue that there is no individual being disclosed in being-toward the nothing of death. The existentiales that Da-sein uses to understand its death are attunement, understanding, and discourse; the latter will be put into play in the next chapter on “being-guilty.” As existentiales, attunement and understanding are not aspects adhering to a subject, they make up the being of Da-sein, that is, Da-sein is its attuned understanding. Like Plato’s lover in the Symposium who embodies love as a “lover of wisdom,” Heidegger’s Da-sein embodies death as a being-toward-death. Therefore, the understanding that Da-sein has of its death is its beingtoward-death. Understood in its objectivity, as the event of physical death, Da-sein is in a being-toward an object, and is simultaneously underwriting

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its subjectivity. Understood, as I am going to show, in light of the nothing of Angst, both the objectivity of death and the subjectivity of Da-sein are dissolved into an “existential identity” with the whole of the being of the world that is unbounded by the nothing. Few scholars question Heidegger’s assertion of finitude as it relates to being-toward-death because they interpret death as a physical event. It is generally accepted that the meaning of finitude is implicit in the fact of physical death. Death is commonly seen as the horizon that is at the end of all possibilities and toward which Da-sein exists authentically as a being that is aware that it is going to die. Joseph Kockelman, for example, claims that death must be understood “not only as the ‘point’ where Da-sein’s life reaches its end, but also as that toward which Da-sein is always ‘on the way.’”1 William J. Richardson writes: “Being-unto-death in There-being means for Heidegger that the limit is not simply the term of the process but permeates every part of it and makes the potentiality, which There-being is, limited through and through—thoroughly and irretrievably finite.”2 Similarly, Michel Haar claims: “Anticipating the potential for no longer being reinforces absolutely the potential to be, opens Da-sein for its being-in-full-time, its being to the limit of its time.”3 More recently, Heidegger scholars have approached the meaning of finitude in light of the loss of possibilities represented by being-toward-death. For Jeff Malpas the lesson of Heidegger’s account of being-toward-death is that life-possibilities are not endless but finite. Life should therefore be lived as a coherent narrative with a beginning, middle, and an end. “Grasping a life as a whole requires grasping it in terms of the ongoing unity and integrity of a set of projects.”4 Similarly, Julian Young states: “The practical affirmation of finitude, that is, is a life that is appropriate to the fact that we do not have unlimited time at our disposal and so must reject ‘accidental’ and confine ourselves to living out our central, essential lifepossibilities.”5 Despite the fact that death often disrupts the purposiveness of the will and puts into question the illusion of individual freedom with regard to life-possibilities, both Malpas and Young draw upon death to support their assertions of the self. In the same vein, Taylor Carman argues that we should understand death as a loss of possibilities that occurs each time that we make a choice. “Foregoing some possibilities as nullified by others, the constant closing down or extinction of possibilities as possibilities, I have suggested, is existential death.”6 To exist finitely, then, is to resolve oneself to the “dying off” of some possibilities in the choosing of others.7 But Carman does not seem to acknowledge that some choices don’t close off as many possibilities as

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they may open. Similarly, Stephen Mulhall understands finitude in light of the individual choices that Da-sein makes in the face of a plethora of available possibilities, some beyond its immediate control. Da-sein is “always haunted by the choices it didn’t make, the choices it couldn’t make, and its inability to choose to live without the capacity to choose—the conditions of freedom for a finite creature, one that must inhabit a spatiotemporal world.”8 However, the shutting down or disappearance of possibilities is, in fact, the complete opposite of what Heidegger claims for the meaning of finitude and for being-toward-death. On the contrary, in direct opposition to the leveling down of possibilities characteristic of the They, death has to do signally with keeping possibilities open as possibility. “Essentially, this possibility offers no support for becoming intent on something, for ‘spelling out’ the real thing that is possible and so forgetting its possibility. As anticipation of possibility, being-toward-death first makes this possibility possible and sets it free as possibility” (262/242). Notwithstanding the differences in the characterizations of death above, all of them have two things in common. First, finitude is conceived unquestioningly with a view toward physical death. Thus the claim is that Da-sein is finite because its life is going to end in death, consequently interpreting Heidegger’s discussion of being-toward-death as a discussion about mortality. But, if finitude were merely another word for the fact of Da-sein’s mortality then Paul Edwards would be right, Heidegger’s assertions that authenticity lies in running toward our death would be filled with platitudes, banalities, and absurdities. Edwards spares no criticisms against Heidegger scholars who uphold what he calls the “golden opportunity” view that treats death “like the opportunity that comes to an understudy for a great singer when the latter is suddenly taken ill.”9 He points to Father Demske’s “startling” and “remarkable conclusion” that Heidegger’s notion of death should be understood as the “crown and culmination of human life.”10 For Edwards, death does not signal such an opportunity, but rather its opposite, horror. “When deadness horrifies me I am concerned about the absence for all eternity of any further experiences that would be my experiences, the experiences of Paul Edwards.”11 Interpreted in terms of a person’s physical death, the focus will inevitably fall on the subjectivity of a particular Da-sein to the exclusion of its relations to others, and to the world. What most scholars who look at finitude purely as a question of literal mortality are missing is that Heidegger is engaged in a critique of the subject understood as a substance characterized by a certain bundle of qualities, or leveled down “possibilities.” Therefore, the second

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feature that the above interpretations all share, a feature stemming from the fact that death is regarded in its objectivity as a physical event, is the emphasis on the self. Characterizing the meaning of death by the choices one makes underscores the will, Da-sein’s subjectivity and the objectivity of its possibilities. Choices are said to either disable access to, or enable and enhance the meaning of finitude. It is, then, only a matter of choosing consistently and purposefully, and neither a question about the nature of the understanding of the ground of possibilities, nor in what way this understanding pertains to Da-sein’s being-with others. The individual subject is left to him or herself alone to decide upon the right choices, and is believed to be capable of measuring and calculating the ways in which these choices are best able to fit into a whole that belongs to an isolated existence. With the emphasis on choice, the above interpretations do not escape Heidegger’s fundamental criticism of inauthentic Da-sein, its leveling down of possibilities to what can be decided upon, projected upon, and managed by a being who, for the most part, believes that it is in control of the essentials that belong to its own particular life. In this chapter I maintain a strict phenomenological account of Heidegger’s description of being-toward-death. I argue against any attempt to render this mode of being understandable within the framework of objective presence. In other words, I dispute any reading that interprets being-toward-death in light of the physical fact of the death of an individual Da-sein. Instead, I keep the focus on the nothing of Angst, and show how in being-toward the nothing of death Da-sein experiences a loss of self along with a loss of everything else that was once deemed significant to it in its everyday existence. Upholding the distinction between the everyday understanding of death as physical demise, and authentic death as a being-toward the nothing in Angst is crucial. Not only because Heidegger often wavers between the two definitions in his discussion of death, but because, as I have already mentioned, the entire notion of a division of Heidegger’s thought into two parts, one based in a subjectivity of Da-sein and a later Heidegger who does away with subjectivity, rests in the interpretation of death in Being and Time. Nevertheless, the difficulty in making sense of the meaning of both beingtoward-death and finitude is in part a result of Heidegger’s own failure to distinguish clearly between the ontological and ontic notions of death. On the one hand, Heidegger seems to indicate that Da-sein must exist in a linear manner toward the end of its life where it will meet with its factical death. “The ending that we have in view when we speak of death, does not signify a being-at-an-end of Da-sein, but rather a being toward the end of this

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being” (245/228). More often, however, Heidegger defines death in relation to the nothingness of Angst. “The nothingness primordially dominant in the being of Da-sein is revealed to it in authentic being-toward-death” (306/283). Nevertheless, Carol White has identified six different ways that Heidegger speaks about death.12 Hubert Dreyfus highlights two of these ways: the existential loss of the meaning of Da-sein’s possibilities depicted in Angst, and the factical annihilation of possibilities at life’s end. He believes that the “deep confusion in the death chapter in Being and Time” lies in the fact that sometimes Heidegger speaks of death as an overall “existentialontological collapse in general,” and at other times he is “giving an account of the distinctively final character of terminal death.”13 In an attempt to lessen the confusion, Dreyfus suggests that we use Kant’s notion of an “analogon” to understand the use of factical death as a concrete example of an existential experience that Heidegger is trying to describe, but that eludes all representation: the loss of meaning accompanying one’s life in light of the fact that all will be lost in death. Still, he confesses, “the usual interpretation is hard to avoid. When Heidegger speaks of existential death . . . what can this mean but the possibility of just plain dying.”14 While Dreyfus tries to avoid the ontic definition of death, he ultimately defines the meaning of finitude by attaching it to the physical fact of death. Thus for Dreyfus the anxiety that Heidegger describes in the face of the loss of one’s possibilities at death should be read as an analogon for living lucidly in such a way that the world is constantly seen to be meaningless and I am constantly owning up to the fact that Dasein is not only a null basis as revealed in the anxiety of conscience but also is a nullity in that it can make no possibilities its own.15 But there has to be more to the meaning of finitude than just that life is going to end in death. In fact, Heidegger claims that the nothing of death disclosed in Angst not only detaches Da-sein from all of its possibilities, but significantly also frees Da-sein for an authentic understanding of its possibilities. “The fundamental possibilities of Da-sein, which are always my own, show themselves in Angst as they are, undistorted by innerworldly beings to which Da-sein, initially and for the most part clings” (191/178). But how can the nothing of Angst disclose to Da-sein any fundamental possibilities when its significance lies precisely in the receding of all meaningful possibilities for Da-sein? And how can this nothing disclosing being-towarddeath reveal to Da-sein that it is finite? These questions will guide my reading of being-toward-death below.

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The Everyday Inauthentic Understanding of Death Heidegger begins his discussion of the ontological meaning of death by contrasting it to what it is not: the everyday understanding of death as a factical “event.” That Da-sein dies factically is undeniable. In time, everybody is going to die. But to understand death as a factical event that is going to befall each and every Da-sein at some unknown, yet definite time in the future is to be in an inauthentic being-toward death. When understood as an event, death is encountered in the mode of objective presence and is turned into “something definite” (258/238). “One says that death certainly comes, but not right away” (258/238). Death happens to others and “one is not involved”—at least “not-yet” (253/234). In reducing death to something definite, Da-sein evades what Heidegger underscores as the “possibility” of death. This evasion takes many forms. Da-sein may imagine that it can gain control over its death by calculating ways to keep it at bay, for example, by eating well and exercising regularly; or Da-sein may treat death as an event that is to be dealt with only when it rears its ugly head. Either way death is leveled down to a definite event. Reducing death to something definite or relegating death to the realm of possibilities still to come is to flee from the irrefutable fact that death is not amenable to the order of objective presence. There is no staving death off and there is no negotiating with death. Death comes when it decides, and therefore must always be regarded as a possibility, the character of which Heidegger will specifically describe through the mode of existence he calls being-toward-death. “Dying is not an event, but a phenomenon to be understood existentially in an eminent sense still to be delineated more closely” (240/223). To be toward death authentically Da-sein must understand “what is peculiar to the certainty of death, that it is possible in every moment” (258/238). Not that it is possible at this or that moment in time, but that it is possible always. Leveling down the possibility of death to the fact of physical death, what Heidegger calls “demise,” is how everyday Da-sein flees from death by regarding it as an event that is to be encountered only at the time of its arrival, hopefully in the far distant future. “Everyday being-toward-death evades this indefiniteness by making it something definite” (258/238). Thus by underscoring the indefiniteness of death, Heidegger points out that Da-sein does not control the one most important part of its existence, its very existence. Understanding that death is possible at every moment unhinges the self and puts one in the state of Angst. “The indefiniteness of death discloses itself primordially in Angst” (308/285).

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Death is therefore Da-sein’s most essential possibility because it is the one thing that Da-sein can be certain of yet, paradoxically, this certainty is indefinite. But death is not to be understood as demise. Demise cannot encompass this existential and ontological feature of death, that it is an indefinite possibility belonging to existence at every moment. “Death as something possible is not a possible thing at hand or objectively present, but a possibility-of-being of Da-sein” (261/241). This is why Heidegger turns to Angst. Indeed, Angst not only discloses an authentic being-toward-death, the flight from Angst also characterizes the essence of everyday Da-sein’s inauthenticity. “Everyday taking care of things makes definite for itself the indefiniteness of certain death by interposing before it those manageable urgencies and possibilities of the everyday matters nearest to us” (258/239). “Entangled flight into the being-at-home of publicness is a flight from notbeing-at-home, that is, from the uncanniness which lies in Da-sein as thrown, as being-in-the-world entrusted to itself in its being” (189/177). By sublimating the Angst that discloses an authentic understanding of being-toward-death into an “urgency of taking care of things,” inauthentic Da-sein flees from death. The false sense of security that Da-sein attains in focusing its energies on what can be accomplished, the tangible and manageable affairs of its everyday life, is possible only by covering over the indefiniteness of Angst. “In this entangled being together with . . .; the flight from uncanniness makes itself known, that is, the flight from its ownmost being-toward-death” (252/233). Thus for Heidegger the busyness of the They’s everyday business as usual is itself a testament to the covering over of what belongs to Da-sein essentially: Angst. “Uncanniness is the fundamental kind of being-in-the-world, although it is covered over in everydayness” (277/256). “This uncanniness constantly pursues Da-sein and threatens its everyday lostness in the they, although not explicitly” (189/177). Heidegger therefore concludes: “Being-toward-death is essentially Angst”16 (266/245).

The Formal Definition of Being-toward-death Formally, Heidegger defines authentic being-toward-death as Da-sein’s “ownmost, nonrelational, certain possibility not-to-be-bypassed that is, as such, indefinite” (259/240). The “ownmost” and “nonrelational” features of death are what lead most scholars to a subjectivist reading of authenticity. “No one can take the other’s dying away from him . . . Every Da-sein must itself actually take dying upon itself. Insofar as it ‘is,’ death is always essentially my own” (240/223). Here caution must be exercised not to understand these terms subjectively. This ownmost element of death does not refer to a

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possession belonging to a personal “I,” but to a way of existing in the world in relation to possibilities; that is, it pertains to the meaning of authenticity, which is defined by the character of Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities and to its being-with others, or its understanding of truth, as I will show later in Chapter 4. “Da-sein is ‘in the truth.’ This statement has an ontological meaning. It does not mean that Da-sein is ontically always or at times introduced to ‘all truth,’ but that the disclosedness of its ownmost being belongs to its existential constitution” (221/203). As death discloses Da-sein’s ownmost being, it is inseparable from Da-sein’s understanding of truth, which decides the manner of Da-sein’s relations to itself, to others, and to its authentic possibilities. The relationship between being-toward-death and truth also underwrites the “certainty” of death. This certainty is not guaranteed by the fact that Da-sein’s life is going to come to an end in physical death. “The fact that demise, as an event that occurs, is ‘only’ empirically certain, in no way decides about the certainty of death”17 (257/238). The certainty of Da-sein’s indefinite possibility is grounded in the truth of Da-sein’s disclosedness. “The ownmost nonrelational possibility not-to-be-by-passed is certain. The mode of being certain of it is determined by the truth (disclosedness) corresponding to it” (264/244). Belonging to the disclosedness of Da-sein is its relations to other Da-seins, to itself, and to its possibilities. Heidegger characterizes these relations in terms of his notion of truth. Truth defines the manner and structure of all of Da-sein’s relations, including its relation to its death, which is made certain once Da-sein is “in the truth” existing in the world as a being-toward-death, as we shall see. The “nonrelational” character of death is the other trait that most often leads interpreters to a subjectivist understanding of being-toward-death. It is agreed that death is “nonrelational” because it cannot be understood by encountering it as an event, or as an object in the surrounding world. Da-sein does not relate to death as a subject relates to an object. Nor, claims Heidegger, can death be understood in relation to one’s experience or encounter with the physical death of others (237–240/221–223; 264/244). This relation also belongs to the subject/object, inner/outer dichotomy belonging to the understanding of everyday Da-sein and to the reduction of Being as objective presence. Yet most scholars fail to consistently follow Heidegger’s characterization of the nonrelational quality of death by attributing to being-toward-death a self-relation. The nonrelational character of death, I show, pertains particularly to the loss of Da-sein’s own self-relation in the nothing of Angst disclosing being-toward-death. Indeed, it is precisely the nonintentional character of Angst that allows it to reveal the

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nothingness Heidegger aims to capture through the mode of existence he calls being-toward-death. This nonintentional character is what constitutes the nonrelationality of death. The “indefinite” feature belonging to the formal definition of death is characterized by Angst. “What Angst is about is completely indefinite” (186/174). Angst has no object but rather discloses the nothing of death. In being-toward-death in Angst Da-sein experiences the loss of all certainty regarding its former relations and stands in a paralysis before the nothing. A detailed phenomenological description of Da-sein’s being-toward the nothing of Angst reveals this nonintentional and nonrelational character of Angst. To grasp the significance of Angst and its manner of disclosing beingtoward-death it is helpful to contrast it to the mood of fear.

The Loss of Self and World in Angst As attunements, Angst and fear, each in its own way, constitute the beingtoward or comportment of Da-sein to itself, to others and to things in its being-in-the-world. Attunements open the world up to Da-sein and clear the space for it to find itself in relation to the possibilities given there (see Chapter 1 on attunement). “Mood has always already disclosed being-in-theworld as a whole and first makes possible directing oneself toward something” (137/129). Indeed, this feature is what is most significant about mood: that mood discloses the whole of the being of Da-sein’s being-in-the-world (137/129). Heidegger distinguishes between Angst and fear by virtue of the different worlds that each attunement opens up, and the character of relations that each world grounds. Fear occurs when something threatening in the world approaches Da-sein in such a way that it encounters itself as the one in fear. As a being afraid for oneself, or a being afraid about oneself, the self of Da-sein comes to the fore. “The character of mood and affect of fear lies in the fact that the awaiting that fears is afraid ‘for itself,’ that is, fear of is a fearing about” (341/314). “The about which fear is afraid is the fearful being itself, Da-sein” (141/132). Both what is threatening and Da-sein’s self-relation in fear are grounded in Da-sein’s comportment to the world that gives meaning to this or that threatening innerworldy being. “Our interpretation of fear as attunement showed that what we fear is always a detrimental innerworldly being, approaching nearby from a definite region, which may remain absent” (185/174). While the explicit meaning of the “define region” from which something fearful arises remains “absent,” prereflective and unthematic, this “definite region” nevertheless serves to ground and give meaning to

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what is encountered as fearful. Da-sein may not fear a leopard in the context of a zoo, but if this leopard makes its way into its living room there will most likely also be fear. The contexts of meaning characterizing the world are given various names by Heidegger: significance, referential relations, totality of relevance, and regions (see Chapter 1 for a discussion on the world). In contrast to the mood of fear, Angst turns away from beings toward the nothing. In this mood of uncanniness, Da-sein finds itself disengaged from others and from its everyday involvement with things because the world that structures its associations with beings has lost all significance. “Nothing of that which is at hand and objectively present within the world, functions as what Angst is anxious about. The totality of relevance discovered within the world of things at hand and objectively present is completely without importance. It collapses. The world has the character of complete insignificance” (186/174). The world that had once provided the familiar context from out of which Da-sein encounters beings is lost in Angst. Angst displaces the web of relations that gives significance to innerworldly things in directing Da-sein away from beings and toward the nothing. “In Angst one has an ‘uncanny’ feeling,” a feeling of “not-being-at-home” (188/176). Whereas in fear, wherein Da-sein is open to a definite region belonging to a definite world by virtue of being-toward a definite something, in turning away from things to the nothing in Angst the world too is simultaneously disclosed—but not as some definite region or as characterized by significance, but as such: In what Angst is about, the “it is nothing and nowhere” becomes manifest. The recalcitrance of the innerworldly nothing and nowhere means phenomenally that what Angst is about is the world as such. The utter insignificance which makes itself known in the nothing and nowhere does not signify the absence of world, but means that innerworldy beings in themselves are so completely unimportant that, on the basis of this insignificance of what is innerworldly, the world is all that obtrudes itself in its worldliness. (186–187/175) Both fear and Angst, then, have the structure of “something in the face of which” and “something about which” one is either afraid or anxious. In fear, Da-sein is attuned to a definite region out of which it encounters a definite threatening something. In its relation to what is threatening, Da-sein comes to view as the one in fear. In contrast to fear, in Angst there is neither an object toward which Da-sein is anxious, nor a world toward which Da-sein is attuned. “Everyday familiarity collapses” (189/176). Da-sein is not in a beingtoward any particular region in Angst, nor is Da-sein in a concernful relation

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to anything to all. In Angst there is nothing in the face of which Da-sein is anxious and nothing about which it is anxious. There is only nothing. In particular, that in the face of which one has Angst is not encountered as something definite to be taken care of; the threat does not come from something at hand and objectively present, but rather from the fact that everything at hand and objectively present has nothing more to “say” to us. Beings in the surrounding world are no longer relevant (343/315). In the previous chapter we learned that through his phenomenological investigation of everydayness, Heidegger shows that the world is prereflectively understood as that which gives the context of meaning to Da-sein’s everyday activities and its being-with others in the world. In its concernful taking care of things the world “is there” together with what matters to Da-sein. “The world . . . ontologically belongs to the being of Da-sein as being-in-the-world” (187/175). The meaning of its possibilities, its relations to others, and its own self-understanding are given to Da-sein prereflectively by virtue of its attunement to the world. Da-sein’s attuned comportment to the world is the ground of its understanding and the horizon of all of its relations and possibilities. In Angst, however, Da-sein is not in a being-toward any particular world, or any particular thing—such as factical death or Da-sein’s own mortality. Disclosed as such, as nothingness, the world that shows itself in Angst, therefore, differs fundamentally from the world belonging to fear in that it can never be characterized as an actual or definite world on the basis of the innerworldly things that it makes possible. Stripped of its character of significance, the world “as such” cannot serve to ground the meaning of beings because beings belong to a definite world, albeit unthematically disclosed, but nevertheless characterized by relevance, significance, regions, referential relations, and so on. “The totality of relevance reveals itself as the categorial whole of a possibility of the connection of things at hand” (144–145/135–136). “[T]he discoveredness of innerworldly beings is grounded in the disclosedness of the world” (220/203). And just as equally, the world disclosed in Angst cannot be understood on the basis of the possibilities that it gives rise to, for in this disclosure there are no possibilities, there is only the nothing of Angst. Consequently, without possibilities and innerworldly beings, the world has no meaning at all, for the world does not exist apart from the possibilities and relations that Da-sein understands the world by. “If, however, world can appear in a certain way, it must be disclosed in general. World is always already predisclosed for circumspect heedfulness together with the accessibility of innerworldly beings at hand” (76/71).

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But then if beings are no longer relevant in Angst, in what way can the world disclose meaning to Da-sein or be disclosed as meaningful to Da-sein? In other words, can the nothing that discloses the world as such disclose this nothing, or world, as significant? Moreover, if the world has no meaning and is therefore unable to ground any possibilities, and Da-sein, as a beingin-the-world, always understands itself in terms of the world and the relations that it grounds, then what are we to make of the character of Da-sein’s being-toward-death? How does Da-sein come to an understanding of itself in its being-toward-death when its self-understanding is inseparable from its understanding of the world and its relations in the world, and in Angst the world is disclosed as utterly insignificant and cannot ground the understanding of anything at all? “The world is disclosed with the factical existence of Da-sein, if indeed Da-sein essentially exists as being-in-the-world” (364/333). “Da-sein understands itself and being in general in terms of the ‘world’” (21–22/19). I want to underscore that in the face of the loss of all possibilities and the meaninglessness of the world, any sense of self-understanding specific to Da-sein also goes. Along with the receding of all possibilities and relation to other Da-seins in light of the utter insignificance of the world, Da-sein loses its footing with regard to the meaning of its overall existence. “Existing, Da-sein is its ground, that is, in such a way that it understands itself in terms of possibilities and, thus, understanding itself is thrown being” (285/262). In Angst there are no possibilities. Therefore, without possibilities and being-with others, Da-sein cannot gain any certain understanding of itself as a being-in-the-world. “As long as it is, Da-sein always has understood itself and will understand itself in terms of possibilities” (145/136). Faced with no possibilities, then, there is no particular Da-sein to speak of. Angst discloses Da-sein in a paralysis such that it is unable to exist in any certain or particular way at all. This is what makes Angst ideal for characterizing being-toward-death. The nearest nearness of being-toward-death as possibility is as far removed as possible from anything real. The more clearly this possibility is understood, the more purely does understanding penetrate to it as the possibility of the impossibility of existence in general. As possibility, death gives Da-sein nothing to “be actualized” and nothing which it itself could be as something real. It is the possibility of the impossibility of every mode of being toward . . ., of every way of existing. (263/242) With the impossibility of “every mode of being toward” and “every way of existing,” the possibility of every kind of relation belonging to Da-sein

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disappears, including, and this point I cannot stress enough, its own selfrelation. When beings lose all relevance, the world is stripped of its significance. And when the world losses all significance, it cannot provide the context of meaning for anything at all, including the meaning of Da-sein’s individual existence. With the irrelevance of all possibilities our heedful awaiting finds nothing in terms of which it could understand itself, it grasps at the nothingness of the world. But, thrust toward the world, understanding is brought by Angst to being-in-the-world as such. Being-in-the-world is both what Angst is anxious in the face of and what it is anxious about. (343/315) Unlike fear, which is in the face of something threatening, on the one hand, and about the particular Da-sein in fear, on the other, what is distinctive about Angst is that that which it is about is also that which it is for. The epistemological value of Angst lies in this “existential identity,” which is what makes Angst ideal for disclosing the totality of the whole of the being of Da-sein together with the whole of the being of the world. The existential identity of disclosing and what is disclosed so that in what is disclosed the world is disclosed as world, being-in, individualized pure, thrown potentiality for being, makes it clear that with the phenomenon of Angst a distinctive kind of attunement has become the theme of our interpretation. (188/176) But what exactly is the character of this “individualized pure, thrown potentiality for being” that is disclosed in Angst ? With nothing to understand and the loss of all grounding in the world how is one to understand the meaning of the world as such and Da-sein’s being-in-the-world as such disclosed in being-toward-death?

The Nothing of Angst and Individuation In Angst the being of the world is disclosed as stripped of all meaning. Thus in being-toward-death the being of Da-sein is also disclosed as a “being-inthe-world as such,” not in any particular world but as being-in-the-world itself. “What Angst is anxious for is being-in-the-world itself” (187/175). “That about which one has Angst is being-in-the-world-as-such” (186/174). Angst is not about being in any definite world or situation, but being-in-the-world as such. A world in which all possibilities and being-with others have lost their meaning. It is with respect to the loss of every possibility and relation

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to others that death makes its way into the existence of Da-sein as its most extreme possibility. “Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Da-sein” (250/232). The impossibility of all thought, action, being-with others, being-toward possibilities, and therefore being-toward oneself in any certain way is disclosed in Angst. What Angst makes known is a totality that is devoid of any kind of relation or being-toward and “every way of existing.” In Angst, the whole of the being of Da-sein is disclosed isomorphically with the whole of the being of the world in an “existential identity” characterized by the nothing. However, this existential identity of the whole of the world and the being of Da-sein cannot be said to belong to a particular or individual Da-sein with a definable or identifiable, personal self. In beingtoward-death there is no individual Da-sein to speak of because Da-sein cannot actualize any possibilities on the basis of the disclosure of the world as such; and Da-sein is its possibilities, it is the relation of disclosure to what is disclosed in its relations in the world. “[F]or Da-sein to be able to have something to do with a context of useful things, it must understand something like relevance, even if unthematically. A world must be disclosed to it” (364/333). “When Da-sein factically exists, it already encounters beings discovered within the world. With the existence of historical being-in-the-world, things at hand and objectively present have always already been included in the history of the world” (388/355). Indeed, essential to the ontological constitution of Da-sein is that it is not definable apart from its world. Its existence is characterized by its relations to others and to its possibilities as a being-in-the-world. In Da-sein’s attuned comportment to the world, possibilities arise and are understood. “In the mode of ‘being attuned’ Da-sein ‘sees’ possibilities in terms of what it is. In the projective disclosure of such possibilities, it is always already attuned” (148/138–139). But in the attunement of Angst there are no possibilities toward which Da-sein is attuned. Indeed, there is no point from which Da-sein may stand to act in the world in Angst, as there is no distance for a relation between Da-sein and the world in the existential identity of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein. Moreover, in the attunement of Angst there is no world toward which Da-sein is attuned by which it may come to its own self-understanding, or any understanding at all. “Da-sein stands primordially together with itself in uncanniness” (287/264). This self identical self does not, however, belong to a particular, self-reflecting Da-sein. Without possibilities, in the face of nothing, there is no being-in-the-world with others and no being with any possibilities that Da-sein may understand itself in relation to. Therefore

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there is no personal or individual Da-sein either. This is why Heidegger repeatedly states that being-toward-death is “non-relational” (259/240; 266/249; 307/283). Da-sein is disclosed in Angst and in this disclosure Da-sein is not in a being-toward anything at all, and certainty not in a beingtoward itself in any mode of subjective self-understanding. In Angst Da-sein is immobilized and essentially not there. “Its death is the possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there” (250/232). By characterizing being-toward-death through the fundamental attunement of Angst, Heidegger answers his question of “how it [death] enters into actual Da-sein as its possibility-of-being” (248/230). But being-toward-death not only discloses the loss of Da-sein’s possibilities, it is also “where the character of possibility of Da-sein can be revealed most clearly of all” (249/231). Projecting upon possibilities belongs to Da-sein in the mode of understanding, and understanding is always attuned. “As essentially attuned Da-sein has always already got itself into definite possibilities” (144/135). In the attunement of Angst, however, no definite possibilities lie before Da-sein. Angst is paralyzing. It “is oppressive and stifles one’s breath—and yet it is nowhere” (everywhere) (186/174). This is why Heidegger believes that “‘real’ Angst is rare” (190/177). Angst individuates Da-sein and discloses it in its totality with the whole of the being of the world, but in such a way that there is no being-with-others and there is no being-in-the-world in any concrete or existentiell sense. “This individualizing is a way in which the ‘there’ is disclosed for existence. It reveals the fact that any being-togetherwith what is taken care of and any being-with the others fails when one’s ownmost potentiality-of-being is at stake” (263/243). But if there is no being with others and no concernful being with things, then there is no individual “I” or Da-sein to speak of either. This fact is important because for the most part the individuation disclosed in being-toward-death is interpreted as constituting the particularity of the selfhood belonging to Da-sein in freeing it from the nonparticularity of its They-self and from the world in general.18 For example, in Maria Villela-Petit’s discussion of space she argues that since space constitutes the world and the world is a structure of Da-sein’s, the world “would remain dependent upon Da-sein (and not even, or at least only laterally upon Mitsein).”19 This leads Villela-Petit to the claim that Heidegger does not escape from a subjectivism with regard to the being of Da-sein. “One sees here a subtle continuation of the privilege of interiority over exteriority, that very privilege which the understanding of Dasein, as being-in-theworld, tried to place in question.”20 However, the world disclosed to Da-sein in Angst is the world as such, which does not belong to the interiority of any

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particular Da-sein because in this disclosedness there is no interiority or subjectivity and no certain world to speak of. To the contrary, in beingtoward-death the individuation of Da-sein is characterized solely by the nothing of Angst. It is therefore unbounded and belongs to no one Da-sein in particular. In so far as the whole of the being of Da-sein is disclosed in an existential identity with the whole of the being of the world, being-towarddeath individuates Da-sein and discloses it in its totality. But this individuated whole is, nevertheless, unbounded and does not belong to any individual Da-sein in question. Heidegger underscores the nonparticularity of the being disclosed in Angst in “What is Metaphysics” (1929). “At bottom therefore it is not as though ‘you’ or ‘I’ feel uncanny; rather, it is that way for some ‘one.’ In the altogether unsettling experience of this hovering where there is nothing to hold on to, pure Da-sein is all that is there.”21 What, then, is the meaning of this “pure” Da-sein, this “individualized pure, thrown potentiality for being” of Da-sein? (188/176). Hubert Dreyfus claims, although with some reservation, that in the face of Angst “something remains aware of collapse and survives to open a new world.”22 But what is the character of this awareness? As I have pointed out, there is no evidence for any kind of a self-consciousness in light of the nothingness that Angst discloses. To the contrary, Angst discloses the loss of all understanding and every mode of existence or “being-toward.” “The nothingness before which Angst brings us reveals the nullity that determines Da-sein in its ground, which itself is as thrownness into death” (308/285). Miquel de Beistegui also claims that Angst discloses some sort of a self, apparently the true self that inauthentic Da-sein overlooks. “It is ourselves that we experience in anxiety, as if for the first time—the very self we go to so much trouble to avoid and cover over in everyday dealings and concerns.”23 “[A]nxiety is itself the experience of coming face to face with oneself—and nothing more.”24 But what Angst discloses is not a self but rather the loss of self. In Angst Da-sein is freed from the possibilities of the They. “Angst takes away from Da-sein the possibility of understanding itself, falling prey, in terms of the ‘world’ and the public way of being interpreted” (187/175). But significantly, Angst also simultaneously frees Da-sein from everyone of its possibilities all at once by putting it in a being-toward the nothing. In this stage of Angst, where the whole of the being of Da-sein is disclosed in an existential identity with the whole of the being of the world, there is no understanding or awareness of anything at all. What Angst discloses is nothing—the paralysis of Da-sein faced with no possibilities and no relations to others.

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Nevertheless, Heidegger claims that in addition to freeing Da-sein from its inauthentic possibilities, Angst indicates to Da-sein the character of its authentic possibilities. “[T]he possibility was shown of the powerfulness that distinguishes the mood of Angst. Da-sein is taken back fully to its naked uncanniness and benumbed by it. But this numbness not only takes Da-sein back from its ‘worldly’ possibilities, but at the same time it gives it the possibility of an authentic potentiality-of-being” (344/316). “Angst frees him from ‘null’ possibilities and lets him become free for authentic ones” (344/316). Furthermore, he claims, Angst frees Da-sein for its authentic relations to others. “As the nonrelational possibility, death individualizes, but only, as the possibility not-to-be-bypassed, in order to make Da-sein as being-with understand the potentialities-of-being of others” (264/244). In fact, Heidegger states that the experience of Angst directs Da-sein toward its authentic possibilities with an assurance that “is absolutely unmistakable to itself[.]” (277/256). But what unmistakable direction does Angst point Da-sein toward? According to Heidegger a genuine understanding of death “discloses to existence that its extreme ownmost possibility lies in giving itself up and thus shatters all one’s clinging to whatever existence one has reached” (264/244). But what are we supposed to give ourselves up to? Thus far Angst ridden Da-sein stands in a paralysis before the nothing. With no world and no relevant possibilities, Da-sein is not in a being-toward or in an attuned understanding to anything at all. Da-sein is in a being-toward-death. In the existential identity of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein disclosed in Angst, Da-sein stands cleared. Da-sein “is itself the clearing” (133/125). What this individuated totality of the whole of the being of world and the whole of the being of the Da-sein points to is what I have called an ontological occlusion. On the basis of this occlusion Da-sein will be in a complete attuned accord with the whole of the being of the world on the basis of which it will prereflectively understand all of its possibilities, including the possibility of its own existence. However, thus far, the being of Da-sein and the being of the world are in an undifferentiated existential identity characterized by the nothing. Heidegger therefore prepares for this occlusion, or the prereflectively attuned fitting together of the totality of the being of Da-sein with the whole of the being of the world, by moving from the undifferentiated nothing of Angst to an understanding of this nothing as a ground. Indeed, Heidegger claims that the world disclosed as such in Angst entails “the possibility of things at hand in general, that is, the world itself” (187/175). The nothing characterizing the world “does not mean nothing; rather region in general lies therein, and disclosedness of the world in general for

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essential spatial being-in” (186/174). Yet, what kind of a world does the nothing disclose? Moreover, can the world be understood as a ground, as region in general, outside of the possibilities that it grounds? Phenomenologically speaking the world shows itself through the relations that it grounds. Disclosed in Angst the world does not function to structure any relations. How, then, can Heidegger claim that Angst frees Da-sein for its authentic possibilities, and how can he claim that the meaning of the world in general is disclosed in Angst? In other words, how does Heidegger make something out of the nothing? In deciding to use phenomenology as the method for investigating the meaning of the being of Da-sein, Heidegger commits himself to staying within the boundaries of Da-sein’s lived experiences. “Essentially, nothing else stands ‘behind’ the phenomena of phenomenology” (36/31). But what stands behind the nothing? Is nothingness a ground? Is it the authentic ground of the world disclosed in everydayness? And if it is a ground, how are we to move from the nothingness of Angst to an understanding of the meaning of this nothing as the place wherein the possibility of things at hand in general lay? To simply declare the nothing as a ground is to make a metaphysical claim. Heidegger does, in fact, deem the nothing to be a ground beginning with his lecture “What is Metaphysics?” (1929). There he equates the concealment of Being with the nothing, and joins the nothing to Da-sein through the attunement of Angst. “Being held out into the nothing—as Da-sein is—on the ground of concealed anxiety makes the human being the lieutenant of the nothing.”25 In his “Postscript to ‘What is Metaphysics?’” (1943) Heidegger writes: “we must prepare ourselves solely in readiness to experience in the nothing the pervasive expanse of that which gives every being the warrant to be.”26 Yet in Being and Time Heidegger does not state that the nothing discloses Being. In Being and Time the analysis is limited to the existence of Da-sein. However, in observing how Heidegger moves Angst-ridden Da-sein, divorced from all relations, back to being in the world existing alongside others on the basis of its being-toward-death, it becomes apparent that in Being and Time Heidegger posits the nothing as a ground. While Heidegger eventually drops all talk of Angst in his later writings he continues to link death and mortals, and the nothing and Being. But without Angst serving as a bridge, the relationship between humans and Being is incomprehensible. To make sense of this relationship it is more helpful to rather reverse the current trend in Heidegger studies and read the early Heidegger into his later writings. Angst is the key bridging Da-sein and Being in this metaphysics of feeling.

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Bounding the Nothing of Being-toward-death Significantly, Heidegger embarks on his discussion of being-toward-death not only to free Da-sein from the possibilities of the They, but also to point out the meaning of its finitude and the direction that authenticity is to take once Da-sein faces its death. But where are the limits to be found in the boundless nothing of Angst, and where is the basis for a substantive understanding of one’s situation in the nothing of Angst?27 Perhaps one may assume that as the disclosedness of Da-sein in Angst constitutes a totality, that is, a whole, it must be finite. But there is nothing precluding the possibility that Da-sein’s being, which encompasses the whole of the being of the world and is inseparable from it, may not expand, as a totality, infinitely out to all sides. In this case, the existential identity of the being of Da-sein and the being of the world would be conceived in its totality as infinite, that is, unbounded by the nothing—for nothing does not itself entail any bounds, to the contrary, it is boundless. The existential experience of the nothing that Angst discloses might even eventually lead to an awareness of the unlimited number of possibilities that lie before Da-sein, and not to finitude. Or, perhaps we may interpret the experience of Angst, or nothingness, as some Buddhists do, as revealing the process of becoming free of any attachment to an ego or to a world and its possibilities. This understanding is in line with Dreyfus’ interpretation of Angst as Da-sein’s “openness to meaninglessness.”28 In light of the ever changing possibilities of existence he recommends that one entertain a “Zen-like spontaneity” when confronted with a “unique situation” tempered with the awareness that one’s identity is never stable.29 However, Heidegger specifically wants death to be something that Da-sein is most concerned about and not indifferent toward. Nevertheless, while Angst may indeed disclose the totality of the whole of the being of Da-sein and the whole of the being of the world, it does not disclose this totality as finite. Rather, Angst discloses the nothing—the unbounded groundless nothing of Being—and not finitude. Heidegger, perhaps unwittingly, falls back upon the ontic notion of factical death to declare the finitude of Da-sein. Explicitly, Heidegger simply asserts that Da-sein is finite because it is going to die. Moreover, this knowledge, he claims, points Da-sein to an understanding of its genuine possibilities. “Free for its ownmost possibilities, that are determined by the end, and so understood as finite, Da-sein prevents the danger that it may, by its own finite understanding of existence, fail to recognize that it is getting overtaken by the existence-possibilities of others[.]” (264/244). This claim would be regarded as a mere platitude by scholars other than Edwards were

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they to question how Heidegger moves from the declaration of ontic finitude to a pregnant notion of ontological finitude. “In this being-towardthe-end, Da-sein exists authentically and totally as the being that it can be when ‘thrown into death.’ It does not have an end where it just stops but it exists finitely” (329/303). “Only being free for death gives Da-sein its absolute goal and pushes existence to its finitude. The finitude of existence thus seized upon tears one back out of the endless multiplicity of possibilities offering themselves nearest by—those of comfort, shirking and taking things easy—and brings Da-sein to the simplicity of its fate” (384/351). Notwithstanding Heidegger’s emphasis on the term finite and his declarations that Da-sein exists finitely, there is, in fact, no argument made for the finitude of Da-sein. And there is certainly no support for any kind of a message that might be derived from the fact of death or the nothing of Angst that is unique to an authenticity. Apparently this is not the first time that Heidegger asserts the notion of finitude without justification. Francoise Dastur points out that in his 1927 lecture “On the Concept of Time,” Heidegger claims that time is finite but fails to back up this claim, unlike, she states, in Being and Time where finitude is supported by death. “[W]e find no justification of the finitude of time in the 1927 lecture course since this would require a return to the question of Being-towards-death . . . which alone permits us to understand . . . that original time is finite[.]”30 But, in fact, we find no justification for finitude in Being and Time either. Heidegger simply asserts the finitude of Da-sein by sliding into the inauthentic understanding of death as an objectively present event that signals the end of life for Da-sein. This end he translates into finitude, and moreover, into a pregnant meaning of finitude that is “certain of itself” and of the nature of the possibilities that Da-sein, as finite, is to project upon. Anticipation reveals to Da-sein its lostness in the they-self, and brings it face to face with the possibility to be itself, primarily unsupported by concern taking care of things, but to be itself in passionate anxious freedom toward death which is free of the illusions of the they, factical, and certain of itself. (266/245) However, it is difficult to interpret in any definitive manner just what death frees Da-sein for. And it is even more taxing to try to make sense of what kind of existential certainty the indefiniteness of Angst brings to Da-sein. Far from delivering Da-sein to solid shores, Angst wrests it from any secure foundations. Nevertheless, Heidegger repeatedly states that death gives to Da-sein a definite message. “Anticipation of its nonrelational possibility

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forces the being that anticipates into the possibility of taking over its ownmost being of its own accord” (264/243). Angst “brings Da-sein in an extreme sense precisely before its world as world and thus itself before itself as being-in-the-world” (188/176). But the world as world is devoid of any meaning and therefore cannot serve as the horizon of Da-sein’s understanding. In being-toward-death the world has the character of insignificance and therefore all possibilities are meaningless. At the same time, Da-sein is also disclosed as nothing in its being-toward-death, and as an unbounded nothing at that, for the world is the ground of its self-understanding. In order to establish the finitude of death independently of factical death, which does not shed light on the ontological meaning of death as a mode of existence, finitude will have to be introduced into the nothing of Angst. But as Angst is the experience of the nothing, how can we experience in this nothing something like finitude? By bounding the nothing. If Heidegger can ground possibilities in the ungrounded nothing of Angst, then the nothing would be something—the ground of possibilities, albeit a groundless ground. The nothing would, then, be the sole and thus finite ground of all of Da-sein’s possibilities by serving as the horizon of its understanding. Indeed, as quoted above, Heidegger claims that the “region in general,” and “the possibility of things at hand in general” are to be revealed in their essence in the disclosure of the world as such in Angst (186/174; 187/175). Heidegger does, in fact, open the way for locating the nothing as a ground, but only by slipping from being-toward-death understood as Angst to the everyday understanding of death as the factical “end” of life. With the “endmost” possibility of factical death, Heidegger introduces a limit, an “end” to all possibilities. Nevertheless, this end is used only as a conceptual limit. In being-toward-death Da-sein’s possibilities are not limited by its physical death, or by the irretrievable loss of its earthly possibilities. Rather, factical death here serves only to establish the nothing as the ground of Da-sein’s possibilities. Through the conceptual use of factical death, Heidegger may claim that “everything else precedes” death. All of Da-sein’s future possibilities lie “before the possibility not-to-be-bypassed”—before death, the end beyond which nothing else exceeds, and “before” which “everything else” is “always already included.” In Da-sein, existing toward its death, its most extreme not-yet which everything else precedes is always already included. (259/239, my emphasis) Becoming free for one’s own death in anticipation frees one from one’s lostness in chance possibilities urging themselves upon us, so that the

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factical possibilities lying before the possibility not-to-be-bypassed can first be authentically understood and chosen. (264/243–244, my emphasis) By slipping from the nothing to the everyday understanding of death as the end, a limit is introduced by the use of linear temporal language. But this limit serves a very special function. It works to conceptually limit all of Da-sein’s possibilities to its disclosedness in Angst, and in so doing, to establish the nothing as a ground. Through the use of factical death understood as Da-sein’s endmost possibility, Heidegger may claim that “everything else precedes” this end. But the end beyond which nothing else exceeds, the end before which all of Da-sein’s possibilities lie, is none other than beingtoward-death disclosed in Angst. Being-toward-death discloses the totality of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein in an existential identity. Therefore nothing falls outside of this individuated totality for it encompasses the whole. All possibilities fall within the disclosure of being-toward-death, the disclosure of the nothing that Da-sein will project as the horizon and ground of its understanding. “Angst individuates Da-sein to its ownmost being-in-the-world which, as understanding, projects itself essentially upon possibilities” (187–188/176). To say that all possibilities lie before death, is to say that Da-sein must understand them on the basis of its disclosure in being-toward-death. No possibilities may be grasped outside of this disclosure, for they all fall before it. Finitude is therefore not based on the fact that Da-sein is going to die, nor is it to be understood in light of the fact that Da-sein will have actualized a limited number of possibilities before its death. Understanding finitude in this way results in the leveling down of possibilities to actualities that are to be lived, or that will have been lived, chosen, or acted upon. Such an understanding might lead to a strict Sartrean existentialist interpretation of Da-sein where we are the totality of all that we do. However, Heidegger attributes this kind of thinking to inauthentic Da-sein. “In what is taken care of in the surrounding world, the others are encountered as what they are, they are what they do” (126/118). But it is not what we do that is of concern to Heidegger, only how we do it. Either possibilities are inauthentically approached from the perspective of Being understood as objective presence wherein possibilities are leveled down to what is revealed by the familiar modes of approaching beings determined by the They; or, possibilities are authentically approached by way of a being-toward the ground of beings in such a way that beings are let be to show themselves as they are because they are circumscribed by the nothing. This authentic manner of approaching possibilities is determined by Heidegger’s notion

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of truth as aletheia and is dependent upon the taking up of the nothing as a ground. Thus by limiting possibilities to the groundless and unbounded nothing, the nothing itself gets positioned as a ground, but not as a fixed and determinate ground that Heidegger opposes throughout his critique of Being as objective presence. The nothing is clearly indeterminate. Rather, Da-sein’s finitude is grounded in limiting its possibilities to the disclosedness of its totality, a totality that need not itself be limited. Da-sein is finite because its horizon, its world, is delimited. Therefore, limiting possibilities to the limitless nothing of Angst, the nothing is deemed a ground, albeit a boundless and indeterminate ground. In the projecting of this ground the nothing, the existential identity of Da-sein and world, circumscribes the understanding that Da-sein has of its possibilities, its relations with others, and simultaneously Da-sein’s own self-relation. These possibilities and relations, likewise, point back to the nothing, the being of the world as their ground. The relationship between Being and Da-sein, then, occurs on the prereflective level of mood, as a being-toward the nothing in the holding open of Angst. In this holding open of Angst, Da-sein holds back the self and lets beings be in a fundamental attunement to Being. Consequently, finitude happens internal to the nothing by way of the relations that it circumscribes. To posit the nothing as the certain, yet indeterminate ground of all possibilities, is to locate the nothing as the horizon of understanding, thereby letting possibility show itself. Angst characterizes the authenticity of Da-sein. “Da-sein is authentically itself in the mode of primordial individuation of reticent resoluteness that expects Angst of itself”31 (322–323/297). Inseparable from its authentic disclosedness is Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities. “The being of Da-sein and its disclosedness belong equiprimordially to the discoveredness of innerworldly beings” (221/203). In its projection upon possibilities, Da-sein projects the nothing characterizing the totality of the whole of the being of the world to which Da-sein comports itself as a totality in the attunement of Angst. But it is important to keep in mind that no particular Da-sein is disclosed in the nothing that is being projected. To the contrary, the self is held back. Indeed, in the nothing, the boundaries of the self are dissolved. Da-sein is unhinged. The projecting of the nothing is not a willing by a subject, but rather, as we shall see in the next chapter, a stillness in the enduring of Angst. From out of this nothing, Da-sein temporally comes back to itself as a self through its relations to others and to its possibilities whereby the world shows itself. “Da-sein is not itself the ground of its being, because the ground first arises from its own project, but as a self, it is the being of its ground” (285/262).

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In fact, Heidegger will exhort Da-sein to “want,” “expect” and to “endure” Angst.32 Authentically being-toward-death means to cultivate the indefinite nothing and to hold open Angst. In anticipating the indefinite certainty of death, Da-sein opens itself to a constant threat arising from its own there. Being-toward-the-end must hold itself in this very threat, and can so little phase it out that it rather has to cultivate the indefiniteness of this certainty. How is the genuine disclosing of this constant threat existentially possible? All understanding is attuned. Mood brings Da-sein before the thrownness of its “that-it-isthere.” But the attunement which is able to hold open the constant absolute threat to itself arising from the ownmost individualized being of Da-sein is Angst. (265–266/245) Nevertheless, in being-toward-death Da-sein is not in a relation to anything at all: not to itself, not to others, not to its possibilities, not even to its death disclosed in Angst. In the existential identity of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein there is no distance or difference for a relation. Both the world and Da-sein are disclosed as a whole in an undifferentiated existential identity. However, the stage is set for a relationship to occur on the basis of a total attunement to the whole of the being of the world. But for this attunement to happen, Da-sein has to be in a relation to others, to itself and to its possibilities. Only by way of the relations that it grounds does the world show itself as a ground. In Da-sein’s inauthentic, everyday relations in the world, the authentic world is covered over and Da-sein is directed toward objectively present, leveled down possibilities given to it by the They and its referential relations. Everyday, inauthentic Da-sein is also, at the same time, always focused on itself in a mode of conformity, trying to make sure that it stays near to the ways of the They-self. In a shift away from what is objectively present toward the nothing, Da-sein is cleared and positioned to be the clearing for possibilities, and the prescencing of Being. Yet, without possibilities, all talk of relations and of circumscribing possibilities by the nothing, so that possibilities maintain their character of possibility is but a fiction. Being-toward-death has been depicted, “but only as an ontological possibility” (266/246). “The ontological possibility of an authentic potentiality-for-being-a-whole of Da-sein means nothing as long as the corresponding ontic potentiality-of-being has not been shown in terms of Da-sein itself” (266/246). In other words, aside from the relations that it grounds, there is no other way to guarantee that being-toward-death

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has been taken up as an actual mode of existence. Heidegger therefore wonders: “Does Da-sein ever project itself factically into such a beingtoward-death?” (266/246). Death does not give to Da-sein any possibilities by which it can understand itself as a being-toward-death: “the factically disclosed possibilities of existence are not to be taken from death” (383/350). Quite the opposite, in being-toward-death Da-sein is at a loss of all possibilities. No possibilities can show themselves in the disclosedness of being-toward-death, because in the nothing of Angst all possibilities recede as the world loses all significance. Thus, if Da-sein is to exist authentically it must maintain a relation to possibilities, and it must especially be in a relation to others. “Da-sein is authentically itself only if it projects itself, as being-together with things taken care of and concernful being-with . . ., primarily upon its ownmost potentiality-of-being, rather than upon the possibility of the they-self” (263/243). Heidegger will put Da-sein back into a relation with its possibilities and being-with others by temporalizing Angst and introducing into the nothing a relation that occurs with respect to directionality. In the transition from the nothing back to the world of possibilities and Da-sein’s being-with others, both the being of Da-sein and the ground of its possibilities—the nothing—will be taken up and characterized by a finitude. This transition from the nothing back to the world happens in the cultivation of the nothing of being-toward-death in “being-guilty.”

Chapter 3

Being-guilty—Stage two of Angst: The Temporalization of Angst and how the Nothing becomes Something

In the previous chapter I argued that being-toward-death, contrary to the standard reading, is the mode of existence where Da-sein loses rather than gains itself. Traditionally, being-toward-death has been interpreted as a mode of disclosure where the personal self of Da-sein comes to view in light of the singular experience of its individual death. The confrontation with death forces Da-sein to recognize that it has been abdicating its life-choices and responsibilities by turning them over to the They. Realizing that its life is not enduring and that it will one day have to die, death reveals to Da-sein that it is finite. This finitude marks its individuation and independence of self from the They self. With the recognition of its finitude Da-sein chooses to exist authentically by deciding upon its individual possibilities. Yet it is Heidegger’s own ambiguity over the concept of death that may be faulted for this widely held interpretation, as he unfortunately slides from the fact of demise to the assertion of the finitude of Da-sein, and from the loss of all inauthentic possibilities in Angst to the retrieval of authentic possibilities. In fact, being-toward-death does not reveal the finitude of Da-sein but, to the contrary, it reveals the infinitude of Da-sein. While Heidegger does fall back upon the notion of factical death (demise) to assert Da-sein’s finitude by the implicit fact that life will end, factical death has no bearing on the meaning of Da-sein’s finitude. The meaning of finitude for Heidegger lies in the nature of Da-sein’s understanding of possibilities, and the character of its relations to others. This understanding and these relations are rooted in Da-sein’s prereflective understanding of Being. Authenticity, I am claiming, signals the change from an understanding of leveled down possibilities to an understanding of possibilities rooted in the ground of Da-sein’s being, its being-toward-death, the nothing. Thus because being-towarddeath is the mode of existence that Heidegger wants Da-sein to project as the horizon of its possibilities, it cannot be characterized by the fact of

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death, which points to the end of all personal existence. Heidegger therefore draws upon the phenomenon of Angst to reveal being-toward-death as the experience of nothingness. “We conceived of death existentially . . . as the absolute nothingness of Da-sein” (306/283). In Angst Da-sein is “faced with the nothingness of the possible impossibility of its existence” (266/245). Angst allows the nothingness of death to be taken up as a mode of Da-sein’s actual existence. The nothingness of Angst tears Da-sein away from its previous relations. The possibilities it once deemed important on the faith of the They are no longer significant in the nothingness of Angst. Da-sein stands in a paralysis because the world has lost all meaning. Being-towarddeath therefore shows itself in the loss of every possible “way of existing” (262/242). This is why Heidegger says that death is “nonrelational” (264/244). What is revealed in this disclosure is the existential identity of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of Da-sein’s being-in-theworld, not in any specific world, but a world disclosed as such and devoid of all possibilities and every relation to others. But it is not only Da-sein’s connection to others and to its projects that disappears in Angst. A strict phenomenological interpretation of the nothing disclosing being-toward-death shows that along with every other relation, Da-sein’s own self-relation is also lost in the nothingness of Angst. In a beingtoward the nothing, Da-sein is freed from all of its possibilities and from its relations to others. But as its personal existence is tied up with its possibilities, Da-sein is not in a relation to itself as an individual either in this mode of disclosedness. In Angst the world is without significance and therefore cannot ground the meaning of any possibilities, nor can it ground the meaning of Da-sein’s own self-understanding. Therefore being-toward-death points to an initial stage of Angst wherein there are no possibilities and no relations but simply sheer nothingness. In the nothing disclosing being-toward-death the existential identity of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of Da-sein are disclosed in an undifferentiated totality that is individuated. However, contrary to the general reading, this indivi-duation belongs to no one Da-sein in particular. It belongs to the whole of the existential identity of the world and Da-sein. And this whole is significantly unbounded, as it is characterized by the nothing of Angst throughout. In being-toward-death, then, there are no relations, no possibilities, and no particular world from which Da-sein may understand itself. Therefore, there is no individual or personal Da-sein to speak of. This is why Heidegger concludes his discussion on death by stating that “being-toward-death remains, after all, existentielly a fantastical demand” (266/246). In the

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nonrelational disclosedness of the impossibility of everyway of existing, Da-sein is essentially immobilized. In Angst there are no possibilities, not even the possibility of relating to one’s own being-toward-death. It is for this reason that I have challenged Heidegger’s two main claims that beingtoward-death reveals the finitude of Da-sein, and that this finitude directs Da-sein toward a “certain” understanding of its authentic possibilities. The nothing of being-toward-death, he writes, “tears one back out of the endless multiplicity of possibilities” and frees Da-sein “for its ownmost possibilities, that are determined by the end, and so understood as finite” (264/244; 384/351 see also 266/245; 329/303; 386/353). However, neither the finitude of Da-sein nor an awakening to its authentic possibilities is revealed to it in its being-toward-death. To the contrary, death is characterized by the loss of a self, the loss of the world, and therefore the loss of all meaningful possibilities. Being-toward-death reveals the nothing that arises in the disappearance of all relations and prepares Da-sein for the realization of a different way of being-in-the-world that overcomes the order of objective presence characterizing its inauthentic existence. This way will have everything to do with the nothing and the way in which it grounds Da-sein’s relations to its possibilities. Thus the possibility for such an overturning lies in the taking up of being-toward-death as an actual way of being-in-the-world. The Angst of being-toward-death alone, then, is not enough to bring about this change. Da-sein must relate to the nothing in such a way that it understands its possibilities by virtue of this nothing, which turns Da-sein to the ground of its “historical possibilities”. “But even so, as an authentic potentiality-of-being-a-whole, the authentic being-toward-death which we deduced existentially remains a purely existential project for which the attestation of Da-sein is lacking” (301/277). Da-sein attests to its being-toward-death in “being-guilty” (Schuld sein), stage two of Angst, where the potential for regaining the world and the self are revealed. In stage two of Angst Da-sein must “choose” to relate, to endure, and to be ready for Angst. Being-guilty, therefore, fulfils the edict of death: that it must relate to itself. “The most extreme not-yet has the character of something to which Da-sein relates” (250/231). Paradoxically, however, being-guilty is also disclosed in Angst by the “call of conscience” (Gewissensruf ). “The call attuned by Angst first makes possible for Da-sein its project upon its ownmost potentiality-of-being. The call of conscience, existentially understood, first makes known what was simply asserted before: uncanniness pursues Da-sein and threatens its self-forgetful lostness” (277/256). Nevertheless, Heidegger will need to show how one and the same Angst can serve both to disclose Da-sein in death, wherein it stands in a paralysis

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before the nothing, and simultaneously take Da-sein back into acting in the world through the call of conscience belonging to being-guilty. In other words, he has to show how the nothing of Angst becomes something, the basis upon which Da-sein exists in the world and with others amidst its authentic possibilities. He must explain how the Angst of being-guilty “frees for death the possibility of gaining power over the existence of Da-sein and of basically dispersing every fugitive self-covering over” (310/286). Moreover, he must account for how the nothing that characterizes Da-sein’s authentic disclosure in being-toward-death is to be thought of as finite. I will argue that Heidegger maintains the character of the nothing disclosing the existential identity of Da-sein and the world as such, while also allowing for a difference that makes possible a relation of the nothing to itself by introducing into the nothing a differentiation in directionality that constitutes the temporality of Da-sein. In this temporalized relation to the nothing, an opening is cleared for possibilities to show themselves on the basis of the total attunement of Da-sein to its world in Angst. By virtue of this attunement, Da-sein relates to others, itself and to its possibilities in a manner appropriate to a relation to the nothing that Heidegger describes with the term “letting-be” (Sein-lassen) belonging to truth as aletheia. Thus it is not until Angst is yoked to aletheia that the nothing is ultimately positioned as a groundless ground circumscribing the understanding of Da-sein’s relations to its possibilities. In this chapter the connection of Angst to aletheia is established in “resolution” (Entschlossenheit) and being-guilty, which discloses the “truth of existence” and the certainty of being-towarddeath by asserting the connection between Da-sein’s disclosedness and the discovery of its possibilities.

The Everyday Understanding of Guilt Heidegger criticizes the everyday understanding of guilt for the same reasons that he finds fault with Da-sein’s everyday ideas about death. The They understand the phenomenon of guilt inauthentically in the mode of objective presence as an event that may be tangibly dealt with and conveniently pushed aside. When the They experience guilt it is usually in relation to an unfinished exchange between material things, like an “owing something” to someone. Everyday guilt is awakened in the breaking of a “law.” or in the failure to fulfil a “demand,” to abide by an “ought,” or to pay back a “debt.” “This kind of being guilty is related to things that can be taken care of ” (282/260). It belongs to “the area of taking care of things in the sense of calculating claims and balancing them off” (283/261).

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Understanding guilt in light of what one could have or ought to have done turns guilt into a matter that may be accommodated for by a definite response, or through a certain action. Guilt then becomes a thing that may be easily alleviated, for example, by paying something back to someone. But it is precisely this understanding of guilt as something responsive to the mediation of measurable acts—a debt to be paid, a material obligation to be fulfilled, or a law to be upheld—that characterizes everyday guilt as inauthentic. “A lack, as the not being objectively present of what ought to be, is a determination of being of objective presence” (283/261). In being directed toward the calculable and manageable objectivity of things—laws, demands, and oughts—authentic guilt gets buried over. On the basis of inauthentic guilt no real sense of responsibility or loyalty may arise because guilt is not experienced in relation to the ground of one’s being or in relation to the being of an other Da-sein. Guilt is rather understood in terms of a “thing” that is presumed lacking or left undone within the system of order belonging to the They. Authentic guilt must therefore be removed from the leveling down of possibilities that characterizes Da-sein’s everyday being-in-the-world. Understood as something tangible that is handled according to some objective measurement for success, authentic guilt is reduced to the status of an object. Deriving guilt from a set of laws and demands that are directed toward tangible and manageable things that Da-sein either takes care of, or fails to take care of at any given time, covers over authentic guilt. Guilt is then seen as something that may be alleviated by reimbursing a debt, or by living according to a set of laws. Da-sein may even bring about its own guilt by failing to abide by a command or an ought. “[O]ne may break a law and make oneself punishable” (282/260). Indeed, everyday guilt has the character of “making oneself responsible” by leaving it up to the individual Da-sein in question to decide when and to whom it is to become responsible toward (282/260). Most significantly, however, the everyday understanding of guilt relieves Da-sein of its responsibility to the world and to others living with it in the world—both past and future others, as well as its contemporaries. By focusing on what is objectively present, Da-sein passes over the being of others and fails to authentically take up its Mitda-sein. It assumes that it can make itself responsible for others in the same way that it can control its guilt in relation to laws. “This definite ‘making oneself responsible’ by breaking a law can also at the same time have the character of ‘becoming responsible to others’” (282/260). As with a debt resulting from a failure to pay something back, being-with others in an everyday understanding of guilt takes the form of a lack in the sense of failing to carry out an obligation owed to the

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other. “This kind of lacking is a failure to satisfy some demand placed on one’s existing being-with with others” (282/260). Da-sein may then just as easily relieve itself of its responsibility to the other by paying him or her back, or by fulfilling a promise, at which point one’s being-guilty toward the other ceases and business goes about as usual. Authentic guilt, however, cannot be assuaged. Da-sein must understand “being-guilty as something constant” (305/282). Only when Da-seins recognize that “they are guilty in the ground of their being” can there be authentic guilt and responsibility to the world and to others, a responsibility that Heidegger believes extends to Da-sein’s ancestors and to the world that “has been there” into which Da-sein has been thrown (286/264). Indeed, authentic being-guilty is essentially a recognition of Mitda-sein and Da-sein’s obligation to the traditions belonging to its world.1 Thus Heidegger not only questions the foundations of the laws, demands and “oughts” that the They abide by and asks whether they are in keeping with the authentic kind of being that belongs to Da-sein. Above all, he finds fault with the idea that guilt may ever be alleviated or pushed aside once and for all. As with being-toward-death, Heidegger wants guilt to be understood as an existential and ontological possibility of Da-sein and, therefore, as something constant, enduring and primordial. “Being essentially guilty, Da-sein is not just guilty occasionally and other times not” (305/282). Da-sein is guilty “as long as it is” (305/282). The existential and ontological possibility of being-guilty as a constant of being happens when guilt is detached from the realm of objective presence. “The idea of guilt must not only be removed from the area of calculating and taking care of things, but must also be separated from relationship to an ought and a law such that by failing to comply with it one burdens himself with guilt” (283/261). What detaches Da-sein from the realm of calculation and its inauthentic understanding of guilt is Angst. Only Angst can free Da-sein from the prereflective understanding of Being as objective presence that is the basis of its inauthentic existence. Indeed, the everyday understanding of guilt itself points to the nothing of Angst through the “not” that is at the heart of inauthentic guilt. “Still, the quality of the not is present in the idea of ‘guilty.’ If the ‘guilty’ is to be able to define existence, the ontological problem arises here of clarifying existentially the not-quality of this not” (283/261). The not-quality of guilt finds its voice in the “nullity” of Angst. In busying itself with taking care of everyday matters that are given their significance by the They, Da-sein manages to stave off the Angst that “pursues” it and characterizes its being-toward-death, as well as its being-guilty. Therefore in the Angst of the “call of conscience,” Da-sein is called back to its death.

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Angst and The Call of Conscience Being-guilty, like being-toward-death, is an existential that constitutes the being of Da-sein. Being-guilty is the possibility for conscience, but it is nevertheless the “call of conscience” that discloses Da-sein in its being-guilty. “All interpretations and experiences of conscience agree that the ‘voice’ of conscience somehow speaks of ‘guilt’”(280/258). Significantly, the “voice of conscience” (Stimme des Gewissens) says nothing because it is disclosed in Angst. “Conscience speaks solely and constantly in the mode of silence” (273/252). Nevertheless, while conscience has nothing to say it “gives us ‘something’ to understand, it discloses” (269/249). “The peculiar indefiniteness and indefinabilty of the caller are not nothing, but a positive distinction” (275/253). Indeed, the call of conscience speaks in the silence of the nothing because it reaches him or her who already understands. All listening, according to Heidegger, is predicated on such a prior understanding. “Discourse and hearing are grounded in understanding” (164/154). The call of conscience calls silently but it grabs hold of Da-sein. It reaches the being who is open to the call and who may understand the silence of the call. It reaches Da-sein disclosed in death. In the nothing of being-towarddeath rests the potential to hear the silent call that says nothing. It is for this reason that the call speaks in silence and says absolutely nothing. “What mood corresponds to such understanding? Understanding the call discloses one’s own Da-sein in the uncanniness of its individuation. The uncanniness revealed in understanding is genuinely disclosed by the attunement of Angst belonging to it” (295–296/272). Conscience calls for the being disclosed in Angst, which has the potential to understand the call in the mode of silence because it has already heard it. The structure of the call of conscience is therefore complex. It shows itself in three modes that are nevertheless the same: the caller of the call; the called or the summoned; and what the call says or discloses. All three are characterized by the nothing of Angst. The caller of the call says nothing. It calls the being disclosed and characterized by the nothing and calls it to take over its death or nothingness. Moreover, because the call is disclosed in Angst, like death, it is beyond Da-sein’s control. “The call is precisely something that we ourselves have neither planned nor prepared nor wilfully brought about. ‘It’ calls, against our expectations and even against our will” (275/254). What does this silent call say? “Strictly speaking—nothing” (273/252). “The call does not report any facts; it calls without uttering anything. The call speaks in the uncanny mode of silence” (277/255). Still, the call calls and it calls always.

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Overwhelmed by the “noise” of the They, Da-sein fails to hear this silent call that speaks constantly. “The fact that they, hearing and understanding only loud idle chatter, cannot ‘confirm’ any call, is attributed to conscience with the excuse that it is ‘dumb’ and evidently not objectively present” (296/273). Therefore to receive the call, a proper mode of listening is required. Da-sein must turn away from the chatter of the They and attune itself to a different kind of hearing. “This listening must be stopped, that is, the possibility of another kind of hearing that interrupts that listening must be given by Da-sein itself” (271/250). This other possibility is in every respect the opposite of the listening belonging to the They because it is directed toward the nothing. Perhaps in a moment of silence, a lull in the chatter of the They, the call is heard. When the silent call of conscience reaches out to the being of Da-sein it calls Da-sein to its uncanniness and “calls it to become still” (296/273). But the being reached by the call is not a self-reflective, individualized being that is an “‘object’ for itself” (273/252). “The self summoned remains indifferent and empty in its what” (274/253). It summons Da-sein “‘without regard to his person’” (274/253). The call calls “solely the self that is in no other way than being-in-the world” (273/252). The self cleared of all particularity in the loss of “every way of existing” in its being-toward-death. Only Angst ridden Da-sein is in no other way than being-in-the-world as such because this Da-sein lacks all determination, as it is disclosed and characterized by the undifferentiated nothing of Angst. “The fact that what is called in the call is lacking a formulation in words does not shunt this phenomenon into the indefiniteness of a mysterious voice, but only indicates that the understanding of ‘what is called’ may not cling to the expectation of a communication or any such thing” (273–274/253). In a moment of silence, then, when objectively present things lose their grip on Da-sein for whatever reason, the self that is in no other way than being-in-the-world itself is reached. “Understanding the call discloses one’s own Da-sein in the uncanniness of its individuation. The uncanniness revealed in understanding is genuinely disclosed by the attunement of Angst belonging to it. The fact of the Angst of conscience is a phenomenal confirmation of the fact that in understanding the call Da-sein is brought face to face with its own uncanniness” (295–296/272). Here Heidegger introduces into the nothing some form of understanding. The Angst of conscience brings Da-sein before the Angst disclosing its individuation in death. Still, it is difficult to make sense of what the nothing gets Da-sein to understand, let alone what the Angst of conscience adds to the Angst of death. Nothing is still nothing.

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Nevertheless, Angst ridden Da-sein is whom the call summons. The call reaches the self that is in no other way than being-in-the-world itself, Da-sein disclosed in being-toward-death. But not only is Angst ridden Da-sein summoned in the call, the caller of the call is also Da-sein in its uncanniness. “What if Da-sein, finding itself in the ground of uncanniness, were the caller of the call ?” (276/255). If this were the case then both the caller and the called would be one and the same mode of Da-sein’s being. And this happens to be the case. Not only the call and the called but the caller too “is Da-sein in its uncanniness, primordially thrown beingin-the-world, as not-at-home, the naked ‘that’ in the nothingness of the world” (276/255). The caller, then, is no one familiar. “It not only fails to answer questions about name, status, origin, and repute, but also leaves not the slightest possibility of making the call familiar for an understanding of Da-sein with a ‘worldly’ orientation. The caller of the call—and this belongs to its phenomenal character—absolutely distances any kind of becoming familiar” (274/253). And as the called is the self that is in no other way than beingin-the-world, the caller and the called are both one and the same mode of Da-sein’s being characterized by the nothing of Angst. Indeed, not only are they characteristically identical, they are also simultaneous. “Da-sein is the caller and the one summoned at the same time” (275/254). “Da-sein is at the same time the caller and the one summoned” (277/256). Without a distinction, however, the caller would say nothing to the called (which is, in fact, what it says); the called would hear nothing from the caller (which is what is heard); and the uncanny assurance that occurs when the caller reaches the called would be secured by nothing. In its who, the caller is definable by nothing “worldly.” It is Da-sein in its uncanniness, primordially thrown being-in-the-world, as notat-home, the naked “that” in the nothingness of the world. The caller is unfami-liar to the everyday they-self, it is something like an alien voice. What could be more alien to the they, lost in the manifold “world” of its heedfulness, than the self individualized to itself in uncanniness thrown into nothingness? “It” calls, and yet gives the heedfully curious ears nothing to hear that could be passed along and publicly spoken about. But what should Da-sein even report from the uncanniness of its thrown being? What else remains for it than its own potentiality-of-being revealed in Angst ? How else should it call than by summoning to this potentiality-of-being about which it is solely concerned? (276–277/255)

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We are now back at the paralysis of Angst in the undifferentiated nothing that discloses the totality of the whole of the being of Da-sein and the whole of the being of the world in an existential identity in being-toward-death. In being-guilty, the caller and the called are identical and are both characterized by the nothing of Angst. “Being-guilty belongs to Da-sein and means: null being the ground of a nullity” (305/282). Paradoxically, Heidegger claims that since the caller and the called are both Da-sein in the mode of uncanniness they cannot fail to understand each other. “When the caller reaches him who is summoned, it does so with a cold assurance that is uncanny and by no means obvious. Wherein lies the basis for this assurance, if not in the fact that Da-sein, individualized to itself in its uncanniness, is absolutely unmistakable to itself?” (277/256). But what is the nature of this self? What is understood in the call? And how are we to distinguish between the self that is called and the self that is making the call? “Not only is the call meant for him who is summoned ‘without regard to his person,’ the caller, too, remains in a striking indefiniteness” (274/253). Taylor Carman thinks that what is disclosed by the call is “the ontological irreducibility of the first-person point of view.”2 The call and the called, he recognizes, are identical. “I Want to suggest, the call is identical with Da-sein’s hearing and responding to it, either by owning up to its guilt or by fleeing from it into distraction and inauthenticity.”3 The call, Heidegger asserts, says nothing. Yet Carman claims to hear something specific, the call to choose yourself. As shown in the previous chapter, he believes that choosing oneself means to take responsibility not only for the choices one makes but also for the possibilities that one does not choose. “Da-sein hears the call of conscience only by freely letting itself hear it, and this amounts to choosing itself as a self.”4 “Conscience, I therefore conclude, is nothing more or less than Da-sein’s responsiveness to the fact of its own singularity, or mineness.”5 In the identity of the call and the called, then, Carman claims to have found a self-contained subject that has chosen itself in the hearing of the call. His understanding of the singularity of the self disclosed in hearing and responding to the call of conscience is reflected in his definition of authenticity in contrast to inauthenticity, respectively, as “relating directly to oneself and relating to or mediated by others.”6 It is no surprise, then, that by interpreting authenticity as a direct relation of the self to itself, unmediated by a relation to others, and indeed to the world, Carman runs into the problem that many before him have of how others may impact Da-sein’s authentic self-relation. “Apparently, what Heidegger fails to account for is the intersubjective dimension of selfhood.”7 “How is it possible, indeed is it possible, to come to understand myself as others understand me, as an

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intraworldly character whose life concludes with my eventual earthly demise?”8 However, by divorcing Da-sein’s authentic self-relation from its relation to others and from the world, Carman indicates that his understanding of Da-sein is not as Heidegger conceives it, but as the Cartesian tradition has depicted the subject. Carman’s reliance on the notion of subjectivity grows out of his interpretation of death as earthly demise and therefore as pertaining only to a self-contained Da-sein who has to face the fact that he or she will at some point have to die. The caller reaches this self in isolation from others and the world and discloses it as an individual subjectivity. Thus by claiming that the call reaches and reveals some sort of reflective self, a “mineness,” Carman exhibits a reluctance to take up the meaning of the call, its nothingness, and therefore to pay head to the nothing that is related to in this relation of hearing and responding. He fails to recognize that divorced from its relations to the world and to others, Da-sein’s own selfunderstanding is just as null as that of any other Da-sein’s self-understanding, and the understanding of each other is therefore just as null. As I have been stressing, the authentic being of Da-sein disclosed in death and called in conscience is not a personal self. It is characterized by nothing. Thus there is no self-attributing subjectivity disclosed in the nothing of Angst released from its possibilities and relations to others in the world. In Angst Da-sein does not reflect upon its lost possibilities before a world once full of possibilities. In Angst there is only nothing. To the contrary of Carman’s claims then, what is disclosed in the call is nothing I can call mine, at least not yet, not before Da-sein acts in the world alongside others amidst shared possibilities. The question, then, still remains of how we are to distinguish between the caller and the called, the self that is calling and the self that is called. Without a distinction no recognition is possible. Da-sein remains in a paralysis in the nothing of the existential identity of the whole of Da-sein and world in Angst. To exist authentically in the world Da-sein must take up and relate to its death, which happens only in relation to actual possibilities that are circumscribed by the nothing and that point back to this unbounded nothing as their ground. “Angst individuates Da-sein to its ownmost beingin-the-world which, as understanding, projects itself essentially upon possibilities” (187/176). But it is only in light of Da-sein’s actual relations in the world that it is possible to know if the nothing has been taking up and projected as the ground of Da-sein’s relations and of its own selfunderstanding. Yet neither the nothing of the call nor the nothing of death disclose any possibilities.

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The issue of the identity of the caller and the called is also problematized by Stephen Mulhall. He questions how it is that one and the same mode of being may both bring about an authentic understanding of the call, and at the same time be a testament to having authentically heard the call. Mulhall asks how “an indication of having attained an authentic relation to one’s Being” may also “function as a means of that attainment.”9 He finds it “questionable” that Da-sein may bring about a “self-overcoming of a self-imposed darkness.”10 As a solution to this problem Mulhall suggests that we interpret the call as the call of a friend that reaches Da-sein and helps it to turn toward its authentic self. “What, then, if the call of conscience is articulated by someone else, a friend who diagnoses us as lost in the they-self and has an interest in our overcoming that inauthenticity and freeing our capacity to live a genuinely individual life?”11 But Mulhall’s question is steeped in the thought that the caller and the called are the same self-contained, individual subject. Thus he asks how this same inauthentic self may reach itself as authentic. This is not surprising as even Heidegger claims that Da-sein as a selfsame being is reached by the call. “Da-sein calls itself in conscience” (275/254). “[T]he self is brought to itself by the call” (273/252). Nevertheless, in the identity of the caller and the called disclosed in Angst there are no possibilities, and therefore nothing determinate, and no particular Da-sein to speak of. There is only the nothing. Thus neither authentic nor inauthentic Da-sein is disclosed in the call. The self that Heidegger speaks of is a selfless self characterized by the nothing of Angst. Still, the question is not only how one and the same mode of being may bring about a different mode of existence, which in my reading is the question of how Angst may bring about any definite change from the nothing. But also, how one and the same mode of being that had previously precluded “every mode of behaviour toward” and “every way of existing” in being-toward-death, may now serve as the basis for authentic existence in being-guilty (262/242). These two questions are encompassed in the question about a ground. How does the groundless nothing of being-toward-death become a ground, the ground of Da-sein’s authentic existence in being-guilty? What is said in the silent call of conscience? Nothing. What is heard in the silence of the call? Nothing. How then does the nothing of Angst bring about any certain and finite understanding, and how is this understanding to serve as the ground of Da-sein’s authentic existence with others in its being-in-the-world? As I have been arguing, in the nothing of Angst there is no being with one’s self in any particular sense, no being with others, and no being with things in the world. The world loses its significance and all possibilities recede together with the collapse of the web of relations that characterize the meaning of the world. In this way death, as the loss of all possibilities, is

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disclosed as a mode of existence belonging to Da-sein. However, the call of conscience is meant to bring Da-sein understandingly before its death so that it may take it up authentically by existing as a being-toward-death in the world. By introducing a difference into the nothing that allows for a relation of death to being-guilty, an opening is created for possibilities to show themselves. On the basis of this temporally structured opening, Da-sein will engage with others and with its possibilities in and as a being-toward-death such that the ground of its existence will show itself as the authentic horizon of its possibilities. This horizon, as we shall see, is the historical world into which Da-sein has been thrown.

Angst and the Temporality of Da-sein To become authentic Da-sein must understand its death and guilt as constant for as long as it exists. This is why Heidegger wants Da-sein to relate to its being-toward-death. “The most extreme not-yet has the character of something to which Da-sein relates” (250/231). But what is it that is to be related to in the nothing of death and the nothing of the call? Both the caller and the called are one and the same mode of being: Da-sein disclosed in the nothing of Angst. Yet, clearly Heidegger wants to make some sort of a distinction within this sameness disclosed in death and called in conscience. Otherwise he would not use two different terms for one and the same nothing. A distinction would allow for a relation of death to itself whereby the nothing circumscribes Da-sein’s self-understanding and the understanding of its possibilities in such a way that possibilities are let be to show themselves as they are. Nevertheless, it is difficult to grasp the way in which the caller might differ from the called, they are not only both similarly characterized by the nothing of Angst, but they also occur simultaneously. Fortunately the terms caller and called themselves point to where a distinction may be located within this one and the same mode of being. These terms designate a difference in direction. “Whereas the content of the call is seemingly indefinite, the direction it takes is a sure one and is not to be overlooked” (274/253). This difference with regard to directionality is how being-toward-death and being-guilty are mapped onto the “temporal” (zeitlich) ecstasies of the “future” and “having-been,” respectively. In a “calling back that calls forth” Angst is temporalized wherein the nothing is differentiated with respect to a directionality that reveals the authentic meaning of the being of Da-sein as temporality. We have already answered this question in our thesis that the call “says” nothing which could be talked about, it does not give any information

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about factual occurrences. The call directs Da-sein forward toward its potentiality-of-being, as a call out of uncanniness. The caller is indeed indefinite, but where it calls from is not indifferent for the calling. Where it comes from—the uncanniness of thrown individuation—is also called in the calling, that is, is also disclosed. Where the call comes from in calling forth to . . . is that to which it is called back. (280/258–259, Heidegger’s emphasis) Here a movement forward and a movement backward are introduced into one and the same mode of being: the uncanniness of thrown individuation of being-toward-death. Where “the call comes from” and that to which the called is “called back” to are one and the same: Da-sein individuated in the nothing of Angst. Moreover, where the call “calls from” in returning to itself is also where the call calls Da-sein “forth to”—the nothing. In calling Da-sein forward to its sheer possibility disclosed in Angst, Angst ridden Da-sein, who is both making the call and the receiver of the call, is disclosed at the same time. “Da-sein stands primordially together with itself in uncanniness. Uncanniness brings this being face to face with its undisguised nullity, which belongs to the possibility of its ownmost potentialityof-being” (287/264). But as I have been arguing, without possibilities there can be no relation of the nothing to itself and therefore no taking up of being-toward-death as a mode of existence in being-guilty. In other words, the movement forward and the movement back of the temporal ecstasies are indistinguishable without the present, as they are both characterized by the nothing. “As thrown, the project is not only determined by the nullity of being the ground but is itself as project essentially null ” (285/263). For the disclosure of the relation of the nothing to itself to have meaning, there must be possibilities that testify to the nothing as their groundless ground, thereby bounding the nothing. Or, as Heidegger stated above, for being-towarddeath to be taken up as a mode of existence it must be attested to, that is, the future must be distinct from the past so to be in a relation to it. This means that the nothing must circumscribe the meaning of Da-sein’s possibilities and must therefore be projected in a simultaneous holding back of the self. Circumscribed by the unbounded ground of the nothing, possibilities remain possibilities as their being is rooted in the world that gives to them meaning and not in their objectivity, or in the fluctuating interpretations of the They. In this way the nothing becomes a ground and is bounded by the possibilities and the relations that it grounds. Although, the nothing will always maintain its character of possibility and therefore remain

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unbounded, even in its bounding by the possibilities that it gives rise to. This is the meaning of the “outside-itself” that Heidegger attributes to Da-sein’s temporality. What, then, is Da-sein called forth to by the call? Conscience summons the self “to its potentiality-of-being-a-self, and thus calls Da-sein forth to its possibilities” (274/253). In being called forth to possibilities Da-sein is understandingly called forth to the realm wherein its possibilities lie—the groundless ground of its being—and therefore called forth to take over its death. “The nothingness before which Angst brings us reveals the nullity that determines Da-sein in its ground, which itself is as thrownness into death” (308/285). In taking over death as the ground of its being, Da-sein takes over the nothing as the basis of its understanding of possibilities and its own self-understanding. This nothing reveals to it the ground of all of its possibilities and therefore the being of the world into which it is thrown, and to which it is in a complete and total attunement. “Da-sein understands itself with regard to its potentiality-of-being in a way that confronts death in order to take over completely the being that it itself is in its thrownness” (382/350). According to Heidegger, the world that authentic Da-sein takes over is a Western world into which it has been thrown and which stems all the way back to the “original” Greek experience of the truth of Being as aletheia. In contrast to this world, the world of inauthentic Da-sein is understood in terms of its objectivity. Inauthenticity is defined by a being-toward objectively present things that are robbed of their possibility by being uprooted from the world. Instead they are given their meaning by the fixed opinions and referential relations of the They. Initially and for the most part, everyday Da-sein understands its “potentiality-of-being in terms of the ‘world’ taken care of” (270/250). The world of authentic Da-sein, on the other hand, is beyond the valuations and measurements of the They, as it is not a thing at all but is disclosed and characterized by the nothing. Herein lies the ontological difference between the ground of beings, or Being, which does not belong to the order of beings, and beings, which are dependent upon Being for their being. Da-sein straddles this ontological divide. Belonging to its being is a prereflective understanding of Being inhering in its attunement to the whole of the world that is beyond its conscious grasp. At the same time, Da-sein’s being is dependent upon Being, which is the basis of its self understanding and of its relations in the world. The ontological uniqueness of Da-sein is depicted in the temporalization of Angst wherein it is at once cleared of its particularity. “Ecstatic temporality clears the There primordially” (351/321). While at the same time this clearing

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or nothing must give rise to possibilities in being temporally distinguished by a movement “out of ” and a movement “forward to” on the basis of a being called “forth to possibilities.” In a being called forth to possibilities, project throws the nothing as the horizon of Da-sein’s possibilities and at the same time Da-sein meets or receives this nothing in the possibilities that are circumscribed by it in its understanding. “We showed that and how temporality constitutes the disclosedness of the there. World is also disclosed in the disclosedness of the There. . . . The existential and temporal condition of the possibility of the world lies in the fact that temporality, as an ecstatical unity, has something like a horizon” (365/333). This movement out of and forward to unfolds as the ecstatic temporality of the existential identity of Da-sein and world held in Angst. The temporalization of death, then, signifies a movement and characterizes the futural ecstasis of temporality. Being-guilty signifies Da-sein’s past, or “having-been.” “Letting-come-toward-itself that perdures the eminent possibility is the primordial phenomenon of the future” (325/299). Significantly, this future that perdures the eminent possibility of death is not an outwardly moving future. Da-sein does not head toward its future in a forward movement as if it were engaged in a series of immediacies or nows. The future comes toward Da-sein’s having-been, its being-guilty, in a backward facing movement. “In the call, Da-sein ‘is’ ahead of itself in such a way that at the same time it directs itself back to its thrownness” (291/268). In this sense, Heidegger’s conception of temporality breaks with the linear conception of time. “What is characteristic of the ‘time’ accessible to the vulgar understanding consists, among other things, precisely in the fact that it is a pure succession of nows, without beginning and without end, in which the ecstatic character of primordial temporality is leveled down” (329/302). Authentically understood, Da-sein’s temporality is finite. However, its finitude is not determined by the closing off of its future in the approach of its physical death, which is a leveled down understanding of death. The finitude of Da-sein is disclosed by the fact that the future points back to the ground of its possibilities, thereby making it the sole and thus finite ground from which Da-sein may understand its possibilities. Finitude lies in circumscribing the ground of Da-sein’s possibilities. Theodore Kisiel, on the other hand, interprets temporality in a linear manner by claiming that Da-sein moves in a forward movement from birth, “which is precipitating us inexorably toward our death.”12 In this “stretching itself along between birth and death” the self of Da-sein, he claims, is established as temporality.13 But Da-sein does not move forward from its birth to its death in a linear manner. Da-sein’s future comes toward its history and

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converges with it in the present. Moreover, being-toward-death is not an end toward which Da-sein is inevitably or inexorably on the way to. Heidegger is explicit: being-toward-death is not a being toward the end of Da-sein’s life; being-toward-death is a mode of being that belongs to Da-sein’s actual existence. Being-toward-death is the enduring and the relating to the nothing of Angst. “Being-toward-the-end must hold itself in this very threat, and can so little phase it out that it rather has to cultivate the indefiniteness of this certainty” (265/245). Indeed, Da-sein is rather born from out of its death. For the future (nothing, death) must first be projected as the horizon on the basis of which Da-sein will come toward itself understandingly in the present. This is the meaning of the being of Da-sein as a temporality. Da-sein finds itself in the convergence of the future and the having-been in the present. “We call the unified phenomenon of the future that makes present in the process of having-been temporality” (326/300). Temporality, therefore, gathers and brings together the relation of beingtoward-death and being-guilty. It is the ontological meaning of the being of Da-sein. And as the future does not point outwardly but comes toward its having-been, Da-sein’s having-been is not prior to the future, but rather arises from out of it. “Da-sein can be authentically having-been only because it is futural. In a way, having-been arises from the future” (326/299). Da-sein’s having-been arises from its future because what has been must constantly be taken up as a possibility for the future in the present in order for it to be at all. “Having-been arises from the future in such a way that the future that has-been (or better, is in the process of having-been) releases the present from itself ” (326/300). But the future is only in the process of a having-been by virtue of the present. Only by virtue of Da-sein’s relations to others and to possibilities in its actual existence is the nothing of the future distinguished from the nothing of having-been. Without being called forth to possibilities the future and Da-sein’s history remain undifferentiated in the nothing of Angst. Thus neither the being that comes toward (future, death) nor the being to which the future comes toward (having-been, guilt) is a personal self. There is no personal Da-sein in the disclosedness of Da-sein’s potentialityof-being, only the general ontological structure of this potentiality that exists as temporality. As the world is disclosed in an existential identity with the whole of being of Da-sein in its being-toward-death and being-guilty, the being of Da-sein is not a part of the world, it is one with the world. Insofar as Dasein temporalizes itself, a world is, too. Temporalizing itself with regard to its being as temporality, Dasein is essentially “in a world” on

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the basis of the ecstatic and horizonal constitution of that temporality. The world is neither objectively present nor at hand, but temporalizes itself in temporality. It “is” “there” together with the outside-itself of the ecstasies. If no Da-sein exists, no world is “there” either. . . . 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 (365–366/334). Against the horizon of the nothing, the world as such, Da-sein comes to itself in its particularity on the basis of the possibilities that it relates to and its being-with other Da-seins. “Da-sein, as itself, has to become, that is, be what it is not yet” (243/226). In fact, the future is unbounded, for it is characterized by the nothing of Angst. “The primordial and authentic future is the toward-oneself, toward oneself, existing as the possibility of a nullity not-to-be-bypassed” (330/303). This nullity belonging to Angst is without limits. “In the structure of thrownness as well as in that of project, essentially lies a nullity” (285/263). Thus there are no boundaries inherent to the temporal structure of the ecstasies belonging to Da-sein. The ecstasies of the future and having-been are null throughout. The being of Da-sein is therefore open. “This being bears in its ownmost being the character of not being closed” (132/125). In this way Da-sein is ahead of itself, as the nothing of being-toward-death is projected as a ground prior to the individual self-understanding of a particular Da-sein. Thus with the temporalization of Angst an opening is cleared for possibilities to show themselves on the horizon of the nothing. On the basis of the ecstatic unfolding of the existential identity of the whole of the world together with the whole of the being of Da-sein, Da-sein first encounters its possibilities in the present, along with itself and its being-with others by virtue of mood. “[F]actical Da-sein, ecstatically understanding itself and its world in the unity of the There, comes back from these horizons to the beings encountered in them. Coming back to these beings understandingly is the existential meaning of letting them be encountered in making them present; for this reason they are called innerworldly” (366/334–335). Possibilities point back to the nothing of Angst, the opening letting possibilities show themselves as they are. In light of possibilities that are encountered on the basis of this attunement, being-toward-death shows itself as a ground. But it is not the possibilities themselves that determine the world or the being of Da-sein. Authentic Da-sein is not defined by what it does, or by the successes or failures of its projects. Such an understanding is steeped

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in the leveling down of possibilities belonging to inauthentic Da-sein. “Being out for something possible and taking care of it has the tendency of annihilating the possibility of the possible by making it available” (261/241). Da-sein becomes an authentic self not in the taking up of definite possibilities, but by taking up the ground from which its possibilities and relations to others are rooted. Relating to its possibilities and to others, the authenticity of Da-sein is disclosed, and it is disclosed as Mitda-sein, for Da-sein’s selfhood is found among its relations with others amidst shared possibilities on the basis of its attunement to the groundless ground disclosed in Angst. Da-sein therefore realizes its own potentiality of being together with “the possibility of letting the others who are with it ‘be’ in their ownmost potentiality-of-being” (298/274). Significantly, because the unfolding of the ecstasies of Da-sein’s temporality occurs as a relation of the nothing to itself it does not happen dialectically. Nothing is being related in the relation of death to beingguilty. There is therefore nothing to know in this coming back to, for it is Angst coming back to Angst. The whole of being-toward-death (nullity, future, project) comes back to the whole of being-guilty (nullity, havingbeen, thrownness) in and as the nothing. Therefore, in a relating of death to itself that which is relating and that which is being related to are one and the same—the totality of the disclosedness of world and Da-sein in the nothing of being-toward-death. Thus there is no sublation (aufgehoben) of one mode of being into a higher mode of being that incorporates within it the first mode of being. What Da-sein comes back to is the ground from which Da-sein leaves—its disclosure in Angst, the uncanniness of the call of conscience that speaks of nothing. “Just as the present arises in the unity of the temporalizing of temporality from the future and the having-been, the horizon of a present temporalizes itself equiprimordially with those of the future and the having-been” (365/334). Here is where Da-sein prereflectively meets Being in the stillness that gives rise to the present through the relation of the nothing (future) to itself (having-been) in a manner of truth described as a “letting-be” belonging to aletheia. Coincidently, the same structure of temporality is depicted in Heidegger’s 1964 lecture, “Time and Being,” where he discusses the finitude of Being in terms of historical epochs. “Approaching, being not yet present, at the same time gives and brings about what is no longer present, the past, and conversely what has been offers future to itself. The reciprocal relation of both at the same time gives and brings about the present.”14 The prereflective meeting of Da-sein and Being is prepared for in the holding open of Angst in “wanting to have a conscience.”

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Angst and Wanting to have a Conscience In “Plato’s doctrine of truth” Heidegger argues that Plato introduces a new model of truth that founds the correspondence theory of truth by “yoking” sight to the idea. I have suggested in the Introduction that Heidegger follows in Plato’s tradition of introducing new models of truth but instead yokes Angst to aletheia so to reorient Da-sein back to the concealment belonging to it. Interestingly, Heidegger notes that those initiates who are to follow on the path of Plato’s reversal of truth must “want” to attune their sight to the form of the idea. “Whoever wants to act and has to act in a world determined by ‘the ideas’ needs, before all else, a view of the ideas. And thus the very essence of παιδεια consists in making the human being free and strong for the clarity and consistency of insight into essence.”15 Similarly, Heidegger thinks that to exist in an authentic understanding of truth by taking up a relation to one’s being-toward-death, a desire is needed. This desire Heidegger identifies as a “wanting to have a conscience” that lies in a “resoluteness” for Angst, that is, a holding back of the self. Therefore, it is not enough that Da-sein tarry with the nothing in order to access the ground of its existence. Da-sein must want to take up its ground and it must decide to do so by existing in the nothing of Angst. “But making up for not choosing signifies choosing to make this choice—deciding for a potentiality-of-being, and making this decision from one’s own self” (268/248). This decision, which Heidegger will spell out in section 74 as a loyalty to one’s heritage, is concomitant with the choice to accept and relate to Angst. Choosing Angst is one with hearing the call. “To the call of conscience there corresponds a possible hearing. Understanding the summons reveals itself as wanting to have a conscience” (270/249). Indeed, it is because Da-sein already has a prereflective understanding of its ground that Da-sein is able to listen to the call. Still, what is understood in the summons is not anything definite, but rather the indefinite nothing of Angst. “Wanting to have a conscience becomes a readiness for Angst” (296/272). In hearing the silent call of conscience Da-sein is brought to Angst, or being-toward-death. But this moment is fleeting and says nothing. It leaves one still. But then it leaves. One is paralyzed in Angst for only so long, and not as long as one is. “Angst only brings one into the mood for a possible resolution. The present of Angst holds the Moment in readiness [auf dem Sprung], as which it, and only it, is possible” (344/316). But to be guilty as long as one is, to exist as being-toward-death at every moment and constantly, Da-sein must not only experience Angst but it must make Angst an everyday part of its life. For this, Da-sein must be resolute. It must attest to its

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being-toward-death in a readiness for Angst. “We shall call the eminent, authentic disclosedness attested in Da-sein itself by its conscience—the reticent projection upon one’s ownmost being-guilty which is ready for Angst— resoluteness” (296–297/273). To be ready for Angst, then, is not simply to be open to the possibility of hearing the call. A readiness for Angst is to attune one’s listening to the nothing from wherein the call arises.16 Seeing the world through the nothing of death is to open up a world revealed in silence by the call. It is to attune one’s hearing to the world that one already prereflectively understands and therefore may hear in silence. In resoluteness Da-sein maintains this kind of listening by holding open the nothing of Angst and by demanding Angst of itself. “Resoluteness was characterized . . . as demanding Angst of oneself” (305/282). Therefore the ability to take up death and guilt as constant and ever present modes charactering Da-sein’s existence as temporality lies in resoluteness. “Resoluteness understands the ‘can’ of its potentiality-for-beingguilty only when it ‘qualifies’ itself as being-toward-death” (306/283 see also 305/282). Authenticity, then, occurs in the “anticipation” and the readiness for the nothing in resoluteness, that is, in the enduring and holding of Angst. “The indefiniteness of death discloses itself primordially in Angst. But this primordial Angst strives to expect resoluteness of itself” (308/285). “Although it always becomes certain in resoluteness, the indefiniteness of one’s own potentiality-of-being, however, always reveals itself completely only in a being-toward-death” (308/285). In the taking up of Angst, of death, in resoluteness, the structure of the authentic meaning of Da-sein is established as temporality. “In its death, Da-sein must absolutely ‘take itself back.’ Constantly certain of this, that is, anticipating, resoluteness gains its authentic and whole certainty” (308/284). Angst clears Da-sein in its being-there in the sense of freeing it from what is objectively present, and directs Da-sein toward that which is indefinite, the nothing, the existential identity of Da-sein and world. In taking itself back in death Da-sein holds open the nothing by demanding Angst of itself in a movement forward and a movement back that converges in the present. Holding open the nothing creates a space that will allow possibilities to arise as they are in the open or clearing that is the totality of Da-sein and world disclosed and endured in the stillness of the nothing and the holding back of the self in Angst. This stillness allows for the stance of Sein-lassen belonging to Heidegger’s model of truth as aletheia. By enduring and holding open Angst Da-sein is cleared and allows for possibilities to arise as they are by virtue of a total attunement to the world, or what I have characterized as an ontological occlusion. This interpretation of resolution is in

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line with Heidegger’s later account of resoluteness in “The Origin of the Work of Art,” a self-interpretation that, according to Michel Haar, does “hermeneutic violence.”17 There Heidegger writes: “The resoluteness intended in Being and Time is not the deliberate action of a subject but the opening up of a human being, out of its captivity in beings, to the openness of Being.”18 The violence Haar speaks of in Heidegger’s retrospective interpretation is linked to the widely held view that Heidegger’s endorsement of German National Socialism is rooted in his notion of resolution.19 Johannas Fritsche believes that the freedom for death that Heidegger speaks of in being-toward-death is the death of a soldier who must resolutely fight and be willing to die for Deutschland. He links Heidegger’s discussion of historicity in Being and Time to the rhetoric of politics definitive of Heidegger’s age and argues that Germans would have easily understood Heidegger’s call to take up the German destiny during the time of its publication.20 This debate is beyond the scope of this book. But the ontological underpinning that may support this tendency in Heidegger’s thinking is found in Heidegger’s configuration of the relation of Being to Da-sein in mood. In this configuration the whole of the being of Da-sein is mapped onto the whole of the being of the world and held together in mood. This existential identity of the world and Da-sein are fitted together in an ontological occlusion as the whole of Da-sein’s attunement to the whole of the being of the world. However, while this relation prereflectively bounds Da-sein inseparably to its world in mood, it simultaneously occludes, closes Da-sein off, from a relation to other worlds that it is not attuned or fitted for. I will discuss this twofold sense of occlusion more in the following two chapters in relation to Mitda-sein. Thus with the move towards resoluteness, Heidegger aims to cement a shift from a being-toward what is objectively present to a being-toward the nonpresent, concealed ground of meaning that releases and circumscribes possibilities. This shift, which signals the move from inauthenticity to authenticity, is made possible by deciding to relate to, expect, endure, demand, and embrace Angst. But because the transition from inauthenticity to authenticity is brought about by a decision on Da-sein’s part, some commentators have argued that it points to a lingering subjectivism in Being and Time that vanishes in Heidegger’s later writings, where it is Being that is the saving grace.21 However, to say that Angst must be chosen is to say that Da-sein must hold itself out into the nothing and endure this nothing as its ground—the groundless ground—from which it receives its possibilities and by which its possibilities are understood.22 This means that Da-sein must be still, holding back its subjective self-assertion so to allow beings and

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others to show themselves as they are from out of the world, the “truth of Being”, into which it has been thrown. The decision to endure Angst and hold open the nothing is therefore a choice to hold back the subjective self. This activity of holding back the self is of a passivity that is akin to the “trace of willing” that disappears in what the so-called later Heidegger states is the proper approach to “releasement,” “letting be,” and the “openness to the mystery” in his Memorial Address (1959). “[R]eleasement toward things and openness to the mystery never happen of themselves. They do not befall us accidentally. Both flourish only through persistent, courageous thinking.”23 This courageous or “meditative thinking does not just happen by itself any more than does calculative thinking. At times it requires a greater effort. It demands more practice.”24 In Conversation On a Country Path about Thinking (1959), Heidegger describes the practice of meditative thinking as a “waiting” and a willing of nonwilling.25 “Non-willing means, therefore: willingly to renounce willing.”26 This waiting is indeed akin to the stillness belonging to the holding open of the nothing and the enduring of Angst in Being and Time. In accepting death as its horizon, the indeterminate nothing circumscribes possibilities that are now no longer understood in terms of their objective presence, nor in terms of the interpretations of the They or the They-self, but in light of what gives to them presence—Being. Resoluteness, then, does not suggest to Da-sein any definite possibilities but only the world from which possibilities are to be understood and the certain manner or relation toward possibilities. To present and suggest possibilities is the business of inauthentic Da-sein. “On what is it to resolve? Only the resolution itself can answer this. It would be a complete misunderstanding of the phenomenon of resoluteness if one were to believe that it is simply a matter of respectively taking up possibilities presented and suggested” (298/275). Resoluteness, to the contrary, is a matter of taking up a world. In resoluteness, Da-sein “frees itself for its world” (298/274). Not the world of things but the authentic ground of the world into which Da-sein has been thrown. It is to this world that Da-sein is in a complete attunement with, an attunement that it brought into accord through the relations that it gives rise to once Da-sein is “in the truth.” Nevertheless, an understanding of this shift can only be guaranteed by Heidegger’s conception of truth as aletheia. Without “discovery,” which is the term Heidegger uses to discuss the activity of Da-sein’s relations to its possibilities, Da-sein is immobilized in Angst. Without aletheia there is no Da-sein, neither resolute nor irresolute. Only by virtue of possibilities can the undifferentiated and indeterminate nothing get determined as a

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ground, albeit an unbounded or groundless ground that is bounded by the possibilities and relations that it supports. “As self-understanding in one’s ownmost potentiality of being, wanting-to-have-a-conscience is a mode of disclosedness of Da-sein. . . . But the potentiality-of-being is understood only by existing in this possibility” (295/272). To exist in this possibility is to be with others amidst shared possibilities in a relation of disclosedness to discovery. “Being-true (truth) means to be discovering” (219/201). This is why Heidegger immediately introduces the notion of primordial truth, which characterizes both Da-sein’s disclosedness and the character of its relation to possibilities, after introducing Entschlossenheit. “With the phenomenon of resoluteness we were lead to the primordial truth of existence” (307/284). Once Da-sein is “in the truth,” it attests to the certainty of death and to the truth of this disclosure as its authenticity in resoluteness. “Now in resoluteness the most primordial truth of Da-sein has been reached, because it is authentic” (297/273). Indeed resoluteness leads directly to aletheia. Consequently, Heidegger identifies resoluteness with the truth. “[T]he analysis of anticipatory resoluteness led us to the phenomenon of primordial and authentic truth. . . . [P]rimordial and authentic truth must guarantee the understanding of the being of Da-sein and of being in general” (316/292). In resoluteness, then, the fantastical demand of being-toward-death is taken up as an actual mode of existing characterizing authentic Da-sein. “As authentic being a self, resoluteness does not detach Da-sein from its world, nor does it isolate it as free floating ego. . . . Resoluteness brings the self right into its being together with things at hand, actually taking care of them, and pushes it toward concerned being-with the others” (298/274). This concern for others happens in the yoking of Angst to aletheia where Da-sein comports itself to the groundless ground of the nothing and lets what presences come to be in its being-in-the-world with others amidst shared possibilities that are of concern to those mutually attuned. Moving out of its paralysis in Angst, Da-sein stands resolutely, “letting what presences in the surrounding world be encountered in action” (326/300). In letting what presences come to be from out of the world, Da-sein is in the truth discovering. “As a being that is disclosed and disclosing, and one that discovers, Da-sein is essentially, ‘in the truth’” (256/236). Aletheia brings the whole of the being of Da-sein back to its possibilities in discovery in such a way that the stillness of the holding open of Angst clears the being of Da-sein as an opening for possibilities wherein its relations to others will unfold. “In the summons, Da-sein gives itself to understand its ownmost-potentiality-of-being that is characterized by the relation of death

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to itself. Thus this calling is a keeping silent. The discourse in conscience never comes to utterance. Conscience only calls silently, that is, the call comes from the soundlessness of uncanniness and calls it to become still”27 (296/273). In the stillness of the nothing, Da-sein takes up the comportment of letting-be (Sein-lassen) belonging to aletheia. In this comportment Da-sein keeps open the character of possibility in its relation to beings, and especially to others, by encountering them through an understanding circumscribed by their ground where they may show themselves as they are in the stillness that comes with the holding open of the nothing and the holding back of the self.28 Later Heidegger will use the concept of Gelassenheit to characterize this stillness in Da-sein’s relation to Being. But before turning to the next chapter we must ask an obvious question. Why should Da-sein want or desire Angst, let alone pursue and hold it open as its ownmost possibility? The existentialist response is that Angst, the nothing, is at the root of human existence and once Da-sein has had the experience of Angst there is no turning away from the knowledge that existence is groundless. Authentic Da-sein must therefore constantly choose itself and in doing so it pays heed to the nothing that the Angst of being-toward-death discloses. Assuming full responsibility for its choices, Da-sein acknowledges that there is no ground to its possibilities aside from its own choosing. In complete opposition to this interpretation, Heidegger’s ontological response is that the holding open the nothing of Angst allows Being to “presence,” and allows Da-sein to respond to what shows itself, instead of to the projections of its world that are given to it by the interpretations of the They. This response is guided by Heidegger’s belief in the “historicity” of Da-sein and its world. What shows itself in an authentic understanding of Being are possibilities that belong to the world characterized by generations past and future generations yet to come. This world has been covered over by the machinations of the They and the hold that the understanding of Being as objective presence has gained over everyday thought and activity rendering only what is present in the “now” meaningful. Reversing this course of Metaphysics initiated by Plato is crucial for Heidegger. Indeed, the existentialist idea that humans can be the ground of their own choices and determine their own destiny is itself an outgrowth of technological thinking rooted in an understanding of Being as objective presence. Returning Da-sein back to the world as such is how Heidegger aims to free Da-sein from the grip of subjectivity and the consequences of technological existence that I discussed in Chapter 1. By dissolving the boundaries of subjectivity into the nothing of Angst and refiguring the self in relation to the possibilities that it understands on the basis of the ground of its being

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(the world)—the nothing—Heidegger conceives the self’s boundaries as integrally tied to the boundaries of the world and to other Da-seins. However, there can be no certainty without joining disclosedness to discovery, as in the projection of the nothing no possibilities are to be found. Yoking Angst to aletheia is the first step toward this reconfiguration of self in relation to its world and it is the precondition for finitude, which happens internal to the nothing by way of the relations that it gives rise to and circumscribes.29 In joining Angst to aletheia a new alliance to possibilities is established that links Da-sein’s self-understanding to its understanding of others and to its taking up of shared possibilities on the basis of its prereflective attunement to Being.

Chapter 4

Angst and Aletheia: Finitude and the Nondialectical Relation of Da-sein and Being

In the previous two chapters I argued that the totality of the being of Da-sein disclosed in being-toward-death and characterized by the nothing of Angst frees Da-sein not only from its inauthentic possibilities, as Heidegger intends, but from everyone of its possibilities all at once, including the possibility of its own self-relation, which necessitates a relation to the world. Being-toward-death exposes the whole of the being of world, emptied of significance and meaning, together with the whole of the being of Da-sein, uprooted from all of its relations and possibilities. In this “existential identity” where the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein are disclosed in their totality in the undifferentiated nothing of Angst, Da-sein stands in a paralysis. This is why Heidegger repeatedly states that Da-sein’s “ownmost possibility is nonrelational ” (263/243). In the resolute taking up of being-toward-death in being-guilty, stage two of Angst, the undifferentiated nothing of the identity of the whole of Da-sein and the whole of the world is configured temporally. The existentiales of being-toward-death and being-guilty are mapped onto the temporal ecstasies of the future and having-been, respectively. Temporality structures this relation of the nothing to itself as a future (being-toward-death, pro-ject) that comes toward a having-been (being-guilty, thrownness) whereby the present is both released and understood between this movement. This movement is characterized by a stillness, as temporality unfolds as a relation of the nothing to itself—an enduring of Angst. The temporality of Da-sein prepares for a certain kind of finitude where the nothing remains unbounded yet, paradoxically, is limited by the understanding that it bounds through the opening it creates for possibilities to show themselves. With the temporalization of the nothing, the “nonrelational” disclosure of stage one of Angst is overcome and death fulfills its demand to be “cultivated as possibility, and endured as possibility in our relation to it” (261/241).

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Temporality, then, clears the being of Da-sein as an individuated totality that is open as a ground for possibilities. Nevertheless, this individuation is characterized through and through by the undifferentiated nothing of Angst and is therefore boundless. And while Angst is resolutely taken up as a way of existing in being-guilty through the projection of the nothing in temporalization, it is still the nothing that is being related to in the unfolding of ecstatic temporality. For John Paul Sartre, this nothing signifies the rootlessness of all foundations and therefore frees the subject to create his or her own life situations independent of any external ground. For Heidegger, to the contrary, the world bounds the freedom of an individual Da-sein. The nothing is not an empty nothing, but rather points to the being of the world, the truth of Being. In being-toward-death I have shown that the boundaries of Da-sein’s subjectivity dissolve into the nothing together with the boundaries of the world in Angst. The foundation, therefore, is set to reconfigure the being of Da-sein along with the being of the world. This occurs in the reestablishment of Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities and to others as a being-in-the-world. Da-sein is put back into these relations with others and with its possibilities by aletheia, which structures and gives meaning to the temporalization of the nothing of being-toward-death and positions it as a ground. The possibilities that are circumscribed by being-toward-death in Angst are what point to the nothing as their ground. Still, possibilities do not arise from the nothing, neither from the future of being-toward-death, nor from the having-been of being-guilty. Yet, in order for Da-sein to exist authentically it must exist as a beingin-the-world and it must, therefore, be in a relation to possibilities and to others. “Summoning the they-self means calling forth the authentic self to its potentiality-of-being as Da-sein, that is, being-in-the-world taking care of things and being-with others” (280/258). By virtue of these relations, the undifferentiated nothing prereflectively manifests as the horizon of the world in Da-sein’s attunement to the world. In other words, without arising possibilities in the present given by the future that is in the process of a having-been, the temporal ecstasies of the future and having-been, both disclosed and characterized by the undifferentiated nothing of Angst, remain indistinguishable. In this undifferentiated nothing there is no movement; only nothing. It is by yoking Angst to aletheia that Heidegger takes Da-sein out of its paralysis in the nothing and back to being-in-the-world. The existential identity of the whole of the being of Da-sein and the whole of the being of the world in death are brought into an occlusion in the attunement of Angst

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to the whole of the world disclosed in the nothing. Aletheia is what brings the whole of the being of Da-sein into an accord with the whole of the being of the world. Indeed, truth underwrites the certainty of Da-sein’s being-toward-death as the groundless ground of all possibilities. Without truth, the certainty of being-toward-death cannot be guaranteed. “Holding death for true . . . Da-sein is certain of being-in-the-world” (265/244). Heidegger adamantly asserts that the empirical certainty of factical death “in no way” guarantees the existential “certainty” of being-toward-death (257/238). The existential and ontological certainty of being-toward-death lies in resolutely taking up death in being-guilty such that possibilities, including the possibility of Da-sein’s own self relation, are understood by virtue of its being-toward-death. Authenticity, therefore, lies in the yoking of Angst to aletheia, or in the relation of disclosedness to discovery. “The mode of being certain of it is determined by the truth (disclosedness) corresponding to it” (264/244). Indeed, the circumscribing of possibilities by the nothing is how beings are “let be” to show themselves as they are, free from subjective projection and objective reification, in the truth known as aletheia. By yoking Angst to aletheia Heidegger asserts the equiprimordiality of Da-sein’s disclosedness and its being-toward possibilities. “The being of Da-sein and its disclosedness belong equiprimordially to the discoveredness of innerworldly beings” (221/203). “Truth in its most primordial sense is the disclosedness of Da-sein to which belongs the discoveredness of innerworldly beings” (223/205). In discovery Da-sein manifests its prereflective, attuned understanding of truth in the relations that it has to its possibilities. Consequently, Heidegger asserts that truth must be understood as a way of being belonging to Da-sein. “Truth must be understood as a fundamental existential of Da-sein” (297/273). “Discovering is a way of being of beingin-the-world” (220/203). What is at stake, then, with regard to truth is the character and manner of Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities, to other Da-seins and to its own self. In what Da-sein cares for, concerns itself with and in what matters to Da-sein, the whole of its being is disclosed simultaneously with the whole of the being of the world. Truth, therefore, characterizes both the totality of Da-sein’s disclosedness, and the way in which this disclosedness is disclosed in Da-sein’s projection upon its possibilities. By virtue of its disclosedness Da-sein discovers beings, and already in its disclosedness is a relation of discovery to beings, to itself and to other Da-seins. Consequently, what defines existence as either authentic or inauthentic is the particular relation of disclosedness to discovery that reveals the manner of Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities, and therefore its prereflective understanding of Being.

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It should come as no surprise, then, to find that the criticism that Heidegger wages against the everyday understanding of truth is the same as that which he wages against both the everyday understanding of being-toward-death and being-guilty. Initially and for the most part, everyday Da-sein stands in an inauthentic relation to truth because it understands Being in the mode of objective presence. “But because objective presence is equated with the meaning of being in general, the question whether this kind of being of truth, and its initially encountered structure, are primordial or not can not arise at all” (225/207). Da-sein’s everyday, inauthentic prethematic understanding of Being as objective presence manifests itself in the projection upon leveled down possibilities. On the basis of this pre-reflective understanding of Being, Da-sein comports itself in a being-toward the manageable and calculable possibilities that are most readily available to it in its everyday being-in-theworld. In circumscribing its understanding of possibilities by the world given to it by the They and the They’s understanding of Being on the order of objective presence, primordial truth is covered over. “The understanding of being of Da-sein which was initially dominant, and still has not been overcome today in a fundamental and explicit way, itself covers over the primordial phenomenon of truth” (225/207 Heidegger’s emphasis). In section 44 of Being and Time, Heidegger sets out to uncover this primordial phenomenon of truth as aletheia. Aletheia, he claims, is the originary notion of truth that the preSocratics understood prior to Plato’s reversal. According to Heidegger, this notion of truth is the ontological basis of the everyday understanding of truth as correspondence. “Our analysis starts from (a) the traditional concept of truth and attempts to lay bare its ontological foundations. In terms of these foundations the primordial phenomenon of truth becomes visible. On the basis of this, (b) the derivativeness of the traditional concept of truth can be indicated” (214/197).

The Ontological Foundation of the Everyday Understanding of Truth The traditional concept of truth that Heidegger seeks the ontological foundations for is propositional truth. Propositional truth is based on an agreement (adaequatio) between the knowledge of something asserted in a proposition and the thing or matter that the proposition refers to in the world. “The essence of truth lies in the ‘agreement’ of the judgment with its object” (214/198). Working, then, to arrive at the ontological foundation of this everyday understanding of truth as agreement, Heidegger gives the

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example of a picture hanging on the wall that one judges to be crooked. To verify this judgment Da-sein checks it with the actual picture on the wall. Here the demonstration of the veracity of the judgment falls upon the speaker who turns to see if indeed the picture is hanging crookedly on the wall. The judgment is true if a correspondence exists between the judgment and the fact or reality represented in that judgment. When an agreement is demonstrated between the statement and the object of the statement one is said to have knowledge of the truth. Therefore the “‘locus’” of the traditional model of truth lies in the judgment that either is, or is not, in a correspondence with that which the judgment is about (214/198). The locus of truth lies in the assertion of a statement made by a subject about an object. But Heidegger underscores, with respect to the above example, that what comes into a relation under the aegis of propositional truth are not two representations, one captured in the statement and the other of an image of what is seen on the wall. “What one has in mind is the real picture and nothing else” (217/201). This is because, according to Heidegger, what is captured in the statement is a not an object, but rather Da-sein’s “beingtoward” that which the statement is about. What is spoken about is understood in its enrootedness in the world and its relations arising from out of this world. As Heidegger points out in his reading of Plato’s “Allegory of the cave,” what the freed prisoner sees through the “yoking” of sight to the truth revealed by the idea is accompanied by an education in the soul that reorients the prisoner’s being to a different ground of truth that makes possible the sighting of what is seen through Plato’s idea.1 This emphasis on Da-sein’s being as a “being-toward” is at the root of Heidegger’s conception of Da-sein as a being-in-the-world that has a prereflective understanding of Being and is at the root of the ontological understanding of truth. Da-sein does not name an isolated and independent self that then acts in the world or relates to its possibilities. Da-sein is the very relation that it has to its possibilities, in the above example, it is the relation that it has to the picture on the wall. The ontological foundation of the everyday understanding of truth for Heidegger, therefore, rests not in the subject’s ability to reach out to an object, or to know whether this object is as it is represented to, or by, the subject. The ontological foundation of the everyday understanding of truth is characterized by a being-toward, a relation of knowing to what is known. The everyday understanding of truth thinks of this relation as one between two objects: a statement and what the statement is about. Heidegger points out, to the contrary, that the relation of agreement is epiphenomenal and

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dependent upon a prior relation. This prior relation that characterizes the ontological basis of truth is rooted in Da-sein’s being-toward or attunement to the world, which circumscribes the meaning of what is captured in the assertion. What is captured in a statement about something is therefore Da-sein’s being-toward that something by way of its prereflective beingtoward the world and not the thing in its isolation, or objectivity. “Making statements is a being toward the existing thing itself” (218/201). Repeating as true something that Da-sein has not seen, or recycling the opinions of the They by reiterating its interpretations, are only two ways that Da-sein may be in a being-toward matters by virtue of its being-toward the world where these issues have relevance and are of concern. “Even when Da-sein repeats what has been said, it comes into a being toward the very beings that have been discussed” (224/206). Therefore the ontological foundation of propositional truth lies not in the agreement between the statement and the thing, as generally presupposed. Agreement between the proposition and the thing referred to is secondary and based upon a prior relation. What makes a correspondence or an agreement possible in the first place is Da-sein’s being-toward, or prereflective attunement to the world. Thus what Heidegger finds to belong to every model of truth as its “essence” is the structure of a relation. “The agreement of something with something has the formal character of the relation of something to something. Every agreement, and thus ‘truth’ as well, is a relation. But not every relation is an agreement” (251/199). What determines Da-sein’s authenticity or inauthenticity, then, is the character of Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities based in its attuned understanding, or being-toward the ground of its possibilities. When Da-sein passes over the being of the world in projecting upon the leveled down possibilities given to it by the referential relations of the They, it is in “untruth.” Inauthentic Da-sein covers over the ground of its being and attunes itself instead to the tangible and manageable things that are understood on the order of objective presence. This is why in the relation characterizing the everyday understanding of propositional truth both the proposition and the thing referred to are reduced to the status of objects. When the statement has been expressed, the discoveredness of beings moves into the kind of being of innerworldly things at hand. But to the extent that in this discoveredness, as a discoveredness of . . ., a relation to things objectively present persists, discoveredness (truth) in its turn becomes an objectively present relation between objectively present things (intellectus et res). (225/206)

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When the relation is between the judgment and the thing referred to in isolation from the ground of truth, truth is reduced to the order of objective presence. In being-toward what is objectively present captured in the judgment, both parties of the relation exist on the plane of objectivity, passing over Being. “The statement is something at hand. The beings to which it has a discovering relation are innerworldy things at hand or objectively present. Thus the relation presents itself as something objectively present” (224/206). This inauthentic understanding of truth as a correspondence between objectively present things is the basic condition of Da-sein thrown into a world determined by the They who understand Being as objective presence. “Because it essentially falls prey to the world, Da-sein is in ‘untruth’ in accordance with its constitution of being” (222/204). “The existential and ontological condition for the fact that being-in-the-world is determined by ‘truth’ and ‘untruth’ lies in the constitution of being of Da-sein which we characterized as thrown project” (223/205). Taken in by the world of the They that is understood in terms of its objectivity, inauthentic Da-sein relates to itself and to others in the same manner as it relates to objectively present things.2 The advantage to this mode of existence is that Da-sein gains a sense of subjective certainty as it simultaneously relates to fixed and measured possibilities that have been given their status and meaning by the calculations of the They. The disadvantage, according to Heidegger, is that what escapes objectification, Being, the world, the nothing, the being of others, Da-sein’s own being, is passed over as insignificant. “Every mystery loses its power” in the They’s leveling down of possibilities (127/119). Being-toward-death returns Da-sein to the mystery, to the nonobjective groundless ground of its being. In the relation of death to itself in being-guilty Da-sein shifts its attunement away from objectively present things to the nothing. In the relation of the nothing of Angst to aletheia, this nothing gets taken-up as a ground that shows itself through the relations that aletheia structures, as we shall now see.

Truth and Being The significance of truth to the overall project of Being and Time lies in how it reveals Da-sein’s understanding of Being by virtue of the relations that it structures (later Heidegger will amend the text of Being and Time to introduce the notion of the “truth of Being,” see 35/31). “From time immemorial, philosophy has associated truth with being” (212/196). And this is because “being actually ‘goes together’ with truth” (213/197). “‘There is’ [Es gibt] being—not beings—only insofar as truth is. And truth is only

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because and as long as Da-sein is. Being and truth ‘are’ equiprimordially” (230/211). Truth is the way in which Being is made manifest through the manner of relations, or discovery, that Da-sein is engaged with in its beingin-the-world. As the ground of all beings, Da-sein has a prereflective understanding of Being that is revealed in its being-toward beings and relations towards others. In “what initially and for the most part shows itself,” Being is there. (35/31). This is why Being and truth are inseparable. Being is the ground of the beings discovered in truth, and Being is the ground of Da-sein’s disclosedness by virtue of which it discovers beings in its being-inthe-world. Being shows itself in the possibilities that it grounds, in the relation of Da-sein’s disclosedness to its discovery. And truth shows the character of Da-sein’s understanding of its possibilities, which is rooted in its prereflective understanding of Being. Thus in the truth, the ontic and ontological, the existentiell and existential, come together in Da-sein’s relation to beings and to others rooted in its attunement to Being. Indeed, from the beginning of Western Philosophy onwards, Heidegger consistently argues, Being and truth have been integrally related to each. “In ontological problematics, being and truth have been brought together since ancient times, if not identified. This documents the necessary connection of being and understanding, although perhaps concealed in its primordial grounds” (183/172). Under the auspices of truth, then, Da-sein relates to its possibilities, and in this relation it reveals its preconceptual understanding of Being. “But if ‘there is’ [es gibt] being only when truth ‘is,’ and if the understanding of being always varies according to the kind of truth, then primordial and authentic truth must guarantee the understanding of the being of Da-sein and of being in general” (316/292). Truth is therefore integral to the understanding of Being, and it is also inseparable from the being of Da-sein. “Da-sein expresses itself; itself—as a being-toward beings that discovers” (224/205). Truth, or discovery characterizes the how of Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities. “With and through it is discoveredness; thus only with the disclosedness of Da-sein is the most primordial phenomenon of truth attained . . . In that Da-sein essentially is its disclosedness, and, as disclosed, discloses and discovers, it is essentially ‘true.’ Da-sein is in the truth” (221/203). As I have argued in the previous chapters, without possibilities, without discovery, or truth, there is no Being and there is no Da-sein. There is only nothing. Truth therefore puts Da-sein back into a relation to beings and to others through discovery. This is why Heidegger says that truth underwrites the certainty of Da-sein’s being-toward-death and, consequently, the possibility of the nothing being projected as a ground. Yet at the same time,

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Heidegger implies on numerous occasions that truth, and by extension Being, is dependent upon Da-sein. Statements he has made to this effect have fueled the subject-centered interpretation of Da-sein in Being and Time that I have been arguing against. But truth means discoveredness of beings. All discoveredness, however, is ontologically based in the most primordial truth, in the disclosedness of Da-sein. (256/236) Being-true as discovering is in turn ontologically possible only on the basis of being-in-the-world. This phenomenon, in which we recognized a basic constitution of Da-sein, is the foundation of the primordial phenomenon of truth. (219/201) [O]nly so long as Da-sein is, that is, as long as there is the ontic possibility of understanding being, “is there” [gibt es] being. (212/196) Attempting to combat the plethora of misinterpretations of this latter passage, Heidegger underscores in his “Letter on Humanism” (1946) that “The sentence does not say that Being is the product of man.”3 He continues: “Being is illuminated for man in the ecstatic projection [entwurf]. But this projection does not create Being.”4 Indeed, as Da-sein’s project is null throughout, characterized by the nothing, it cannot be said to determine Being, or anything at all. Rather the nothing clears an opening for Being to show itself by virtue of the possibilities that it reveals. Still, it is important to guard against the subjectivist interpretation of Da-sein that asserts that Heidegger reduces truth and Being to the being of Da-sein.5 William Blattner claims that in Being and Time Heidegger puts forth a “subjectivist” notion of Da-sein and Being because the understanding that Da-sein has of its possibilities is “embedded in Da-sein’s comportment.”6 Despite the fact that Heidegger does not reduce the meaning of beings to the decision of Da-sein, Blattner believes that he does reduce Being to Da-sein’s disclosedness and therefore may be regarded as privileging subjectivity. “My basic suggestion is this: Heidegger’s early philosophy of being is focused in his ontological idealism, the thesis that being (but not entities) depends on Da-sein.”7 Thus he concludes that Heidegger may be categorized by his “temporal idealism” and his “ontological idealism” because “being depends on Da-sein.”8 John Haugeland also argues that ontical truth is independent of Da-sein. Da-sein’s comportment is “beholden to the entities toward which they are comportments.”9 Nevertheless he, like Blattner, claims that “ontological truth” is

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under the domain of Da-sein since the being of entities belongs to Da-sein’s disclosure.10 “Discovery of entities does indeed presuppose—hence is ‘relative’ to—Da-sein’s disclosure of their being (or a ‘paradigm’), which is historical. But whether a way of life with its ontical comportments works or not is not ultimately up to Da-sein, either individually or historically.”11 Therefore both Blattner and Haugeland argue that Heidegger is an ontological idealist because Being is dependent on the disclosedness of Da-sein, but that he is not an ontical idealist because Da-sein does not determine the meaning of beings. Indeed, Heidegger does not claim that those matters that we judge to be true are dependent upon human perception and investigation. For example, Newton’s laws of motion are not false or meaningless without human recognition. Nor could one claim that these laws did not exist prior to Newton’s discovery. The laws are only said to have come into the framework of truth through Newton’s formulation of them and their cultural acceptance. “As we have noted, being (not beings) is dependent upon the understanding of being, that is, reality (not the real) is dependent upon care” (212/196). Here Heidegger admits that Being is dependent upon Da-sein. He also states clearly that without Da-sein truth as we know and use it would have no purpose. “Before there was any Da-sein, there was no truth; nor will there be any after Da-sein is no more” (226/208). Nevertheless, the charge of ontological idealism that Blattner and Haugeland accuse Heidegger of is false. Being and Da-sein are interdependent. This interdependency is laid out by the existential identity of the whole of the being of Da-sein with the whole of the being of the world in being-towarddeath, a whole that is unbounded and characterized by the nothing, that is, by the possibilities that are grounded by this whole. While Heidegger does, in fact, join the fate of Da-sein’s disclosedness to the disclosedness of Being, he does not reduce Being to the subjectivity of Da-sein. This reading is rooted in a failure to adequately account for the phenomenon of Angst, and the Mitda-sein of Da-sein. Being is not subordinate to the being of a particular Da-sein because in the ground of Da-sein’s being as being-toward-death there is no subjective Da-sein to speak of. The whole of Da-sein and the whole of the world are disclosed in an undifferentiated totality in the nothing of Angst. Therefore, Heidegger does not subscribe to temporal idealism or to ontological idealism. The temporal disclosure of Da-sein that constitutes its projection upon possibilities is characterized by the unbounded nothing. The structure of Da-sein’s temporality is null project throughout. As such, the subjectivity of Da-sein does not determine its possibilities nor does it determine Being. Rather, both the selfhood of Da-sein and its prereflective understanding of Being are

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dependent upon the relations that are actualized in the attunement of Da-sein to its world. In the holding open of Angst in temporality, Da-sein is a clearing, characterized by the groundless ground of the nothing. This ground, however, is not determined by a particular Da-sein, it is determined by Da-sein’s relation to its possibilities, and its relations with others. In the temporality of the present, which is circumscribed by the projection of the nothing, Da-sein’s attunement to its world is manifest in the understanding that Da-sein has of its possibilities and its being-with others. Indeed, Da-sein’s own self-understanding is dependent upon this attunement. Thus what reveals itself in the present belongs first to the world and to Da-sein’s relations in the world before it belongs to any one particular Da-sein, as the individual selfhood of Da-sein happens alongside its relations in the world with others. We will now see how the whole of the being of Da-sein and the whole of the being of the world are brought into an occlusion (fitted together) through the relation of Da-sein’s disclosedness in Angst to its discovery of possibilities in truth.

The Primordial Meaning of Truth as Aletheia in Being and Time and “On the Essence of Truth” Heidegger argues that the essence of truth lies in the notion of a relation. Truth, or discovery is defined by “a discoveredness of . . ., a relation to” (225/206). In the traditional model of propositional truth the relation is between two objectively present things: a statement and what is referred to in the statement. With the concept of aletheia, Heidegger introduces a different kind of relation to possibilities that complements Da-sein’s disclosedness in Angst. Heidegger’s conception of truth as aletheia arises from what he says is “the oldest tradition of ancient philosophy” that originates with the early Greeks. Aletheia, he claims, is the ontological foundation of the everyday understanding of propositional truth. However, referring to his discussion of truth in Being and Time in “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking” (1964), Heidegger admits that raising the question of aletheia is not the same as raising the question of truth. “For this reason, it was inadequate and misleading to call aletheia in the sense of opening, truth.”12 Heidegger is also forced to acknowledge that the ancient Greeks prior to Plato did not have an understanding of truth as aletheia, as he had always claimed.13 Nevertheless, he continues to maintain that aletheia, understood as “the opening of self-concealing” that grants presence to what is unconcealed, is

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the precondition for any model of truth and belongs primordially to the relation of Da-sein and Being.14 Essentially, Heidegger maintains that for there to be any kind of truth wherein beings are to be put into a relation, for example, of agreement, there must be a manifestation of beings. Da-sein’s disclosedness, which entails its relation to Being, is the possibility for such a manifestation. Still, by declaring that it was wrong to claim in Being and Time that aletheia is the root of the correspondence theory of truth, Heidegger confesses that he does not arrive at the interpretation of truth as aletheia by adhering to his phenomenological method wherein aletheia is found to lie at the basis of the everyday understanding of propositional truth. However, this fact only underscores Heidegger’s commitment to aletheia, which is the model of truth that he upholds throughout all of his writings. It also testifies to the significance of the nothing disclosed in Angst, as aletheia demands an attunement to the nothing and away from objective presence so that Da-sein’s relations may take the form of a “letting be” (seinlassen) belonging to aletheia. In Being and Time Heidegger does little more than lay out the skeleton of his notion of truth. Nevertheless, there he does refer to aletheia’s essential features: “concealment,” “unconcealment” and the stance of “letting-be.” These aspects are the keystone to understanding Heidegger’s notion of aletheia and are the foundation of every discussion of truth that Heidegger embarks upon after Being and Time. Ernst Tugendhat, who has written one of the most influential articles on Heidegger’s notion of truth, which I will return to below, agrees: “the essential decisions, those which remain fundamental for everything that follows, are already taken here [in Being and Time] and can therefore best be grasped here.”15 In “On the Essence of Truth” (1943), where Heidegger expands upon the meaning of aletheia, he supports this claim stating that the decisive steps are accomplished in Being and Time through a challenge to the reign of subjectivity in the shift from a focus on beings back to the ground of beings understood as aletheia. The decisive question (in Being and Time, 1927) of the meaning of, that is, of the project-domain (see p. 151), that is, of the openness, that is, of the truth of Being and not merely of beings, remains intentionally undeveloped . . .. Nevertheless, in its decisive steps, which lead from truth as correctness to ek-sistent freedom, and from the latter to truth as concealing and as errancy, it accomplishes a change in the questioning that belongs to the overcoming of metaphysics.16 Indeed, Heidegger does not hide the fact that his entire project in Being and Time is guided by the “presupposition” of truth. “Why must we

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presuppose that there is truth? . . . ‘We’ presupposes truth because, ‘we,’ existing in the kind of being of Da-sein, are ‘in the truth’” (227/209). Still, while Heidegger indicates the way to the truth of Being in his discussion of aletheia in Being and Time, it remains undeveloped there. It may therefore be helpful to draw on Heidegger’s later essay “On the Essence of Truth” to situate the meaning of truth as aletheia first introduced in Being and Time. At the same time, however, what Heidegger says about truth in that essay has its roots in his discussion of Da-sein’s authentic disclosedness in Being and Time. Therefore, it is not only this later essay, where a “turn” in Heidegger’s thinking is presumably made, that will help to shed light on his notion of aletheia developed in Being and Time. I will equally draw on Being and Time to help clarify the ideas discussed in this essay on truth and to show the significance of Angst in making sense of the general meaning of the truth of Being and its relation to the being of Da-sein. Just as in Being and Time, Heidegger argues in “On the Essence of Truth” that aletheia belongs to the root of Western thinking on truth. Aletheia, he claims, “contains the directive to rethink the ordinary concept of truth in the sense of the correctness of statements and to think it back to the still uncomprehended disclosedness and disclosure of beings.”17 In Being and Time, Heidegger identifies the notion of a relation as the lynch pin that identifies all modes of truth. In “On the Essence of Truth” he continues to seek out the one thing that distinguishes every form of truth as truth and arrives at the same conclusion. “The essence of the correspondence is determined rather by the kind of relation that obtains between the statement and the thing. As long as this ‘relation’ remains undetermined and is not grounded in its essence, all dispute over the possibility and impossibility, over the nature and degree, of the correspondence loses its way in a void.”18 In an attempt, then, to “transpose us in advance into the originally essential domain of truth” Heidegger searches after the meaning of this relation belonging to the primordial concept of truth.19 For the purposes of this discussion I will talk about truth, which equally belongs both to Da-sein and to Being, with respect first to Da-sein then to Being. On the side of Da-sein, truth names an openness that is characterized by an attunement that designates Da-sein’s comportment to, or being-toward Being, the world, beings, itself and others. Openness belongs to comportment and comportment, or attunement, is always both a being-toward something and at the same time, and more primordially, a being toward “being as a whole,” or Being, the ground of all possibilities. “Comportment stands open to beings. Every open relatedness is a comportment.”20 Heidegger portrays this open relatedness belonging to comportment by the stance of letting-be. “Freedom for what

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is opened up in an open region lets beings be the beings they are. Freedom now reveals itself as letting beings be.”21 Allowing beings to presence in unconcealment through the openness of Da-sein’s comportment to the ground of beings is how Da-sein lets beings be as a “way of comportment” belonging to aletheia.22 Heidegger explains that letting-be is not a mode of “indifference,” nor is it a mode of “neglect.” “To let be is to engage oneself with beings.”23 To engage with beings in the manner of letting-be means Da-sein “withdraws in the face of beings in order that they might reveal themselves with respect to what and how they are.”24 This withdrawal characterizes human freedom and comportment as being “free for what is opened up in an open region.”25 “Freedom now reveals itself as letting beings be.”26 It “is engagement in the disclosure of beings as such.”27 And this engagement is possible only by virtue of a beingtoward beings as a whole, or Being. Indeed, this freedom speaks to an ease with which Da-sein engages in its relations by being in an attunement with the whole of the being of the world. Freedom, comportment and letting be come together in the ek-sistent disclosure of Da-sein in relation to its possibilities. “Ek-sistence, rooted in truth as freedom, is exposure to the disclosedness of beings as such.”28 Here we can already see how being-toward-death in Angst makes possible the withdrawal of self-assertion that allows for the stance of letting-be belonging to aletheia in a comportment to the nothing. On the side of truth, or Being, the open is characterized by “being as a whole” and “beings as a whole.” “[T]ruth is disclosure of beings through which an openness essentially unfolds [west].”29 This openness, which also belongs to Da-sein, is the region wherein beings show themselves. And as Being is not itself a being the disclosure of “being as a whole” is not measurable and it cannot be calculated. “[F]rom the point of view of everyday calculations and preoccupations this ‘as a whole’ appears to be incalculable and incomprehensible. It cannot be understood on the basis of the beings opened up in any given case, whether they belong to nature or to history.”30 This is why Being is characterized by the nothing and is concealed as the ground of all possibilities. What Heidegger stresses here is that the concepts and tools belonging to rationality cannot capture or describe Being. However beings as a whole, including the totality of Da-sein’s relations, do point to Being and to its presence in this whole. Being shows itself in the manner of relations that hold together beings as a whole. Heidegger characterizes this bringing together by the term “accord” (stimmen) which means attunement. Being brings beings “into definite accord, still it remains indefinite, indeterminable.”31

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Thus in the openness of truth, beings are unconcealed, they are brought into the open. But not all beings are unconcealed at once. Only “this or that being” that Da-sein comports itself toward.32 Still, truth belongs to Being and Being is the ground of the understanding of “beings as such as a whole,” and not just this or that being, or the ground of this or that understanding belonging to a particular Da-sein.33 Concealment belongs to truth as the dark side of the open. In Da-sein’s comportment to a particular being lies Da-sein’s comportment to Being as such, and therefore to the whole of beings and, consequently, to the whole of Being. In authentically relating to any one particular being, Da-sein is relating to the ground of the whole of the possible relations of meaning belonging to the world and so to “being as a whole.” Therefore the unconcealment of a particular being has the effect of unconcealing beings as a whole, and of concealing beings as a whole at the same time. “Precisely because letting be always lets beings be in a particular comportment that relates to them and thus discloses them, it conceals beings as a whole.”34 Da-sein engages with the concealment of truth every time it discloses or unconceals beings in its relation to “being as a whole” and “beings as a whole.” “Letting-be is intrinsically at the same time a concealing. In the ek-sistent freedom of Da-sein a concealing of being as a whole propriates [ereignet sich]. Here there is concealment.”35 Concealment, being as a whole, is therefore at the ground of all beings, including the being of Da-sein. Under the aegis of truth, beings are brought into an accord with each other and Da-sein is brought into an attuned accord with beings. “Man’s comportment is brought into definite accord throughout by the openedness of being as a whole.”36 Thus, the link between Da-sein and aletheia is characterized by the accord between Da-sein’s openness and the openness characterizing “being as a whole.” This accord shows itself in Da-sein’s relations to possibilities and being-with others in the manner of letting-be. Attunement joins together the open region of truth where beings are discovered along with others, with the open belonging to Da-sein’s comportment to the concealment of truth. “As this letting-be it exposes itself to beings as such and transposes all comportment into the open region. Letting-be, i.e., freedom, is intrinsically exposing, ek-sistent. Considered in regard to the essence of truth, the essence of freedom manifests itself as exposure to the disclosedness of beings.”37 As “Ek-sistent,” Da-sein comports itself to the open region whereby beings arise out of the free stance of letting-be. In this comportment, Da-sein is itself the open. Withdrawing all sense of its particularity, Da-sein stands as the clearing for possibilities to show themselves as they are, enrooted in a

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world, and lets beings be. “To let-be, that is, to let beings be as the beings which they are—means to engage oneself with the open region and its openness into which every being comes to stand, bringing that openness, as it were, along with itself.”38 In bringing the openness along with it in its comportment toward beings, Da-sein preserves the openness and the concealment belonging to truth by holding itself open in the stance of letting-be. This is how Da-sein engages with beings and with the open—in holding itself open. “Disclosedness itself is conserved in ek-sistent engagement, through which the openness of the open region, i.e., the ‘there’ [‘Da’], is what it is.”39 This holding open of the openness of truth is reminiscent of the holding open of the nothing of Angst in Being and Time that discloses the openness of the world in the enduring, relating, and readiness for Angst in resoluteness and wanting to have a conscience. But when Heidegger poses the question regarding the actual relationship of Da-sein to the concealment of truth in “On the Essence of Truth,” his answer is blatantly mystifying. What conserves letting-be in this relatedness to concealing? Nothing less than the concealing of what is concealed as a whole, of beings as such, i.e., the mystery; not a particular mystery regarding this or that, but rather the one mystery—that, in general, mystery (the concealing of what is concealed) as such holds sway through man’s Da-sein.40 Heidegger does not describe what this concealing that holds sway “through man’s Da-sein” and belongs to truth is, or how it happens. But he does say how it does not happen. [T]o reside in what is readily available is intrinsically not to let the concealing of what is concealed hold sway. Certainly, among readily familiar things there are also some that are puzzling, unexplained, undecided, questionable. But these self-certain questions are merely transitional, intermediate points in our movement within the readily familiar and thus not essential.41 As in Being and Time where Heidegger also associates the forgetting of Being with the kind of familiarity belonging to everydayness, in the essay under discussion familiarity is rooted in not letting the concealing of what conceals holds sway. To explain the holding sway that takes over Da-sein and brings it into an accord with the concealment of “being as a whole,” Heidegger draws upon the notion of attunement. “Letting beings be, which is an attuning, a bringing into accord, prevails throughout and anticipates all the

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open comportment that flourishes in it. Man’s comportment is brought into definite accord throughout by the openedness of being as a whole.”42 In the proper attunement, then, Da-sein comes into an accord with being as a whole. The concealed ground that gives meaning to all that is unconcealed in Da-sein’s projection upon its possibilities is, therefore, manifest to Da-sein in attunement. “As engagement in the disclosure of being as a whole as such, freedom has already attuned all comportment to being as a whole.”43 Heidegger is careful to stress that attunement should not be interpreted in a manner that would support the idea of a self, as if it were a quality adhering to a subject. However, being attuned (attunement) can never be understood as “experience” and “feeling,” because it is thereby simply deprived of its essence. For here it is interpreted on the basis of something (“life” and soul”) that can maintain the semblance of the title of essence only as long as it bears in itself the distortion and misinterpretation of being attuned.44 Attunement does not arise from the depths of a self, but is what first gives rise to a self. It is always together with the world to which Da-sein is attuned. “Being attuned, i.e., ek-sistent exposedness to beings as a whole, can be ‘experienced’ and ‘felt’ only because the ‘man who experiences,’ without being aware of the essence of the attunement, is always engaged in being attuned in a way that discloses beings a whole.”45 Essentially, the debate about whether Heidegger undergoes a turn in his thinking from a subjectivism in Being and Time to an emphasis on the influence of Being in his later writings may be cast as a question about attunement. Is it Da-sein or the concealment belonging to truth that is doing the attuning to being as a whole? The early Heidegger, it is said, leaves it up to Da-sein to attune itself to the world. In the later Heidegger, as the above quotations indicate, it is Being that is doing the attuning. Without being aware of it “man” is “being attuned in a way that discloses beings as a whole.” However, as I have shown, in Being and Time the interdependency of Da-sein and Being is also established through the dependence of both upon possibilities that allow Being to show itself through Da-sein’s attunement. But I have been claiming not only that the thinking of the later Heidegger is found in Being and Time, but also that this early work helps to explain the thinking in his later writings on the relationship between Da-sein and Being, specifically with regard to the holding back of the self that is a requisite for the letting-be belonging to aletheia. This holding back can most clearly be made sense of through the enduring of the nothing in the cultivation of Angst, as I have described it.

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While Heidegger brings in attunement to try to explain the relationship of humans to Being as a whole in “On the Essence of Truth,” he merely asserts the relationship as one of openness. In Being and Time we see more clearly how it is that attunement may gain access to “being as a whole,” and how by way of the attunement of Angst Da-sein stands in a comportment characterized by the letting-be of truth belonging to aletheia. Indeed, the openness of Da-sein and truth referred to in “On the Essence of Truth” has its correlate in the clearedness of Da-sein introduced in Being and Time and in Da-sein’s being as “not being closed” (132/125). This openness is made possible by Angst, which clears the being of Da-sein in exposing it to the nothing of its there divorced from all relations, including Da-sein’s own self-relation and being-with others. But can we transport this openness, this clearedness that exposes the totality of authentic Da-sein in the temporal unfolding of its ecstasies to Being in general? Yes, because the being of the world is included in the being of Da-sein disclosed in an existential identity characterized by the nothing of being-toward-death.

Angst and Aletheia In his “Letter on Humanism” (1946) Heidegger explains that the meaning of “existence” in Being and Time is Da-sein as the clearing of Being. “On the contrary the sentence says: man occurs essentially in such a way that he is the ‘there’ [das ‘Da’], that is, the clearing of Being. The ‘Being’ of the Da, and only it, has the fundamental character of ek-sistence, that is, of an ecstatic inherence in the truth of Being.”46 I have claimed that the notion of a clearing for the presencing of Being is first developed in Being and Time through the temporalization of Angst, which “clears the There primordially” (351/321). Moreover, it is in Being and Time that one may understand most clearly how Being may presence to Da-sein in the holding open of the nothing. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the role of the attunement of Angst in bridging together the relation of disclosedness to discovery in Being and Time, as well as how Angst opens the way for the comportment of letting-be belonging to aletheia that positions Da-sein as the recipient of Being in Heidegger’s later writings. Da-sein stands as the clearing of Being in its resoluteness to cultivate and to endure the nothing of Angst. This decision allows Da-sein to let beings be in the holding open of Angst. Letting beings be from out of the stillness that the relation of the nothing to itself indicates, frees Da-sein from its assertion of subjectivity. In keeping the self back in the holding open of the nothing, Da-sein engages with Being as a whole. This engagement is an

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attunement. Temporally holding apart the ecstasies of the future and having been creates an opening for Being. In this attuned holding open of Angst a clearing is cleared for Being to presence. This is what it means to “want to have a conscience,” it is the readiness to “hold open the constant absolute threat” of the nothing disclosed in Angst (265–266/245). Circumscribed by the groundless ground of the nothing of Angst, possibilities are let-be to show themselves as they are from out of the open region of the truth. Letting be is how beings presence from out of a concealment that belongs to the primordial notion of truth as aletheia. To be in the truth discovering means “to let beings be seen in their unconcealment (discoveredness), taking them out of their concealment” (219/202). In the directional holding apart of the ecstasies of temporality, an opening is created for possibilities to show themselves from out of the groundless ground of the nothing. Holding apart the temporal ecstasies is characterized by an enduring of the nothing, which is the possibility for the world to manifest itself in the relations that it grounds. This enduring in stillness is how Da-sein prereflectively attunes itself to the being of the world as a whole, which is prior to its individual selfhood. On the basis of this prereflective attunement, Da-sein is in a prereflective being-toward the (concealed) ground of its possibilities. [T]he project character of understanding means that understanding does not thematically grasp that upon which it projects, the possibilities themselves. Such a grasp precisely takes its character of possibility away from what is projected, it degrades it to the level of a given, intended content, whereas in projecting project throws possibility before itself as possibility, and as such lets it be. As projecting, understanding is the mode of being in which it is its possibilities as possibilities. (145/136) Thus in letting beings be, Da-sein is not exclusively in a being-toward possibilities themselves, but in a being-toward the ground of possibilities—the groundless ground that circumscribes its understanding on the basis of which it will come to itself as a self through its relations with others. Da-sein takes over being its own ground when it is in the truth projecting upon possibilities in the relation of disclosedness to discovery. In the truth, then, in projecting upon possibilities, Da-sein is in a being-toward the ground of its possibilities. “In projectedness of its being upon the for-the-sake-of-which together with that upon significance (world) lies the disclosedness of being in general” (147/138). Referring to Being and Time in his “Letter on Humanism,” Heidegger corrects the misinterpretation of projection as a

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projection of the self-assertion of subjectivity and explains it as the opening out to the clearing of Being. If we understand what Being and Time calls “projection” as a representational positing, we take it to be an achievement of subjectivity and do not think it in the only way the “understanding of Being” in the context of the “existential analysis” of “being-in-the-world” can be thought—namely as the ecstatic relation to the clearing of Being.47 In Being and Time possibilities are thus authentically understood as possibilities and not as objectively present things because the understanding that grasps these possibilities, or that circumscribes them, is a projection of the nothing—a holding open of Angst. This kind of a relation to possibilities that occurs simultaneously with a holding back of subjectivity, Heidegger characterizes as a letting be. No longer directed toward objectively present things, or the distractions and interpretations of the They, Da-sein lets its possibilities be as they are from out of the ground of its being—the nothing, the world as such. But what does it mean to base truth on a letting be? And in what way is one able to distinguish between the validity or falsehood of a situation through the stance of letting be belonging to the stillness of the enduring of Angst?

The Finitude of Being and Da-sein Heidegger’s notion of truth has come under keen criticism by Ernst Tugendhat in his influential article “Heidegger’s Idea of Truth.” Tugendhat argues that Heidegger does not provide any insight into the traditional concept of truth but instead puts forth a new meaning of truth as uncovering or unconcealment.48 The problem that Tugendhat identifies with this new model of truth is that, for Heidegger, both what is true and what is untrue, are equally unconcealed or disclosed. He therefore finds it impossible to critically distinguish between the way in which something shows itself to Da-sein as unconcealed, and the distinctive way it might appear “as it actually manifests itself.”49 Tugendhat surmises that the only way that one might be able to distinguish between truth and untruth on this model is in a “quantitative” way, that is, with respect to the degree of uncoveredness.50 Thus he concludes: “there remains absolutely no possibility of determining the specific sense of falsehood, and therefore also of truth” because essentially everything that Da-sein uncovers and concerns itself with becomes a

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form of truth.51 Da-sein’s “concern is in general characterized as a mode of truth.”52 From the perspective of the traditional scientific model of truth based on correspondence, Tugendhat’s concern about the loss of a critical capacity for distinguishing between truth and untruth in Heidegger’s model of aletheia is well founded.53 For Heidegger, truth is what is uncovered from out of the relation between Da-sein’s disclosedness and the ground of possibilities that Da-sein attunes itself to in discovery. And if truth lies in the unconcealment of beings, and only that, then Heidegger fails to provide an adequate account of how one can explicitly distinguish between what has been correctly uncovered and what has not. Or, as Tugendhat puts it: “If truth means un-concealment, in the Heideggerian sense, then it follows that an understanding of the world in general is opened up but not put to the test.”54 I want to propose that the difference between truth and untruth in Heidegger’s model is based more on something like a qualitative distinction rather than a “quantitative” distinction, suggested in passing by Tugendhat. The accord (stimmen) of disclosedness to discovery characterizing truth, which I have been arguing is struck in mood (stimmung), is itself an indicator of the certainty of a situation. In this case the distinction between truth and untruth lies in whether or not an accord has been struck between the whole of the being of Da-sein and the ground of its possibilities. It lies in the ontological occlusion of the fitting together of the whole of the being of Da-sein with the whole of the being of the world. This fit shows itself in the ease by which possibilities are let to be as they are. Truth would then lie in the seamlessness of, or the letting be, of the possibilities that this accord grounds. And it would best be verified through Da-sein’s relations in the world, or more specifically, through its Mitda-sein in Da-sein’s relations to others and their mutual concerns. When Da-sein is not in an accord with the world, Da-sein’s mood will come to the fore, like the broken hammer, in its alienation from others and their concerns and possibilities. Here is where the concealed and familiar background to which Da-sein is prereflectively attuned shows itself in its complete unfamiliarity. Therefore, while Heidegger’s model of truth does not provide an universal or empirical framework for distinguishing between truth and untruth, mood does provide a means for making distinctions on the basis of what matters to Da-sein, or more precisely, on the basis of what is not brought before Da-sein as a matter in its attuned being-with others amidst shared possibilities. This attunement to the whole of the being of the world characterizes Da-sein’s finitude, that is, its fittedness to the horizon of its possibilities. In being-toward-death an existential identity between the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein is established.

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Joined to truth, this existential identity is transformed into an ontological occlusion where the whole of the being of Da-sein is fitted in an attuned accord to the whole of the being of the world that is struck in the relations that this accord grounds. On the basis of this accord, Heidegger unites the being of Da-sein to the horizon of its possibilities by virtue of the possibilities that Da-sein is attuned to. Held open as the enduring of the nothing, this horizon belongs to no one Da-sein in particular. Yet this prereflective ground of the nothing endured as Angst nevertheless belongs to the being of Da-sein, circumscribing the manner of Da-sein’s being-toward its possibilities and itself as a being-in-the-world relating to others. Da-sein has, so to speak, two selves, the prereflective self that is unbounded and felt as an attunement, and the personal self that is epiphenomenal and arises out of the relations supported by the prereflective, groundless and boundless self that is attuned to the world. When the whole of the being of Da-sein, its prereflective self that is in a total attunement to the whole of the world, circumscribes relations that point back to its attuned being-toward the world, then the totality of the self of Da-sein—its prereflective and its reflective self—exists seamlessly in the world with others in the stillness of sein-lassen belonging to aletheia. Heidegger characterizes the being of Da-sein by temporality. Temporality structures Da-sein’s relations to its possibilities, and just as equally to itself and to its being-with others. The nothing characterizes the “outside-itself” of the temporal ecstasies of the future and having-been. But without possibilities, the temporal ecstasies of Da-sein’s temporality remain indistinguishable. Without possibilities there is no ground. It is therefore in the present that the nothing, the future (being-toward-death) and past (beingguilty), are bound internally in converging in the possibilities that they bound. In the present, Da-sein is in a relation to its possibilities and to other Da-seins on the basis of the accord struck between the total attunement of Angst to its world. In the possibilities that Da-sein takes up in the present the influence of the past and the path of the future are opened up. But these temporal moments show themselves only in the present, in the possibilities that are viable for Da-sein to project upon and to be toward, possibilities that underscore Da-sein’s historicity in being taken up by its future. Consequently, a relation to what is not present (having-been, future) and can never be rendered objectively present characterizes authentic truth and the truth of Da-sein’s finite existence. The finitude of Da-sein is not definable in light of anything that one can point to as a definite something, for example, the fact of death. Such a move fails to take into account Heidegger’s fundamental criticism of the understanding of Being as

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objective presence. Even to understand finitude by way of a juxtaposition to the infinite, as falling short of divine wisdom, or as any type of a lack on Da-sein’s part, is to understand finitude in relation to something, and thus to cover over authentic truth by falling into the everyday model of truth as a relation of objective presence.55 Rather, it is on the basis of letting beings be from the temporalization of the nothing of Angst that the finitude of Being and of Da-sein are established in the accord that allows beings to be as they are. Circumscribed by the nothing, Da-sein’s relations show themselves as they are from the attunement that Da-sein has to its world. Free of Da-sein’s self-projection of the They-self and its interpretations, Da-sein lets things and others show themselves from the ground of their being in its being-toward Being. This stance of letting be is similar to the Taoist principle of Wu Wei, doing without doing, nonaction, or nondoing, found in section 3 of the Tao Te Ching: “Practices non-action, And the natural order is not disrupted.”56 Heidegger did not complete his own translation of Lao-Tzu into German in 1946, but this idea, which resonates with his adoration for the teachings of Meister Eckhart on nonactivity, is the same thought behind the “letting-be” of aletheia, and of his later concept of “releasement” (Gelassenheit).57 This stance, I have argued, is found in Being and Time in the holding open of the nothing of Angst whereby beings are let be from out of the concealment belonging to aletheia, the nothing of Being. It manifests in the effortlessness of the understanding that Da-sein has of its possibilities and of its beingwith others by virtue of its prereflective and total attunement to the world. In this attunement, the horizon of Da-sein’s possibilities is in a complete accord with the being of Da-sein. Therefore, the discussion of Angst in Being and Time may help to bring about an understanding of the relation of Da-sein and Being that Heidegger merely asserts in his later writings. In “What is Metaphysics” Heidegger declares the relationship between Da-sein and Being, but he does not explain it. He states that “Being and the nothing do belong together” because “being itself is essentially finite and manifests itself only in the transcendence of a Da-sein that is held out into the nothing.”58 In Being and Time we can see how Da-sein is held out into the nothing and how this nothing belongs to Being and is finite. The nothing is bound by the possibilities that it makes present in the opening created in the enduring of the nothing of Angst. Limiting the nothing from the inside by virtue of the possibilities that is grounds is how the world is bounded by the relations that Da-sein engages with in its being-in-the-world. Finitude, therefore, does not belong solely to Da-sein, but equally to the ground of its possibilities, or

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to the nothing. Angst clears Da-sein and positions it as the opening, circumscribing the meaning of its own self, and of its relations in the world through the manner of letting-be belonging to aletheia. Da-sein’s attunement to the world can be gauged by the ease with which it assumes its familiarity with others amidst shared possibilities. Indeed, the certainty of Da-sein’s attunement to the world will lie in its Mitda-sein, in the certainty of being in a prereflective accord with others surrounded by possibilities understood fluently on the basis of a prereflective comportment to the world. Heidegger will ultimately argue that what shows itself with ease are the traditions and cultural practices of the world into which Da-sein has been thrown. These traditions belong to Da-sein’s having been, which, when taken up in the present, bring Da-sein’s having-been into a relation with its future. The meaning of temporality, for Heidegger, lies in Da-sein’s historicity.

Conclusion

Angst and Historicity: From the “They” to the “We”

In a letter to William J. Richardson, Heidegger expresses his exasperation over commentators’ fixation on what appears to be a turn (Kehre) in his thinking. “Up to now I know of no attempt to reflect on this matter and analyse it critically. Instead of the groundless, endless prattle about the ‘reversal,’ it would be more advisable and fruitful if people would simply engage themselves in the matter mentioned.”1 The matter mentioned is, of course, Being, specifically the finitude of Being. Still, Heidegger is willing to entertain the notion of a turn in his thought, a turn that he himself had claimed to undertake, with one restriction. The distinction you make between Heidegger I and II is justified only on the condition that this is kept constantly in mind: only by way of what [Heidegger] I has thought does one gain access to what is to-be-thought by [Heidegger] II. But the thought of [Heidegger] I becomes possible only if it is contained in [Heidegger] II.2 The division of Heidegger’s thinking into two parts turns around the relationship between Da-sein and Being and the meaning of finitude. In the traditional reading of Heidegger I, Being is reduced to the being of Da-sein, but in Heidegger II, Da-sein is dependent upon Being for the status of its existence. Thus in Heidegger I, finitude belongs to the being of Da-sein, and in Heidegger II, finitude belongs to Being, which gives to Da-sein the meaning of its finite being. The fundamental problem that Heidegger has with this division is that it fails to recognize the early break that he makes with the Cartesian tradition of subjectivity, and the necessary dualisms between inner and outer, and subject and object that this tradition entails. It also disregards Heidegger’s essential starting point: that Being is the foundation of every relation, including Da-sein’s own self-relation, and that Being is not reducible to a being. Indeed, Heidegger not only turns against “the dominance of subjectivity” as early as in Being and Time, but it is also in this text that the being of Da-sein is first stripped of its subjectivity and positioned as the clearing of Being.3

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Through a strict phenomenological interpretation of being-toward-death, I have shown how Heidegger dissolves the boundaries of the subjectivity of Da-sein into the nothing of Angst so to reestablish it as the clearing of Being in its relation to others and to its possibilities. The majority of Heidegger scholars interpret being-toward-death as the mode of being wherein the selfhood of an individual Da-sein is constituted in its breaking free from the They-self, which is characteristically defined by its flight from death. Once Da-sein authentically faces the fact that it is going to die, it is believed, Da-sein sees that it must set its own path through life and take responsibility for its individual choices. Authenticity, I want to stress, is rather a matter of a shift in the understanding of the ground of one’s possibilities and relations to others, and not a move toward strengthening the boundaries of a self-contained subject. Prior to linking Angst to aletheia, I have argued that Da-sein stands in a paralysis in its being-toward-death. In the nothing of being-toward-death Da-sein is disclosed in an existential identity with the whole of the being of the world. This whole is undifferentiated and unbounded, as it is characterized by the nothing of Angst through and through. Therefore, there are no distinctions and there is no possibility for action in Angst. It is for this reason that I have questioned Heidegger’s claim that entailed in the nothing of beingtoward-death is an understanding that leads Da-sein to its authentic possibilities and to its finitude. The nothing does not generally reveal something particular, and certainly not a finite something. To the contrary, it is characterized precisely by the disappearance of everything that used to mean something through the receding of all possibilities into the nothing. Consequently, Heidegger cannot phenomenologically situate being-toward-death as the ground of the being of Da-sein, and as that which it projects in its understanding of possibilities, because the nothing disclosing being-toward-death is defined rather by severing Da-sein from all of its relations and possibilities, including its own self-relation. Heidegger’s declaration that Da-sein’s meaningful possibilities can be opened up to it by the nothing of its being-toward-death is therefore dubious. Nevertheless, Heidegger consistently asserts that Angst puts Da-sein on an “unmistakeable” path (277/256). “Together with the sober Angst that brings us before our individualized potentiality-of-being, goes the unshakeable joy in this possibility. In it Da-sein becomes free of the entertaining ‘incidentals’ that busy curiosity provides for itself, primarily in terms of the events of the world” (310/286, see also Chapter 2). Da-sein is brought back from the nothing to a relation with the world in resoluteness by virtue of Da-sein’s being “in the truth” discovering. However, while the relation between disclosedness and discovery is formally depicted

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through the yoking of Angst to aletheia, it is surprisingly not yet established. The accord brought about by aletheia between the world and Da-sein that is struck in mood is made manifest only in Da-sein’s relations to its possibilities and being-with others in the world. Without possibilities, the world cannot show itself as a ground and Da-sein cannot understand itself as a being-in-the-world. Therefore the nothing of being-toward-death disclosing the totality of the whole of the world with the being of Da-sein is understood as a ground only by virtue of the relations and possibilities that its grounds. However, it is not until section 74, at almost the conclusion of the text that Heidegger begins to discuss the source of authentic possibilities that the nothing of Angst prepares Da-sein for. While Heidegger wants Angst to direct Da-sein toward its authentic possibilities, he grants that possibilities are “not to be taken from death” (383/350). “Nevertheless, we must ask whence in general can the possibilities be drawn upon which Da-sein factically projects itself ?” (383/350). Heidegger’s answer is tradition, a return to the book’s starting point. Temporality returns Da-sein back to its tradition and to its heritage. Angst clears the ground so that the world that has always been there, the historical world into which Da-sein has been thrown, may show itself. At least this is the story that Heidegger is trying to tell. “Authentic being-toward-death, that is, the finitude of temporality, is the concealed ground of the historicity of Da-sein” (386/353). The finitude of existence just ceased upon tears one back out of the endless multiplicity of possibilities offering themselves nearest by—those of comfort, shirking and taking things easy—and brings Da-sein to the simplicity of its fate. This is how we designate the primordial occurrence of Da-sein that lies in authentic resoluteness in which it hands itself down to itself, free for death, in an possibility that it inherited yet has chosen. (384/351) But contrary to Heidegger’s assertions, the awareness of finitude is not brought about by Da-sein’s being-toward-death, nor is Angst able to point the way to any inherited fate. Being-toward-death discloses rather the infinitude of Da-sein, as the nothing characterizing this disclosure is unbounded. Divorced from its relations to others and from the world of its possibilities in Angst, Da-sein is worldless and therefore without selfhood. It is not until Angst is yoked to aletheia that death is established as a ground by virtue of the possibilities and relations that it temporally structures. And these possibilities and relations that the future comes toward in meeting the past in the present are rooted in Da-sein’s heritage. It is in relation to these

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possibilities that the selfhood of Da-sein is born, significantly together with that of its fellow Da-seins in the community of those who find themselves attuned to the same ground.

From the They to the We Initially and for the most part, Heidegger repeats throughout Being and Time, Da-sein is thrown into an inauthentic world that has forgotten about Being—the hidden ground of the truth of its authentic possibilities. Fixated only on beings and what can be apprehended on the order of objective presence, Da-sein fails to understand its possibilities and relations with others in terms of the historicity belonging to the authentic world into which it has been thrown. This world is the world of its ancestors and of its descendents to come. It is opened up by Angst whereby Da-sein is reborn: “‘birth’ is taken into existence in coming back from the possibility of death (the possibility not-to-be-bypassed) so that existence may accept the thrownness of its own There more free from illusion” (391/357). Thus Da-sein finds its way back home from the homelessness of Angst in handing itself over to its historical possibilities. The truth that resoluteness reveals to Da-sein is ultimately the meaning of its possibilities understood in terms of it heritage. “The resoluteness in which Da-sein comes back to itself discloses the actual factical possibilities of authentic existing in terms of the heritage which that resoluteness takes over as thrown” (383/351). The meaning of temporality, therefore, unfolds as the taking-up of tradition. Encompassing the historicity of the world, temporality shows itself as a “retrieve which is futurally in the process of having-been” (391/357). The existential identity of the whole of the being of the world and the whole of the being of Da-sein now unfolds as a prereflective attunement to the historical world into which Da-sein has been thrown and must “retrieve.” “The occurrence of history is the occurrence of being-in-the-world. The historicity of Da-sein is essentially the historicity of the world which, on the basis of its ecstatic and horizonal temporality, belongs to the temporalizing of that temporality” (388/355). Indeed, it is because the being of Da-sein shows itself in the manner of temporality established by Heidegger that its tradition is open to it as a ground that it must take over: “only a being that, as futural, is equiprimoridally having-been” can be delivered over to its “inherited possibility” (385/352). This same structure of temporality is depicted in Heidegger’s later lecture of “Time and Being” (see note 15 in Chapter 3).

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In the taking-up of the nothing of death as nothing in being-guilty, I have shown how the equiprimordiality of the future and having-been is characterized by the identity of the nothing and the enduring of this nothing. By enduring, or holding open the nothing, a clearing is created for Da-sein’s authentic possibilities. Through the temporalization of Angst, Da-sein takes up its historicity by coming toward its possibilities from the horizon of its heritage—this is the meaning of Heidegger’s notion of the world as such. But to hand oneself over to tradition is not to try to bring back the past or be toward past possibilities per se. This would be a levelling down of possibilities belonging to inauthentic Da-sein. Being ahead of itself in such a way that Da-sein directs itself back to its thrownness means “handing oneself over to traditional possibilities, although not necessarily as traditional ones” (383/351). It means handing oneself over as a totality to the world of traditional possibilities belonging to one’s ancestors. It is from this world that “has-been there” that Da-sein must “retrieve” its authentic possibilities. Thus it is not the relics or remnants of the past housed in a museum, for example, that are historical and that are to be related to as Da-sein’s authentic possibilities, but “the world within which they were encountered as things at hand belonging to a context of useful things and used by Da-sein existing-in-the-world” (380/348). Buildings, bridges, vases, all things have a history, even nature “as a countryside, as areas that have been inhabited or exploited, as battlefields and cultic sites” (389/355). Authentic historicity means to take up a being-toward the world that has been there. Significantly, in Da-sein’s attunement to this world Da-sein is also attuned to the others that have been there. These others belong to its Mitda-sein. Authenticity, therefore, lies in Da-sein’s ability to respond to the others that have been there through a loyalty to the world that has been there. “Retrieve is explicit handing down, that is, going back to the possibilities of the Da-sein that has been there” (385/352). To retrieve possibilities, then, is not to relate to things dead and past. “Rather retrieve responds to the possibility of existence that has-been-there” (386/352–353, Heidegger’s emphasis). Thus to take up one’s historicity authentically means to be in a dialogue with those who have been there before by way of responding to the world from which these others understood their possibilities, a world whose influence is there in the remnants and ways of being that have been left behind. Authentic historicity moves Da-sein from the They to the We. To choose handing oneself down to traditional possibilities is how Da-sein exists futurally as fate: “in the basis of its being it is fate” (384/351). Fateful Da-sein is resolute in its decision to retrieve the world that has been there

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and to understand its present possibilities on the horizon of its heritage. “As resoluteness ready for Angst, loyalty is at the same time a possible reverence for the sole authority that a free existence can have, for the possibilities of existence that can be retrieved.” (391/357). Inseparable from Da-sein’s fate is its “destiny.” It is in conjunction with Da-sein’s destiny, its community, that Heidegger discusses the personal identity of an individual Da-sein, or what he calls the “occurrence of Da-sein,” the constancy of the self, or “the who of Da-sein” (375/344). “But if fateful Da-sein essentially exists as being-in-the-world in being-with others, its occurrence is an occurrence-with and is determined as destiny. With this term, we designate the occurrence of the community, of a people” (384/352). In sharing a world with others, past, future and present, and in being-toward possibilities that tradition has bequeathed, Da-sein’s authentic self is born as Mitda-sein. “Destiny is not composed of individual fates, nor can being-with-one-another be conceived of as the mutual occurrence of several subjects. These fates are already guided beforehand in being-withone-another in the same world and in the resoluteness for definite possibilities” (384/352). Ironically, Heidegger is often criticized as failing to account for a genuine relation between authentic Da-sein and being-with others. Michael Theunissen represents the standard interpretation. He writes that Mitda-sein is arrived at “purely formally,” as individualized (authentic) Da-sein is in the world and, as such, in the world with others.4 However, Theunissen arrives at this interpretation because he believes that authentic Da-sein is individuated into an “unique ego” that is alone in its being-toward-death. Authenticity, he argues, occurs through “the dissolution of all direct connection between others and me” and, therefore, “others can only be freed for themselves inasmuch as they are freed from me.”5 Consequently, he states, “should authentically existing Da-sein also exist formally as beingwith-Others, this latter can still never work its way into its ownmost being.”6 But as I have shown, being-toward-death brings about not only the dissolution of Da-sein’s relation to others and to its possibilities, but also, and more significantly, the dissolution of Da-sein’s own self-relation. The standard interpretation follows Theunissen’s in stopping short at interpreting the effects of Angst by limiting its power of dissolution to all relations except for the relation that Da-sein has to its own self. In being-toward-death the being of Da-sein is first disclosed in its totality as an individuated whole. This whole, however, belongs to no one Da-sein in particular. Rather, it constitutes the whole of the being of Da-sein in an existential identity with the whole of the being of the world. This whole is

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individuated, it stands alone, yet it is without boundaries, characterized throughout by the existential identity of the world and Da-sein in the nothing of Angst. Da-sein becomes a self and returns to a definite world through its relations to others and to its possibilities. By virtue of these relations the world shows itself to Da-sein, and Da-sein discloses itself as a being-in-theworld with others. “Being a self, Da-sein is the thrown being as self. Not through itself, but released to itself from the ground in order to be as this ground” (285/262). Da-sein takes up its ground in taking up its death, which circumscribes the understanding of its possibilities, its relations to others and equally its own self-relation. Authentically understood, these possibilities are Da-sein’s traditional possibilities that are given to it with the destiny of its community. “The fateful destiny of Da-sein in and with its ‘generation’ constitutes the complete, authentic occurrence of Da-sein” (385/352). The community, then, is what holds together the personal identity of Da-sein. As a member of the community, Da-sein struggles to preserve its world—what Heidegger calls “the loyalty to what can be retrieved” (385/352). Indeed, from the inception of Being and Time, critics have accused Heidegger of failing to account for an authentic relation to others. Max Scheler also criticizes Heidegger for failing to account for a genuine model of being-with others. He suggests that Heidegger’s model of Da-sein is solipsistic, as it is not at all clear why Heidegger should assume that all Da-seins share a world. “How does Heidegger know that there is only one world?”7 “How does Heidegger know at all that he and I are in one world?”8 Scheler recognizes that Heidegger claims that Da-sein is not only a being-in-the-world but also always being-with others. But this does not satisfy his concerns, for he argues: “There could just as well be being-with-each-other if every solus ipse lived in his world and his alone.”9 The world, however, is bound by the possibilities that it makes available for Da-sein. Therefore, for Heidegger to be accused of solipsism one would have to argue that Da-sein’s possibilities exist for it alone, not only with respect to their significance, but also with regard to their meaning. But as I think Heidegger’s analysis of everydayness convincingly shows, Da-sein initially finds itself in what it takes care of “in what it does, needs, expects” in concerns that are embedded in a context of significance belonging to the surrounding world where Da-sein exists alongside others (119/112). Indeed, people are in the same world so long as they share a prereflective cultural background understanding and care of their world. Contrary to the standard interpretation, then, Heidegger does not fail to account for Mitda-sein, or for being-with others in his model of authenticity. The self of Da-sein, which is dissolved into the nothing of Angst, is inseparable from the being of other Da-seins, as it is authentically

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reconstituted from the nothing in its relations to others in a loyalty to its traditional possibilities. Rather, the problem is quite the opposite and of a different order. The question is How does authentic Da-sein relate to individuals who are steeped in a different set of traditions belonging to a different world? How is it possible to respond to this other if, as Heidegger underscores, recognition is rooted in a prereflective understanding that is ontologically grounded in the being of the world that one shares with others? Is there an ontological basis for possibly failing to understand or be open to others who belong to a world with a different set of possibilities that one is not attuned to?

The Finitude of Being and the relationship of Da-sein and Being Richard J. Bernstein introduces the term “Cartesian Anxiety” to explain a fundamental tendency of some thinkers to follow Descartes in the search for firm and secure foundations. Encouraging us to read the Meditations as a “journey of the soul,” Bernstein guides us through Descartes’ quest for a safe place to stand: if we follow the precarious stages of this journey without losing our way, then we discover that this is a journey that is at once terrifying and liberating, culminating in the calm reassurance that although we are eminently fallible and subject to all sorts of contingencies, we can rest secure in the deepened self-knowledge that we are creatures of a beneficent God who has created us in his image.10 Having overcome the divisions between the subject and object, the world and beings, and God and humans, Heidegger thinks the relation of the ground to humans as one of interdependency. Thus neither a transcendent God, nor a detached cogito can provide Heidegger with any kind of certainty or truth that is not immanent to human existence. For Heidegger, Being is rather dependent upon the actual historical existence of a people.11 “World is only in the mode of existing Da-sein, that is, factically as being-in-the-world ” (380/348). Nevertheless, Heidegger’s desire for certainty is just as pressing as Descartes,’ although of an entirely different nature. Heidegger’s anxiety, if we may speak of such, is rooted in a fear of losing his world, the world in which his ancestors dwelled, and the world in which he hopes his descendants will take up as a dwelling. Tradition and heritage are, for him, reassurances that support existence through all of its contingencies. Indeed, preserving tradition is the

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burden of authenticity. “Because it has not laid the ground itself, it rests in the weight of it, which mood reveals to it as a burden” (284/262). In his “Memorial address” (1959), as in the majority of his writings, Heidegger laments the uprootedness of modern existence. All that with which modern techniques of communication stimulate, assail, and drive man—all that is already much closer to man today than his fields around his farmstead, closer than the sky over the earth, closer than the change from night to day, closer than the conventions and customs of his village, than the tradition of his native world.12 The same critique is raised in Being and Time. The “information services,” “public transportation” and other means of mass communication are how the “inconspicuousness” of the They “unfolds its true dictatorship” (126/119). Yet, David Farrell Krell voices his disappointment over Heidegger’s later turn toward the notion of “home.” He argues that Heidegger forgets his observation of the fundamental homelessness of human existence triggered by the anxiety over being-toward-death that he so clearly described as the ontological distinction of humankind in his earlier writings. Referring to Heidegger’s 1966 Der Spiegel interview that the editors agreed to publish only after Heidegger’s death, as per his request, Krell claims, Heidegger “cheats his own thought.”13 “He loudly laments the rootlessness and homelessness (die Heimatlosigkeit) of contemporary existence, as though the extirpation of rootlessness and homelessness had always been the concern of his thought.”14 But in so far as homelessness indicates for Heidegger an uprootedness from one’s historical roots, the plight of homelessness has always been Heidegger’s main concern. Just as in his later writings, in Being and Time the way to authenticity is a return to traditional roots. In fact, ontological homelessness is at the center of Heidegger’s notions of authenticity and inauthenticity. The essence of Da-sein’s inauthenticity lies in its forgetting of the meaning of Being, which is, according to Heidegger, a kind of homelessness. This link is explicitly made in the “Letter on Humanism” (1946). “Homelessness is the symptom of the oblivion of Being. Because of it the truth of Being remains unthought.”15 As in Being and Time, in the “Letter on Humanism” the forgetfulness of Being is manifest in the human being’s uprootedness from the ground of beings revealed in its comportment to only beings. “The oblivion of Being makes itself known indirectly through the fact that man always observes and handles only beings.”16 In Being and Time, Heidegger attributes inauthentic Da-sein’s singleminded fixation on beings to its understanding of Being as

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“objective presence” (293/270). On the basis of this understanding, inherited from Plato, Da-sein concerns itself solely with the everyday available matters at hand. “The irresolute person understands himself in terms of events and accidents nearest by that are encountered in such making present and urge themselves upon him in changing ways” (410/377). Secure in this “tranquillized self-assurance,” everyday Da-sein believes itself at home in the “obviousness” of the averageness of being belonging to the world of the They (189/176). In being-toward-death, Da-sein moves from its inauthentic existence to its authenticity. Angst unhinges Da-sein and reveals to it that its past stability is rooted in nothing solid and may be taken away from it at any moment. Indeed, throughout Being and Time Heidegger implies that once Da-sein is shown the darkness of the nothing it will immediately recognize the light of the truth, and it will recognize this light as finite. Like the prisoner released from Plato’s cave who cannot deny the warmth of the sun on his back, Heidegger claims that what the nothing reveals is “unmistakeable.” For Sartre, the nothing that is at the heart of human existence means: “‘You’re free, choose, that is, invent.’”17 The nothing reveals the fact that there is no support or foundation for a free person’s action outside of that action itself. This is why he thinks freedom is a burden. But for Heidegger freedom is also a burden. However, the burden is not due to the heavy weight of responsibility that comes with the acceptance that one’s choices are completely one’s own and that they will determine who one is. The burden for Heidegger is rooted in the responsibility that Da-sein has to respond to its ancestors and to the historical world into which is has been thrown. To feel this burden to others is to be authentic. It is to discover possibilities in terms of heritage as a response to those who have been there and to feel the weight of this responsibility to others as the meaning of one’s finitude. Joan Stambaugh asserts the relationship between preservation and finitude in Heidegger’s later writings. “Ultimately, the ‘appropriate’ meaning of the finitude of being would appear to lie in its preserving and sheltering capacity.”18 But preserving the world that has been there in the loyalty to what can be retrieved is possible only by way of an attunement to the world that has been there opened up by Angst. In this way the weight of the nothing is spread across generations.

Ontological Occlusion From the call to remember Being in Being and Time to the instruction to attend to Being in his later writings, Heidegger has always thought Da-sein

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together with Being. In his “Letter on Humanism”, Heidegger asserts that Da-sein must care and watch over Being. “Man is the shepherd of Being.”19 To assume this position as the shepherd of Being humans must hold back the self-assertion of their subjectivity. “But if man is to find his way once again into the nearness of Being he must first learn to exist in the nameless.”20 Still, Heidegger never explains what it means to exist in the nameless, which, if successful, would position Da-sein as an opening wherein beings are let be to show themselves as they are in being circumscribed by the concealment belonging to Being. In Being and Time, however, the role that Heidegger attributes to Angst does reveal how Da-sein may exist as the shepherd of Being, and how Da-sein may be in the truth such that its being has its roots in the limits of Being. In the temporalizing of Angst Da-sein is prereflectively attuned to the whole of the being of the world in a harmony that may be experienced as a stillness wherein Da-sein exists in the namelessness of the nothing. While in his later writings Heidegger does not explicitly draw upon the concept of Angst to root Da-sein to its world, death nevertheless continues to serve as the defining feature of a human being, and it continues to be characterized by the nothing throughout all of his writings. In his essay “The Thing” (1951), Heidegger writes: Death is the shrine of Nothing, that is, of that which in every respect is never something that merely exists, but which nevertheless presences, even as the mystery of Being itself. As the shrine of Nothing, death harbors within itself the presencing of Being. As the shrine of Nothing, death is the shelter of Being.21 Also in his essay “Language” (1959), he states: “These mortals are capable of dying as the wandering toward death. In death the supreme concealedness of Being crystallizes.”22 But what does it mean for Da-sein and Being to crystallize into a shrine? Heidegger does not explain how the nothing, or death, unites Da-sein to Being, nor does he discuss the uniqueness of the finitude of this bond in his later writings. In my reading of Being and Time, I hope to have shown how the whole of the being of Da-sein is fitted to the whole of the being of the world, the groundless ground of all possibilities, in an attuned accord to the nothing that makes possible the pre-reflective relation of Da-sein to Being. This fitting together of Da-sein and Being I have described through the term ontological occlusion. On the basis of this occlusion, the finitude of the being of Da-sein occurs together with the being of the world—a

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finitude that is secured in mood in the accord that supports the prereflective certainty of Da-sein’s relation to others and to its possibilities. The finitude of Da-sein is therefore twofold, it occurs reflectively, through Da-sein’s particular self-relation and relations in the world, which are supported by its prereflective attunement to Being. But finitude also occurs prereflectively, on the basis of the total accord between attunement and Being, a mooded accord that is at the foundation of Da-sein’s individual finitude and the ground of all of its relations. This latter finitude belongs to Being. Indeed, built into the very structure of Heidegger’s conception of the finitude of Being and the truth of Being, or aletheia, is this ontological occlusion. On the one hand, Being loves to hide and entails within it a closing off in relation to a revealing, a concealment engulfing what is unconcealed. On the other hand, Being is revealed only to the true initiates of the nothing, those belonging to and accepting the destiny of Being. The “selfhiding” of the hidden, the lethe belonging to aletheia, point to the mystery of Being, and to the fact that only those who are properly attuned may encounter “the enigmatic possibility of experiencing being.”23 Heidegger’s model of Being therefore points to the totalizing quality of the nothing, where there is nothing that is outside of the relationship of concealment and unconcealment belonging to aletheia. Being loves to hide and contains within itself all of what is disclosed or made present out of and in relation to all that is not present—the nothing. It seems then, that an ontological occlusion is what holds together a historical people. I have introduced this term as a useful expression to try to make sense of the obscure relation between humans and Being that Heidegger asserts, but fails to explain in all of his writings. Here again, in the “Origin of the Work of Art” (1935), Heidegger writes: This is the earth and, for a historical people, its earth, the self-secluding ground on which it rests together with everything that it already is, though still hidden from itself. But this is also its world, which prevails in virtue of the relation of human being to the unconcealment of Being. For this relation, everything with which man is endowed must, in the projection, be drawn up from the closed ground and expressly set upon this ground. In this way the ground is first grounded as the bearing ground.24 The relation of the human being to the concealment of Being can best be understood as occurring prereflectively, on the level of mood, by the yoking of Angst to aletheia. By yoking Angst to aletheia, Heidegger unites the whole of the being of Da-sein, “everything with which man is endowed,” with the whole

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of the horizon of its possibilities, “the bearing ground.” The totality of the being of Da-sein is fitted to the whole of the being of the world in an attuned accord that is struck in mood. The fitting together of the being of Da-sein with the whole of the being of the world is what allows the common background practices of language, culture and meaning to remain hidden and tacit in Da-sein’s everyday relations in the world with others. On the basis of its attuned accord to the meaning of the whole, Da-seins live together in a world that is perfectly in tune with what they care about. Indeed, the occlusion I am speaking of shows itself in the ease with which Da-sein relates to others and goes about its everyday affairs. When this ease is upset, Da-sein’s mood, like the broken hammer, comes to the fore. Here the occlusion is disrupted. For the most part, however, in being fitted to the being of the whole a harmony is established that shows itself imperceptibly in the tacitness of the background practices and prereflective understanding that guide Da-sein’s everyday being-in-the-world with others. In being-toward-death and the temporalization of Angst the boundaries of the self are dissolved into the boundaries of the community, which extends to those who have been there before, and are yet to come in the future. In the future that comes toward the world that has been there, Da-sein finds itself with its community in a loyalty to what is retrieved. This accord with the community is struck in mood and held in the stillness of the nothing. According to Heidegger, it is indubitable, “absolutely unmistakable to itself[.]” (277/256). In the Introduction I pointed to a mode of certainty that occurs on the level of mood as belonging to an unspoken tradition that may be designated as a metaphysics of feeling. Diotima teaches Socrates in the Symposium that there is a midpoint between knowledge and ignorance that imparts a kind of true knowing that is perhaps felt but cannot be logically validated or empirically verified. She describes this kind of certainty as a mode of opinion. In a different translation of the passage that I quoted in the Introduction, Diotima explains: “Don’t you know” she said “that to opine correctly without being able to give an account [logos] is neither to know expertly (for how could expert knowledge be an unaccounted for [alogon] matter?) nor lack of understanding (for how could lack of understanding be that which has hit upon what is)? But surely correct opinion is like that, somewhere between intelligence and lack of understanding.”25 Plato’s notion of correct opinion is gained through bridging eros to divine or Absolute Beauty, his ground of truth. For Heidegger, Angst is what

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verifies this prereflective certainty of being-in-the-world through the yoking of Angst to aletheia. This certainty is felt in mood, which is present throughout the accord of the whole of the being of Da-sein with the whole of the being of the world. In the holding open of the stillness of the nothing, relations happen by way of a letting-be that arises from the harmony of being in tune with others in a world. This attuned stillness lets beings be as they are. How they are is, for Heidegger, a matter of heritage and tradition, a tradition that he believes belongs to the authentic history of the world, a Western world that goes back to the Western tradition of Greek ontology. In an attuned accord to the ground of this world, Da-seins exists among other Da-seins with a certainty that is guaranteed by the weight of tradition. As a historical member of the community, Da-sein can let beings and relations be in a “doing without doing” that does not require reflection or thought, but rather allows these relations to happen in the way that they have always happened. By sharing in the same ground of possibilities in the traditions and heritage belonging equally to the living, the dead, and those still to be born, Da-sein is in a being-toward the death of others in a way that extends beyond memory to encompass the entirety of its ontological, historical existence as a being-in-the-world. In the taking-up of its being-with others through generations, authentic Da-sein understands itself as Mitda-sein. What seems to be at stake with attunement, then, is the possibility of listening to, or caring for someone who is differently attuned and engaged in “foreign” possibilities, that is, someone living in a different world who is not part of one’s Mitda-sein, or even someone living in the same world who does not benefit from the gift of the ease of relations that comes with being in an attuned accord with the whole of the being of the world. W. E. B. Du Bois depicts this lack of ease in the “double consciousness” of being a black American, always aware of a skin color that compromises one’s Americanism. “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”26 What I am suggesting is that the notion of belonging and, equally, the openness to listen to someone in the community to which one belongs are prereflectively determined beforehand by a fitting together of mood to the whole of the being of the world—a fitting together that is reflected in Mitdasein. According to Heidegger, being attuned together to the same world is the possibility for discourse. On the basis of this attuned discourse, Mitdasein is disclosed, even and especially in silence (162/152). This is why Heidegger claims that Mitda-sein belongs to one’s own self-knowledge as a being-in-the-world (124/116; 137/128). “In the explicit hearing of the

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discourse of the other, too, we initially understand what is said: more precisely, we are already together with the other beforehand, with the being which the discourse is about” (164/153). Indeed, without Mitda-sein there is no basis for a true friendship.27 “Hearing even constitutes the primary and authentic openness of Da-sein for its ownmost possibility of being, as in hearing the voice of a friend whom every Da-sein carries with it. Da-sein hears because it understands” (163/153). A predisposition to hear, then, accompanies one’s listening. Hannah Arendt was a friend to Heidegger. But this friendship did not come from being attuned to the totality of a shared world. The abyss between their worlds indeed prohibited friendships and destroyed friendships that had once been there, as with that between Heidegger and his teacher Edmund Husserl, whom he had initially dedicated Being and Time to and later republished without the dedication. In a letter written to Heidegger in August of 1928, Arendt paraphrases from a poem written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the poem that starts with the famous opening line: “How do I love thee, let me count thy ways.”28 Arendt writes: “And if there is a God, I will love you better after death.”29 In invoking God, Arendt perhaps leaves open the possibility of the unknown. Yet, despite Heidegger’s best attempts at trying to safeguard the dignity of the unknown, he ends up circumscribing the hidden by a certain horizon in yoking Angst to aletheia. Nevertheless, we are indebted to Heidegger’s analysis of Da-sein for revealing the prereflective kinship of an attunement in mood that arises with the daily practices of everyday living, be it the inauthentic living of the They, or the authentic living of the We, who belong to the destiny of the community of those authentically attuned. In this kinship the possibility for hearing one another lies in “being-with-one-another in the same world and in the resoluteness for definite possibilities” (384/352). As Carol White indicates, a shared attunement is the basis for the possibility of having an authentic community. “Dasein’s fate as authentic historicality depends on having a community of like-minded people.”30 A shared attunement to the ground of possibilities belonging to a certain world is what likens the minds of the members of Heidegger’s community. But for those who are not like-minded, or whose minds are not liked, membership in the community is difficult. In this case, it may not simply be a matter of information or education about the other that makes us care; that is, the possibility of listening to others living in a different world may not only be dictated by politics, race, gender, sexuality, economic status, and other interests. There may, indeed, be a prereflective predisposition

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not to care for those to whom one is not ontologically attuned. An ontological occlusion explains the affective foundation for the prereflective understanding that “we” have of our cultural horizons, and the hidden and background understanding of “our” everyday practices and being-with others. But the occlusion has two sides and equally works to describe the prereflective basis for being closed off to those who are differently attuned. Here, it may be more than “mere” mood that opens up a world. What may be needed is a genuine enduring of the nothing, as a traveller, far from home must learn to endure Angst so to approach the stillness that will allow him or her to be open to a new land and its people in the hope of being welcomed by it. What may be needed is the openness belonging to questioning, which Heidegger later attributes to the stillness of Gelassenheit. “O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world. That has such people in’t.”31

Notes

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Martin Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth,” tr. Thomas Sheehan, in William McNeill, ed., Pathmarks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 177. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 179. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 176. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 179. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 166. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 168–172. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 176. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 179. See Book One of Aristotle’s Metaphysics where he speculates on the origin of the practice of philosophy concluding, “it is through wonder (thaumazein) that men now begin and originally began to philosophize” (982 b12). Aristotle, Metaphysics in Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) p. 1554. See also Plato’s Theaetetus 155d. Plato, Theaetetus, in Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds, The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters, trs. Lane Cooper and others (Prin-ceton: Princeton University Press, 1989) pp. 845–919. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” in Pathmarks, 168–172, 166. Martin Heidegger, “Postscript to ‘What is Metaphysics?’ (1943),” in William McNeill, ed. and tr., Pathmarks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 234. All embedded page numbers are from the Joan Stambaugh translation of Being and Time. (Suny Press, 1996). The first number refers to the German pagination, the second number to the page number in Stambaugh’s English translation. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, tr. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), proposition 6.43. Plato, The Symposium, tr. Christopher Gill (New York and London: Penguin Books, 1999), 204b. Plato, The Symposium, tr. Christopher Gill, 203e. Plato, The Symposium, tr. Christopher Gill, 202a. Plato, The Symposium, tr. Christopher Gill, 210b. Quentin Smith, The Felt Meanings of the World: A Metaphysics of Feeling (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1986), 17. Smith, The Felt Meanings of the World, 23.

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Mood has the ability to disclose the whole. Klaus Held describes the same distinctiveness of exposing the whole belonging to Heidegger’s notion of Angst in his description of the role of thaumazein in Greek thought. “The wonder that awakens philosophy . . . concerns the background of the familiar itself. This previously self-evident and concealed background itself steps now to the fore and appears as what is utterly non-self-evident and unfamiliar.” Klaus Held, “Wonder, Time and Idealization: On the Greek Beginning of Philosophy,” in Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 9, Number 2 (Spring 2005), 187. William J. Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 624. Michel Haar, Heidegger and the Essence of Man, tr. William McNeill (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 51. Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, 637. See, for example, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-world: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991). Robert Bernasconi, Heidegger in Question (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1993), 25. Frederick A. Olafson, Principles and Persons: An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1967), 172. Jonathan Dollimore, Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture (New York: Routledge, 1998), 162. Olafson also interprets Heidegger’s discussion of death as factical death. He claims that the objective fact of death is the condition of Da-sein’s understanding of itself as a self-choosing individual existence. From one point of view, it is just a fact that human beings die, although it is, as Heidegger points out, a very peculiar sort of “fact” that is quite unlike the empirical “endings” to which we all tend to assimilate it. In any case, whatever its peculiarities as a special kind of fact, it is certainly independent of our will and confronts us as a final negation of human effort and purpose. (Olafson, Principles and Persons, 173)

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William J. Richardson, “Heidegger’s Way through Phenomenology to the Thinking of Being,” in Heidegger, The Man and the Thinker (Chicago: Precedent, 1991), 89–90. Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), tr. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), 165. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, proposition 6.4311. Reiner Schurmann, Heidegger: On Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 13. Martin Heidegger, “On the Origin of the Work of Art,” tr. Albert Hofstader, in David Farrell Krell, ed., Basic Writings (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), 186. Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” tr. Frank A. Capuzzi and J. Glenn Gray, in David Farrell Krell, ed., Basic Writings, (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), 262.

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Martin Heidegger, “On the Question of Being (1955),” in William McNeill, ed. and tr., Pathmarks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 309. Heidegger, “On the Question of Being,” 308, 310. John Caputo, Against Ethics (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), 2.

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Carol J. White, Time and Death: Heidegger’s Analysis of Finitude (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2005), 122. Hubert Dreyfus’ introduction to White, Time and Death, xii. Dreyfus’ introduction to White, Time and Death, xii. Charles B. Guignon, Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983), 70. Martin Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” tr. John Sallis, in David Farrell Krell, ed., Basic Writings (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), 132. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth”, 132. Stephen Mulhall notes that Heidegger is here attacking the attempt made to understand other minds through the argument from analogy. The idea is that there are bodies that behave in certain ways and there are minds that are related to these bodies in specific ways. The question of other minds is rooted in whether the connections we make between our mind and body can be applied to our understanding of the minds of others based on our observations of their bodies and behaviors. This “compositional understanding of other persons,” however, presupposes what it sets out to prove: that there is a similarity between the connections I make between my mind and body and that between the mind and body of another. Mulhall highlights Heidegger’s passage on empathy as testifying to the futility of this dualistic understanding of the mind/body problem and the problem of other minds. Stephen Mulhall, Heidegger and Being and Time (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 64. Stephen Mulhall, Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 260. John Paul Sartre, “Existentialism,” in Gordon Marino, ed., Basic Writings of Existentialism (New York: Random House, 2004). Heidegger refers to Tolstoy’s story in a footnote to his discussion of “Being-toward-death.” See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. Joan Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 409, footnote 12.

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Joseph Kockelman, Martin Heidegger: A First Introduction to His Philosophy (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1965), 82. Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, 76. Haar, Heidegger and the Essence of Man, 5. Jeff Malpas, “Death and the Unity of a Life,” in Jeff Malpas and Robert Solomon, eds, Death and Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 134.

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Julian Young, “Death and Authenticity”, in Jeff Malpas and Robert Solomon, eds, Death and Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 116. Taylor Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic: Interpretation, Discourse and Authenticity in Being and Time (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 290. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 298. Mulhall, Inheritance and Originality, 259. Paul Edwards, Heidegger’s Confusions (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2004), 80–81. Edwards, Heidegger’s Confusions, 81. Edwards, Heidegger’s Confusions, 115. Carol J. White identifies six different kinds of meanings belonging to end used by Heidegger to depict being-toward-death: perishing; demise; dying; being-at-the-end; the possibility of the impossibility of existing; and beingtoward-the-end. White, Time and Death, 68–91. Dreyfus, foreword to White, Time and Death, xxxv. Dreyfus, foreword to White, Time and Death, xxxv. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-world, 311. In an addendum to this quotation Heidegger qualifies this claim by underscoring that Angst is not a mere emotion. In Being and Time Heidegger states: “I.e., but not only Angst and certainly not a mere emotion” (266/245). “The certainty of death cannot be calculated in terms of ascertaining cases of death encountered.” (264/244) See, for example, Grene, who also identifies finitude with factical death. Yet it is only in such resolve as limited by death—in the realization of my existence as essentially and necessarily being to death—that I can rise out of the distracting and deceiving cares of my day to day existence. Only in such recognition of my radical finitude, in sinking dread with which I face my own annihilation, can I escape the snares of a delusive present, to create, in a free resolve, a genuine future from a genuinely historical past. Marjorie Grene, Dreadful Freedom: A Critique of Existentialism. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 53

The temporality of Da-sein, however, is inseparable from Being, which does not belong to an individual alone but to the world and being-with others as well. 19 Maria Villela-Petit, “Heidegger’s Conception of Space,” in Christopher Macann, ed., Critical Heidegger (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 138. 20 Villela-Petit, “Heidegger’s Conception of Space,” 138. 21 Martin Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?” (1929), tr. David Farrell Krell, in William McNeill, ed., Pathmarks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 89. 22 Dreyfus, foreword to White, Time and Death, xxxv. 23 Miquel de Beistegui, The New Heidegger (London and New York: Continuum, 2005), 21–22. 24 Beistegui, The New Heidegger, 70. 25 Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics”, 93. 26 Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics,” 233. 27 Alejandro A. Vallega conceives of finitude as a sort of humbleness before all that cannot be known to thought signified by the not-yet future of Da-sein

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brought forth by death. This not-yet is the otherness, “absence” or “beyond presence” that marks the alterity within Da-sein, or the exilic aspect of its thought. Alejandro A. Vallega, Heidegger and the Issue of Space: Thinking on Exilic Grounds (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 152. “In short, the exilic character of thought is figured by the impossibility of thought’s return to ever-present, unchanging ideas or origins, and in the transformative motion enacted by its events.” (158) In Being and Time, Vallega argues, this exilic character of thought never quite penetrates beyond the transcendental horizon of Da-sein’s disclosedness as it does in Heidegger’s later works where the self loses its footing to otherness. (160–161) Dreyfus, Being-in-the-world, 339. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-world, 335, 333. Francoise Dastur, “The Ekstatico-horizonal Constitution of Temporality,” in Christopher Macann, ed., Critical Heidegger (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 164. Affixed to the word Angst in this sentence is a note at the bottom of the page of Being and Time. It reads: “That is, the clearing of being as being.” (323/297) I have been stressing this reading of Angst all along, that it is mood that reveals the clearing of Being. Macomber incorrectly claims that “Heidegger conceives mood as the revelation of a process in which man opens himself to the determining power of things and in which he is, through all his incessant and inescapable activity, ultimately passive.” W. B. Macomber, The Anatomy of Disillusion: Martin Heidegger’s Notion of Truth (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967), 120. While Angst does indeed open Da-sein up to the world, it is not a passive attunement, on the contrary, it must be “endured.” (261/241)

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For a discussion on Da-sein’s responsibility to others as integral to its own selfresponsibility see Francois Raffoul, “Heidegger and the Origins of Responsibility,” in Francois Raffoul and David Pettigrew, eds, Heidegger and Practical Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 205–218. For a discussion on empathy in Being and Time see Lawrence J. Hatab, “Heidegger and the question of Empathy,” in Francois Raffoul and David Pettigrew, eds, Heidegger and Practical Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 249–279. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 267. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 294. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 294. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 295. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 270. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 268. See also 269, 271, 301, 312, 313. Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic, 269. Mulhall, Inheritance and Originality, 277. Mulhall, Inheritance and Originality, 277. Mulhall, Inheritance and Originality, 277.

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Theodore Kisiel in an article meant to correct Seigfried’s reading of Kisiel’s diagram, “The schematism of existence,” “Professor Seigfrieds Misreading of my Diagram and its Source,” Philosophy Today, Vol. XXX, No. 1/4 (Spring 1986), 75. Kisiel, “Professor Seigfrieds Misreading of my Diagram and its Source,” p 76. Martin Heidegger, “Time and Being,” in On Time and Being, tr. Joan Stambaugh (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2002), 13. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth,” 176. The German passage reads “Wer in einer durch « die Idee » bestimmten Welt handeln soll und will, bedarf allem zuvor des Ideenblicks. Und darin besteht denn auch das Wesen der παιδεια, den Menschen frei und fest zu machen für die klare Beständigkeit des Wesensblickes.” Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit mit eiem Brief uber den « Hümanismus », 40. Macomber incorrectly claims that “Heidegger conceives mood as the revelation of a process in which man opens himself to the determining power of things and in which he is, through all his incessant and inescapable activity, ultimately passive.” Macomber “The anatomy of disillusion,” 120. To the contrary, mood is something that must be projected and endured, especially the mood of Angst. Haar, Heidegger and the Essence of Man, 56. Martin Heidegger, “On the Origin of the Work of Art,” 192. A classic book on the topic of Heidegger’s politic and its link to his philosophy is Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism, eds. Joseph Margolis and Tom Rockmore (Temple University Press, 1971). Johannes Fritsche, Historical Destiny and National Socialism in Heidegger’s Being and Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 140–141. See John. D. Caputo, “Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and the foundering of Metaphysics,” in Robert L. Perkins, ed., International Kierkegaard Commentary: Fear and Trembling and Repetition (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1993), 222. In his inaugural lecture to the Freiburg University faculties in 1929 Heidegger says “If Dasein can adopt a stance toward beings only by holding itself out into the nothing and can exist only thus, and if the nothing is originally manifest only in anxiety, then must we not hover in anxiety constantly in order to be able to exist at all?” Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?”, 91. Heidegger does not answer this question. Instead he states that original anxiety is rare. “And have we not ourselves confessed that this original state is rare?” (91). Martin Heidegger, “Memorial Address,” in Discourse On Thinking, tr., John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 56. Heidegger, “Memorial Address”, 46–47. Martin Heidegger, “Conversation on a Country Path about Thinking,” in Discourse On Thinking, tr. John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 62. Heidegger, “Conversation on a Country Path about Thinking”, 59. Heidegger also characterizes Angst by a certain calmness. “Anxiety does not let such confusion arise. Much to the contrary, a peculiar calm pervades it.” Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?”, 88. He also states “That in the uncanniness of Anxiety we often try to shatter the vacant stillness with compulsive talk only proves the presence of the nothing,” 89. Walter Brogan discusses the idea of a community of people who all know they are going to die and therefore who relate to each other as singular and finite

Notes

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141

beings coming together as a collective that is different from the traditional models of community built on a fusions of individuals. In this community, he explains, Da-seins will encounter each other from the perspective of a holding back that allows each person to show him or herself as a free individual. “It is the very condition of holding back and keeping silence that makes possible the sovereignty (Herrschaft) of the singular beings Heidegger describes as the future Da-sein.” Walter Brogan, “The Community of those Who are Going to Die,” in D. Pettigrew and F. Raffoul, eds, Heidegger and Practical Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 242. Joan Stambaugh explains: “The finitude of being is an inner, intrinsic finitude.” The Finitude of Being, 167.

Chapter 4 1

2

3 4 5

6

7 8 9

10

11

See my Introduction where I discuss Heidegger’s reading of the Allegory of the Cave. See discussion in Chapter 1 on Da-sein’s concern for others and Heidegger’s notions of leaping in and leaping ahead. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 240. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 241. Jacques Taminiaux is a notable exception. He argues that the presupposition of truth in Being and Time guarantees and constitutes Da-sein’s authentic disclosure. “Dasein is enmeshed in the presupposition of truth. In other words, Dasein is not constitutive of its own openness; rather, this openness, the very openness of the world of Being, is what destines Dasein to himself. Truth is one and cannot be without the disclosive projection; yet this very projection presupposes truth, for it is, as Heidegger says, a ‘thrown’ projection.” “Finitude and the Absolute: remarks on Hegel and Heidegger,” in Thomas Sheehan, ed., Heidegger, The Man and The Thinker (Chicago: Precedent, 1981), 201. William D. Blattner, Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 18, 303. Blattner, Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism, 18, 290. Blattner, Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism, 27. John Haugeland, “Truth and Finitude: Heidegger’s Transcendental Existentialism,” in Mark A. Wrathall and Jeff Malpas, eds, Heidegger, Authenticity and Modernity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), 54. Haugeland calls Da-sein’s commitment to uphold the integrity of entities its “bindingness.” Haugeland, “Truth and Finitude”, 74, 46, 73. Haugeland, “Truth and Finitude,” 75–76. It is not entirely clear whether Haugeland thinks that “systematic breakdowns” in a way of life occur for an individual or for a historical epoch. The bulk of Haugeland’s article lies in his effort to explain Heidegger’s “historicism” by referring to Kuhn. However, he falls upon being-toward-death and Angst to signal the breakdown issuing forth a new cultural paradigm and interprets being-toward-death in light of the subjectivity of an individual Da-sein. “A failure of ontological truth is a systematic breakdown that undermines everything . . . So the only responsible response (eventually) is

142

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13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Notes

to take it all back; which means that life, that life, does not ‘go on’” (75). But as Angst is the mechanism that breaks down a way of life for an individual Da-sein, according to Haugeland, it is unclear whether the life he speaks of that no longer goes on belongs to an individual or to a cultural way of life. Martin Heidegger, “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” in On Time and Being, tr. Joan Stambaugh (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2002), 70. Heidegger, “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” 71–72. Heidegger, “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” 71–72. Ernst Tugendhat, “Heidegger’s idea of truth,” in Christopher Macann, ed., Critical Heidegger (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 228. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 138. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 125. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 121. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 124. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 122. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 125. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 122. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 125. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 125. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 123. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 125. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 126. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 126. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 127. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 129. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 129. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 128. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 127. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 129–130. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 130. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 129. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 125–126. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 125. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 126. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 130. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 131–132. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 129. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 128. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 128–129. Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” 129. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 229. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 231. Tugendhat, “Heidegger’s idea of Truth,” 236. Tugendhat, “Heidegger’s idea of Truth,” 234. Tugendhat, “Heidegger’s idea of Truth,” 233. According to Tugendhat a meaningful sense of falsehood would have to explain exactly how the false was still

Notes

51 52 53

54 55

56

57

58

143

covered over in contrast to the way “it is itself.” There would have to be a way to validate “the giveness with reference to the subject-matter” (234). Tugendhat, “Heidegger’s idea of Truth,” 233. Tugendhat, “Heidegger’s idea of Truth,” 236. See also Daniel O Dahlstorm’s argument against Tugendhat’s notion that Heidegger does not distinguish between givenness and how a thing appears in itself in Heidegger’s Concept of Truth. Dahlstorm supports Heidegger’s claim that Da-sein’s disclosedness is prior to judgment and assertion, while also noting that “Heidegger does not provide a sufficient account of the principles governing his analysis.” Heidegger’s Concept of Truth (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 455. Tugendhat, “Heidegger’s Idea of Truth,” 238. While Haugeland provides an argument for finitude, which other scholars generally assume is entailed by the fact of death or mortality, as I have discussed in Chapter 2, his notion of finitude appears to be dependent upon a juxtaposition of human and divine knowledge. Divine knowledge is supposed to shore up human knowledge and show it to be finite in contrast to the “infinite (divine) knowledge.” Haugeland, “Truth and Finitude,” 76–77. Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, tr. Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1993), section 3. For a remarkable comparison between Heidegger’s discussion of the being of a jug in his essay “The Thing” and Chapter 11 of Lao-Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, see Reinhard May, Heidegger’s Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on his Work, tr. Graham Parkes (London: Routledge, 1996), 30–33. Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?”, 95.

Conclusion 1 2 3 4

5 6 7

8 9 10

11

Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, xviii. Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, xxii. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 222. Michael Theunissen, The Other: Studies in the Social Ontology of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Buber, tr. Christopher Macann (Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press 1984), 189. Theunissen, The Other, 191. Theunissen, The Other, 190. Max Scheler, “Reality and Resistance: on Being and Time, section 43,” in Thomas Sheehan, ed., Heidegger: The Man and The Thinker (Chicago: Precedent, 1981), 136. Scheler, “Reality and resistance,” 141. Scheler, “Reality and resistance,” 136. Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 17. For a discussion on the anarchical elements of Heidegger’s thought see Reiner Schurmann, Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy. See also Peg Birmingham, “The Time of the Political” in Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Volume 14, Number 2 – Volume 15, Number 1 (1991), 25–48.

144 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22

23 24 25

26 27

28

29

30 31

Notes

Heidegger, “Memorial Address,” 48. David Farrell Krell, “Unhomelike places: architectural sections of Heidegger and Freud,” in Walter Brogan and James Risser, eds, American Continental Philosophy: A Reader (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), 184. Krell, “Unhomelike Places,” 184. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 242. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 242. Sartre, “Existentialism,” 352. Stambaugh, The Finitude of Being, 166. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 234. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” 223. Martin Heidegger, “The Thing,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, tr. Albert Hofstader (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 178–179. Martin Heidegger, “Language,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, tr. Albert Hofstader (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 200. Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth,” 166, 171. Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” 200. Plato’s Symposium, tr. Seth Bernardette (section 202a). In the Introduction I quoted the same passage from the Chris Gill translation, The Symposium. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Signet Classic, 1969), 45. Heidegger illustrates his own inability to hear certain voices, to make friends with certain people, in taking up the Enlightenment view of the origins of Western philosophy. Through this view Heidegger fails to recognize the preHellenic influences and friendships that were acknowledged by the Greeks prior to the modern era. For the relation of the Greeks to the Egyptians see Plato’s “Timaeus,” translated by Benjamin Jowett, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues 1158, 23d. For a study of the Afro-Asiatic roots of Greek philosophy and the systematic covering over of this link see Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic roots of Western Civilization (Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 1989). Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets in the Portuguese, (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2007). Quoted in Seyla Benhabib, The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 120. The original by Browning is: “And, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” White, Time and Death, 125. William Shakespeare, The Tempest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 180–197.

Bibliography Works Cited Aristotle, Metaphysics in Jonathan Barnes, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 1554 Beistegui, Miguel de, The New Heidegger (London and New York: Continuum, 2005). Benhabib, Seyla, The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003). Bernal, Martin, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Western Civilization (Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 1989). Bernasconi, Robert, Heidegger in Question (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1993). Bernstein, Richard, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). Blattner, William D., Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Brogan, Walter, “The Community of those who are Going to Die,” in D. Pettigrew and F. Raffoul, eds, Heidegger and Practical Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002). Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Sonnets from the Portuguese (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2007). Caputo, John, Against Ethics (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993). —, “Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and the foundering of Metaphysics,” in Robert L. Perkins, ed., International Kierkegaard Commentary: Fear and Trembling and Repetition (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1993). Carman, Taylor, Heidegger’s Analytic: Interpretation, Discourse and Authenticity in Being and Time (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Dahlstorm, Daniel O., Heidegger’s Concept of Truth (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Dastur, Francoise, “The ekstatico-horizonal constitution of Temporality,” in Christopher Macann, ed., Critical Heidegger (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). Dollimore, Jonathan, Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture (New York: Routledge, 1998). Dreyfus, Hubert L., Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991). Du Bois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Signet Classic, 1969). Edwards, Paul, Heidegger’s Confusions (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2004). Farias, Victor, Heidegger and Nazism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1971).

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Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Judgement, tr. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987). Kockelman, Joseph J., Martin Heidegger: A First Introduction To His Philosophy (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1965). Krell, David Farrell, “Unhomelike places: architectural sections of Heidegger and Freud,” in Walter Brogan and James Risser, eds, American Continental Philosophy: A Reader, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000). Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, tr. Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers, 1993). Macomber, W. B., The Anatomy of Disillusion: Martin Heidegger’s Notion of Truth (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967). Malpas, Jeff, “Death and the unity of a Life,” in Jeff Malpas and Robert Solomon, eds, Death and Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 1998). May, Reinhard, Heidegger’s Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on his Work, tr. Graham Parkes (London: Routledge, 1996). Mulhall, Stephen, Heidegger and Being and Time (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). —, Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001). Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974). Olafson, Frederick A., Principles and Persons: An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1967). Plato, Plato’s Symposium, tr. Seth Benardete (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1986). —, Theaetetus, in Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato : Including the Letters, trs. Lane Cooper and others (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 845–919. —, The Symposium, tr. Christopher Gill (New York and London: Penguin Books, 1999). Raffoul, Francois, “Heidegger and the Origins of Responsibility,” in Francois Raffoul, David Pettigrew, eds, Heidegger and Practical Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002). Richardson, William J., Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). —, “Heidegger’s way Through Phenomenology to the Thinking of Being,” in Thomas Sheehan, ed., Heidegger, The Man and The Thinker (Chicago: Precedent, 1991). Sartre, Jean-Paul, “Existentialism,” in Gordon Marino, ed., Basic Writings of Existentialism (New York: Random House, 2004). Scheler, Max, “Reality and Resistance: on Being and Time, section 43,” in Thomas Sheehan, ed., Heidegger: The Man and The Thinker (Chicago: Precedent, 1981). Schlegel, Friedrich, Philosophical Fragments, tr. Peter Firchow (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). Schurmann, Reiner, Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). Shakespeare, William, The Tempest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

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Index

accord 4, 12, 97, 109, 116, 121, 129–30 see also truth, whole and Angst 116–17 and community 131–2 and Mitda-sein 115, 118, 132 and mood 108–11, 132 and ontological occlusion 3, 115–17 Agape see love aletheia see truth, concealment/ unconcealment, letting be “allegory of the cave” 1–2, 99 “analogon” (Kant) 48 ancestors 74, 122–3, 126, 128 Angst see also nothing, the and Being 3, 5, 14, 16, 60–1, 66, 83, 86, 90, 93, 96, 107–10, 112–14, 129–1 choosing Angst (resoluteness) 88–9 demanding Angst of oneself 89–90, 93 enduring and holding open Angst 66–7, 71, 85–9, 95, 105, 111 and fear 52–3 and finitude 10–11, 64–6, 115–18 and historicity 121–5, 128 and loss of self 8–9, 45, 47–9, 56–8, 79, 91, 93–4, 111, 121, 125, 128, and Mitda-sein 87, 131 and mood 3–4, 6 and ontological occlusion 3, 105, 132–3 and paralysis 60, 78, 88, 91–2, 95, 120 and temporality 84, 121 Arendt, Hannah 133 Aristotle 2 attunement 25–9, 31, 44, 52–4, 110–12, 115–18, 123, 130, 132–4 and Angst 56–8, 61, 66–7, 75–6 and Being 72, 83, 86–7, 89, 91

and co-Attunement 31, 92, 115, 118 see also Mitda-sein Authenticity/inauthenticity (Eigentlichkeit) 9, 16, 19, 32–3, 35, 49–50, 66–7, 79–81, 91–2, 96–7 and Angst 90, 97, 123 and choice 93 and finitude 63 and historicity 121–3, 127 and Mitda-sein 87, 124–5, 128, 132–4 and possibilities 60–1, 65, 68–9, 71–3, 79, 114, 120 and temporality 85–7, 89 and truth 16, 100–2, 107, 109 background practices 14 Beaufret, Jean 10 Being 1, 3–11, 13–21, 25, 30, 32, 34–6, 40–1, 44, 51, 61, 62, 65–7, 69, 74, 83, 87, 90–1, 93–4, 96–8, 101–4, 107–9, 111–14, 116–17, 119, 126–30 see also nothing, the being-guilty 69, 71–2, 78, 81, 85, 87, 95–8, 116, 123 and Angst 71, 74–6 being-in-the-world 21–3, 25, 27, 31, 50, 52, 55, 57, 61, 64, 71, 76, 96, 101, 103, 124–6, 131 being-toward 99–100, 113 being-toward Being 117 being-towards-death 5–8, 10–11, 35, 43–8, 49–52, 55–61, 62, 64–5, 67–8, 69–72, 74–6, 78, 80–2, 85–7, 88–90, 92–3, 95–8, 102, 104, 108–9, 112, 115–16, 120–1, 128, 131 being-towards-the-end 63, 67

150

Index

being-with 9, 11–12 being-with others 30–1, 39, 47, 54, 68, 115, 117, 124–5 Being and Time (Heidegger) 2, 7–9, 13, 19, 32, 38–41, 43, 47–8, 61, 63, 89–91, 98, 101, 103, 106–7, 110–14, 117, 119, 122, 127–9, 133 Being of being 6 beings 14–16, 26–7, 86, 100, 106–7, 113, 117, 119 being(s)-as-a-whole 108–10 Beistegui, Miquel de 59 Bernasconi, Robert 7 Bernstein, Richard J. 126 birth 122 Blattner, William 103–4 Brogan, Walter 140n.28 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 133 burden, of authenticity 127–8 call-of-conscience 71–6, 78, 80, 88 caller/called 75–83 Caputo, John 10 “care” 40 Carman, Taylor 45–6, 78–9 “Cartesian Anxiety” 126 Clearing of Being 67, 89, 92, 105, 112, 120 cogito 20 community 4, 122, 124–5, 131–3 comportment 107, 109, 118 concealment/unconcealment 106–17 conscience 88–9, 92–3 and Angst 71, 75–7 “Conversation On a Country Path” (Heidegger) 91 Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) (Heidegger) 8 Critique of Judgment (Kant) 6 culture 14, 134 Dahlstorm, Daniel O. 143 Da-sein 18–19 death 8, 35, 39, 44–8, 49–52, 57–8, 60, 62–5, 67, 69–70, 75, 79, 81,

83–5, 87, 91, 95, 116, 122–3, 129, 138n.17 “definite region” 52–3 demise see factical death Demske, Father 46 Der Spiegel interview 1966 (Heidegger) 127 Descartes, René 20–1, 79, 119, 126 desire 88 destiny 90, 93, 124–5, 130, 133 destructuring 16–17 difference see nothing, the Diotima 5 disclosedness 25, 120 discourse 25, 30–1 discovery 91, 103, 120 “disinterested pleasure” 6 disposition 99 “divine beauty” 5 Dollimore, Jonathan 8, 136n.27 Dreyfus, Hubert 14, 48, 59, 62 Du Bois, W. E. B. 132 dwelling 126 ecstasies see temporality Edwards, Paul 46, 63 ek-sistent 106–11 empathy 24 “End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, The” (Heidegger) 105 equiprimordiality, of Being and Da-sein 97 eros 2, 5–6 existence 18, 32 existential identity 45, 56–7, 59–60, 65–7, 78–90, 95–6, 112–16, 122–5 existentialism 34–5, 65, 93 “existentiell” 34–5, 58 factical death 64–5, 69 “facticity” 34, 97 falling-prey 25 fate 121, 123–5, 133 fear 27–8, 35, 52–3, 56 Felt Meanings of the World, The (Smith) 6

Index finitude 64–5, 69, 84, 117, 119, 121, 130 “fore-having” 29 freedom 34, 108, 128 Fritsche, Johannas 90 future 85–6, 116 Gelassenheit 93, 111, 117 and Angst 87, 117, 134 generation 32, 93, 125, 128, 132 German National Socialism 90 Germany 90 Greeks 15–17, 105, 132 Grene, Marjorie 138n.18 ground 29 see also Being groundless ground 16, 43–5, 59, 62, 64–6 see also Being, nothing, the Guignon, Charles B. 14 guilt 72–4, 75 Haar, Michel 7, 9, 45, 90 hammer 21–2, 31, 115, 131 Haugeland, John 103–4, 141–2n.11, 143n.55 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm 6 Heidegger, early/late (Heidegger I, II) 7, 43, 47, 61, 90–1, 103, 111, 119, 127–9 “Heidegger’s idea of truth” (Tugendhat) 114 Held, Klaus 136n.20 heritage 17, 88, 121–32 hermeneutic 29 hiddenness/unhiddenness 1–4, 42 see also concealment/ unconcealment historicity 90, 93, 116, 118, 121–3 and Being 126 homelessness 127 human beings 10, 18, 34, 88, 129–30 Husserl, Edmund 133 individuation 58–9, 66, 69, 70, 75–6, 96, 124–5 and Angst 65, 67

151

inheritance 121–2 innerworldly 86 joy 120 Kant, Immanuel 6, 48 Kierkegaard 137n, 140n Kisiel, Theodore 84, 140n.12 knife 27–8 Kockelman, Joseph 45 Krell, David Farrell 127 “Language” (Heidegger) 129 Lao-Tzu 117 leaping in/leaping ahead (solicitude) 38 “Letter on Humanism” (Heidegger) 10, 103, 112, 114, 127–9 letting-be 12, 72, 87, 89, 91, 93, 106, 108–10, 112–13, 116–18 leveling down 32, 36–7, 44–7, 49, 65–7, 69, 73, 84, 87, 98, 100–01, 113, 123 see also possibilities life 45, 48 listening 31, 75–6, 88–9, 132–3 love 5, 6 “lover of wisdom” 5 Macomber, W. B. 138n.32, 140n.16 Malpas, Jeff 45 “Memorial Address” (Heidegger) 127 “metaphysics of feeling” 6, 61 “metaphysics of reason” 6 methodology 16–20, 61, 106 Mit-sein 20, 22 Mitda-sein 9, 11–12, 22–4, 25, 27, 30, 38, 73–4, 87, 90, 104, 115, 118, 123–5, 132–3 mood 4, 9, 25–8, 31, 52, 67, 115, 131–4 Mulhall, Stephen 31, 46, 80, 137n.7 mystery 1, 15 “needful usage” 10 Newton, Isaac 104

152

Index

Nietzsche vi nonactivity 117 non-dialectical 87, 95 non-relational, death 50–2, 60, 63 “not being closed” 112 nothing, the 5–12, 61–2, 64–5, 70, 72, 75–6, 79–80, 82, 87, 91, 93, 105, 112–13, 123, 128–30 and difference, 72, 81 nullity 78, 82–3, 86–7 objective presence 1, 3, 11, 19, 33–4, 40, 44, 51, 66, 93–4, 98, 101, 127 Olafson, Frederick A. 7 “On the Essence of Truth” (Heidegger) 7, 98–112 ontic 34–5, 47, 63, 102–3 ontological 34, 47, 63, 98–9, 102–4, 115–16, 126, 129, 133 ontological difference 83 “ontological occlusion” 3–4, 11–12, 32, 60, 89–90, 96, 105, 115–16, 128–34 ontology of mood 3 “On the Question of Being” (Heidegger) 10 “Origin of the Work of Art, The” (Heidegger) 9–10, 89–90, 130 other, the 3–4, 8–12, 122, 133 outside-itself 83 personal self 51, 58, 69–70, 79, 85, 116 personal identity 124–5 phenomenology 17–18, 54–6, 61 Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel) 6 “Philosophical fragments” (Schlegel) 6 Plato 1–5, 14–15, 44, 88, 93, 98–9, 128, 131 “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” (Heidegger) 1–7, 14, 88, 98–9 possibilities 69, 83, 91, 97, 114 see also leveling down “Postscript to ‘What is Metaphysics’” (Heidegger) 61 potentiality-of-being 77, 85, 87–8, 92, 120

pre-reflective see Being, mood “presence” 1 “presence-at-hand” 21 primordial truth 92 project 24, 28–9, 93–4 “projection” 114 propositional truth 14, 98–100, 105 rational subject 20 “ready-to-hand” 21 real 36 reason 20 reborn 122 region see world relation 66–8, 100 “releasement” 91, 117 relevance see world resoluteness 88–92, 95–6, 110–12, 120–4, 133 “resolution” 72, 91 retrieve 122–5, 131 Richardson, William J. 7, 9, 119 Sartre, Jean-Paul 8, 34–5, 65, 96, 128 Scheler, Max 125 Schlegel, Friedrich 6 Schurmann, Reiner 9 Sein-lassen see letting-be self 124 see also Mitda-sein, Angst, and loss of self Shakespeare 134 shepherd of Being 129 silence 30, 75–6, 89, 132 Smith, Quentin 6 Socrates 5 solipsism 23, 125 “something like being” 14 space 58 Stambaugh, Joan 128 stillness 12, 87, 89, 91–3, 95, 112–16, 129–34 see also Gelassenheit, Angst style 14 subjectivity 43, 45–7, 50–1, 58–9, 79, 90–3, 101,103–4, 106, 111–14, 119–20 unhinged 49, 66, 96, 128 Symposium (Socrates) 5

Index Taminiaux, Jacques 141n.5 Tao Te Ching 117 technology 16 temporality 66, 68, 72, 81–9, 95–6, 103–5, 112–13, 116–18, 121–3, 129, 131 linear 65, 84 thaumazein see wonder “The thing” (Heidegger) 129 There, the 26, 29, 83–4, 86 Theunissen, Michael 124 They, the 16, 32–7, 40, 59, 65, 69, 72–3, 76, 82–3, 91, 100–1, 114, 127–8 They-self, the 37, 91, 117 thrownness 33, 67, 82–3, 87, 95, 101, 122–3 time 63 “Time and Being” (Heidegger) 87, 122 Time and death (White) 14 totality 39–41, 43–4, 53–4, 56–60, 62, 65–6, 87, 95–7, 104, 108, 112, 116, 124, 131 see also whole, individuation toward-oneself 86 “trace of willing” 91 tradition 16–17, 40, 121–32 transcendence see projection transcendent God 126 truth 1–3, 5, 7, 9–11, 13, 14–15, 19, 35, 42, 66, 87–9, 91–4, 96–103, 105–10, 113–17, 120–1, 122, 126, 131 of Being 83, 91, 96–7, 101–3, 127, 130 correspondence theory 98–100 openness 107

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presupposition of 106 and relation 105 “in the truth” 51, 92, 120, 129 “truth of existence” 72 Tugendhat, Ernst 106, 114–15, 142–3n.50 “turn” (kehre) 7, 111, 119 see also Heidegger, early/late uncanny see Angst understanding 25, 28–30 “untruth” 100–1, 114–15 Vallega, Alejandro A. 138n.27 Villela-Petit, Maria 58 We, the 122–3 Western ontology 13, 16–17, 83 “What is metaphysics” (Heidegger) 7, 59, 61, 117 White, Carol 14, 48, 133 whole, of Da-sein and world 43–7, 56–67, 70–1, 78–9, 83–92, 95–7, 104–16 see also totality, ontological occlusion willing 91 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 4, 6 wonder 2, 3, 6–7 world 21–4, 25, 28–31, 39–42, 54–8, 60–1, 87, 89, 115–16, 121–3, 125–6, 131–2 ancestors 122–4 loss of 54–7, 67–8, 79, 104, 121 shared with others 125–34 Wu Wei 117 Young, Julian 45