On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, malcolm riddoch wrote:
> I know this question has already been asked, but I am still confused about
> authenticity and falling in *Being and Time*. In what sense can the
> anxiously impassioned defamiliarizing projection of death be a negation of
> falling? Given that authenticity is an existentiell modification of the
> they-self, is this modification a 'radical individuation' that arrests the
> fall into the forgetfulness of the 'they'? And if so, then what is the
> existential status of falling? How can it be an a priori existential
> structure of Dasein and yet figure only as a negation in the authentic
> projection of death?
To start with, we should disentagle these elements. The unity of the
analytic of Dasein lies in care, which has two components: concern, which
is the specifically worldly concern for the world, and that concern which
Dasein has about its own being, which is to say, when its own being
becomes an issue for it. Anxiety reveals the latter as facticity, or the
'that I am' of Dasein. The former is simply the structure of being-in.
Fallenness belongs to concern. It has three components: idle talk,
curiousity, and ambiguity. All three are types of public being or Das
Man. What belongs to all these is a sort of covering, unoriginality,
distantiation from authentic Dasein. We fall from authenticity into
inauthenticity, or a type of being-in in which we are not really concerned.
The opposition Heidegger sets up is between authentic concern, which is a
concern which is really mine, and inauthentic concern, which is a concern
which in a certain sense, belongs to others. Because it is the nature of
the public to disguise itself as semblance, it is possible (indeed most
likely) that the people living inauthentically do not realize it and
believe that they are living authentically. Because the distinction must
be objective, in a certain sense, in the same way that we can tell when
someone is mad although they believe they are sane, Heidegger must
provide some sort of objective measure so we can see through the disguise
and chicanery. The measure is that mode of care which is concerned about
Dasein's own being. Anxiety, which gives us the "that I am" and death,
which gives us the ground for "mineness", combine to give us an authentic
understanding (understanding as itself an enactment of being) of Dasein
as "I am [the world, since Dasein is the world]." Most important is to
say mine, to personalize one's world rather than being lived by others.
One never escapes being-with, because that is a constituent of
worldhood. Therein lies the difficulty which Heidegger himself pointed
out: how to have an authentic mode of being-with, given the permeable
boundaries between being-with, publicity, and fallenness. Since the
difference is not being-with or being alone (the latter is simply a mode
of the former), nor the content of what is either conformed with or
against (sort of), the real distinction is how one lives with the
being-with: either as one's own or as lived by others. Closely related,
I think, is why Mill argues for the necessity of freedom of speech; only
when there is difference of opinion are people forced to think and defend
their position, and only then are their opinions worthwhile and truly
part of their being, rather than something they believe just because. It
is not necessarily that the truth comes out (although Mill believes this
to be the case) in argument, but that their is a subjective benefit to
thinking the matter through. Since Heidegger described idle talk as not
thinking the matter from out of the matter, I think the parallel holds,
particularly since Heidegger does not hold to the progressivist notion
inherent in Mill's truth through argument.
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
> I know this question has already been asked, but I am still confused about
> authenticity and falling in *Being and Time*. In what sense can the
> anxiously impassioned defamiliarizing projection of death be a negation of
> falling? Given that authenticity is an existentiell modification of the
> they-self, is this modification a 'radical individuation' that arrests the
> fall into the forgetfulness of the 'they'? And if so, then what is the
> existential status of falling? How can it be an a priori existential
> structure of Dasein and yet figure only as a negation in the authentic
> projection of death?
To start with, we should disentagle these elements. The unity of the
analytic of Dasein lies in care, which has two components: concern, which
is the specifically worldly concern for the world, and that concern which
Dasein has about its own being, which is to say, when its own being
becomes an issue for it. Anxiety reveals the latter as facticity, or the
'that I am' of Dasein. The former is simply the structure of being-in.
Fallenness belongs to concern. It has three components: idle talk,
curiousity, and ambiguity. All three are types of public being or Das
Man. What belongs to all these is a sort of covering, unoriginality,
distantiation from authentic Dasein. We fall from authenticity into
inauthenticity, or a type of being-in in which we are not really concerned.
The opposition Heidegger sets up is between authentic concern, which is a
concern which is really mine, and inauthentic concern, which is a concern
which in a certain sense, belongs to others. Because it is the nature of
the public to disguise itself as semblance, it is possible (indeed most
likely) that the people living inauthentically do not realize it and
believe that they are living authentically. Because the distinction must
be objective, in a certain sense, in the same way that we can tell when
someone is mad although they believe they are sane, Heidegger must
provide some sort of objective measure so we can see through the disguise
and chicanery. The measure is that mode of care which is concerned about
Dasein's own being. Anxiety, which gives us the "that I am" and death,
which gives us the ground for "mineness", combine to give us an authentic
understanding (understanding as itself an enactment of being) of Dasein
as "I am [the world, since Dasein is the world]." Most important is to
say mine, to personalize one's world rather than being lived by others.
One never escapes being-with, because that is a constituent of
worldhood. Therein lies the difficulty which Heidegger himself pointed
out: how to have an authentic mode of being-with, given the permeable
boundaries between being-with, publicity, and fallenness. Since the
difference is not being-with or being alone (the latter is simply a mode
of the former), nor the content of what is either conformed with or
against (sort of), the real distinction is how one lives with the
being-with: either as one's own or as lived by others. Closely related,
I think, is why Mill argues for the necessity of freedom of speech; only
when there is difference of opinion are people forced to think and defend
their position, and only then are their opinions worthwhile and truly
part of their being, rather than something they believe just because. It
is not necessarily that the truth comes out (although Mill believes this
to be the case) in argument, but that their is a subjective benefit to
thinking the matter through. Since Heidegger described idle talk as not
thinking the matter from out of the matter, I think the parallel holds,
particularly since Heidegger does not hold to the progressivist notion
inherent in Mill's truth through argument.
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---