>I'm thinking that Heidegger's hermeneutic spiral of interpreting the
>meaning of Being (a meaning which was only methodologically _aimed_at_ in
>B&T) was only thought to be possible _because_ of the unescapable
>entanglement - including the idle chatter, of which no discourse is free,
>as we are all part of the "they" that idly chats. (It is a very different
>than the notion of the transcendental, intentional consciousness of a
>Husserl.)
>-jeff
Yes, the fall into the they/one-self (das Man-selbst) is apparently an
'essential existentiale' of Dasein, as I have been saying on this list for
the past two weeks (in the 'death and falling' posts). The question I have
been asking is in what sense must authenticity, in an invocation of
Nietzsche, 'guard itself against the fall'? In what sense, perhaps an
unresolved one in *B&T*, is authenticity posited as a negation of the
forgetful fall into an absorption in beings?
Of course 'we' can only approach authenticity from where 'we' already are,
immersed in the forgetfulness of inauthenticity, and in this sense falling
already structures our subjective relation to being. It is an essential
existential structure of everyday Dasein. But in order to authentically
project the being of this falling Dasein, where falling is a 'fearful
evasion in the face of death', 'we' must transcend this fall in a 'radical
individuation'.
So given this how might one fall authentically? If falling is defined
specifically as an absorption in the they (or herd), this just doesn't seem
possible. Authenticity seems to me to be an in part Nietzschean negation of
the they in order to posit the fall as an inevitable structure of being
with the others. Authenticity in this sense would either 'constantly guard
itself against falling back behind itself' (a mode of will to power?), or
accept the fall as a necessary return out of radical individuation back to
the they. Either way it judges the others from an apparently amoral
phenomenological ground - and who is to say how close this early Heidegger
is to his mentor Husserl?
And who, apart from Heidegger, would wish to claim to have access to this
superior ground? And here the question becomes - who of us is not
entangled, and of these, who can guarantee that they are or are not
'transcendentally' positioned?
************************************************
Anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in the they-self, and brings it
face to face with the possibility of being itself, primarily unsupported by
concernful solicitude, but of being itself, rather, in an impassioned
*freedom towards death* - a freedom which has been released from the
illusions of the 'they', and which is factical, certain of itself, and
anxious.
Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 311.
************************************************
Malcolm Riddoch
Murdoch University
Western Australia
Email: riddoch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>meaning of Being (a meaning which was only methodologically _aimed_at_ in
>B&T) was only thought to be possible _because_ of the unescapable
>entanglement - including the idle chatter, of which no discourse is free,
>as we are all part of the "they" that idly chats. (It is a very different
>than the notion of the transcendental, intentional consciousness of a
>Husserl.)
>-jeff
Yes, the fall into the they/one-self (das Man-selbst) is apparently an
'essential existentiale' of Dasein, as I have been saying on this list for
the past two weeks (in the 'death and falling' posts). The question I have
been asking is in what sense must authenticity, in an invocation of
Nietzsche, 'guard itself against the fall'? In what sense, perhaps an
unresolved one in *B&T*, is authenticity posited as a negation of the
forgetful fall into an absorption in beings?
Of course 'we' can only approach authenticity from where 'we' already are,
immersed in the forgetfulness of inauthenticity, and in this sense falling
already structures our subjective relation to being. It is an essential
existential structure of everyday Dasein. But in order to authentically
project the being of this falling Dasein, where falling is a 'fearful
evasion in the face of death', 'we' must transcend this fall in a 'radical
individuation'.
So given this how might one fall authentically? If falling is defined
specifically as an absorption in the they (or herd), this just doesn't seem
possible. Authenticity seems to me to be an in part Nietzschean negation of
the they in order to posit the fall as an inevitable structure of being
with the others. Authenticity in this sense would either 'constantly guard
itself against falling back behind itself' (a mode of will to power?), or
accept the fall as a necessary return out of radical individuation back to
the they. Either way it judges the others from an apparently amoral
phenomenological ground - and who is to say how close this early Heidegger
is to his mentor Husserl?
And who, apart from Heidegger, would wish to claim to have access to this
superior ground? And here the question becomes - who of us is not
entangled, and of these, who can guarantee that they are or are not
'transcendentally' positioned?
************************************************
Anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in the they-self, and brings it
face to face with the possibility of being itself, primarily unsupported by
concernful solicitude, but of being itself, rather, in an impassioned
*freedom towards death* - a freedom which has been released from the
illusions of the 'they', and which is factical, certain of itself, and
anxious.
Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 311.
************************************************
Malcolm Riddoch
Murdoch University
Western Australia
Email: riddoch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---