Recently Brendan wrote
>Heidegger immediately notes that "this undifferentiated character of
>Dasein's everydayness is _not nothing_". Indeed, "out of this kind of Being
>- and back into it again - is all existing, such as it is".
>
>Then, "We call this everyday undifferentiated character of Dasein
>'Durchschnittlichkeit'".
>
>The translator's render this word "average".
>
>Even though "average" may be the 'correct' translation, I find this rather
>unsatisfying.
>It seems to lose a dimension H. is referring to, i.e. of the possibility of
>our mistaking the undifferentiated character of Dasein as "nothing". Why
>would he explicitly warn us that it is NOT nothing. The 'throughness'
>(indicated by 'Durch') has the feeling of a _transparancy_, a dimension
>which cannot be (immediately) seen but is mistakenly _seen though_, as it were.
>
>Can anyone relate to the problem I am gesturing at here? Are there any
>alternatives to "average" in this context.
This question of trans-lation highlights a very Heideggerian scenario: the
difference between an average/correct translation of Durchschnittlichkeit
(averageness) and one that comes from the matter itself. Existence
obliviates Being by just being something: it does this by being precisely
everyday/quotidian/average - it appears to miss itself as some pertinent
thing and that is why H here, there and everywhere stresses that this
missability is not nothing but is precisely the clue to the way in. Only
something that can miss itself can find itself. This sort of formulation
appears very often in Heidegger (only something with the property not-X can
have the property X).
In our Durchschnittlichkeit we are closest ontically to what we are but
this is precisely a distance for fundamental ontology because we miss it.
The transparency you suggest is the ontic shell of 'obviousness' that
occurs to us in our everydayness: that it does not bear thinking about. As
an aside, this everydayness has been grasped by a once radical offshoot of
sociology by the glorious name of 'ethnomethodology', and less
interestingly by 'ordinary language philosophy' (ie, later Wittgenstein).
Heidegger's notion of thinking has always embodied a thinking-back or
reflection or re-collection of that which is un-thought and the obviousness
of the everyday averageness that characterises Dasein is precisely
Heidegger's mission to make un-obvious, to bring into the clearing, to
re-veal, to question (by making the very fact that it is transparent a
problem, something that stands out as strange, as un-canny).
I know little German thus I cannot offer a translation but I hope I have
offered a suggestion of a way to understand rather than translate
Durchschnittlichkeit.
cheers
MP
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>Heidegger immediately notes that "this undifferentiated character of
>Dasein's everydayness is _not nothing_". Indeed, "out of this kind of Being
>- and back into it again - is all existing, such as it is".
>
>Then, "We call this everyday undifferentiated character of Dasein
>'Durchschnittlichkeit'".
>
>The translator's render this word "average".
>
>Even though "average" may be the 'correct' translation, I find this rather
>unsatisfying.
>It seems to lose a dimension H. is referring to, i.e. of the possibility of
>our mistaking the undifferentiated character of Dasein as "nothing". Why
>would he explicitly warn us that it is NOT nothing. The 'throughness'
>(indicated by 'Durch') has the feeling of a _transparancy_, a dimension
>which cannot be (immediately) seen but is mistakenly _seen though_, as it were.
>
>Can anyone relate to the problem I am gesturing at here? Are there any
>alternatives to "average" in this context.
This question of trans-lation highlights a very Heideggerian scenario: the
difference between an average/correct translation of Durchschnittlichkeit
(averageness) and one that comes from the matter itself. Existence
obliviates Being by just being something: it does this by being precisely
everyday/quotidian/average - it appears to miss itself as some pertinent
thing and that is why H here, there and everywhere stresses that this
missability is not nothing but is precisely the clue to the way in. Only
something that can miss itself can find itself. This sort of formulation
appears very often in Heidegger (only something with the property not-X can
have the property X).
In our Durchschnittlichkeit we are closest ontically to what we are but
this is precisely a distance for fundamental ontology because we miss it.
The transparency you suggest is the ontic shell of 'obviousness' that
occurs to us in our everydayness: that it does not bear thinking about. As
an aside, this everydayness has been grasped by a once radical offshoot of
sociology by the glorious name of 'ethnomethodology', and less
interestingly by 'ordinary language philosophy' (ie, later Wittgenstein).
Heidegger's notion of thinking has always embodied a thinking-back or
reflection or re-collection of that which is un-thought and the obviousness
of the everyday averageness that characterises Dasein is precisely
Heidegger's mission to make un-obvious, to bring into the clearing, to
re-veal, to question (by making the very fact that it is transparent a
problem, something that stands out as strange, as un-canny).
I know little German thus I cannot offer a translation but I hope I have
offered a suggestion of a way to understand rather than translate
Durchschnittlichkeit.
cheers
MP
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