Cologne, 8 July 1996
Robert Scheetz asks about identity and difference. Of course, it's worth reading
Heidegger's 'Identity and Difference' (chapter and verse).
The difference between being and beings is the gap that allows beings to appear
AS such. (It's worthwhile paying a lot of attention to this little word AS - in
SZ and elsewhere, esp. GA Bd.29/30 'The Basic Concepts of Metaphysics: World -
Finitude - Loneliness' e.g. Section 47). This gap is already the clearing,
Aletheia, the there of being-there (Dasein).
So there is nothing here to do with "elemental phase", "material cause",
"efficient cause", "blood in the body", the "sustaining breath of God", or the
like. Get rid of all these images!.It is useful, I have found, to think of
Dasein not as a being but as the Dasein in human being. Human beings are always
already in the there, thrown into it, and thus can understand beings AS such.
But this standing out in the there is not only understanding but mood,
attunedness. There is already a dual mode in which beings as such impact on
Dasein: understanding and mood (Befindlichkeit).
There is no continuity between subjectivity and Dasein, only a leap. For
subjectivity, everything happens in the imaginations of consciousness.
Consciousness is withing the subject and it becomes a problem to understand how
consciousness can get out into the world. Dasein, on the other hand, is already
this primordial transcendence to the world; it is always already out-standing,
standing out in the there of the as, understanding beings as such and being
impacted by the moods of beings as a whole.
M. Fujimaki comments on the authentic mode of Dasein. The authenticity of
Dasein, as far as I can see, is the turning of Dasein to being itself. Later,
e.g. in the Beitraege, and in an historical context, this is called the
grounding of the there. "Fundamental ontology" turns out to be a misnomer
because being itself is not a ground, but the event. Humankind as the shepherd
of beyng is not a romantic notion, but an indication that humankind has to take
beyng into its care. A shepherd is not a technician, does not bring forth into
the clearing of beyng but instead protects the clearing in which beings as such
can appear.
The ontic dimension is the way of understanding not sensitive to the difference
of the AS, which takes the clearing of beyng for granted and does not lose any
thought or sleep over it. This is the state of things today, where science is
all-pervading and all-powerful as mode of imagining how things are.
I would be careful to call Mitsein "community", because this suggests some sort
of belonging together, some chumminess. Mitsein means that the other AS such is
accessible to Dasein. Dasein can understand another Dasein, it can be affected
by the other's moods. This does not mean that the other is transparent. On the
contrary! But being Dasein always already involves being together with others,
understanding others AS another Dasein and being impacted by others' moods,
whether collective or individual. (Dasein is thought before any differentiation
into collective and individual.)
Chris Rickey writes that "Mit(da)sein is constituted by speech and
communication". To this I'd like to add: as well as Mitbefindlichkeit, i.e.
co-moodedness, which does not necessarily mean having the same mood as
the other, but being impacted by mood together.
The impact of beyng on Dasein is always twofold: understanding of beings and
mood. Mood does not bring beings to stand, does not de-fine them as distinct
entities. Nevertheless, Dasein can capture the meaning or direction of a mood,
is affected by it. Mood is the impact of beyng that cannot be con-fined in
limits. Somehow it is the impact of beying that is always already spilling out
over the edge.
Michael
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