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Dasein (; ) is a term in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Adopted from the ordinary German word Dasein meaning "existence",Literally 'being there' or 'presence', from da]] 'there' + sein]] 'to be'. After the publication of Being and Time, Heidegger came to prefer to hyphenate the term as Da-sein Heidegger used it to refer to the mode of being that he believed is particular to human beings. A being that is aware of and must confront such issues as personhood, Death, and the dilemma or paradox of living in relationship with other humans while being ultimately alone with oneself.
DaseinBecause Heidegger's usage is non-standard and difficult to pin down, it has been incorporated into the English literature as a term. Both translations of Being and Time (John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson 1962 and Joan Stambaugh 1992,) retain the German as a term produced in Roman font, not foreign-language italics. for Heidegger is a mode of being involved with and caring for the immediate world in which one lives, while always remaining aware of the contingent element of that involvement, of the priority of the world to the self, and of the evolving nature of the self itself.
The opposite of this authentic self is everyday and inauthentic Dasein, the forfeiture of one's individual meaning, destiny and lifespan, in favour of an (escapist) immersion in the public everyday world—the anonymous, identical world of das Man and the Them.Collins, J.; Selina, H.; & Appignanesi, R. (1998). Heidegger for Beginners (Duxford, Cambridge: Icon Books), pp. 64–81.
In harmony with Nietzsche's critique of the subject, as something definable in terms of consciousness, Heidegger distinguished Dasein from consciousness in order to emphasize the way that "Being" shapes our entire understanding and interpretation of the world.
"This entity which each of us is himself...we shall denote by the term 'Dasein (Heidegger, trans. 1927/1962, p.27).Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time, Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. London: S.C.M. Press."Dasein that entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue..." (Heidegger, trans. 1927/1962, p.68).
Heidegger sought to use the concept of Dasein to uncover the primal nature of "Being" ( Sein), agreeing with Nietzsche and Wilhelm DiltheyCollins, J.; Selina, H.; & Appignanesi, R. (1998). Heidegger for Beginners (Duxford, Cambridge: Icon Books), p. 48. that Dasein is always a being engaged in the world: neither a subject, nor the objective world alone, but the coherence of being-in-the-world. This ontological basis of Heidegger's work thus opposes the Cartesian "abstract agent" in favour of practical engagement with one's environment.Collins, J.; Selina, H.; & Appignanesi, R. (1998). Heidegger for Beginners (Duxford, Cambridge: Icon Books), p. 61. Dasein is revealed by projection into, and engagement with, a personal world—a never-ending process of involvement with the world as mediated through the projects of the self.
Heidegger considered that language, everyday curiosity, , and common beliefs obscure Dasein's nature from itself.Collins, J.; Selina, H.; & Appignanesi, R. (1998). Heidegger for Beginners (Duxford, Cambridge: Icon Books), pp. 69–70. Authentic choice means turning away from the collective world of Them, to face Dasein, one's individuality, one's own limited life-span, one's own being.Collins, J.; Selina, H.; & Appignanesi, R. (1998). Heidegger for Beginners (Duxford, Cambridge: Icon Books), pp. 81–89. Heidegger thus intended the concept of Dasein to provide a stepping stone in the questioning of what it means to be—to have one's own being, one's own death, one's own truth.Roudinesco, E., Jacques Lacan: An Outline of a Life and History of a System of Thought (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), p. 96.
Heidegger also saw the question of Dasein as extending beyond the realms disclosed by positive science or in the history of metaphysics. "Scientific research is not the only manner of Being which this entity can have, nor is it the one which lies closest. Moreover, Dasein itself has a special distinctiveness as compared with other entities; ... it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it."Heidegger, Martin. "The Ontological Priority of the Question of Being." Being and Time / Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. London: S.C.M., 1962. 32 Being and Time stressed the ontological difference between entities and the being of entities: "Being is always the Being of an entity."Heidegger, Martin. "The Ontological Priority of the Question of Being." Being and Time / Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. London: S.C.M., 1962. 29. Establishing this difference is the general motif running through Being and Time.
Some scholars disagree with this interpretation, however, arguing that for Heidegger Dasein denoted a structured awareness or an institutional "way of life".See John Haugeland's article "Reading Brandom Reading Heidegger". . Others suggest that Heidegger's early insistence on the ontological priority of Dasein was muted in his post-war writings.
From this point of view, transcendence is the desire to surpass realist acceptance of the world as it is and to move towards a political, ethical and planned reality of subjectivity in semiotic relations with the world.
Jacques Lacan turned in the 1950s to Heidegger's Dasein for his characterisation of the psychoanalysis as being-for-death ( être-pour-la-mort).Roudinesco, É., Jacques Lacan (1999) p. 249-50 Similarly, he saw the analyst as searching for authentic speech, as opposed to "the subject who loses his meaning in the objectifications of discourse...which will give him the wherewithal to forget his own existence and his own death".Jacques Lacan, Ecrits (1997) p. 70
Alfred Schütz distinguished between direct and indirect social experience, emphasising that in the latter, "My orientation is not toward the existence ( Dasein) of a concrete individual Thou. It is not toward any subjective experiences now being constituted in all their uniqueness in another's mind".
Aleksandr Dugin uses Dasein as the foundation for the Fourth Political Theory, emphasizing Dasein and its role in Russian society. He puts this in opposition to Western (more specifically American) society, which is far too individualistic with an inauthentic view of individuality.
The German people has been summoned by the Führer to vote; the Führer, however, is asking nothing from the people; rather, he is giving the people the possibility of making, directly, the highest free decision of all: whether itthe entire peoplewants its own existence ( Dasein), or whether it does not want it. ... On November 12, the German people as a whole will choose its future, and this future is bound to the Führer. ... There are not separate foreign and domestic policies. There is only one will to the full existence ( Dasein) of the State. The Führer has awakened this will in the entire people and has welded it into a single resolve.Heidegger, M., "German Men and Women!", a speech delivered on 10 November 1933 at the University of Freiburg; printed in the Freiburger Studentenzeitung, November 10, 1933. English translation in Richard Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controversy (MIT Press, 1993), chapter 2.
Richard Rorty considered that with Dasein, Heidegger was creating a conservative myth of being, complicit with the Romantic elements of Nazism. (1998). 9781840460032, Icon Books. ISBN 9781840460032
According to Julian Wolfreys, "There is no direct 'face'-to-'face' relation for Heidegger; despite his invaluable critique of ontology, he still reduces the relation between Dasein and Dasein as mediated by the question and problematic of being."
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