A problem I have been dealing with in Heidegger is that In BEING AND TIME, Heidegger takes a very radical view of dasein's authentic appropriation of tradition which, by necessity, completely takes it apart and puts it back together again as dasein actually knows it instead of the 'everyday' passive acceptance of a vague theme of what tradition is that never examines it rationally in detail or judge even if it fits together coherently.

April 2000

Thom Whitby wrote:
"Note, though, that I made an aside about a ". . . problematic . . .," not about Heidegger's whole sense of (or relation to tradition), though its very noncontroversial to speak of one inheriting tradition." This is a problem I have been dealing with in Heidegger and I hope someone can illuminate me in this. In BEING AND TIME, takes a very radical view of dasein's authentic appropriation of tradition which, by necessity, completely takes it apart and puts it back together again as dasein actually knows it instead of the 'everyday' passive acceptance of a vague theme of what tradition is that never examines it rationally in detail or judge even if it fits together coherently.

ATHONY CRIFASI:
Does authentic appropriation mean that one takes tradition and "knows" it, "examines it rationally"? How can this be an accurate interpretation of Heidegger, given what he says about "rational knowledge" being a founded mode?

RE: GARY C MOORE:
Everything is in a founded mode including dasein which is founded upon nullity. "Examines it rationally" is really a redundancy since you cannot examine something irrationally. When you 'examine' a disclosure of a phenomenon, you are beginning a rational phenomenolgy. When you appropriate tradition, a heritage, history, historiography, authentic dasein as being-in-the-world IS history, and dasein as history is a unique 'singulare tantum', always "mine", always ownmost. And when authentic dasein appropriates tradition, it appropriates it according to its "absolute goal", i. e., death. When dasein receives tradition, it is helter-skelter in relation to that "absolute goal", the trivial mixed in indifferently with what might be important. When authentic dasein retrieves tradition, it must order it to the purpose of its absolute goal, which means one "takes tradition and knows it, examines it rationally".

GARY C MOORE:
Heidegger after the rector speech seems to take on this 'They' self sense of tradition to a large extent, justifying Mr. Whitby's comment. Instead of, "It is my tradition because I essentially put it together," it becomes a vague, random, popular 'feeling' that can be molded any which way and, again, justify any act.

ATHONY CRIFASI:
Where does he say that the They self is a "feeling" that can be molded by us in "any which way," thereby justifying any act?

Anthony Crifasi
RE: GARY C MOORE: Of course he didn't "say" that. That would be like saying, "I am a crook", or, "I am a liar". But in the BEITRAGE or CONTRIBUTIONS, he begins talking about "the voice of the people" ("the 'voice' of the people speaks seldom and only in the few", [German pg. 319, English 224]) as if only exceptional person can speak for the "people". And since ,"THE ESSENCE OF A PEOPLE can only be understood from Da-sein and this means at the same time that the VOLK can never be a goal or aim" (ibid.). And since on the page of B&T (German 118-19, Stambaugh 111-12)Tom Rockmore footnotes but does not quote to prove "a notion of plural authenticity" (On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy, pg. 197), Heidegger states, "The world always already from the outset is my own" , and goes on, "The world of Da-sein thus frees beings which are . . . 'in' the world as being-in-the-world . . ." As to others that are "like" Da-sein, "the characteristic of encountering the OTHERS is, after all, oriented toward one's OWN Da-sein" which, to "avoid misunderstanding", he explicitly says, "They, rather, are those from whom one mostly does NOT distinguish oneself . . . The being-there-too with them does not have the ontological character of being objectively present 'with' them within a world. The 'with' is of the character of Da-sein, the 'also' means the sameness of being as circumspect, heedful being-in-the- world. "With' and 'also' are to be understood EXISTENTIALLY, not categorically. On the basis of this LIKE-WITH being-in-the-world, the world is always already the one that I share with the others. The world of Da-sein is a WITH WORLD. Being-in is BEING-WITH others.


The others . . . are encountered from the WORLD in which Da-sein, heedful and circumspect, essentially dwells." Heideggers always calls the others just "others". They are "like Da- sein" but he never says they are Da-sein in the plural just like his own. And if there are no plural Da-seins, how can there be "plural authenticity", something, of course, that Heidegger does not even mention. What Heidegger DOES go on to say is that Da-sein can, in a sense discover itself "by LOOKING AWAY from its 'experiences' and the 'center of its actions', and then states, "Da-sein initially finds 'itself ' in WHAT it does, needs, expects, has charge of, in the things at hand which it initially TAKES CARE OF in the surrounding world." But then suddenly it is clear we have always been in the 'everyday' world of the 'They' self, and were we ever out of it at all? The way Da-sein discovers itself here is the same way one discovers "others", so that the inauthentic way of discovering 'itself' is the same inauthentic way we 'encounter' "others" "like Da- sein". In other words, authenticality dasein has not 'encountered' them at all. Being-with is not necessarily have a straight-forward authentic mode. In referring to inauthentic "guilt", Heidegger says, "This "being guilty" as "HAVING DEBTS" is a way of being with others in the field of taking care of things . . ."(German 281, Stambaugh 260)


Later he says strangely, "Resoluteness brings the self right into its being together with things at hand, actually taking care of them, and pushes it toward concerned being-with with the others".(German 298, Stambaugh 274) Look at the comparison of things at hand, i. e., "actually taking care of them" versus "pushes it toward concerned being-with with others" !! The simple and straight-forward explication of this passage is that-- things are easier and closer to deal with than people!! How many times have I read this passage, maybe stumbled for a second, and then kept on going because this was not what I was wanting to find? He goes on to say that "resoluteness toward itself first brings Da-sein to the possibility of letting the others who are with it 'be' their ownmost potentiality-of-being . . . " "Letting the others"?! Being-with here is definitely NOT a relationship of equals of any sort. Ergo being "like Da-sein" is in no way being 'a' dasein.

"Others" are simply a part of dasein's world which is always "mine". So when Heidegger writes, "The essence of the people can only be understood from Da-sein" and "The voice of the people speaks seldom and only in the few" it certainly is not a well thought out concept, and 'the people' are part of dasein's world who are less 'close' that the things one takes care of. I would certainly say these phrases belong to "a vague, random, popular feeling". "Vague" because you do not KNOW what or who the "people" are except as a "popular feeling" of unity and togetherness supposedly of those with common beliefs and goals which, however, can only be spoken of by "the few", whoever they are, and I think you have a good idea. "That can be molded any which way and justify any act." If the call of conscience is grounded in a nullity, if therefore authentic resolve has infinite choices, it is because, "Existential nullity by no means has the character of a privation, of a lack as compared with an ideal which is set up but not attained in Da-sein; rather, the being of this being is already null AS PROJECT BEFORE everything that it can project . . . "(German 285, Stambaugh

263) In other words, there is no 'guide' to choose any particular project, no impulse, no nothing. "In the existential analytic we cannot, on principle, discuss what Da-sein FACTICALLY resolves upon" (German 383, Stambaugh 350) So necessarily dasein's basic project must be arbitrary, and from out of the solipsistic aporia I discussed yesterday in the reply to Mr. Whitby and which is also substantially indicated in the above discussion of "being-with".

So, knowing nothing substantially of "others", when he talks of "the voice of the people" you might say it is merely an aspect of Heidegger's world, not based on any existential analytic but merely the arbitrary decision according to a tradition he appropriates in his own way into his resolve, and has no restraints or bounds as to how he uses it. Authenticity does not mean being "good". As Heidegger says repeatedly, heeding the call of conscience is long before deciding about good and evil. The existential call of conscience has no standard of ethics of ANY sort

(except the rational necessity of honesty? "Honesty is the only virtue": Nietzsche. How could one be dishonest to oneself while heeding the call to conscience and resolving upon authenticity?). Therefore any project proceeding from authenticity obviously may not relate in any way with the moral standards of the 'everyday' world of the 'They' self.