Jud Evans

   Messing about with ontological cognates requires a lot more cognitive understanding and vigilance than trading natural language derivitives from the same word in an ancestral language, and  Heidegger's careless interpolation of one temporal term for another causes ontological havoc as far as meaning and apprehension are concerned.

     It is only recently that I have realised the full extent of the cavalier fashion and speed with which Heidegger swaps around his fairground-style ontological switching-cups, beneath which one cup contains a gerundialised daseinic verb and the other a daseinic abstract noun, whilst the third cup contains the shivering human manikin (*comporting himself  towards death*)  that is "all of us," that the full enormity of Heidegger's outrageous theological rather than philosophical  indifference and disregard for the rules of grammar and for the intelligence of us rubber-necking  fairground punters has become apparent.

Hitherto I was only really aware of his infamy in his treating of the semantic marker or gerundialised verb phrase “being there” as a noun i. e.,dasein - the name he employs to represent the existence of the human existential protagonist in his so-called “ontological  investigation” of a so-called “Being.” Now I can see that he transgresses the rules of language in an even more unconscionable manner, greatly exceeding the bounds of reason and academic proprietary and moderation in his double semantic whammy of alternating or switching the semantic import of his daseinic manikin between the verb phrase: “being there” and the abstract content word “existence,” with the result that in one sentence the import ofdasein is that of an anthropomorphised gerundialised verb, and in later sentences dasein becomes an anthropomorphisation of the noun “existence”

Consider this by Heidegger:

“Dasein is a being that does not simply occur among other beings.” Are we to suppose that in this sentence the import of “Being” is “being there,” as practically every philosophical article, essay, book and recorded conversation in or off the internet tells us, or are we to ascribe the meaning ”existence” to the use of the word?  If the former, then “being there” is a state or modality of the very being that itself purports to be. Being - there cannot be being there twice at the same time, any more than “dancing there” can be “dancing there” can.

Jack or Jill can be dancing there in the dancehall, but if we choose to re-name Jack's tripping the light fantastic and call it his“dancing-there” instead of "Jack dancing there", then his name must be stripped of its verbial, ontological and designatory spatial import. It is only if this is done, and "dancing-there” is comprehended as a proper name that the sentence: “Dancing-there is dancing there,” becomes semantically possible and makes ontological sense. Native Americans sometimes have this sort of name - but a German peasant from the sticks?  C'mon?

And so it is with dasein. Only if the word dasein is dispossessed of all ontological import and under and overtones of modalic or ontological significance does ANY of Heidegger's sentences containing the term make semantic or ontological sense. Once the word dasein is perceived as meaning “being there,” or “existence,” then it renders the whole sentence meaningless, for these ontological significations become involved in a head on crash with any other ontological or temporal markers in the sentence and makes a nonsense of the whole word-string.

If Heidegger's meaning of the word is the noun “existence” however we are presented with the farcicality of the representational human entity dasein being represented as the existential modality of its own existential modality.

Heidegger goes to great pains and enormous lengths in the first sections of Being & Time to launch what he calls: “The necessity of an explicit recovery of the question of Being,” without at first establishing that there IS such a thing as “Being” in the first place. For him the question of “Being” seems to preclude any consideration of whether there is such a thing as “Being” but rather is intent on finding its meaning. One could liken it to a scientist launching into a long and expensive research programme to discover the functions and transmissible operations of DNA without first establishing that there IS such a thing in the first place as DNA, which can be studied.

Instead Heidegger says that: "An understanding of Being is always already contained in everything we apprehend in beings.” Plainly this is not so, for if an understanding of Being is always already contained in everything we apprehend in beings, then there would be no necessity of an explicit recovery of the question of Being. From the very start of his ill conceived, fumbling and muddled “investigation,” the word “Being” is foisted upon us as an ontological fait accompli or irreversible ontological a priori accomplishment. His investigation is deeply flawed, for it is built on the delusive premise and presupposition that there is UNQUESTIONABLY a so-called “Being” that it is worth his and our time and trouble to investigate as of its “meaning” in the first place.

Referring to: “the prejudices that implant and nurture ever anew the superfluousness of a questioning” he offers no defence of WHY a questioning of “Being” is superfluous, but simply retorts: “That ontology in turn can only be interpreted adequately under the guidance of the question of Being, which has been clarified and answered beforehand, .”Which is his typically muddled way of saying: “Under the guidance of the QUESTIONER of the question of 'Being'” - in other words the great man himself.

Heidegger writes: “It is said that: "Being is the most universal and the emptiest concept. As such it resists attempt at definition. Nor does this most universal and thus indefinable concept need any definition. Everybody uses it and also already understands mean by it.”

What he doesn't reflect upon however is that the reason that everybody uses it and also already understands mean by it, is because they ALREADY KNOW from the way it is used in natural language both by themselves and others that it is simply a mechanism of language which allows them to allow the  attribution of actions and states to the entities they talk about.

They have no need to be linguists or philosophers or theologians when they say:”The leaf “is” green,” for unlike Heidegger,  English speakers KNOW that there is no “IS” attached to the leaf, and in the same way, when they use the 'being' word and say: “Bill is being silly,” they KNOW precisely what they mean by this and that being something or other is a way of describing the behaviour or state of some person, place or thing. “What is Being?” is a non-question in the Heideggerian sense, and is a meaningless waste of breath, just as meaningless as: “Why is there Being?” for if there WAS any answer to the question: “Why is there Being? ” then there would be some examples of “not-being” or “non-being” to compare with the entities that are in the existential modality of  being entities - and plainly there are not.

The reason why Heidegger IS interesting however is more of a sociological one, in that it informs us of the incredible lengths that some people will attempt to twist language to bend it to their preconceptions, and how we must be ever vigilant and protect our language against such infamous abuse. It also throws a bright light on the minds of those people who DO believe in these notions, and allows us to lift the curtain of their psyches and try and understand them and the way they think.

Dasein From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Dasein is a German noun which antedates Heidegger's use of it, though he saw more of its possibilities than previous philosophers such as Fichte had. It is derived from da sein, which literally means being there. It is synonymous with existence, as in I am pleased with my existence (ich bin mit meinemdasein zufrieden).

In the works of Heidegger, a German word for a being that is capable of recursively comprehending the primal (ontological) authentic (ontic) nature of its own Being. Heidegger defined the term and concept of dasein in Being and Time because he needed it to uncover the primal nature of "Being" which Aristotle and Kant left unexplored in their earlier ideas of ontology.

Dasein is a special entity in that it is simultaneously ontological (does) and ontic (is) in that its pursuit of itself is in fact the pursuit of the pursuit of itself; the primal nature of dasein is authentic and recursive.

Dasein is just the way we are. Traditions of language, logical system, or belief may obscure dasein's authentic primal nature from itself. Beings are dasein even when they are ontologically wrapped up in a tradition which obscures the authentic choice to live within and transmit this tradition. In this case dasein still authentically chooses the tradition when it is confronted by a paradox within the tradition and must choose to dismiss the tradition or dismiss the experience of being confronted with choice.

Heidegger attempted to maintain the definition of Dasein as we all are, in our average everydayness.
Dasein does not spring into existence upon philosophical exploration of itself. Heidegger intended dasein as a concept, in order to provide a stepping stone in the questioning of what it means to be. When dasein contemplates this, what seems (absurdly) circular in ontic terms, is recursive in ontological sense, because it brings the necessary appearance of time to the center of attention. Dasein is a way to get at an ontological understanding of time.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasein"