Well, first I did not mean to say that one cannot read or discover similarly radical things from other writers or philosophers. Second, I am not sure Sartre or Kierkegaard saw disclosure as such, the fact that our Being is to be open to contexts of meaning, that we are situated all the way down, that we are an interpretive force bringing the world into a focus in finding ourselves already approaching everything from some mooded, holistic, self-projected, available-already, human angle of vision that constitutes the space of our worldly lives. And of course Gadamer was hugely influenced by Heidegger.

Good questions, but I'm not sure how to deal with them.

What I find radical is our a priori openness to the world, the fact that we swim in meaning, that the disclosure of the ways we already-alway find ourselves operates within some horizon of understanding, and that these things constitute what it means to be human. The world is never the same after reading Heidegger.

I don't understand your analysis of modes and why it matters. Yes, readiness-to-hand names the Being of certain kinds of entities (tools, etc.). I wouldn't so much call readiness-to-hand and presence-at-hand modes, per say, though ok. Das Man is that in terms of which any inauthentically-grasped, ready-to-hand entity is.

Yes, in B&T Heidegger's analysis of Dasein runs through a phenomenological investigation of entities within-the-world as grasped in average everydayness, and then proceeds to the shared social space of Dasein's situatedness as such (spatiality plus Being-with) wherein one encounters the public world and 'the Others', that is constitutive of Dasein itself qua Being-in-the-world. Our a priori openness through das Man names the 'who' of Everyday Dasein. And yes the 'who' of everyday Dasein is equiprimordial with Being-in and the world as such. But I don't see what the issue or disagreement is here.

[Das Man] may be 'there' in that it is equiprimordial, but then so are all of the other modes of inauthentic Dasein. — Joshs

Ok. I mean, I'm not saying they aren't. I mean all the existentialia are 'there' constituting our openness to the world, which is our essence as cases of Dasein. So if I am understanding you correctly, yes I agree, but I don't see what the commotion is all about.

So what's your overall point? What are you trying to say about Das Man? That Das Man pertains to our encounters with people but not that of 'things', and that Das Man is equiprimodrial with Being-in-the-world?

Das Man pertains to the mode of everyday being a self(and being with other Daseins) rather than being-witjh-objects. — Joshs

Hmm... given if I understand you correctly, this misses the mark. Das Man is already 'there' in our absorption in the world as we find ourselves along-side entities in the world. The hammer is something 'one uses for hammering', given the standard 'hammer' context of the paradigmatic 'work-shop' qua work-world. In using the hammer, and thus grasping it as a hammering tool, we have already ascribed ourselves (projected) to the possibilities of Das Man. In inauthenticity, Das Man is 'there' as the horizon for both our involvement comportments with equipment and our solicitous encounters with the Others.

I'm curious, what family of philosophers do you read Heidegger in proximity with? — Joshs

Hmm... definitely been influenced by Dreyfus and Sheehan. Also Blattner and Withy, among others.

I dont agree with their reading of Hedeigger. I think they miss what is most radical about him. I much prefer Derrida's analysis. — Joshs

Why?

You wrote: "Das Man pertains to all of Dasein's encounters and situations" . It pertains in the sense that it belongs to a mode that is equiprimordial with Being-in-the-world. But it is of a different kind than ready to hand or present to hand things and isnt encountered directly through those modes of interpretation. That is to say, it is not thematically encountered. — Joshs

Sure. Ready-to-hand and present-at-hand are entities-in-the-world. Das Man is that in terms of which the ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, as encountered, are. So Das Man is not encountered at all, it is the constitutive of that wherein any thing entity is *to us*.

Let us not forget that, from Heidegger's perspective, to be a human being is to already be entangled in worldly situations. It is our condemnation yet our freedom; it is the enabling condition of our existence that in the same instance constrains us. So, we, each ourselves, approach the world from some perspective that 'clears a space' for our human-world to be as it is, á la we are Being-in-the-world. If we are to speak of 'the Self', let alone a "true self", it must be understood as being within the scope of this dynamic.

'By the time' we have reached any sense of 'our true self', we have already been determined in so many ways. Our relations to others, the ways we grasp ourselves, the entities we deal with that surround us in meaningful ways, what it means to be this kind of person rather than that kind of person, what things are for, our value frameworks, what counts as normal vs strange, how to speak, when to speak, what gets priority, what things are, our place in it all, etc. are always-already right "there" constituting the ways we are open and attuned to our intelligible worlds.

For Heidegger (I think), the notion of a 'true self' lying beneath the surface of the world, as if there were really some coward beneath the noble appearance of the soldier's armor, misses the mark. Inauthenticity is one way or mode of being open (in which the possibility space of our worldly situatedness is in terms of das Man), and authenticity is another (in which the possibility space is in terms our openness to death as the possibility of our impossibility). But to be open in one mode is neither to say we are or are not embracing a true self that lurks beneath. We are insofar as we are open. To abstract out a 'true self' from the ways in which I am already situated is to miss the ways in which I am actually already situated. This 'true self' is not some inner, really real self lying beneath. This does not mean there is always more than there appears; we do not completely understand ourselves upon a 'first look' or even deep self-reflection. There is always 'more to the story' that constitutes the ways that we already find ourselves. My thrownness qua 'the totality of myself as open' outstrips the surface of my intelligibility. But this does not mean there is some true self beneath.

Let's use your example to highlight the point.

Think of a person who rarely eats what she wants. She eats what one is supposed to eat. In all things, wearing clothing, picking friends, picking lovers, even in private moments cleaning the kitchen sink: it’s always done by a set of rules she imagines are right and praiseworthy. She’s getting something out of this. Horney suggests the exchange is related to coping mechanisms set up in childhood. She’s receiving a sense of belonging, approval, the promise of well-being. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard both picked the image of pawning. She’s pawned herself. She’s given up what she wants to eat, who she really likes, what she wants to wear and the right to paint the stove with gold paint. For all practical purposes, she’s gone. All there is to her is das Man. — frank

Let's say Horney's psycho-analysis is more or less correct here; much of this person's eating habits, activities, etc., are ways of coping with issues related to childhood. But this is not evidence of a split between a 'true self' and a 'fake self'. Her childhood issues and ways of coping with those issues are constitutive of the way she finds herself out in the world, how she understands herself, what she finds meaningful in the ways that she does, etc. To abstract a second self from this person is to prioritize some way in which 'her best' would be if we could 'craft' her. What would this person's true self even be? We would have to rework the way she already finds herself, privileging certain aspects of her world-relatedness over others, and then crafting 'her best' self in a situation in which 'all is aligned'.

So, authenticity, for Heidegger is not a true self beneath the inauthentic self, but a whole different mode of being-open.

Just some thoughts!

I'm thinking Das man pertains directly to being-with -others and not also to the being-at-hand or present-at-handness of things, even if those things have to do with human concerns(and most things do). — Joshs

Das Man pertains to all of Dasein's encounters and situations. 'What one does', 'who one is', 'how one acts', 'what things are for one', etc. prescribes the ways we encounter the other (even if the other is encountered as 'missing'), ourselves ('I am one who does this'), and things, both present-at-hand and ready-to-hand.

Authenticity is a different way of being attuned, open, or disclosed to the world. And we can talk about that.
— Dan123
What are your thoughts on that? I enjoyed your post. — frank

I wish I had the answers but I think my grasp of authenticity is much weaker than that of inauthenticity. Partially because the language of Division Two is highly obscure. With that said, if we take sense-making as such to be the core of Heidegger's early thought, while steering clear of Cartesian and substantiative thinking, then with this in mind, we should get a little clearer on authenticity.

Recall: in being-open to the world, Dasein has always-already projected upon possibilities. Some interpreters take projected possibilities to be identities that Dasein has already ascribed to or "seized" upon. In these self-understandings, one's relation to the world is constituted. Something like this. Though there much more nuance to the story that I am not too equipped to detail.

In inauthenticity, Dasein seizes upon possibilites of the "One" or "the-They." These possibilities are in some sense already taken from one's own culture or tradition. Our attuned, 'constellation of the world', as thus grasped, is in terms of 'what one does', 'how one speaks', 'what it means to be this person or that person', etc. For example, forks and knives are for eating, to be handled in the proper ways, for the proper occasion, for these people but not those people, to be placed in this way at this time for this situation, etc. What a fork is[/i), and the being of entities more generally, is meaningful in light of "One". As derivative from this picture, Authenticity is an openness where the possibilities we understand our situation through are not the possibilities of the "One".

Some interpreters of Heidegger believe this means that Das Man is, necessarily and in principle, constitutive of every which way we, each ourselves, are open qua situated-as-sense-makers, thus making authenticity impossible. Others don't go this far, but say inauthenticity means or entails that we, each ourselves, are first and 'primordially' historically and culturally situated beings, entangled in a tradition from the start. The latter is to say that authenticity is a derivative phenomenon that depends on inauthenticity for its possibility. My sense is that this is closer to what Heidegger is saying. Though this is a huge topic.

So what do you do with das Man? Do you wrestle with it? Hide from it? Use it creatively? Is there some aristocracy that finally graduates from it? And if so, what does that really mean? — frank

Das Man names the ascription of oneself to the possibilites of the Anyone in the fleeing of anxiety. Through this ascription - this self-understanding and way of self-relating - one finds oneself embedded in the world. Das Man is the inauthentic mode of being attuned, engaged, and opened to a world of significance wherein objects, people, oneself, choices, events, situations, institutions, places, setting, and dynamics are what they are insofar as they are meaningful. As such, Das Man pervades and underpins all of one's actions, choices, deliberations, relations, and ways of making sense as one goes about one's worldly situations, relationships, and encounters.

We cannot just choose to hide, flee, embrace, wrestle, or graduate from the throws of Das Man: any such attempt will presuppose it. We have always-already embraced Das Man in fleeing from ourselves. The ways in which our daily lives are structured and unfolding, "proximally and for the most part", 'happen' or are in already anxiously projecting ourselves onto the possibilites of Das Man. Think the way we make sense of ourselves in relation to the world of transportation (the relations of ourselves with highways, cars, lines, signs, numbers, odometer's, police cars, work, safety concerns, and passengers as we drive), the structure of the typical work-day (the meaning of 9am, lunch time, hierarchical relations between employee's and manager's, how to speak, what to wear, what clothes are for a man vs a woman at work, the urgency of finishing assignments in the contexts of making money, what money is, a firm handshake, the absence of your co-worker on a busy day). In these contexts, we, each ourselves, have already ascribed to the worlds of the "One", including the ways "One" acts, thinks, operates, makes sense of things, and understands oneself. Das Man is, while not so much impossible to overcome, a mode or way of finding oneself in the contexture of the world that we always-already understand or grasp. We cannot not be in its grip.

Authenticity is a different way of being attuned, open, or disclosed to the world. And we can talk about that.

I'm Dan. 24 year old interested in Martin Heidegger.

Ok so your main beef with Heidegger is, not only that his existential-ontological analysis can't account for many ontical contexts, but more so that he considers many aspects of life/what it is to be human to be 'ontic' that are in fact ontological and as such necessarily constitutive of life/everyday life/etc. In a sense I think I agree with you on the body: it seems that the body is for the most part always-already 'linked up with the whole of me' as I engage in milieus of meaning. If the world is opened up to me in such a way, my body automatically operates within the understanding that it helps to co-constitute, I guess. Though I think, for Heidegger at least, cases like broken-legs or the workday are for the most part already covered by the ontological analysis: a broken-leg disclosed as "broken" or how a broken-leg effects my self-identity is grounded on my-self understanding that is already in turns of mood-related and socially-constituted possibilities that I project and am thrown into. The workday can be explained as what it is by the web of spatial and social referential structures to which I am embedded and understand my workday through.
— Dan123

I explicitly anticipated this kind of response in my post, though it was a long post so it's understandable it wasn't a particularly memorable part. — fdrake

I understand that you are criticizing Heidegger's transcendentalism. I get that. By writing what I wrote there, I did not mean to say that your critique neither understands Heidegger's way of grounding the phenomena nor anticipates a transcendental rebuttal; it clearly does: Heidegger's transcendental arguments are the very thing you are reacting to. My reason for briefly articulating an example of how Heidegger grounds the phenomena was to more-explicitly present the standard general way Heidegger's transcendental account is applied to different ontic examples. I did this in order to briefly highlight some of the specific transcendental arguments that your critique would specifically have to deal with in order to overcome Heidegger's transcendental grounding. I got that you probably already understood this, I just wanted to make it a little more explicit in order to bring it to the fore of the conversation. Make sense? So I wasn't pushing back against your critique at all. Though I see how it might have seemed that I was.

However, now after reading your last post, I will push back, though really only for the purposes of gaining clarity and getting more straighten out.

the allegation is that the formal conditions of Dasein, like thrownness, fallenness, projection, dispositions, comportments etc despite being ontologically primary and thus present in each person, Dasein's ontical constitution vis-a-vis social organisation and the Other (or more general ontical constraints like the body) is given insufficient emphasis. Problems here look like: the formal character of facticity does little to facilitate the understanding of how the workday effects people, the formal character of thrownness does not suffice to facilitate the analysis of moods like depression or joy. The analysis of Being and Time agglomerates the specifics of these things to their general constitution - and this is an inherent feature of the method Heidegger uses. — fdrake

I think you right here: the formal ontological conditions of ontical contexts cannot give us an explanation of an understanding/explanation of ontical contexts. So I agree with you when you say "the formal character of [insert existentiale or structure of Dasein's Being here] does little to facilitate the understanding of [insert ontical context here]." I mean, of course. But nobody claims that, for example, "the formal character of facticity tells us something about the understanding of how the workday effects people." That's why it's a formal structure of Dasein's Being. Throwness, fallenness, projection etc. are the general conditions. They are formal indicators of things more specific. That which a formal indicator (such as projection) is standing-in-for is, at least for Heidegger, what explains/conditionalizes anything ontical. So when you say

The analysis of Being and Time agglomerates the specifics of these things to their general constitution — fdrake

my response is, no it doesn't. Aren't you skipping over existetiell possibilities, specific moods, particular involvement structures, etc? Heidegger isn't saying "The general structure of Dasein's Being itself can adequately facilitate an understanding of the ontic." Of course there is more specificity to understanding particular ontic contexts: one lives their life in terms of specific possibilities, one is thrown in a specific world, things are disclosed through particular ways of understanding, existential space is configured in particular ways etc. Heidegger understands this. So, yes if

Y is (a) condition of possibility for X — fdrake

, then

X being grounded in Y should contain an account of how X is grounded in Y as a procedural component of an entity's behaviour. — fdrake

But not when Y is the general structure.

But it seems that your argument misses this point, I think.

So when I said

Though I think, for Heidegger at least, cases like broken-legs or the workday are for the most part already covered by the ontological analysis: a broken-leg disclosed as "broken" or how a broken-leg effects my self-identity is grounded on my-self understanding that is already in terms of mood-related and socially-constituted possibilities that I project and am thrown into.

I did not mean to say that "broken-legs can be understood merely through understanding the general structure of what it is to be Dasein." Heidegger would not say that either. I have to be concernfully engaged comporting myself towards the future in specific ways within a specific milieu of meaning in order to open up a space such that my broken-leg as my broken-leg is disclosed. So there is a specific story that has to filled in here that the general structure alone can't provide us, and Heidegger recognizes that. What am I missing here?

Maybe I'm missing your point completely: maybe your point is this:
if we start with a particular ontical context, and then cite the general transcendental conditions that make ontical context possible, there is no way to make known or explicitly get at the specific existentiell possibilities, involvement structures, specific ways of being concernfully engaged, specific moods that disclose things as that ontic context, etc so as to explain what the specific meaning or Being of that particular ontic context/event/occurence/entity is. Heidegger's analysis gives no criterion for determining these specificities given that all we have to work with is a particular ontic context and the general transcendental structure of Dasein. So even though a strict-Heideggerian explains the broken-leg example in terms of the general structure of Dasein, he still hasn't explained with enough specificity. While Heidegger does not deny that there is such specificity, he doesn't give a clear or satisfactory method to explicitly get at it. AHHH interesting.

Though, doesn't Heidegger's talk of the hermeneutical situation and the fore-structures of understanding fill that role?

Or are you saying that even if we knew that specificity, we still wouldn't be able to account for certain ontical contexts, such as "how a broken leg affects one's life"?

Am I understanding you?

Also, Are most people on this forum grad students/philosophy students/professors, etc? People who just enjoy philosophy? Both?

As for you Heiko,

In Being and Time, Heidegger says

"Dasein in itself is essentially Being-with."
"Being-with is an existential characteristic of Dasein"
"Being missing and ‘Being away’ are modes of Dasein-with, and are possible only because Dasein as Being-with lets the Dasein of Others be encountered in its world."
"Being-with is in every case a characteristic of one’s own Dasein;"
"Being-with, like concern, is a Being towards entities encountered within-the-world...These entities are not objects of concern, but rather of solicitude... Solicitude proves to be a state of Dasein’s Being."
"Being-in is Being-with... Dasein’s ownmost meaning of Being is such that this entity (which has been freed environmentally) is Being-in."
"So far as Dasein is at all, it has Being-with-one-another as its kind of Being."

Checkmate.

I think the following quote provides some evidence for my interpretation of the relation between Dasein and other Dasein.

The Others who are thus ‘encountered’ in a ready-to-hand, environmental context of equipment, are not somehow added on in thought to some Thing which is proximally just present-at-hand; such ‘Things’ are encountered from out of the world in which they are ready-to-hand for Others—a world which is always mine too in advance. In our previous analysis, the range of what is encountered within-the-world was, in the first instance, narrowed down to equipment ready-to-hand or Nature present-at-hand, and thus to entities with a character other than that of Dasein. This restriction was necessary not only for the purpose of simplifying our explication but above all because the kind of Being which belongs to the Dasein of Others, as we encounter it within-the-world, differs from readiness-to-hand and presence-at-hand. Thus Dasein’s world frees entities which not only are quite distinct from equipment and Things, but which also—in accordance with their kind of Being as Dasein themselves—are ‘in’ the world in which they are at the same time encountered within-the-world, and are ‘in’ it by way of Being-in-the-world. These entities are neither present-at-hand nor ready-to-hand; on the contrary, they are like the very Dasein which frees them, in that they are there too, and there with it. — Being and Time 26:118 (Marquarrie & Robinson, Trans.)

I applied an abbreviated form of Heidegger's critique of Descartes to the idea. Which I think pulls out the rug from under the feet of people who would claim Heidegger is solipsistic in this way. — fdrake

I think the solipsist could say that 1) is actually a misrepresentation on your part. I think they could say that your critique of 1), ultimately, misses the point. The solipsist could say he can overcome 1). To do so, he could grant that, yes, Dasein is not a present-at-hand entity; Dasein is fundamentally not an inner, mental I-Thing containing categorical properties such as sensation-al representations or mental pictures that may or may not correspond to objective, property-laden, present-at-hand objects on the 'outside.' The solipsist can admit that, yes, Dasein is worldy, Dasein is existence, Dasein is a being in-the-world, Dasein is thrown into context, Dasein is for the most part absorbed through skills and knowing-how, Dasein for the most part encounters equipment and dwells in a with-world, Dasein is temporal, Dasein does not first "have to give shape to the swirl of sensations" in order to "leap off and finally arrive at a 'world', and so on. The solipsist can admit "yes, Heidegger is not a Cartesian solipsist - Heidegger is not denying the existence of any substance that is not me - but, he is a solipsist insofar as the entities encountered, the world itself, and the "transcendental generality" that constitutes the structure of the ways I understand and navigate my lifeworld is not only always-already 'in terms of my concerns and goals', but given to or constitutive of the Being of the entity that I am and only of the entity that I am. The Others I encounter are not in-themselves-other-Dasein, they are projected from me and by me, and as such, given to me alone. Ergo, not "to be is to be perceived" but 'to be' is 'to enter within the range of the intelligibility that I - as a finite, temporal, world-embedded disclosure - essentially am'. So, on this idealist (more so than solipsist) interpretation, one avoids falling into the subject-object relation/Cartesian representationalism/an ontology of the present-at-hand while precluding the possibility of the 'existence' of any other Dasein that either transcends the horizon of my intelligibility, dwells within my horizon, or co-constitutes the horizon to which I belong to and essentially am.

^This way of avoiding your critique is not overcome by turning to 2), I think. The fact that I am always-already involved in anything and everything that I am always-already involved in - the fact the world is always-already a world for-me or 'in terms of myself in one way or another' - does not, on its own, entail solipsism or idealism. One must take the additional step to say that 'the Others encountered within-the-world are not Other Dasein: they are subjective manifestations ultimately reducible to myself' which would mean that 'Being-with is merely the structure of how I relate and understand social relations but not how I access or relate to other real people." But this additional step is what is already presupposed by the solipsist's/idealist's argument in the preceding paragraph. Does it have a slight Cartesian flavor to it? - maybe I'm not sure. Though I am not sure you can just right that critique off by saying it's grounded in the subject-object relation and use that as a trump card to reject it, since it accepts most (and enough) of the non-present-at-hand-ness of what Heidegger is arguing for.

So, I think, the only way to really take down the solipsist/idealist is to say both that the entities encountered within-the-world are not subjectively constructed phenomena and that Being-in-the-world itself is not a 'projected-by-me-and-only-me meaning making capacity or activity.' You have to say that the entities in the world are the things-themselves disclosed to me but not reducible to me. I can only access, grasp, or make sense of that which discursively and hermeneutically enters within the range of the socially-shared world to which I constitutively belong. The world is public, literally co-constituted by multiple Dasein's who are each immersed in the world. That which does not enter within the range of the world to which I belong and the possibilities that I understand in terms of is not accessible to me and as such remains "hidden" or "concealed". Being always exceeds my grasp. Being-with is my always-already immersion in a co-opened or public world. So, a
strand of non-Cartesian, interpretive realism. I think.

the main thrust of my criticism is that this is a necessary feature of his methodology rather than an incidental one, and that this stops him from seeing how some 'merely ontic' phenomena actually take part in the ontology of human being. — fdrake

Ok so your main beef with Heidegger is, not only that his existential-ontological analysis can't account for many ontical contexts, but more so that he considers many aspects of life/what it is to be human to be 'ontic' that are in fact ontological and as such necessarily constitutive of life/everyday life/etc. In a sense I think I agree with you on the body: it seems that the body is for the most part always-already 'linked up with the whole of me' as I engage in milieus of meaning. If the world is opened up to me in such a way, my body automatically operates within the understanding that it helps to co-constitute, I guess. Though I think, for Heidegger at least, cases like broken-legs or the workday are for the most part already covered by the ontological analysis: a broken-leg disclosed as "broken" or how a broken-leg effects my self-identity is grounded on my-self understanding that is already in turns of mood-related and socially-constituted possibilities that I project and am thrown into. The workday can be explained as what it is by the web of spatial and social referential structures to which I am embedded and understand my workday through.

^Though I think I see your point. It would take a more refined and detailed analysis which could include comparing different contexts to illuminate their meaning in order to examine whether or not they should be included in the fundamental analysis of what it is to be human. The crux is that you would have to show why what Heidegger considers ontic is actually ontological - constitutive of Dasein's disclosedness itself. Seems like we'd need to more about a method - comparative or not - for doing this. Good stuff though.

fdrake,

Interesting post. Let me see if I understand you.

So, there are (at least) three potential ways to accuse Heidegger of being a solipsist. The first two are misinterpretations, but the third interpretation may be well founded. One by one, they are...

1) to interpret Dasein as a present-at-hand entity/Cartesian subject. Take Being-with to be an internal capacity for 'grasping the social relationships/actions/meanings/etc within my subjective experience'. All the people and things I encounter within my experience are made possible by my internal capacities. My experience is private, and my experience is all there is or all there that can be known to be, ergo solipsism.

2) to reduce The Others I encounter within-the-world to myself. I always-already project meaning such that everything I encounter is of sense or intelligible to me in terms of my concerns/projected possibilities/motivations or goals - "We're personally involved whenever we're involved". That is to say, I am the kind of Being who always and only understands through personal involvement [As essentially Becoming, I am thrown into a world that I grasp in turns of projected possibilities-for-myself. This opens up a world of sense that discloses to me that which I encounter.] Being-with is part of the formal structure of the possible social ways that I am involved or embedded in-the-world-that-is-personal-and-only-personal (where "personal" does not equate to 'private', but to "in terms of my concerns/goals/myself/etc". This is close to 1), without the Cartesianism, I think.

3) to view Being-with as an aspect of Dasein's existence structure that leaves much to be desired in the explaining-subjectivity/sense-through-others-department (can't believe I just wrote that). Heidegger's existential-ontological analysis of what it is to be a human-being does not A) satisfactorily ground nor account for a vast array of different ontical contexts that Dasein can find itself in or B) give us any interesting or advancing insight into the more specific structure of many ontical contexts so as to tell us something important about them. "Ontological structures and substructures" such as spatiality and Being-with don't tell us much of anything interesting or relevant about many ontical contexts.

Am I understanding you?

One thing I would say to

The shared intelligibility indicated in being-with doesn't ring as relevant in a world where people think and feel so differently, where their minds appear to work with different motivations, with different propensities of moods and so on — fdrake

is that your concern seems to apply more so to Dasein's lostness in the-they or Dasein's leaping-in than to Being-with as such. Being-with is Dasein's always-already a priori immersed engagement with Others in solicitous concern - the social understanding that co-constitutes Dasein's embeddedness - which makes possible my way of encountering or interpreting things, myself, people, etc as this or that. The fact that Dasein is for the most part inauthentic/fallen doesn't seem like it could tell us much about any of those ontical contexts other than "Dasein listens to what 'they' say", and so we are left wanting more. Though Being-with seems like it gives us enough of a general structure of Dasein's engagement to tell us something relevant/interesting about most ontical contexts. Not sure though.

Also, that, if I am understanding you correctly, is a problem I have with the Later Heidegger when he seems to explain all of the world's problem on the fact that we have forgotten Being. That definitely seems unsatisfying.

Might you have/know of a specific example that might more clearly explain why there is reason to believe that Being-with doesn't cut it? Really interesting.

Heidegger mentions Humboldt in §34, the section on Discourse. There, Heidegger contrasts his understanding of language to Humboldt's.

I think I found the quote you are talking about. In §26, Heidegger says

The phenomenological assertion that “Dasein is essentially Being-with” has an existential-ontological meaning. It does not seek to establish ontically that factically I am not present-at-hand alone, and that Others of my kind occur. If this were what is meant by the proposition that Dasein’s Being-in-the-world is essentially constituted by Being-with, then Being-with would not be an existential attribute which Dasein, of its own accord, has coming to it from its own kind of Being. It would rather be something which turns up in every case by reason of the occurrence of Others. Being-with is an existential characteristic of Dasein even when factically no Other is present-at-hand or perceived. Even Dasein’s Being-alone is Being-with in the world. The Other can be missing only in and for(1) a Being-with. Being-alone is a deficient mode of Being-with; its very possibility is the proof of this. — Being and Time

So, Being-with does concern Dasein itself. Being-with is not the condition for the possibility of Dasein. To name 'Dasein' is to invoke the conditions of the possibility of the encounters Dasein has with others and things within the shared milieu of meaning to which it is embedded. Being-with does not come before Dasein. Being-with is constitutive of Dasein qua Being-in-the-world. Being-with is a 'part' of Dasein: it is an existentiale. So, Being-with makes possible specific enounters within-the-world, but it does not makes Dasein as such possible. Being-with is (part of) Dasein.

For Heidegger, Being-with is a concern for phenomenology because Being-with is a constitutive structure of how 'the phenomena' is disclosed to Dasein within-the-public-world to which Dasein constitutively belongs.

Just turn the question around. — Heiko

Turn the question around to what?

Heidegger drops a little sentence about this — Heiko

What sentence, and what is it about?

Running forward to death implies the question for the conditions of the possibility of existing "Dasein" goes backward in time. — Heiko

In Being-towards-death, Dasein is brought back from its lostness in 'the-they' and faces up to its mortality in anxiety. This makes authenticity possible. Even when inauthentic, Dasein is still anxious about the posisibility of its-not-being, but that anxiety is "dimmed down". I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Dasein "goes backward in time though."

How should the other have been if not "with"? The only possible answer: it has not been at all.
I do not think this is possible. — Heiko

Not sure what you mean here.

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Dasein wouldn't be "da" if it wasn't with others. Of course that does not mean the factical presence of others but an existential-ontological determination, i.e. a necessity making it possible. — Heiko

Could you expand on this point a bit? To me, it seems that the desert-island example is an example where both there are ontically no other factically present persons and Being-with is an existential-ontological condition of that desert-island Dasein's Being. That seems to be compatible with what you are saying. No?

I think this is spot on. I made a very similar point during a debate in a previous incarnation. The argument extends to all who infer the existence of others from their experience. — Banno

For Heidegger, to infer the existence others from one's own experience is misinterpret what it is to be a human-being. Dasein is fundamentally not a 'mental sphere of subjectivity cut off from the outside' who has to ask, know, or "infer" about that which is 'out-there', a point your claim misses. As Dasein, my way of Being and understanding the world that I am immersed-in is fundamentally not a kind of knowing in which I reach out or transcend an inner sphere of mental states to which I “return with one’s booty to the cabinet of consciousness.” For Heidegger, Dasein is always-already 'outside' with Others and alongside things.

So, rather than the desert-island being an example that proves that Being-with is a contingent aspect of Dasein's Being, Being-with is necessary for the desert-island example in the first place. Not solipsism, but a radical strand of realism that blends hermeneutics and phenomenology (though this point is far from being universally agreed upon within the scholarship).

So, Being-with, as an existentiale - a constitutive structure of the way Dasein is related to and immersed-in the world - is necessary to Dasein, even if no one else is ever around.
— Dan123
Frankly, I think Dasein simply is not possible under that condition. — Heiko

Heiko,
In regards to precisely what condition do you think Dasein simply is not possible? Do you mean to say that you do not think that Being-with is a necessary component of Dasein's Being, that Being-with is a contingent, rather than necessary, way in which Dasein relates and understands? Do you mean to say that Being-with cannot possibly be constitutive of Dasein if there is never anyone else around? Do you mean to say that Being-with cannot possibly delimit and make possible the ways in which Dasein is alone? Something else?

Heiko,

I respectfully disagree. The desert island is an example of a possible context in which Dasein could find itself, and as such, one that Dasein could be "thrown" into. Desert-stranded Dasein (or Tarzan for example), like any Dasein, is a being who copes and dwells in a contextually situated milieu of meaning. The island-world that surrounds him (to which he is constitutive of) is intelligible and matters to him ("Dasein's Being is an issue for it"; "Care is the Being of Dasein."): the island is home, bad weather is a danger, a shooting star is a sign of events to come, the tree tops are for the birds to hangout and sing, the sun is a god to worship, the horizon is a reminder to have hope that there might be others out there like me, etc. So it does not seem to be a stretch to say that Heidegger's existential-ontological analysis of human existence ought to account for such an example, I think.

The question then becomes 'What role, if any, does Being-with play in making possible Dasein's immersion-in a stranded-island or Tarzanian context in which there are no people but me?' Heidegger says

Being-with is an existential characteristic of Dasein even when factically no Other is present-at-hand or perceived. Even Dasein’s Being-alone is Being-with in the world. The Other can be missing only in and for a Being-with... Being-with is in every case a characteristic of one’s own Dasein; Dasein-with characterizes the Dasein of Others to the extent that it is freed by its world for a Being-with. Only so far as one’s own Dasein has the essential structure of Being-with, is it Dasein-with as encounterable for Others. — Being and Time

So, Being-with, as an existentiale - a constitutive structure of the way Dasein is related to and immersed-in the world - is necessary to Dasein, even if no one else is ever around.

dukkha,

I sympathize with your way of construing the problem of Being-with in Heidegger's Early Philosophy. As many commentators in this forum believe, it would seem that your (mis)understanding of Being-with takes its departure from the subject-object split of an inner realm of private subjective experiences cut off from a noumenal world of "how things really are." This urge to (mis)construe Dasein as a self-enclosed subject over and against a world of objectively subsisting objects can be strong, despite all of Heidegger's attempts to overcome that very construal.

Let me work within what I take to be your understanding of Being-with to bring it down from within.

I think you are implicitly arguing for something like this: It would seem that, from at least one interpretive angle, the fact that Dasein is not a Cartesian subject - a worldless ego with mental representations in it that may or not correspond to 'the outside' - does not exclude the possibility that entities within-the-world are not the 'real' things-in-themselves, because those entities are, rather, still entities merely experienced by Dasein. On this interpretation, the things-as-experienced-by-me (ready-to-hand entities, the Others, etc), while not being mere categorical representations, are, at the end of the day, 'given' to me and to me alone, even if such things are always-already infused with meaning and significance on the basis of 'my' being-in-the-world (the a priori, referential structure of significance to which Dasein is thrown into and projects towards in terms of possibilities). Moreover, even if my experience never escapes the horizon of Temporality, there are still things as they are in-themselves beyond the horizon that structures and makes possible that which is disclosed within the range of my Being-in-the-world, including other people. However, surely we want to say that there are people who just flat out exist independent of my experience, independent of the way the world is disclosed to me within the historical horizon that delimits my way of understanding and navigating life. So, because Heidegger tells us that Temporality is the a priori condition for the possibility of entities within-my-world being what they are to me, including other people, it follows that, for Heidegger, there are no people-in-themselves. Thus, for Heidegger, there are other people only insofar as they are experienced by me within the range that which structures the social, interpersonal aspect of what it means to me qua Dasein, namely Being-with. Hence, solipsism. But this is absurd. There are people 'out there' beyond the horizon of Dasein's experience.

Here's the problem: The entities disclosed within-the-horizon that structures "experience" are the very things-themselves. You are literally 'getting at' reality through the horizon to which Dasein is immersed-in and structurally is. The entities encountered within-the-world are "snatched out of their hiddenness" or "freed" through Dasein as Being-in-the-world. Dasein is always-already 'outside', that is, alongside-entities-within-the-world and in solicitous engagement with Others. The persons you encounter are not illusions-given-to-you-through-your-an-inner-constructive-activity. Rather, they in-themselves-real persons that are-encountered-or-disclosed-by-you-only-on-the-basis-of-a-co-openness-to-a-world which allows for any such encounter. The world is public. Daseins are out-there in the same worlds (though there are a multitudes of overlapping worlds that disclose different regions of Being) that allow you to encounter another person as another person from within a specifically situated, worldly context. Being-with helps constitute this co-openness. And it always-operative, even when no one is around. Because Being-with, along with moods, spatiality, etc, makes possible loneliness, language, and a host of other comportments or ways of engaging Dasein's lived contexts, your desert island example, according to Heidegger, requires Being-with in the first place to make any sense at all.

One interpretation that I think follows this line of thinking is outlined in Dreyfus's Being-in-the-world (Chapter 15).

The above interpretation, I think, is one way to make sense of Being-with without falling into solipsism and idealism. Though it is radical, and somewhat strange.