From Cartesian/Husserlian Phenomenology to Ontology
Heidegger, like Lévinas, was a student of Husserl and employed Husserl’s phenomenological ‘method’ while departing from phenomenology per se.
Phenomenology in general is characterized in part by a rejection of metaphysics and of academic philosophy. It’s famous slogan is “back to the things themselves!” It represents an attitude in philosophy that remained strong through the late 20th century especially in analytic philosophy (whose origins derive also from Husserl, among others).
What matters for Husserl and Heidegger, when all is said and done, is our everyday experience of the world. It seems simple enough but proves enormously complex because what is nearest to us is the most difficult to see and speak of.
At the heart of phenomenology is a simple observation, which can be verified by everyone, that Husserl learned from his teacher Franz Brentano: Intentionality. For Brentano, and Husserl after him, consciousness is always consciousness of something (even if only itself). Consciousness is ab ovo intentional; to be conscious is to intend something, to be conscious of something. Thus consciousness does not, like Spirit in Hegel, “leave” itself and then return to itself loaded with knowledge. (The Heideggerian attitude is neither a Hegelian adventure, nor an epistemology.) Consciousness is by its very essence always outside itself. (Leaping ahead in the course, we could say with Lévinas that cs. is the outside in me. A Deleuzean will radicalize intentionality by stressing that cs. is in fact a power to be affectd by…an outside. Intentionality of cs. does not aim at objects per se but at that which shares its being thus color is experienced by the eye and sentiment aims at what is appropriate to it: a feeling. Husserl however stubbornly resisted these possible avenues and sought for a pure interiority in internal time consciousness.) This is easy to verify: try to think but without thinking of any thing; try to perceive but without perceiving any object. Consciousness is not an empty box or a faculty that then gets filled up with things. In fact, strictly speaking, after Husserl there is no consciousness (itself pure and simple). There is always and only consciousness of… There is no consciousness in-itself; the very concept is unverifiable and even if verifiable, useless, because every thought I have is of some thing or other. Further, insofar as I am my thinking, my consciousness, there is no I pure and simple, no I in-itself! Emmanuel Lévinas writes of this as follows:
The idea of intentionality appeared as a liberation. The unprecedented way of positing the act of intending as the essence of the psychic being, which no avatar of this being could reduce, the audacious way of positing the being of consciousness as being played out outside the limits of its real being in the strict sense, dissipated the obsessive appearance of a thought functioning like a cog in a universal mechanism, and confined thought in its vocation and its rights to obey nothing but reasons. [“Intentionality and Sensation” from Discovering Existence with Husserl, 135]
Intentionality means that I do not merely see a tree: I intend to … see a tree (or whatever), or, I see the tree as a tree. It does not matter if the something I intend is real or not; I may be conscious of a unicorn although there are no real unicorns. The issue is not epistemological (i.e. how to make true statements about the world) nor metaphysical (what constitutes the real) but experiential, excessive. (Intentionality, for Lévinas, is the excess over any subject-object correlation; intentionality itself is non-correlative, unique.) I—always and only—experience consciousness as intending some thing. This also means that consciousness is not the subject because it is already involved in the world; it (consciousness) is not that which is sub-jacent to the world but is already amongst, or of-the-world. Consciousness is of- (the-world (ultimately, for Heidegger, not of this or that thing)) and is not metaphysically prior to the world. Even when consciousness discovers itself, it discovers itself not in an interiority, but as outside, in the world. To be self-conscious is to be open to exteriority.
Now, Heidegger will simply ask about of the being of the conscious being we call ourselves: human being, Man. Heidegger will try to elucidate the fact that, as in Husserl, although consciousness and in a sense we ourselves are always already outside involved in the world, nonetheless, we (or consciousness) is not like things in the world, we are not of the same type as that of which we are conscious. And this is even so when we are conscious of ourselves, for then we mistakenly take ourselves to be of the same type as things of the world—chairs, tables, pencils—when in fact the situation is quite different. Our difference from pencils is not based on degrees of clarity (Descartes) nor habit (Hume), nor is it metaphysically structural (Kant). It is an ontological difference: the difference between Being and beings. The Heidegerian Subject, or the Dasein, exists as the ontological difference.
One way in which we are different is that while I am conscious of the pencil, it is not conscious of me (as far as I can tell). Or, not only am I conscious of the pencil, but I am also conscious of this relation. To say that consciousness is always conscious-of is to say that it is essentially transcendent; to be conscious of this transcendence is immanent to reflection. Interiority is immanently transcendent. (This is a confounding definition, I know, but it is an attempt to wrest thought from metaphysical inside/outside aporia) Two dimensions are absolutely separate, however. This split is inherent to objectivity. If there were only transcendent perception, there would be no objectivity at all: I would experience this tree, then that one, then that one, and so on. But the ‘as tree’ unifies all the transcendences and makes them mine. The actual material world—nature, in short—is always alien—but not strictly noumenal, not intellectually antiseptic—for I always intend it and am always in it. I am in the world which I intend but as an alien presence. To be alien in the world is not to be metaphysically distinct from the world; to be alien is a limit form of relation, not a distinction.
Phenomenology focuses on what is mine, not on the world per se. This focus requires an abandoning of the ‘natural attitude’ (which assumes that I just see a tree, not that I intend—unify—tree) and an adoption of the phenomenological reduction, which is, in spirit, derived from Descartes’ method of doubt. It is also called ‘putting the world in brackets’. Phenomenology remained primarily interested in the internality of consciousness, but Heidegger is interested in the relation of consciousness itself to what is “in” it. For Heidegger the relation itself is primordial (just as, for Blanchot, resemblance is primordial, or prior to, the terms of the resemblance. (This is important for theories of allegory as in Benjamin and de Man where the ‘likeness’ both dissolves distinction and makes distinction possible).) For Husserl, what is in cs. must have the same Being as cs. and is absolutely present in it. For Husserl, like Descartes, there is an absolute split between cs. and world; inside and outside. Heidegger questions this absolute split and asks particularly about the Being of the cs. that we ourselves—always in the world and intending the world—are.; or, the Being of the one who intends. Heidegger felt that Husserl had betrayed the phenomenological project, “back to the things themselves” by failing to apply his method to cs.—the cs. being, we ourselves—itself.
Heidegger will try to elucidate the being we ourselves are as ontologically different from either a metaphysical thing (or substance, or soul) (res cogitans) and also different from an everyday thing, like a table and chair or a tree (res extensa). One way of getting to the question of the being we ourselves are is to evaporate the priority of knowing as the primary way of relating to the world, thus evaporating the subject-object structure of intentionality for which the concrete existence of things (including itself) is of no concern (remembering that I can equally intend a tree which exists in the park or a unicorn which exists no where.)
Heidegger, in the last half of our reading, begins with the question of the ‘natural attitude’ which assumes that we encounter things in the world as primordially ‘on hand’ (or ‘at hand’, or, simply here, now: Vorhandensein (being at (on) hand), Vorhandenheit (extantness)). All of philosophy, Heidegger implies, and certainly Husserl, make a false assumption that Vorhandenheit is a natural attitude, but only for those doing philosophy is the world primordially at hand or here, now. Heidegger’s colossal gamble is to re-read the whole of philosophy—beginning with Plato—and every type of thinking-relation to the world based on it, especially including technology—as barring true phenomenological access to the world and as obscuring the Being of the being (Man) who has access to the world in the world itself. Thus Heidegger is trying to get outside the Subject, to dispense with the Subject as a metaphysical relic. Or, perhaps, to re-appropriate the Subject from metaphysics for fundamental ontology.
Through the destruction (strictly, de-struction) of Vorhandenheit the res extensa/res cogitans problem is also destroyed (or dissolved, or strictly, de-con-structed) and we may be led to a more primordial relation to the world (which would no longer be present-at-hand, or simply here) and also to the being who is in this world, but not merely as a thing among things, a being among other beings. Heidegger wishes to destroy the metaphysical access (res extensa/res cogitans) in order re-appropriate the world ontologically and also to approach the Being of the being who primordially ontologically is in the appropriable world. In my opinion, all of Heidegger’s thought ‘takes off’ from this point: he will ceaselessly write throughout his career of a genealogy of the primordial ways, manners, modes of existing: Concern, Boredom, Anxiety, Mood, Inauthentic, Authentic, Everyday, et al. (In the end, the Heideggerian Subject, if we must retain the term, is that being whose essence it is to exist; whereas the table or the tree exist for or in order that or that about which there is concern, fear, desire, in short, as things open to use. But only the being that we ourselves are are open to this openness.)
For Dasein things in the world are not simply here, present at hand, but are always already here in some way, manner, or mode. Dasein is not “in” the world in the sense of being in a box, nor is it outside the world in the sense of being essentially metaphysically distinct from it, but is in-the-World the sense of being open to ways, manners, and modes. The world is also not simply here alongside Dasein; the world is Umwelt or environment. Heidegger is a sort of primordial, ontological ecologist: Dasein is in the world as a dwelling where I am always already involved and have something to do. This relation to the world is concernful (Besorge), not knowledgeable. There is always, primordially, existentially, “something to do” prior to any knowing. This means that things in the world are not primordial sense data (as in Hume). Neither is the world, or the things of the world, primordially available as perceptions (as in Berkeley). Dasein does not primordially perceive anything; it ‘has something to do’ with things in the world. I never hear a pure noise or sound-sense data. If I hear at all is because I originally ‘have something to do with…’. This amounts to saying that Dasein is not originally or primarily in the world theoretically. The world is primordially ready-, or, already-to-hand (Zuhandensein). I only comport myself toward the theoretical properties of things because they are primordially instrumental. So, the Heideggerian/ontological determination of a thing is not as an abstract entity determined a priori by space and time and then Reasonably categorized, but as that which matters, or that which I have something to do with… This is primordial, ontological pragmatics which is not opposed to theory, but precedes it. Ontologically, Dasein is in the world domestically, pragmatically, and referentially. Primordially, Dasein is in the world in the same way as it is in language. Language is that which always refers; the world is the totality of references. (A Blanchotian might say that language and world resemble each other; the resemblance makes possible both language and world, and the resemblance is what the writer (i.e. the man of-language who wants to be of-the-world) wishes to reach.)
For Heidegger, the natural thing and the made (poetic) thing are not primordially distinct. The table is for eating off of and refers to the chair, the room, the maker, the era, the home, the community,… Likewise, wind is in the sail, trees shelter, the mountain is rock useful for something. Thus nature is encountered within the World. Nature is—phenomenologically—secondary to world; Nature is part of the primordial environment called World. True, nature is ‘already here’ prior to production, but it is here as material for, material to be, transformed, or as material to be preserved ‘for its own sake’. Strictly speaking from the ontological point of view, Nature is that which is not given, but is that which is to be produced. Nature, in short, is produced by Dasein who uses natural material for something; who refers it to something (even if only to itself: The ‘wilderness’ must be preserved as ‘wilderness’ of the sake of ‘wilderness’; this is a debate often heard in American environmental debates). (To be is to be referential: to be referred to something else and to have been referred to by something else.) Nature exists within the chain of references called World.
Two “attitudes” run counter to this pragmatic concernful referentiality: Science (the pure theoretical attitude) and Art. The scientific object is not immediately useful, referential; the artistic object is never useful but is always referential and thus is stunning in that it (exactly like a piece of machinery that has broken down and can no longer be used) ‘lights up’ primordially equipmental referentiality as Dasein’s everyday way of being in the world. The former (Science) momentarily suspends the to-handness (Zuhandenheit) of the world; the latter opens us to the world in its (potential) totality. Art, ‘shows’ the primordial pre-giveness of World (not Nature!), shows that within which the given is given. The artwork, as it were, gives the given (to Dasein); it interrupts and unveils the primacy of pragmatic referentiality. But the artwork does not give us the world as such; that privilege is reserved for the primordial mood of anxiety (Angst).
HEIDEGGER LECTURE II
Notes on §15 and the ‘Destruction of Vorhandenheit’
(For phenomenology and especially for Heidegger, intentionality is not a faculty; it is not something consciousness can do in addition to other things. Consciousness does not possess intentionality. Intentionality is the very structure of consciousness.)
page
154 The being of Dasein is existence. But what does existence mean? Dasein is distinct from extant ‘things’ [res] of any kind (whether cogitans or extensa).
155 The question of the Subject (the Cartesian question) must not be asked “alone” but along with the Subject’s being.
Dasein’s comportments have an intentional character and thus Dasein stands always in relation with that which it is not. (A Hegelian would immediately leap in here and declare a dialectical impasse; but Heidegger wants to perform a ‘high wire act’.) Dasein is not a Kantian subject that possesses knowledge of predicates a priori or a posteriori. Intentionality is not predication. True, the necessary subject-object correlation seems to solve the res extensa/res cogitans aporia because the subject is in essence “coupled” with objects. (For phenomenology this coupling becomes a strict correlation; for Heidegger (and Lévinas after him) there will be a ‘deepening’ of the structure and a loosening of strict correlation because of Heidegger’s dissolving of the primacy being-at (on)-hand-ness which grounds epistemological readings of philosophy from Descartes through Kant.
156 True, as in Nartrop, the subject-object relation/correlation takes priority over the Cartesian isolation of the Subject, but this priority obscures the deeper question of the being of the subject.
157 What, then, of the being of the Subject? Is it’s being the same as “objectness” (Vorhandenheit)? Does the subject require and object? True, relating (via intentionality) is constitutive of subjectivity. Intentionality belongs to the existence of Dasein.
158 Intentionality self-directed toward…
“understanding” or “pre-understanding” of being-toward that toward which it is directed
thus, an unveiling of self as always in comportment. The how of this unveiling is definitely not as an ‘I think’ that accompanies every representation; this is not part of an idealist knowledge nor of a dialectic of self-consciousness.
159 Prior to any self-reflection or self-consciousness or self-apprehension, Dasein finds itself in things; it “rests” in things. Each of us is, each time, what we pursue and care for passionately, authentically (eigentlich).
160 But for the most part we take ourselves inauthentically: the shoemaker is not his tools, his workshop, his, product, the shoes. Now—we must come back to this in more detail—this everyday inauthenticity is in fact genuine (echt). It is not an illusion.
161 The phenomenological characterization of intentionality is inadequate and external to the ontologically prior comportment with things.
162 Intentionality (essentially, transcendence-toward …) must be radicalized.
162-63 We, the beings we are, do not comport ourselves toward one extant thing at a time: first the wall, then the chair, then… Instead, we are in a surroundings, an environs. The things we are nearest to are equipment. With these things we get our bearings. I never (except when practicing metaphysical philosophy) explicitly apprehend the doorknob. The doorknob has an immanent reference: it is for something. Thus I do not apprehend but instead pre-understand a functional, practical whole.
164-65 The ‘functional whole’ is what is called world. Nature, and even the universe itself, are encountered within world. ‘World’ is the totality of significance (of reference, or of being-for…).
166 World is not extant, but exists (like Dasein): it is there.
167 Now, if the world is like Dasein, then is it something subjective?
168 Well, Dasein is not something subjective, but pro-jective. Nature, Culture, History (projects of Dasein) are intra-worldly.
170 Dasein is not an “it simply is” but exists for its own sake. Dasein is constantly occupied with its own capacity to be. Dasein’s being is in each case mine. In a certain way Dasein has itself and can lose itself. (but this comes very close to making Dasein an extant thing, no????)
171 Dasein can choose itself authentically or inauthentically (either way is genuine because authenticity is bit a modification of inauthenticity).
173-76 Heidegger then summarizes the whole section we have read.
Random notes developing the basic orientation in Heidegger’s Basic Problems of Phenomenology
Dasein is not a subject-thing (extant) but is existencemodes of existencemodes of existence in relation to things in the worldmore deeply and more primarily: in relation to world itself, to worldness or to world-ing (insofar as Dasein is primordially pragmatic, or, world making)ultimately, even more deeply, in relation to Being itself (including especially the Being Dasein itself is, a relation of must: Dasein must be).
But Dasein belongs to Being, not Being to Dasein. (this relation parallels the relation to language and signification in Lacan, does it not?)
In choosing itself Dasein chooses existence and chooses relatedness (being-with-others), etc. It also ultimately chooses being toward death, its limit, its unsubstitutable self, i.e. Dasein chooses its relation to being no longer in relation, the utmost possibility which is the possibility of non-relation (death).
Jemeinigket (“mineness”) is not egoity, and not a transcendental ‘I’ but is nothing other than ego or I. “Mineness” is relation, the event of relation, not subjectum.
Being and Time p. 67: “The essence of Dasein lies in its existence.”
Existence is not subject/not substance/ not the identity of subject and substance. Existence is not a ‘what’ but a ‘how’, a ‘way’, a ‘path’.
Existence is mine, is mineness: thus existence is sent to me, delivered to me, addressed to me. (cf Derrida on ‘sending’.)
This leads to the famous paragraphs 54-60 from BT: the Call of Conscience. Lost in the ‘they’, in the ‘inauthentic’, the ‘everyday understanding’, Dasein is called to its own existence, its utmost responsibility to be, responsible for its ways of being (authentic or inauthentic).
The call does come from me (it is not a Platonic soliloquy of self and soul) but from Being itself: the being that I each time am and must be.
Dasein is the basis of a “nullity”: NOT A NEGATION, NOT A LACK. Dasein does not lack anything; Dasein is existence and existence does not lack anything because existence is not an extant thing. (It is nonsense to say that existence “lacks” extantness?)
In this way, as a “nullity”, I become authentically inauthentic where authenticity is but a modification of inauthenticity: or, in Agamben’s language I am as not (Agamben on Paul, with whom Heidegger was intimately familiar.)
(RE: authenticity : read the passage in our text page 160.)
Uneigentlich = un-genuine (un-echtes)
Eigentlichheit = Echtheit
In fact, BT p. 171, Dasein is “genuinely inauthentic”.
Dasein, since it has (possesses) no essence except to exist, is radically undetermined: not animal, not rational animal, not male or female. Dasein (existence) neutralizes all essence—does not negate all essence. Dasein may be a woman, but as Dasein, is woman as not ‘woman’.
In Dasein, as Dasein, all essence is neutralized; Dasein is properly indifferent to essence and is in principle dispersed among myriad ways, hows of existing precisely because it is indifferent to a essentiality. Dasein is destined to be without destiny, to be distracted, to be disseminated, etc. etc.
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