Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T16:09:08.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

3 - Dasein as being-in-the-world

Timothy Stapleton
Affiliation:
Loyola University
Bret W. Davis
Affiliation:
Loyola University Maryland
Get access

Summary

Heidegger uses the word “Dasein” to refer to what customarily might be called the self or “I”; or, as he more cautiously puts it, to “this entity which each of us is himself” (BT 27). But while the denotations of the words “self” and “Dasein” may be the same, the connotations differ radically. When properly understood, “Dasein” captures the unique being of the “I am”, one that gets misconstrued by such terms, for example, as “self”, “ego”, “soul”, “subjectivity” or “person”. For Heidegger, what constitutes the very “am” of the “I am” is that being is an issue for it: is a question and a matter about which it cares. This entity that I am understands this implicitly. More radically, it is this understanding, or the place where this understanding of being occurs. Hence “Dasein” means the self as the there (Da) of being (Sein), the place where an understanding of being erupts into being.

“Being-in-the-world” is Heidegger's descriptive interpretation of the self as Dasein. For Heidegger, as we shall come to see, description and interpretation need not be at odds. One sort of interpretation (Auslegung), as a laying-out of that which is only tacit, is description. “Being-in-the-world” is intended to capture descriptively various dimensions of what it means for Dasein “to be”. But much more needs to be said, in the way of interpretation, about this description.

Type
Chapter
Information
Martin Heidegger
Key Concepts
, pp. 44 - 56
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×