Some Terminology in Being and Time
last updated: 9/2/2011
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- Being:
- That which "determines entities as entities," that "in terms of which entities are already intelligible as entities." Of course, what exactly this means is a vexed question.
- The Anyone:
- The Anyone is a pattern of anonymous normativity that lays out the framework in terms of which we understand ourselves, our fellows, and our world in our average everydayness. "The Anyone" is my preferred translation of das Man (M&R: "the 'they'").
- Anyone-self:
- The self in the mode of the Anyone, that is, the self in its average everyday manner of being.
- Appearance:
- Something that does not show itself, but which announces itself by means of something else that does show itself. (E.g., a disease appears by means of a symptom.) For more on phenomena, semblance, and appearance, see my notes on sect. 7 of B&T.
- Attunement:
- An affective condition in so far as it discloses to us what matters, what is important or relevant. E.g., feeling silly attunes you to the risible dimension of things. Something that might show up as aggravating when you're angry shows up as comical when you're feeling silly. (Exercise for the reader: watch an episode of Seinfeld.) Note that "mood" (M&R's translation) is too narrow, since "attunement" ("Stimmung") is meant to cover all of Dasein's affective states (emotions, passions, and even, I think, important aspects of character traits and sensibilities).
- Availableness:
- The being of the available, that is, of paraphernalia or equipment.
- Average everydayness:
- The typical, common, or normal way in which Dasein is. How Dasein is "primarily and usually" (M&R: "proximally and for the most part").
- Being-amidst:
- Dasein's distinctive relation with non-human intraworldly entities. (M&R: "being-alongside.")
- Being-in:
- Dasein's distinctive way of being in the world. It is not spatial inclusion (being in), but rather, inhabitation, residence, dwelling.
- Being-with:
- Dasein's relationship to others.
- Categorial:
- Of or pertaining to the being of entities unlike Dasein. Contrasts with "existential."
- Category:
- An essential feature of the being of non-Dasein entities. Contasts with "existentiale."
- Circumspection:
- The "sight" of dealings, that is, the form of intelligence that guides our pretheoretical, prereflective, and mostly precognitive coping with paraphernalia and tasks.
- Concern:
- The mode of care that characterizes Dasein in so far as it engages with paraphernalia and the tasks in which paraphernalia is involved. We are concerned with the hammer and the job of hammering (but solicitous toward others; see solicitude).
- Considerateness:
- the sight of being-with, that is, the form of intelligence that guides our coping with others. (You should studiously avoid all of the moral overtones of the word in its ordinary usage. He just chooses a word in German that is connected with our dealing with others and that embeds, in German, the word "sight:" "Rücksicht," which means considerateness in ordinary German.)
- Conspicuousness:
- the mode of equipmental breakdown in which equipment malfunctions.
- Dasein-with:
- The being of others.
- Dealings:
- Dasein's everyday engagment with paraphernalia and in tasks and projects.
- Disclose:
- To unveil or make manifest either Dasein or being. Contrasts with uncover.
- Disposedness:
- The existential feature of Dasein that it is always attuned.
- Distantiality:
- Dasein's tendency to be concerned with and disturbed by deviation from social norms (the behavioral prescriptions of the one).
- Environment:
- The subworld that is in each case "closest to" or "primary for" Dasein. It is Dasein's local subworld.
- Equipment:
- the entities that are "closest" to (or primary for) Dasein in its average everydayness. I usually refer to equipment as "paraphernalia" (following John Haugeland), because the latter term better describes the
full range of entities that fall into this category. Anything that is defined by its involvement in human tasks and practices is "equipment" or paraphernalia, perhaps even art and romantic sunsets. (This last example at least makes clear that not all paraphernalia is artificial; raw materials, according to I.3, are paraphernalia. Romantic sunsets are defined by their role in human life, in contrast to, say, dusk defined astronomically.) Availableness is the being of paraphernalia, and for that reason MH often refers to paraphernalia as "the avaiable."
- Existence:
- The being of Dasein.
- Existential:
- Of or pertaining to the being of Dasein. Contrasts with "categorial."
- Existentiale:
- An essential feature of Dasein, i.e., an element of the being of Dasein. (Contrasts with "category.")
- Existentialia:
- The plural form of "existentiale."
- Existentiell:
- Of or pertaining to Dasein as an entity, in contrast with the being of Dasein. (It is an existential feature of Dasein that it understands, but an existentiell feature of Jones that she understands herself as a baseketball player, say.)
- Fact
- A factual determinateness. It is a fact that this rock weighs 2.5 kg, e.g. (M&:R use capitalization to distinguish facta from facts. In M&R "Fact" translates "Faktum, whereas "fact" translates "Tatsache." I prefer to use different words.)
- Factical
- The adjectival form of "facticity."
- Facticity:
- The determinateness of Dasein. MH reserves the term "factuality" for the determinateness of entities unlike Dasein. Facticity is an existentiale.
- Factum
- A factical determinateness. It is a factum that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii (despite whatever Donald Trump insinuates). Plural form: "facta."
- Fore-conception:
- The conceptual framework that articulates the as-which of interpretation and links it up with other as-whiches.
- Fore-having:
- What one has in advance whenever one sets out concretely to interpret something. It is the background understanding that provides the context in terms of which one approaches the thing to be interpreted.
- Fore-sight:
- The guiding "angle of approach" in terms of which one approaches what is to be interpreted. I think, though MH does not make this so clear, that the fore-sight is the sight that brings the "as" into focus: when one interprets this as a hammer, one aims one's fore-sight at the equipmental role, hammer.
- Fore-structure:
- the structure of fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception.
- For-the-sake-of-which:
- That as which Dasein understands itself, that is, the self-understanding or existential possibility for the sake of which Dasein acts. A for-the-sake-of-which is not a goal, some definite project that Dasein can complete, but rather something deeper and less well-defined, such as being a student, being a mother, being the black sheep in the family. The distinction becomes really important in Division Two.
- History
- Heidegger uses two different roots in order to develop terminology whose meaning circles in the neighborhood of history. These word-groups are:
- "History" and its derivatives "historical" and "historicality," which translate variants on "Geschichte" in the German:
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- These terms refer to Dasein's historical character, that is, that Dasein is not only "spread out in time," but also lives as conditioned by who it has been.
- "To happen" (M&R: "historize"): the happening of Dasein as historical. "To happen" translates "geschehen," which in ordinary German means to happen, but which Heidegger appropriates to mean to be historically.
- "World-history" ("Weltgeschichte") refers to worldly events and things in so far as they are caught up in Dasein's happening.
- "Historiology" and its derivates "historiological" and "historicity," which translates variants on "Historie" in the German:
- These terms refer to the discipline of history, building the word "historiology" as one builds "biology."
- In-order-to:
- Sometimes MH uses this term to name the general relation between paraphernalia and what it is involved in, but I think the term best suits the relation between equipment and its tasks. "In-order-to" suggests functionality and, therefore, does not well suit non-functional paraphernalia, such as art or a romantic sunset. The latter, nonetheless, are probably paraphernalia. The "in-which of involvement" best designates their "in-order-to."
- Interpretation:
- The way in which understanding develops so as to cope with breakdown or felt difficulty. Interpretation explicitly takes things as being things of such and such a sort. E.g., when the hammer breaks, you stop and look at it and take it explicitly as a hammer.
- Intraworldly:
- An adjective that applies to entities that show up in terms of the world. Paraphernalia, or equipment, is within-the-world, because it is defined by its involvements in human tasks. Sometimes MH categorizes Dasein-with as within-the-world, I guess because Dasein-with shows up in terms of the for-the-sakes-of-which that it pursues. "One is what one does." (M&R: "within-the-world.")
- Involvement:
- The relation of something available to its defining role in human life.
- Leveling down:
- [I'm going to redo this one.]
- Mineness:
- The existential feature of Dasein that it is "in each case mine." What this exactly amounts to is highly contested in the literature. I am personally inclined to offer a version of John Haugeland's understanding of the term: Dasein is in each case mine because we can always take ownership of or responsibility for our lives.
- Obstinacy:
- The mode of equipmental breakdown in which something becomes an obstacle.
- Obtrusiveness:
- The mode of equipmental breakdown in which something is missing. Officially, if one piece of equipment, say, chalk, is missing, its "co-equipment," say, the chalk board, is obtrusive.
- Occurrentness:
- The being of occurrent entities. Occurrent entities are those non-Daseinish entities that are not defined by their involvement in human tasks and practices, i.e., are not available. Presumably, quarks and leptons, volcanoes, and numbers are occurrent. It is unclear whether animals or organisms are occurrent (there are passages that suggest that they have some other sort of being. In particular, the human body, as an object of physiology or physics, might also be merely occurrent. (M&R: presence-at-hand.)
- Ontical:
- of or pertaining to entities.
- Ontological:
- of or pertaining to being.
- Ontology:
- A conceptually developed account of what it is to be. There are two sorts of ontology that we must distinguish, and we must also distinguish ontology from pre-ontology:
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- General ontology:
- An account of what it is to be in general or at all.
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- Regional ontology:
- An account of a general sort of entity. Among the several regions of being designated in B&T are Dasein (the existent), the available (equipment, paraphernalia), the living, the physical. I have recently been convinced (by John Haugeland's Dasein Disclosed that the occurrent is not a region of being because there is no uniform "way" of being (Heidegger's generalization of the Medieval notion of existentia) that characterizes all regions of occurrent being.
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- Pre-ontology:
- An implicit understanding of being. Whereas an ontology is explicitly developed (theoretical and conceptually articulated), a pre-ontology is merely implicit in the way in which we relate to entites.
- Others, the:
- Individuals whom we encounter in the context of the world. A couple of notes: (i) others are intraworldly entities, i.e., show up on the background of the world. (ii) John Haugeland (in his forthcoming, posthumous Dasein Disclosed) argues that "others" is the term that picks out individual cases of Dasein, that is, persons. "Dasein," he argues, does not refer to persons.
- Phenomenon:
- Something that shows itself, something manifest. For more on phenomena, semblance, and appearance, see my notes on sect. 7 of B&T.
- Projection:
- Officially, the structure of understanding. I think it best to place projection thus: projection is to understanding as attunement is to disposedness. To understand something concretely is to project it. To project something is to relate to it in terms of some sense, which MH calls the "upon-which of projection." We understand ourselves in terms of the possibilities of human life accessible in our culture. We understand paraphernalia in terms of its role in our practices. We understand the objects of natural science in terms of the system of laws sketched out by scientific research.
- Publicness:
- The being of the Anyone. Publicness consists in distantiality, averageness, subjection, and leveling down.
- Self:
- Who is in-the-world (according to me: MH officially says that the Anyone is in-the-world in an average everyday way, but it sounds better to my ear to say that the self is in-the-world, and that self is primarily and usually an average everyday self — the Anyone-self — but sometimes an authentic self).
- Semblance:
- something that shows itself as what it is not, in disguise. (E.g., Cindy goes to the party dressed as Carol.) For more on phenomena, semblance, and appearance, see my notes on sect. 7 of B&T.
- Sense:
- That in terms of which one understands entities. That upon which one projects entities in understanding them. That as which one casts entities in understanding them. Note that MH uses a different term, "signification" ("Bedeutung") to name linguistic meanings. The qeustion what the relation is between sense and signification is a vexed one disputed by scholars. (M&R: "meaning.")
- Sight:
- The intelligence that guides understanding. Since understanding is in general ability, MH's basic point here is that ability involves a kind of intelligence. We should not associate intelligence only with the stunts performed by intellectuals, but extend it to cover the reasonableness (including the average everyday reasonableness that is common-sense) of ordinary skills, such as driving a car and opening a door, and any other facet of human life in which we would say that Dasein is competent or able.
- Significance:
- The relational whole of "signifying" relations. Signifying relations are the relations that bind together the many different sorts of entity that show up or make sense in terms of the world. Paraphernalia makes sense in terms of its role in Dasein's practices; those roles make sense in terms of further roles; and all these items ultimately make sense in terms of the human possibilities for the sake of which Dasein acts. Thus, paraphernalia, cultural roles, and for-the-sakes-of-which are all bound together by a set of relations that makes up the structure of the world. That relational system is significance. Significance is the "worldhood of the world," thus the being of the world: the world is a set of entities (paraphernalia, tasks, roles, for-the-sakes-of-which) bound together by a set of relations. The relations (abstracted from the entities) make up significance. Thus, significance is the "webbing" that holds the web of the world together. It is the internal structure of the world.
- Solicitude:
- The mode of care that Dasein has about others. It is coordinate with concern, which is Dasein's mode of care about paraphernalia and tasks.
- Subjection:
- [I'm going to redo this one.]
- Thrownness:
- "The facticity of Dasein's being delivered over." That is, Dasein is delivered over to its being, in that it is subject to its attunements, which reveal what matters and how. Attunements are not under our direct control; they are not objects of our projection. (In II.2 he'll characterize this as the "nullity of Dasein's being-the-ground.") This means that Dasein is always situated by its attunements. This situatedness is its thrownness.
- Totality of assignments:
- The interrelated system of all the in-order-to and for-the-sake-of relations. In other words, significance.
- Totality/context of equipment:
- the interrelated system of pieces of equipment or paraphernalia.
- Totality/context of involvements:
- the interrelated system of roles that define paraphernalia.
- Towards-which:
- The "in which of an involvement." Yes, there is a reason for the abstractness of that formulation! A a piece of paraphernalia is involved in a task (the hammer is involved in driving nails), and tasks are involved in further tasks (driving a nail is involved in bulding a bookshelf).
- Uncover:
- To unveil or make manifest a non-human entity. Contrasts with disclose. (M&R: "discover" or "uncover." M&R use two English words where there is only one in the German, "entdecken." To my ear, "discover" can be highly misleading.
- Understanding:
- The existential feature of Dasein that it is able. It is able to be who it is (self-understanding), able to manipulate paraphernalia (understanding paraphernalia), and able take account of occurrent entities (understanding the occurrent).
- World:
- The social milieu in which Dasein dwells and with which it is always already familiar. This is the third of Heidegger's senses of the word "world" in sect. 14 and is not to be confused with the first, the "world:".
- "World":
- The universe (or totality) of entities. This is the first of Heidegger's senses of "world" in §14.
- Worldhood:
- The being of the world, i.e., what it is to be a world (not a "world"). This is the fourth of Heidegger's senses of "world" in §14.
- Worldly:
- An adjective that applies to Dasein's activity, because it is Dasein who is-in the world. Dasein's activity intrinsically involves a familiarity with the world and is in that sense worldly. (Note that MH's use of the adjective "worldly" ["weltlich'] raises questions about how we should understand the noun "worldhood" ["die Weltlichkeit"]. If we try to maintain a parity of construction, then it should be "worldliness," rather than "worldhood," and that in turn would suggest that worldhood/worldliness/significance is a mode of Dasein's being. Dasein is, of course, being-in-the-world, and so perhaps this isn't so puzzling.)