Heidegger and Authenticity American Style by Scott Jensen

Prepared for Kent State Philosophy Graduate School Conference April 17, 1996 1

Works Cited TP = Birmingham, Peg. The Time of the Political. Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal. (Vol. 14, No. 2 -- Vol. 15, No. 1. pp. 25-45: 1991. BIW = Dreyfus, Hubert L. Being-in-the-World. ( MIT Press; Cambridge, MA: 1991) QUF = Fritsche, Johannes. Historicality--Quasi una fantasia on Heideggers Being and Time, paragraph 74 (I) (upcoming in the Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal) HC = Guignon, Charles. History and Commitment in the Early Heidegger. Heidegger: a Critical Reader eds. H.L. Dreyfus and H. Hall. pp. 130-142 (Blackwell; Cambridge, MA: 1992) BT = Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. (HarperSanFrancisco: 1962)

There is a common belief that the authentic Dasein of Martin Heideggers Being and Time is an example of the sort of creative, independent soul we Americans have long hoped was the essence of our national character. In this paper I will show that this belief is false. I will argue that the Heideggerian conception of authenticity is rather an actively receptive stance, one wholly divorced from the sort of Authenticity American Style, which so many believe has manifested itself in our societys mythic heroes--from Thoreau to Whitman to Woody Guthrie. I will proceed by rehearsing the process through which Dasein becomes authentic in Being and Time, clarifying key Heideggerian concepts like the call, the reciprocative rejoinder, and Daseins choice of a hero. Such a clarification will bring to the fore the role played by the factic situation in this process, and highlight the passive nature of authenticity. In the course of this rehearsal I will buttress my reading with Johannes Fritsches philological interpretation of Being and Times controversial paragraph 74, in which Heidegger works out the implications of Daseins authentic historicity. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Heidegger knows two things about his work. First, that he is preoccupied with The question of Being and second that he uses the term Dasein to refer to what is essential in human being. A solid understanding of the nature of authenticity can be gained by examining the relation between the question of Being and the conception of human being as Dasein. While an exhaustive examination of this relationship certainly involves arduous conceptual labor, for the purpose of this paper we can gain sufficient access by means of a metaphor employed widely by Heidegger---namely that Dasein is the lighted space or clearing in which Being shows itself. The notion behind the Heideggerian conception of human being as Dasein is very simple. Each person is thrown into existence. One is born into a particular factic situation---into a particular world of projects, into a particular community of people, at a particular point in history---and is not consulted at all in this matter. In other words, I find myself thrown there, into a factic situation---I am a Da (there) sein (to be). In the context of the particular situation into which Dasein is thrown, Dasein already finds itself thrown into various projects with which it is concerned. Since the example Heideggers likes to use in Being and Time is a craftsman, we will follow his lead. Say Dasein finds itself a

carpenter and its project is building a house. For this project, Dasein needs various gear, which constitute a work-world for Dasein---wood-for-building, nails-for-fastening, a hammer-forpounding-nails and so on. Taken in the context of this project its gear has a for -structure--wood-for-building, nails-for-fastening, etc. However, right away, one other for-structure becomes apparent. All this gear has been gathered around the project of building a house for an other. So in addition to the work-world there exists a public world of being-with-others. During the course of this project, say Dasein has a mishap: One of its nails-for-fastening is bent by the misplaced blow of the hammer. Because the nail can no longer fill its function within the project, it falls out of being-for-the-sake-of the project and becomes a thing in its own right, a nail, a being. Now that Daseins world-yielding project has produced a being (the nail), we see the necessary conditions of Heideggers interest in Being. Once a being is present, it is possible to ask the simple question, What is it about a being that makes it a being? Whatever the answer to this question is, will turn out to be the nature of the Being of this being. By seeing that it is the project of a Dasein that forms the necessary condition for inquiry into Being, we can clarify Daseins role as lighted space for Being. As we have seen, the nails presence as a being was possible only on the basis of Daseins project, which in turn was possible only on the basis of the factic situation of its world into which it was thrown such that it embarked on its project in the first place. Therefore, the ground of beings is the throw of Daseins there. Furthermore, because the question of the Being of those beings is only possible on the basis Daseins project, grounded in its factic situation in the world, we can say that Dasein is--as pro-jector-- the open or lighted space in which Being makes itself manifest. Now we see that because Dasein is this lighted space, what it wants if it asks What is Being? is really the it gives (es gibt), or the nature of the throw of its factic situation. It is unreasonable to believe that something like the bending of a nail would send anyone into a contemplation of Being. Heidegger agrees and goes further. For him Dasein is, at first, necessarily unconcerned with the question of Being. Dasein is always found in its natural habitat, so to speak; i.e. concerned with the beings ready-to-hand and present-at-hand in the world, rather than the nature of its factic situation and projects out of which these beings arose. Dasein is always forgetting about Being. Dasein matter of factly deals with the beings present, forgetting

not only Being, but even its own projects. Such forgetfulness forms the essence of what Heidegger calls the They-self, which has fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the world. (BT 220) In order to remember Being, Dasein must shake this They-self that it necessarily is most of the time and become authentic. As Heidegger puts it: Authentic Being-ones-Self. . is. . .an existentiall modification of the they. (BT 168) As we have seen, the beings of the They appear only on the basis of the possibilities, given Daseins factic throw. However, in this facticity there is one possibility that stands apart from any other: Death is that possibility which is ones ownmost, which is non-relational and which is not to be outstripped. (BT 294) It is the anxiety, which arises in the face of Death, that will wrench Dasein out of its They-self. Again, the idea here is not too terribly complicated. Dasein is lost in its They-self, concerned only with the beings present in the world. However, because this They-world relies on a facticity that has as its ownmost possibility death, the nullity of this possibility creates anxiety capable of reaching this They-self. This anxiety is brought to Dasein by the call of conscience. This call comes from Dasein itself, which, in its throwness (in its Being-already-in), is anxious about its potentiality-for-Being. (BT 322) As Dasein comes to terms with this potentiality, and begins to anticipate (forerun, vorlaufen) it, a new project becomes possible, one which authentic Dasein will resolutely accept. This project is called being-toward-death, and through it one is liberated from ones lostness in those possibilities which have been thrust upon one, and one is liberated in such a way that for the first time one can authentically understand and choose among the factical possibilities lying ahead of that possibility which is not to be outstripped. (BT 308) Once Dasein has anticipated death it separates the wheat from the chaff. The unfounded, floating possibilities based in the They-world are discarded, and ones authentic possibilities are taken hold of with the vigor of one who could die at any moment. In other words, Dasein becomes interested in its factic throw---in its es gibt or its Being. From this point on, the authentic Dasein resolutely struggles to allow only those projects finding a firm rootedness in Being (its factic ground) to form its existence. From this gloss of the road that Dasein travels to authenticity, one might conclude that Heideggers notion of authenticity is precisely the Authenticity American Style I claimed it was

not. We have seen only that Dasein, in the sights of death, shakes off possibilities for projects that have been merely imposed on it, and resolutely takes on projects that are its own. Under this conception, Heideggerian authenticity could easily be seen in an American sense, such that it would attack the limits imposed on it like tradition, ethnic origin, sex and family. By moving against such limits, Dasein would stake its claim in a new world where all limits are challenged, if not completely overcome. One might conclude that Daseins gaze into the eyes of death has turned it into, if you will, a rugged individualist who marches only to the beat of its own drum. While such an interpretation is plausible given the overview as presented so far, it becomes untenable when we look at the elaboration of Daseins factic situation in paragraph 74 of Being and Time. As we have seen, Dasein is thrown into a particular factic existence not of its own choosing. Paragraph 74 is about one of that situations essential moments---historicity. Paragraph 74 will show us what it means for Daseins authentic existence to take up the possibilities generated from a factic situation that is through and through historical. This refined look at Daseins factic situation we will bring more of the Heideggerian picture of authenticity into focus. As Heidegger told us authenticity is always a movement against of the They, and the account in paragraph 74 remains true to form. He claims that the Dasein lost in the They interprets itself from the historical possibilities circulating around the They-Self. He goes on to say that it is in terms of this interpretation, against it, and yet again for it, that any possibility one has chosen is seized upon in ones resolution. (BT 435) Here we see that, necessarily, the reaction of an authentic Dasein will be to its existence in the They, which floats around peddling ungrounded historical possibilities that cannot stand the light generated by a run forward into death. Disavowing its They-self, Dasein discovers the true historical possibilities that are possible given its factic situation. Dasein discloses these historical possibilities in terms of the heritage (aus dem Erbe) which that resoluteness, as thrown, takes over.(BT 435). Heidegger characterizes this heritage as good, meaning that the possibilities of heritage are what remain after the anticipation of death (Vorlaufen in den Tod) has driven out all accidental and provisional possibility (BT 435). According to Heidegger, Dasein, by disavowing the They, is

brought back to the simplicity of its fate. (BT 435) Such a movement from interpreting itself in terms of the historical possibilities of its They-Self, to interpreting itself in terms of its fate, is called Daseins primordial historizing. In other words, rather than merely floating along, resolutely authentic Dasein now actively receives its possibilities from its heritage. This heritage is, so to speak, the shape of Daseins factic throw, and this shape is the lay of the ground upon which all future authentic projects will be built. By looking more closely at the factic situation we see that unlike its American counterpart Heideggerian Dasein does not possess an unqualified sense of freedom or individuality. A rugged, authentic American is not supposed to be beholden to any sort of heritage The authentic American is seen as a free, autonomous individual with the capacity to judge which possibilities given by history he or she will accept if any at all are accepted. Heidegger, on the other hand, finds such a project unrealistic. For him, Daseins possibilities are determined by the nature of its throw or by heritage. Therefore, Dasein has only what Heidegger calls a finite freedom. (BT 436) While the authentic rugged American individual has the opportunity to distance itself from its past and actively choose either to accept. reject, or creatively modify the possibilities offered to it by that past, no such distance exists for Heideggerian Dasein. For Heidegger, authenticity necessarily contains a passive moment. To become authentic, Dasein must both passively accept the fate of its thrown heritage, and actively choose this fated heritage. Because Dasein is its factic throw in the sense that this throw determines its possibilities, it simply is not truly free to distance itself from those possibilities. Daseins freedom lies only in its ability to acquiesce or not to acquiesce to it facticity. A choice against its facticity is a free fall into the abyss of the false possibilities of the They. Further, because the factic situation is always a being-in-the-world with others, Daseins ownmost existence, its ownmost fate, is wrapped up with the historizing of the community, of a people. (BT 436) Heideggerian Dasein, by the criteria of Authenticity American style, proves itself to be both unfree and a denial of individual autonomy. Many commentators (like Charles Guignon, Hubert Dreyfus and Peg Birmingham) have lost sight of the passive aspect of authentic Dasein in describing the way in which authentic Dasein relates to its past. In different ways each of these interpreters appeals to the futural character of Dasein laid out in the last few pages of paragraph 74 in order to justify their take of Dasein as active in its response to the historicity of its factic situation. In these pages Dasein, in a

moment of vision (BT 437), catapults itself into the future by choosing a hero or a possibility of existence that has been, (BT 437) whose possibilities it repeats in future projects. The claim of these commentators becomes plausible when Heidegger explains that Daseins repetition of its Heros example is not an attempt to live the heros past life verbatim. Rather, authentic Dasein makes a double response to the past. First it makes an erwidert (a reciprocative rejoinder) (BT 438) to its hero, which is at the same time a Widerruf (disavowal) of that which is the today, is working itself out as the past (BT 438). It is between this erwidert and Widerruf that each of these commentators loses sight of the passive aspect of Heideggerian authenticity. As I have said, each of these commentators has Dasein actively engaging the past through its choice of a hero. For Guignon (HC 136-138) and Dreyfus (BIW 330-331) this engagement comes in the form of a conversation with the past [Note: this reading is also suggested in the translators
note 1, p. 438 of Being and Time.]

to decide which of the many available possibilities that have been

Dasein wants as its hero. In her article The Time of the Political, Peg Birmingham goes further, suggesting that Dasein launches a counter attack against the past (TP 31). As we shall see neither of these reading of the relation of Dasein to it past is defensible. In his soon to be published article Historicity---Quasi una fantasia on Heideggers Being and Time, paragraph 74, Johannes Fritsche offers grammatical/philological reasons for the impossibility of the Guignon/Dreyfus conversation of Dasein with its past. As we have seen the key sentence for this question is the erwidert sentence, which in German reads: Die Wiederholung erwidert vielmehr die Moglichkeit der dagewesenen Existenz. (Rather, the repetition makes a repicrocative rejoinder to the possibility of that existence which has been there.) (BT 438) How one takes erwidert in this sentence is how one will conceive Daseins relation to the past. The verb erwidern generally means response but, as in English, the exact sense of response is ambiguous. Certainly in can mean, as Guignon and Dreyfus would have it, to respond in the sense of a conversation. To express this sense in German, erwidert needs a dative object, to stress the distance necessary for a conversation to take place. You say we should take a left. I respond to you, we should take a right, and we proceed in open conversation until we come to some kind of a consensus. In this example we see that the content of my response, we should go

right, is the direct object of the verb, while you, the one to whom the response is directed, are the indirect object. In German the direct object takes the accusative case and the indirect object the dative. However, the to whom the erwidert is made in the erwidert sentence (die Moglichkeit) is in the accusative. Because erwidert takes an accusative object, according to Fritsche, a reading of the response in the sense of a conversation is ruled out, making Guignon and Dreyfus reading impossible. After grammatically ruling out erwidern in the sense of a conversation, Fritsche leaves us with two other possibilities for the sense of this response Dasein makes to the past. Both possibilities play on the sense of responding in kind, both take the accusative, but each carries an opposite sense of distance between the one who responds and the one to whom the response is made. In the first sense erwidert is Birminghams counterattack. A boxer would erwidert another boxers punch with a counter-punch. In this example the distance between the boxers is too close, and each seeks to increase this distance by knocking-out the other. The second sense of erwidert, the one adopted by Fritsche, is that of acquiescence to an obligation, request or demand. A lifeguard erwidert a drowning persons cries for help by doing what is necessary to save that person. Here, given the dire situation, the distance between the life guard and the drowning person is too great and the goal is to close it. Because both senses of erwidern take the accusative, in order to see what sense is meant by Heidegger one must appeal to textual context, where we not only must account for Daseins erwidert but its Widerruf (disavowal) as well. If erwidern was meant by Heidegger in Birminghams sense of a distancing counter attack, one would expect erwidert and Widerruf to have the same object. Authentic Dasein would launch this counter attack against its thrown heritage, and, at the same time, disavow that heritage. However, the object of erwidert---the possibility of that existence which has-been-there (BT 438)---and the object of the Widerruf---that which in the today, is working itself out as the past (BT 438)---are different. The disavowal made in the moment of vision is indeed of a past but not of the authentic past as heritage. Rather, authentic Dasein disavows that which today is working itself inauthenticaly as heritage; i.e. the inauthentic historicity. However, perhaps Daseins double negation is aimed both at the heritage of its factic situation and heritage as it is interpreted by the They. Such a reading insists that authentic Daseins goal is to distance itself from the claim of any heritage whatsoever. However, as we have seen, Dasein in its throwness is

its factic situation and heritage. As we have seen above, to distance itself from that heritage runs counter to the very movement of authenticity, where Dasein tries to close the distance its TheySelf has placed between it and its authentic facticity. We are left with having to read erwidert in what Fritsche calls the sense of the Greek [charity] (QUF 20), where one erwidert by acquiescing to an obligation and closing distance. With this sense of erwidert, Daseins repetition of the possibilities of its heros is similar to a response to a call for help. The authentic possibilities of its factic historicity are calling Dasein, but have for the most part been ignored by the They-Self such that they are in danger of being completely lost. However, authentic Dasein now hears this call, and, because it has resolutely vowed only to be open to the real possibilities given to it in its factic throw, it disavows the possibilities it had previously projected upon in the They. Dasein is now ready for its future project designed to close the gap between it and its ownmost historicity; a struggle against that which in the today, is working itself out as the past. (BT 438) As I mentioned, this paper has merely the negative goal of showing that Heideggers notion of authenticity is not the same as Authenticity American Style. We have seen that if we take Authenticity American Style to be an active disavowal of any authority except of ones own, it is not the same as Heideggers notion of actively choosing to passively receive the possibilities inherent in the authority of the fate of ones factic situation, and then disavowing the inauthentic interpretations of that situation. As American heroes I chose persons (Thoreau, Whitman and Woody Guthrie) who seemed to represent the sort of souls who either refused heritage, or, if they accepted it, did so only on their own terms by putting their individual stamp upon heritage. For Heidegger, Dasein is powerless to alter its authentic heritage and can affect only the Theys false interpretation of that heritage. To heighten this contrast we conclude with Professor Fritsches speculation on who Heidegger might have had in mind as heroes when he wrote Being and Time. Recall that authentic Dasein must anticipate death (in German, vorlaufen in den Tod, literally to run forward into death). According to Fritsche (QUF 9-10), in World War I the Heroes of Langemarck did just that. Following the call of the Fatherland, these young volunteers ran out of their trenches into the certain death of allied machine-gun fire. These heroes, according to a myth of the German right between the Wars, were willing to die for the life

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only their fatherland could perpetuate. While it is just such action that for many optimized the stupidity of World War I, one can read in every book on World War I written by a non-liberal, or non-leftist author, each German soldier had to be capable of doing the same, and had to follow, to imitate, or to repeat, the moves of these Helden von Langemarck in order to become himself a Held. (QUF 9) If Fritsche is right that the German readers who ran into Heideggers phase [Vorlaufen in den Tod] in the years between World War I and World War II(QUF 9) could hardly have avoided the association between vorlaufen and the Held, then not only is one justified in adopting these Helden von Langemarck as paradigmatic examples of Heideggerian Heroes, but also, if we equate the They with those who according to the Dolchstosslegende (myth of the back) (QUF 9) betrayed these heroes, one can also see the course authentic Daseins future project is supposed to take.

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