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1 First Page Previous Page Next Page / 26 Sections not available Zoom Out Zoom In Fullscreen Exit Fullscreen Select View Mode View Mode SlideshowScroll Readcast Add a Comment Embed & Share Readcast Reading should be social! Post a message on your social networks to let others k now what you're reading. Select the sites below and start sharing. Check_27x27Transparent Check_27x27Transparent Check_27x27TransparentLink account Readcast this DocumentTransparent Readcast Complete! Click 'send' to Readcast! edit preferences Set your preferences for next time...Choose 'auto' to readcast without being pro mpted. Nzeadi Ebuka Nzeadi Ebuka Link account AdvancedCancel Add a Comment Submit share: Characters: 400 Share & Embed Add to Collections Download this Document for Free Auto-hide: on "Sigmund, I Am Not Quite Myself Today": A Revision of Heidegger's Social Ontology using the Psychoanalytic Dyad Zaccharia Turnbull I) Introduction The Zollikon Seminars, centred on the relationship between Heidegger and the psy choanalyst Medard Boss, reveal that Heidegger believed that his philosophy had a therapeutic application: that it could function as much as arecover y of the hu man being as it could as a phenomenological analysis of that being.1 For this re ason, the engagement between Heidegger's philosophy and psychoanalysis opens the

possibility that Heidegger's philosophy itself might be intelligibly informed b y psychoanalytic principles. Zollikon then remains a point of departure for any consideration of this engagement. But the historical and philosophical trajector y of the engagement has usually taken the form of critical applications of Heide gger's analysis of Dasein to psychoanalytic practice, to create thereby what is known as 'Daseinanalysis'. By contrast, I wish to move in theopposi t e directio n as I believe the engagement also licenses: the critical application of psychoa nalysis to Heideggerianism. Just as the former field of enquiry of necessity con cerns itself with Heidegger, as founder of Dasein's analysis, the latter field m ust, correspondingly, surely concern itself with Freud, as founder of psychoanal ysis. My contention is that some critical and independently deducible problems w ith Heidegger's notions ofMi tsei n and authenticity, frequently pointed out in the scholarship, may be addressed by treating the analyst/analysand relation of Freudian psychoanalysis as bearing ontological significance to Heidegger's philo sophy. Concerning method, the goal will then be to show that a version of Daseinanalysis (i.e., a reading of psychoanalytic therapy in ontological terms) has acri ti cal, and not merely app licative significance to Dasein's analysis. This will require a particular path through Freud's oeuvre in order that the analyst/analysand relation can be taken to furnish this significance. There is a contemporary dislike of Heidegger's authenticity from a range of voic es. Such dislike appears to respond to two main lines of reasoning. Firstly, it may be contended that the analysis of being-towards-death,2 as an explicit sourc e of authenticity, is basically mistaken, i.e., that Dasein does not or need not comport itself towards death as Heidegger depicts. If this is the case, then th e very possibility of Heidegger's non-relational version of authenticity is miss ing. Secondly, it has been argued that the connection of authenticity with a com plex of ideas towards the close of Being and Time, concerning an heroic historic al mobilisation of aVol k in the face of death,3 thereby links authenticity at l east biographically, and perhaps alsophil osophi cal l y, with Nazism. I will as sume the reasonableness of these readings as a matter of prudence. But what such criticism from Heideggerians must presuppose is that authenticity bears a signi ficantly morenor mat i ve quality than other aspects of Heidegger's ontology, so as to make it partially factorable from the framework as a whole. Such factorab ility seems implicit, for example, in Critchley's recent argument for an 'origin ary inauthenticity'. These gestures are designed to make room for a reconstructe d Heideggerianism in which authenticity is philosophical demoted. Insofar as Cri tchley likewise argues for a 'relational' understanding of key Heideggerian conc epts, my own approach will be consistent with his.4 However, what will distingui sh my approach is an attempt toret ai n a notion of authenticity while recognisi ng the failings of Heidegger's own: 1Martin Heidegger, Zollikon Seminars, Cf. Boss's Preface, p. xi. 2Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 279-304. 3Ibid, p. 436. to argue for a 'relational authenticity'. Viewed in terms of the relationship between Heidegger and psychoanalysis, the is sue of authenticity becomes harder to dispel. On the one hand, a consideration o f authenticity within the horizon of the question of therapy equally confirms th is notion's normative significance. Yet on the other hand, it also appears that in proportion as authenticity may be considered disreputable for the reasons abo ve, it is also arguablyindi spensabl e to the understanding of Heideggerianism i n psychopathological/therapeutic terms. In particular, in Zollikon, Heidegger makes clear that the psychopathological is to be understood to broadly align with his notion of 'inauthenticity'. In one conversation with Boss, he rem

arks that: The human being is essentially in need of help because he is always in danger of losing himself and of not coming to grips with himself. This danger is connecte d with the human being's freedom. The entire question of the human being's capac ity for being ill is connected with the imperfection of his unfolding essence. E ach illness is a loss of freedom, a constriction of the possibility for living.5 While the term is not used here, from this passage it seems clear that the whole idea of 'illness' in Heidegger, calibrated with a Freudian psycho-pathology, mu st correspond to 'inauthenticity' as it figures in Being and Time: a name for th e human being's 'falling' into a world as 'an imperfection of its unfolding esse nce', such that its own possibilities of being are lost to it. Of course, it rem ains possible to question altogether Heidegger's identification of inauthenticit y with illness. Yet this identification seems to me to be intuitively plausible, since a person who is lost to himself in his world is surely thereby unable to truly help himself, or, indeed, to live fully as himself as Heidegger says. But given the philosophical and ethical concerns about Heidegger's authenticity, the specific advantage we enjoy under this psychopathological understanding is that the problem is firstlynegati vely framed, meaning that we are at more liberty t o decide what 'health' and 'improvement' may look like. In other words, we can p otentially dissociate some new model of authenticity, grounded in psychopatholog ical considerations, from Heidegger's own. Indeed, the fact that inZoll i kon He idegger himself seems to tread more carefully concerning the ontological meaning of 'health', despite this identification, tacitly licenses such an enquiry. But moreover, I will also maintain below that there is a broad normative/ontologica l alignment in Being and Time which largely precludes the factorability of authe nticity; this means that, in order to minimise the architectonic ramifications o f the critique of authenticity, we would do well not to simply scrap it, but mod ify it in a motivated way. The authenticity/inauthenticity question is determinately involved with the ques tion of the relation between Dasein and others. This is first of all clear from Heidegger's introduction of inauthenticity in terms of the 'they-self',6 and als o insofar as a share of the solution to inauthenticity is finally pictured in te rms of the historical development of theVol k. The involvement of thes oci al at the heart of authenticity suggests that there is in principle the possibility t o revise the meaning of authenticityvi a a revision of Heidegger's social ontolo gy, and vice versa. So a fortuitous fact about thei mpli ed understanding of aut henticity in Heidegger's conception of psychopathology is that it involves, at l east ontically, a distinct kind of social relation: that between analyst and ana lysand. I will first of all take this as a key to the possibility to replace wha t I will call the 'consolidative' model of authenticity with a relational model, where authenticity would still minimally mean some recovery of Dasein with itself, but a recovery in relation to its relation to others. To develop su ch a relational model will require a close critique of Heidegger's notion ofMit sei n, where the social dimension of Dasein is initially determined, as having a solipsistic tendency. My critique of Mitsein in view of a relational model for Dasein will first of all seek to radic alise Mitseinin the spirit of similar radicalisations by, for example, Levinas and Sartre. But m y approach is 4 Simon Critchley, 'Original Inauthenticity - on Heidegger's Sein und Zeit', On Heidegger's Being and Time. 5 Heidegger, Zollikon Seminars, p. 157. 6 Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 163-68. 2

distinguished by its taking the analysand/analyst dyad as the primary ontical (e mpirical) point of entry for the development of a better social ontology. It is worth briefly comparing my agenda to that of Binswanger, and his own 'Dase inanalysis'. Binswanger likewise criticised Dasein's analysis as having a solips istic tendency, deprived of the richness of human relationships, which he though t better expressible in such ideas as 'love' and a general communality. Heidegge r harshly counter- criticised Binswanger for misunderstanding the ontological de pth of Dasein'sMi tsei n, and hence of Dasein's sociality.7 But I reject both He idegger's and Binswanger's models for Dasein's sociality as equally solipsistic; indeed I believe Binswanger's understanding of social Dasein is broadly entaile d by Heidegger's own. In outline, I would classify Binswanger's ideas as consist ent with the kind of consolidative model of sociality I have alluded to above, w hich arguably only makes sense if Dasein is essentially ontologically independen t from others. I will aim to show that, on the contrary,ori gi nal Freudian psyc hoanalysis contains much that, treated phenomenologically, may indeed radicalise Heidegger's own social ontology well beyond Binswanger's ambitions. In outline, this radicalisation will aim to demonstrate that the psychoanalytic relation, a s disclosing the necessity of being other to oneself with respect to the other, represents a stance towards this being-other that is disclosive of amore authent ic possibility of being; which will in turn subtend a far more radical social on tology. The possibility of these modifications to Heidegger's ontology is then condition al upon the development of a judicious selection and interpretation of Freud. As it stands, therapy itself remains essentially something with onlyappl i cat i v e significance in the Freudian system, despite the fact that Freud wrote a sizab le amount on therapy technique and case- studies, as on 'theory' stricto sensu. But a key to the kind of theoretical expansion we require in Freud is provided b y Hoeller's report that Heidegger was much warmer to Freud's "Papers on Techniqu e" than he was to Freud's causal-scientific psychic apparatus, owing to the comp arative nuance and phenomenological sensitivity he perceived in the former.8 Thi s suggests that if we are to begin to reconcile the phenomenological versus caus al-scientific conceptions of the human being through this enquiry, it should be first in view of psychoanalysis as a 'practical theory'. The path I will follow in Freud will accordingly proceed from practice to theory: specifically, from Fr eud on technique in the therapy room to the broadly topographic/dynamic model of the psyche centred upon the conscious/unconscious relation. While this is, of c ourse, not the only useful path that could be taken through Freud's works, Freud 's principles oft ransf erence andproj ect i on, encountered along it, will be s hown as key to the development of such a relational authenticity and relational social ontology that may be required to revise the early Heidegger on the questi on of the social. II) Heidegger i)Das ei n andMi t se i n The ontology ofDas ei n stems from Heidegger's reworking of the classical subjec t/object opposition. While in Being and Time, Heidegger first sets as project th e examination of the 'meaning of Being', this project is soon reconfigured as an analysis of that being for whom Being is itself an issue: the (human) being und ertaking the investigation. This being is named Dasein, as 'there-being' or 'exi stence'. It is Dasein'sopenness to Being, Dasein's capacity to disclose somethin g as witnessed in the very capacity for Heidegger's project, that first indicate s that Dasein is neither a consciousness contraposed to the world, nor a 'thing' within the world. Dasein is, on the contrary, first of all 'there', involved an d situated in a world. This situation is taken to have phenomenological and onto logical priority over any conception of subject and world as independent entitie s. Dasein is then not the human subject, nor 7 Richard Askay, 'Heidegger's Relationship to the Original Daseinanalysts', Zoll

ikon Seminars, pp. 304-5. 8 Hoeller, Heidegger and Psychology, pp. 9-10. 3 consciousness ordinarily understood, nor the human biological/anthropological or ganism. Dasein is rather simply being-in-the-world.9 As a question of method, th is means that the question of the 'Who' of Dasein must firstly be broached via a roundabout route, in terms of the stuff in the world that Dasein isal r eady in volved with and cannotnot be involved with so long as iti s Dasein.10 But it is worth emphasising Heidegger's insistence that 'Dasein is in each case 'mine' ('m ineness',Jemei ni gkeit).11 Wemay take this to mean, firstly, that Dasein is not the human being abstractly understood but only evert hi s one: finitude is part of its meaning. On the other hand, the removal ofreference from the possessive under the Dasein/'mine' linkage also suggests that Dasein is neither a matter of the subjectivism of 'my personal business'; the 'mine' in this sense is not an orthodox first-person pronominal, since Dasein, as hermenutically determinative, logically antedates the intelligibility of such subjectivism. The 'Who' of Dasein then lacks an answer outside of Dasein's radical, existentia l placement, from which its question must proceed. But that there are various th ings with significances in the world available to Dasein, cups and words and God s, can now be analysed, under the terms of Heidegger's quasi-transcendental trea tment, as significances devolving from their significance to Dasein itself. But the very ontology within which Dasein and world so relate, the ontology of being-in-the-world, first of all means that this Dasein is 'thrown', or has already passed itself over into a world in term s of which it usually understands itself. Dasein's 'thrownness' or 'projection' (Geworfenheit), a notion which will play a central role in my analysis, is here introduced: This characteristic of Dasein's Being - this 'that it is' - is veiled in its "wh ence" and "whither", yet disclosed in itself all the more unveiledly; we call it the "thrownness" of this entity into its "there"; indeed, it is thrown in such a way that, as Being-in-the-world, it is the "there". The expression "thrownness " is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over.12 The whole problematic of authenticity/inauthenticity will be therein concerned w ithhow Dasein chooses to live as thrown, which will mean that thrownness should serve as a touchstone for any modifications which might be made to Heideggerian authenticity. I come now to the question ofM it sei n, which is literally the 'being-with' of Dasein. Most naively,Mi tsei n is simply responsive to the fact that Dasein is n ot alone in its world, that there are 'others' here too, of a nature distinct fr om the 'things' spoken of above. This of course firstly corresponds to the 'onti c', or empirical, situation that I find myself in: it happens to be the case tha t I can identify others around me, or that I experience my world as one involvin g others. ButMi tsei n is anont ol ogical notion for Heidegger. The stronger cla im made forMi tsei n is that it is an 'equiprimordial' structure with the worldh ood of Dasein's world, and sonecessary in order that Dasein may be what it is at all. It is firstly most interesting, from a methodological perspective, that th e question ofot her s to Dasein inBei ng and Time emerges at the point of a renewed questioning about 'Who' is Dasein. Th is firstly suggests that Dasein's identity may only be determined onceMi tsei n has been ta ken into account. But it will emerge that Heidegger adopts this route because he will argue that the initial, ontical obviousness of this 'Who', to wit, the 'I'

or the 'Self' to which Dasein can apparently make reference, is in fact aby- pr oduct of a way of experiencingMi tsei n. It is worth considering some passages o n the development ofMi ts ei n at length: In our 'description' of that environment which is closest to us-the work-world o f the craftsman, for example, - the outcome was that along with the equipment to be found when one is at work [in Arbeit], those Others for whom the 'work' ["We rk"] is destined are 'encountered too'. If this is ready-to-hand, then there lie s in the kind of Being which belongs to it (that is, in its 9 Heidegger, op. cit., pp. 21-36. 10 This is equivalent, considered from the standpoint of the 'meaning of Being', with the necessity to address beings before, or by way of addressing Being. Ibid., p.61. 11 Ibid., p. 68. 12 Ibid., p. 174. 4 involvement) as essential assignment or reference to possible wearers.13 Shortly after, some of the central ideas onM it s ei n are summarised: The Other who are thus 'encountered' in a ready-to-hand, environmental context o f equipment, are not somehow added on in thought to something which is proximall y just present-at-hand; such 'Things' are encountered from out of the world in w hich they are ready-to-hand for Others - a world which is always mine too in adv ance. In our previous analysis, the range of what is encountered within-the-worl d was, in the first instance, narrowed down to equipment ready-to- hand or Natur e present-at-hand, and thus to entities with a character other than Dasein. This restriction was necessary not only for the purposes of simplifying our explicat ion but above all because the kind of Being which belongs to the Dasein of Other s, as we encounter it within-the- world, differs from readiness-to-hand and pres ence-to-hand. Thus Dasein's world frees entities which not only are quite distin ct 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 ti me encountered within-the-world, and are 'in' it by way of Being-in-the-world.14 As entry points for the development of Heidegger's social ontology, these passag es seem to significantly shape the concept ofMi tsei n. Although, as Heidegger i nsists, others are "encountered from out of the world",15 nonetheless, by virtue of the manner in which Heidegger's ontology is exegetically developed, the idea of 'others' seems to first emerge in the process of interpreting the significan ce of thet hi ngs in Dasein's world already considered. The very idea of 'BeingWith' is first of all the idea that I must understand that I am 'with' others in my world in order that the stuff in my world can make sense in the usual way. T he comitative of 'togetherness' seems to emerge at this point as a consequence o f the fact that, at leastexeget i cal l y speaking, the others are indeed, and d espite his protest, 'added on' to a world that Heidegger has already described w ithout the notion of others. The conclusion that we are 'together' in the world is derived from the phenomenon of significances that are seen to be sharable eve n in a world in which I have not yetencounter ed anyone else. But this makes the comitative emphasis inM it sei n a kind of ontological reflection of the world' s 'objectivity' in the sense of its apparent sharability, i.e. concluded firstly from fact that the world itself (rather than Dasein) is comitative, or is a 'wi th-world' (Mitwelt). The total instrumental and semantic organisation of a cloth ing-world could then not make sense unless some people shared the understanding of bits of fabric as serving the purposes of other people. Since Dasein's world is an objective world in this respect, Mitsein is taken as necessary condition f or the very worldhood of Dasein's world, and hence of Dasein itself who is only as Being-inthe-world. Heidegger now further describes the conceptual interaction betweenM it sei n and

another notion,M it dasei n, which is rather less clear than the first.Mi t das ei n, 'Dasein-with', denotes another possibility of relation between Dasein and others which Heidegger understands to begr ounde d uponM it s ei n as the more p rimordial notion: The expression 'Dasein', however, shows plainly that 'in the first instance' thi s entity is unrelated to Others, and that of course it can still be 'with' Other s afterwards. Yet one must not fail to notice that we use the term "Dasein-with" to designate that Being for which the Others who are [die seienden Anderen] are freed within the world. This Dasein-with of the Others is disclosed within-theworld for a Dasein, and so too for those who are Daseins with us [die Mitdaseien den], only because Dasein in itself is essentially Being-with.16 and further: Being-with is in ever case a characteristic of one's own Dasein; Dasein-with cha racterises the Dasein of Others to the extent that it is freed by its world for a Being-with. O nly so far as one's 13 Ibid., p. 153. 14 Ibid., p. 154. 15 Ibid., p. 155. 16 Ibid., p. 156. 5 own Dasein has the essential structure of Being-with, is it Dasein-with as encou nterable for Others.17 This means that the moredi rect awareness of another Dasein, besides mine, is pi ctured as derivative from a horizonal understanding of my world as a 'with-world' in the f irst instance, in the manner pictured above. But clearly the direct awareness of there being an other Dasein must become a radically different awareness to that of things. This is why Dasein in the mode of 'Dasein-with' must, as Heidegger says, 'free' thes e others within its world. In this mode, these others are not or no longer strai ghtforward significances within Dasein's world, nor simply a horizon for the pos sibility of worldhood, but are rather freed tomak e significances in the mode be ings who are experienced as having their own world within Dasein's world. It is of course true, as the second passage makes clear, that this 'freeing' is at onc e a freeing for Daseini tself to be encountered by the other Dasein of Dasein-wi th. However, the order of conceptual and exegetic derivation between these notio ns clearly makes this freeing of Daseins as beings within Dasein's world apossi bil it y of Dasein itself, sourced in Dasein's Mitsein. If Mitdasein is a kind of extended apprehension, as 'freeing', of other s, this is only possible as some ontological modulation ofMi ts ei n. ii)Mi t se i n and Phenomenology A critique of these nascent foundations of Heidegger's social ontology could pro ceed in two ways. The first would be a more or lessdi r e ct enquiry about wheth er this ontology reflects the phenomenological evidence concerning the experienc e of others. The second would be an architectonic enquiry examining the ramifications of this ontology upon the text as a whole, and specifically, for my purposes, upon its influence over the space within whic h authenticity is developed. I will begin with the former. With respect to a cer tain philosophical genealogy through Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, and Derrida, He idegger's social ontology is now wont to seem rather impoverished. However, such retrospection also obscures whatis radical about Heidegger's phenomenological a pproach.The point with which I wholly agree is that the existence of others as a nont ol ogical question is not one of 'searching around' to see if there are som e, but rather of showing that even if no one was here ontically my ontic world c

ould not evenbe a world unlessanot her were here ontologically, or in principle. Viewed in this way, we can at once see that there is a certain sound motivation for having begunnot with encounters with actual, ontically apprehensible people , but rather with a certain regimented de-peopled world to show that even very ordinarily significant things would not make sense unless others existed. Nonetheless, it must be asked whether Heidegger has captured the real necessity of Dasein's social relation under the notion ofM it sei n. The exclusion of the consideration of others up to this point in the text is not innocent in its theo retical effect. Firstly, it must be remembered that the development of Heidegger 's ontology must proceed ontically/phenomenologically because Dasein as 'mine' i s finite and isal r eady thrown into a world in which it exists onlyqua being-in -the-world. This entails that it is strictly impossible to insulate his ontology from some particularant hropol ogi cal conditions, since the only method approp riate to address Dasein is one in terms of Dasein's extant world.18 Thechoi ce o f those anthropological conditions becomes part of the 'fore-structure' of Heide gger's hermeneutic circle.19 But wemus t make a choice, since given thrownness, we must begin 17 Ibid., p. 157. 18 To be clear, this absence of partition as a question ofmethod is not contradi cted by Heidegger's insistence in Zollikon that "it is not an analytic of Da-sein that can satisfy the completenes s required for laying the foundations for a philosophical anthropology" (p. 125) . On the contrary, the reason this completeness is in principle unobtainable is connected to the necessity to chooseparticular anthropological conditions as one 's phenomenologicalentry-point. But owing to what Daseinis (i.e.,already there, in an ontically comprehensible world),none of those conditions can be, so to spe ak, 'transcendentally cleansed' in respect to their service to the phenomenologi cal method. 19Being and Time, pp. 26-28. 6 with something (Dasein is not a Cartesian subject insulable from a world), and g iven finitude, we cannot begin with everything (Dasein exists in a finite, deter minate world-space). Now here is the first problem: Heideggerchooses, for reason s of 'simplifying our explication', to introduce Dasein in abstraction from othe rs. Butif it is permissible to have removed other people from Dasein's universe up to this point, which is itself a very strong abstraction, then surely it migh t in principle also be permitted to take as one's ongoing model that of Mr Cruso e, or else a workshop in which I make tools and clothes solely for myown purpose s. But in that case the very contingency of the world situation with which we mu st begin might determine the being of others as also only contingent. From this line of reasoning, there would appear to be two broad solutive strategies: i) pr oceed with a less 'gerry-mandered' anthropological analysis which assumes empiri cal people from the outset - but this alone could not philosophically counter so lipsism, ii) found some better quasi-transcendental necessity for the ontologica l being of others, or what I will hereafter call the 'Other'. My engagement of H eidegger with psychoanalysis will later be seen as an effort to reconcile those strategies. There is a further problem onMi ts ei n andMi t das ei n. Despite, as I have sai d, that the procedure that allows others to emerge in a world vicariously has pa rticular merits, I nonetheless believe that something fundamental about theexper i enci ng of others goes missing under this point of entry, and shows up instead indi st ort ed form in what Heidegger believes to be the merely derivative noti on ofMi t das ei n.Mi ts ei n arises exegetically, as seen, on the basis of the fact that things in the world show up with significances that ares har able: I a

m 'with' others because I am aware that significances available in things are no t exhausted by my Dasein. The second demonstration of the inadequacy of this pri nciple is disclosed in the apparent 'slip' Heidegger makes upon the introduction ofM it dasei n. For while Mitsein is supposed to ontologically ground the being of the Other, Heidegger can nonetheless admit that "'in the first instance' thi s entity is unrelated to others." Much hinges upon how this 'first instance' is to be interpreted. Of course Heideggerwant s this 'first instance' to be underst ood in relation to an ordinary time order in which I can be ontically 'put in re lation' to others by, for example, answering the door. This would of course expl ain why the introduction of Mitdasein is Heidegger's answer to this 'first instance' understood as ontical s olitude. Nevertheless, the appeal to the name 'Dasein' and its first implications as the fund for this 'first instance' also suggests to me that an insufficiently deep o ntological connection has yet been established between Dasein andM it sei n: if the very idea of Dasein is in one sense intelligible without others, then we in any case have a problem. This would function as indirect confirmation of the int elligibility of the example of my solipsist's workshop, as foil to Heidegger's s trategy. On the other side, it seems perverse that the capacity for Dasein to directlyr e cogni s e others is preciselyn ot the fund for Heidegger's Other, but is somehow derived from it. In the current system, such recognition in situ would already be subjected to a certain domestication, as an operation of primary Dasein quaMi tsei n upon its experience of others. Recognition of others in the usual sense would have to be understood within the limits of a more ordinary intersubjectivi ty, in which I understand myself simply as one subject present to another subjec t. That this must be the case seems to be encoded in whatMi t dasei n for Dasein could mean, given what Dasein means. For the very hermeneutic limitations upon Dasein, already considered, would seem to preclude the idea of two or more Dasei ns in symmetric relation who also recognise one anotheras Dasein in the strict s ense: the 'mineness' of Dasein must surely rule that possibility out. But I unde rstand this 'mineness' to be both hermeneutically andont ol ogical ly determinat ive: if there is another sense of Dasein asot her, Heidegger has not explained w hat it is. This preclusion of symmetric Daseins is most fully elaborated in Sart re's critical appropriation of Heidegger under the asymmetric terms of the 'Look '.20 Heidegger, however, seems to want to preserve the difference betweenMit das ei n and ordinary intersubjectivity. But I believe that the term itself attempts to smooth over a fundamental difference between 'Dasein' and 'Mit-dasein' by in corporating that stem within it. 20 Being and Nothingness, John Paul Sartre, p. 340. 7 Owing to the impossibility of symmetric Daseins, there is effectively no concept ual space for a third term left between Dasein (and its horizonal Other underM i t sei n) on the one hand, and ordinary intersubjectivity on the other hand. In c onsequence, we fundamentally lack an explanation forhow Dasein quaMi tsei n deri ves the intersubjectivity ofMi t dasei n. For since the Other is nopart i cul ar other, it is very difficult to see how the other is to be derived from the Othe r. I will argue further below that this identified problem stems from the systemic organisation ofMi ts ei n andMi t das ei n sourced in Heidegger's point of herme neutic entry; and that a more phenomenologically adequate ontology would have to invert the order of explanation between the ontological structures that these n otionsrepresent. But it is worth first also considering what kind of philosophic al agendas may be served byM it sei n, which will in turn amplify my reservation s. In Olafson's study ofMi tsei n, in Heidegger and the Ground of Ethics, the ethical consequences of Mitsein, which amount for him to a

kind of first ontological 'binding' between people, also run second-place exegetically t o an epistemological agenda that Olafson uses to get to reach this ethics. Olafson's first thesis is that "it is only by virtue of our having identified other beings like ourselves through a form of understanding quite different from the scientific model that t he sort of partnership can come into being on which the whole enterprise of know ledge - scientific knowledge included - depends".21 In other words, like his cha pter heading, 'Truth is Partnership'. The Other thereby really risks becoming a merelyregul at i ve concept for the pr eservation of an interpretable world. But again, this Other would at most therei n function as a refutation of what we could callsemant ical solipsism in relatio n to orthodox kinds of significance, but not ofont ol ogical solipsism. Further, Olafson is apparently not troubled by the ramifications of approaching the ques tion of others via Heidegger's route; on the contrary, he embraces the circumsta nce that the apprehension of the Other is "routed through the world". But his ve ry ethical model of an ontological 'binding' with others, an only slight variati on on Heidegger's comitative, is then surely a mere by-product, even more explic itly than in Heidegger's text, of age ne r al hermeneutic agenda over that world . In other words, the teleology of Dasein is further disclosed under Olafson's a ppropriation as awarding to the Other a merely regulative or intrumental signifi cance. But as I have argued, this function also has significantont ol ogi cal ra mifications, insofar as this Other cannot be properly linked to the phenomenon of recognising real, ordinary people. iii)Mi t sei n and Authenticity The other,archi tect oni c strategy for the critique ofM it sei n may concern it self with the broader consequences ofMit sei n upon the range of ontological pos sibilities Heidegger envisions for Dasein; and therein, in particular, the possi bilities of authenticity. For Heidegger, 'authenticity' (Eigentlichkeit) primari ly means a mode of being of Dasein in which Dasein recognises and appropriates s ignificances in its world as disclosive of its own possibilities of being. In th e relation between Dasein and its World, a hammer 'is' a hammer only because of its disclosure of certain ways in which Dasein can be, or more fundamentally, of certain things that Dasein cando with a hammer. But 'thrownness' necessitates t hat Dasein has alwaysal r eady acted, insofar as it has exited itself by project ing its possibilities in terms of significances of things in its world. Authenti c Dasein becomes truly free by recognising significance as something of itsown p ossibility, so that it can actresol ut el y rather than only through deferment i n a world.22 This recognition provides a capacity to make explicit decisions to act that are not distorted by a kind of 'loss' to oneself within th e world, as in the passage I began with from Zollikon. Authenticity cannot end thrownness, but it c an minimise its effect. As I first suggested, the question of authenticity/inauthenticity is intimately linked to the question of social ontology. This is first witnessed by the manner in which the chapter on 21 Frederick A. Olafson, Heidegger and the Ground of Ethics: A Study of Mitsein, p. 23. 22 Cf., definition, Being and Time, p. 63. 8 Heidegger and Freud Zaccharia Turnbull Download this Document for FreePrintMobileCollectionsReport Document Report this document?

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