Article/Publication Details
Views: 3500

THE HEIDEGGERIAN CONCEPT OF DASEIN AND ITS ONTOLOGICAL MODALITY: DAS MAN

Abstract
The paper presents a non-standard interpretation of the celebrated Heideggerian existential das Man in terms of its oft-underrated unity with Dasein—an entity of a special ontic-ontological prerogative. The present authors intend to highlight this essential theme in terms of the specific unity of Dasein being-in-the world, covering many subsequent and adjacent existentials in the analytics of the Heideggerian existential hermeneutics, especially Mitsein/Mitdasein. Dasein’s existence-essence is based on the structure of possibilities, and hence free, spontaneous choices, while Das Man is a concrete choice of a certain modus of existence rendering—as it were—all other modi invalid and non-operational. Although Heidegger is far from taking up an ethical or moral stance in its traditional understanding, he is quite adamant that the phenomenon of das Man invalidates a truly human project of existing one’s own possibilities—to wit—be oneself (Jemeines).

Keywords
Being qua Being, existence, being-in-the-world, authenticity versus inauthenticity, depersonalisation, hermeneutics, existentialism.

References

• Blackham, H. J. (1965). Six Existentialist Thinkers. London: Routledge and Kegan.
• Caputo, J. (1984). Husserl, Heidegger and the Question of a ‘Hermeneutic’ Phenomenology. Husserl Studies, 1, 157–178.
• Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Hoboken: Blackwell.
• Heidegger, M. (1993). What is Metaphysics? (D. F. Krell, Trans.). In D. F. Krell (Ed.), Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings (93–110). London: Routledge.
• Heidegger, M. (2000). Letter on Humanism (Frank. A. Capuzzi, Trans.). Global Religious Vision, 1, 83–110.
• Małecka, A. (2018). Rafał Wojaczek’s “Sickness Unto Non-Existence”. Studia Humanistyczne AGH, 17 (3), 51-60.
• Marias, J. (1966). History of Philosophy. New York: Anchor.
• Mróz, P. (1997). Four Essays in Existentialism. Kraków: Aureus.
• Pöggeler, O. (1963). Martin Heidegger’s Path of Thinking (D. Magurshak & S. Barber, Trans.). Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International.
• Richardson, W. J. (1963). Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishing.
• Rubiczek, P. (1966). Existentialism For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Scruton, R. (1984). A Short History of Modern Philosophy. London, Melbourne and Henley: ARK.
• Spiegelberg, H. (1969). The Phenomenological Movement. A Historical Introduction. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.