CHAPTER ONE

Philosophical Background of Heidegger

Introduction
Martin Heidegger is one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth
century and one of the greatest German philosophers since Hegel. I wish to present
his concept of Dasein in this chapter. The Heideggerian ‘way’ is demarcated as he
says by two pairs of waysides; on the one hand, Being and man (Dasein), and on the
other, Being and entities1. Heidegger is regarded as the philosopher of being, a
subject to which the whole of his life was directed. In this chapter, after giving a
short sketch of Heidegger’s life, and his philosophical background I try to describe
the general notion of phenomenology and the hermeneutic phenomenology of
Heidegger.

In the second part of this chapter, I am going to deal with the concept of
Dasein. Heidegger makes use of the term ‘Dasein’ to clarify the meaning of being.
“The essence of Dasein lies in its existence” 2. Existence is the relation of Dasein to
its potentiality-for-Being3. He is illustrating, Dasein’s existence as Being-in-the-
world. The world is to be seen in relation to Dasein, and it can be distinguished
between the environmental and communal world. The environmental world is for
the sake of Dasein and the communal world is for the sake of others. In the third part
of this chapter, I am trying to explain the three modes or constitutive elements of
Dasein. They are the state-of-mind, the understanding and the discourse.

1.1. Life and Works of Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was born on September 26, 1889, in Messkirch, a small
town in southwest Germany. Martin Heidegger was the son of Friedrich Heidegger
who was a sacristan of St. Martin’s Catholic Church. His mother was Johanna
1
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time, Harper Row, New York And Evanston, 1962, 18,19.
2
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time, 67.
3
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACKAL, Heidegger Through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, Leuven
University Press, Belgium, 1987, 9.
kempf Heidegger. In his autobiography, he describes himself as a little boy, the son
of a sexton of St. Martin’s of messkirch “whose hands often rubbed themselves hot
in ringing the church bell…which had its peculiar relationship to time and
temporality”4. Martin started his education at the public school at his hometown and
he was supported by a scholarship to study at the Gymnasium of Constance from
1903 to 1906. In 1906 he entered a Jesuit seminary at Freiburg. He was interested in
philosophy at the age of seventeen by reading the book of Franz Brentano entitled
“On the Manifold Meaning of Being” according to Aristotle. In 1909 he studied
theology at the university of Freiburg. These theological studies helped him to
develop his philosophy. He began teaching at Freiburg in 1915. In 1917, he married
Elfriede Petri5.

Heidegger’s thoughts made a philosophical earthquake in the medieval

period. It can be summarized in the following points: first, the entire history of
philosophy is based on the forgetfulness of the most decisive of questions, the
question concerning being. Second, the task of philosophy is to make explicit what,
up until then, was always presupposed and never questioned, namely the fact that we
understand our own being, as well as the being of things around us, based on time 6.
Heidegger's philosophical development began when he read Brentano and Aristotle,
and the latter's medieval scholastic interpreters. Indeed, Aristotle's demand in
Metaphysics to know what it is that unites all possible modes of Being is, in many
ways, the question that burns and drives Heidegger's philosophy7.

Heidegger proceeded to engage deeply with Kant, Kierkegaard, and

Nietzsche perhaps most importantly of all for his subsequent thinking in the 1920s,
two further figures: Dilthey (whose stress on the role of interpretation and history in
the study of human activity profoundly influenced Heidegger) and Husserl (whose
understanding of phenomenology as a science of essences he was destined to
reject)8. In 1915, Husserl took up a post at Freiburg, and in 1919, Heidegger became
4
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, Journal of
Integrative Humanism, 8/2, 2017, 26.
5
[Link]>wiki>martin Heidegger from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 5.1.2020.
6
JOHN PROTEVI, The Edinburgh Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, Edinburgh university Press,
2005.
7
M Wheeler, “Martin Heidegger” January 2020, [Link]
[accessed on August 17, 2022].
8
BLESSY CHACKO, Existence as Thrownness; Martin Heidegger’s Ontology of Dasein, (unpublished

4
his assistant. Heidegger spent a period (of reputedly brilliant) teaching at the
University of Marburg (1923–1928), but then returned to Freiburg to take up the
chair vacated by Husserl on his retirement 9. Heidegger had the opportunity directly
to get to know the phenomenological method developed by Husserl out of such
influences, explorations, and critical engagements, Heidegger's greatest work, Being
and Time was born.

In his Phenomenological analysis, Heidegger wanted to revive the original

meaning of Being, which was forgotten due to the metaphysical influence. For
Heidegger “Being is always the Being of an entity”. Dasein is the Being who is
primarily questioned in working out the “Being-question”. According to Heidegger
“if we are to formulate our question explicitly and transparently, we must first give a
proper explication of an entity with regards to its Being” 10. “Heidegger is a German
philosopher with a profound impact on existentialism, phenomenology, aesthetics,
philosophy of technology, and many other fields. Heidegger is, without doubt, one
of the most important figures in all continental philosophy” 11. Existence suggests
proximity of being to man. It is a possibility of Dasein12.

Martin Heidegger’s seminal work titled Being and Time (Sein und Zeit)
published in 1927, which is one of the most significant books of the twentieth
century. Other famous books are The Existence and Being (1849), what is called
Thinking (1954), An Introduction to αMetaphysics (1956), The Question of Being
(1956) On the Way to Language (1956), Essays in Metaphysics (1957). Heidegger
died in Freiburg on May 26, 1976. He was buried in Messkirch.

1.1.1. General Notion of Phenomenology

dissertation), Manganam, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, 2020, 7.
9
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, “Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, 26.
10
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, 27.
11
NAVYA JEES, Dasein as Being in The World, (unpublished dissertation), Manganam, Faculty of
Theology and Religious Studies, 2021, 5.
12
MICHAEL GELVEN, Martin Heidegger's Understanding of Ultimate Meaning and Reality, June
2022,
[Link] [ accessed on August 26, 2022].

5
 Phenomenology13 is the study of that which can be experienced.
Phenomenon and logos are two Greek words that make up the word
"phenomenology." The word "phenomenon" comes from the Greek phainein, which
also means "to bring to light" and "to appear." Greek for "word," "reason," or
"language" A phenomenology is typically the language used to describe that which
manifests itself14.

Phenomenology is typically understood in two ways: first, as a branch of

philosophy; second, as a philosophical movement. The basic definition of
phenomenology could be the study of experience or awareness' structural
components. Phenomenology is defined as the study of "phenomena," which are the
appearances of things, things as they seem in our experiences, or the ways we
experience things. These experiences give rise to the meanings that things have for
us15. Phenomenology examines conscious experience as it is perceived subjectively
or in the first person. The other major branches of philosophy, including ontology
(the study of being or what is), epistemology (the study of knowing), logic (the
study of reasoning), ethics (the study of right and wrong action), etc., are distinct
from and related to this branch of philosophy 16. Phenomenology has been practiced
for millennia under numerous names, but it truly found its voice in the writings of
Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others at the beginning of the 20th
century. Recent developments in the philosophy of mind have focused heavily on
the phenomenological problems of intentionality, awareness, qualia, and first-person
perspective17.

Phenomenology primarily examines the organization of numerous types of

experience, including those involving perception, thought, memory, imagination,
emotion, desire, and volition as well as bodily awareness, embodied action, and

13
Edmund Husserl is known as the father of phenomenology- a science of consciousness. He was not
The first to use the term “phenomenology, but he was undoubtedly the father phenomenology
movement.
14
S.J. MCGRATH, Heidegger A (Very) Critical Introduction, Cambridge, 2008, 28.
15
EDMUND HUSSERL, The Idea of Phenomenology, trans., LEE HARDY, London, 1907, 66.
16
HEATH WILLIAMS, “The Meaning of “Phenomenology”: Qualitative and Philosophical
Phenomenological Research Methods”, 26/2, 2021, 367.
17
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, Paurastya Vidyapitham, Vadavathoor, 2007, 25.

6
social engagement, including language activity. What Husserl called
"intentionality," or the directedness of experience toward things in the world, or the
attribute of consciousness that it is a consciousness of or about something, is often a
component of the structure of various types of experiences18.

1.1.2. Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Heidegger

By elaborating on the need for interpretation in the study of humans,
Heidegger brought the hermeneutic approach into Modern philosophy. In contrast to
Husserl's transcendental phenomenology, he created hermeneutic phenomenology.
The two words Phenomenology and Hermeneutics19 are crucial in illuminating
Martin Heidegger's philosophy. The phenomenological movement, to which
Edmund Husserl himself is a witness, includes Heidegger. Because it differs from
the pure phenomenology promoted by Heidegger's mentor, Edmund Husserl,
existential phenomenology is more connected with Heidegger's philosophy. In
Husserl's approach, the focus is on pure phenomenology, or phenomenology of
consciousness, whereas in Heidegger's approach, ontology comes first and promotes
existential phenomenology. Studying, observing, and analyzing the idea of Dasein is
all part of existential phenomenology (being there)20. Heidegger's phenomenology is
not purely descriptive like earlier phenomenology. The structure of being, the
"logos" of the differentiated phenomenon of the Being-in-the-world, is emerging in
a progressive, dialectical manner21.
According to Heidegger “the meaning of phenomenological description as method lies in
interpretation”. Through this the authentic meaning of being, and also those basic
structures of being which Dasein itself possesses, are made known to Dasein’s
understanding of Being. For Heidegger phenomenology is so radically hermeneutic. That
is why Heidegger in his work Sein und Zeit does not give a definition for
phenomenology, but he tried to integrate phenomenology in his definition of philosophy.
He says: Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, and takes its departure
from the hermeneutic of Dasein, which, as an analytic of existence, has made fast the
guiding-line for all philosophical inquiry at the point where it arises and it returns 22.

18
S.J. MCGRATH, Heidegger A (Very) Critical Introduction, Cambridge, 2008, 29.
19
The root word of hermeneutics is from the Greek verb, “hermeneuein” means “to interpret”.
hermeneutics is the philosophical science of understanding- a science to be linked with
the problem of human and historical understanding of humanism.
20
PAUL GORNER, Heidegger’s Being and Time an Introduction, Cambridge, 2007, 34.
21
JOHN W P PHILLIPS, Martin Heidegger: A Philosophical Biography, National University of
Singapore,2003,
22
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 35.

7
 Here, Heidegger is trying to reveal that we cannot define phenomenology
but only integrate it. For him hermeneutics is not a matter of understanding
linguistic communication, nor it is providing a methodological basis for the human
sciences but hermeneutics is ontology; it is about the fundamental condition of
man’s being in the world. His hermeneutic phenomenology is concerned with the
human experience as it is lived. Heidegger introduced hermeneutic method into the
modern philosophy for the necessity of interpretation in the study of human being.

1.2. The Concept of Dasein

There have been numerous responses to the question what is man?
We use the term "person" to refer to a person when we want to describe a person's
full existence in a clear and unambiguous manner. which is a name we only ever use
to refer to humans; we never use it for plants or animals.

Etymologically, the term “man” derives from the Greek word ανθρώπως
(Anthropos), which literally means “human being” or “alive creature”. Heidegger
defined man as “ςώονλόγονέχον” which is interpreted to indicate an “animal
rationale”, something that is capable of reason. The word "dasein" denotes life or
existence in German. Other German philosophers also used the word to indicate the
presence of an entity23. Heidegger, on the other hand, divides the term into "Da" and
"Sein" giving it a specific meaning that is connected to his response to the question
of what a being is. He connects this question to the inquiry into being. Dasein is a
being that makes a point of being itself, setting it apart from all other creatures. It
immediately stands out. As Da-sein, it serves as the location for the revealing of
what one is24.

The ontological difference is a term introduced by Heidegger. The

ontological distinction exists between “what is an entity” and “the being of that
entity”. The latter holds greater significance for Heidegger. He contends that an
entity’s “being” refers to its meaningful presence within the spectrum of human

23
ONYEAKAZI JUDE CHUKWUMA, “Man: Being with Others (An Appraisal of Martin Heidegger’s
Philosophy of Intersubjectivity)”, A Publication of The Department of Philosophy and Religious
Studies, Tansian, Nigeria, 5/2, 2020, 75.
24
NAVYA JEES, Dasein as The Being in The World, 5.

8
experience. Therefore, Dasein refers to the human entity that is distinguished by
consciousness of the being of other entities, including the being of itself. Heidegger
uses the term Dasein to designate man25. The disclosure of the meaning of that
meaning of what we refer to as Being, in his words, is “the essence of truth.” Thus,
man experiences a disclosure, and man's Being, or Dasein, is said to be the center.
Both Being and the disclosure of Being exist. Because Dasein exists, there is truth26.

Dasein is a standard German word for existence. Literally, it means “To be

here” or “To be there”. It serves as Heidegger's philosophical foundation. Heidegger
refers to one type of existence as Dasein in a technical sense. The way that humans
exist as individuals. Dasein is the unique way of existing, distinct from the common
existence of the things in our environment. The difference is that the things are
separate and have definite characteristics.

“That is their kind of Being. However, the type of Being I manifest is not
one that resembles an object with properties. There are many different ways to be.
Man, first and foremost comprehends himself within his own Being. Heidegger
refers to this Being as existence”27.

1.2.1. Dasein as Being-in-the-World

Heidegger believed that Dasein's being-in-the-world was its most basic and
fundamental state. This means that human life is most truly and perceptibly
immersed in the world of physical, actually-existing people. Heidegger argues that it
is absurd to imagine a man separate from the rest of the universe and that the world
is also meaningless without Dasein28. This is to say that an individual or rather a
human being never exists alone but always in relation to the world where he exists.

The analysis of Dasein is an undifferentiated state of everydayness, which

is nothing more than an explanation of what it is to be in the world. To have access
to a special level of "familiarity" with the outside world Dasein has a very unique
relationship with the world since it is the to-be-in-the-world. Being in the world is

25
KING, Heidegger’s Philosophy, New York, Dell Publishing, 1964. 28.
26
JOSMIN JOSEPH, Concept of Being in The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, (unpublished
dissertation), Manganam, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, 2021, 12.
27
KING, Heidegger’s Philosophy, 35.
28
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, “Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, 31.

9
fundamentally a part of Dasein since all relationship with the world is predicated on
a past ability, specifically the prior celestial relation to being in the world. Being-in-
the-world serves as the foundation for the Dasein style of knowing. aside from
Dasein. In the most personal way possible, the world is intimately connected to
Dasein29. The world is an existential concept that is an element of Dasein's Being.
Therefore, there wouldn't be a world if Dasein didn't exist. World is inseparable
from entities with in the world. As Heidegger explains:

Being-in is not a ‘property’ which Dasein sometimes has and sometimes does not have,
and without which it could be just as well as it could be with it. It is not the case that man
‘is’ and then has, by way of an extra, a relationship-of-Being towards the ‘world’—a
world with which he provides himself occasionally. Dasein is never ‘proximally’ an
entity which is, so to speak, free from Being in, but which sometimes has the inclination
to take up a ‘relationship’ towards the world. Taking up relationships with the world is
possible only because Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, is as it is. This state of Being does
not arise just because some entity is present-at-hand outside of Dasein and meets up with
it. Such an entity can ‘meet up with’ Dasein only in so far as it can, of its own accord,
show itself within a world30.
As this passage makes clear, the Being-in dimension of Being-in-the-
world cannot be thought of as a merely spatial relation. Heidegger sometimes
uses the term dwelling to capture the distinctive manner in which Dasein is in the
world. To dwell in a house is not merely to be inside it spatially in the sense just
canvassed. Rather, it is to belong there, to have a familiar place there. It is in this
sense that Dasein is (essentially) in the world.

[Link]. The World: The Noematic Dimension

The Heideggerian understanding of the world can be grasped Only in

relation to Dasein. He temporarily defines the ‘world’ as that ‘wherein’ a factical
Dasein as such can be said to live31. For him, the external world is nothing more than
the means for the realization of human existence. Everything in the world makes up
the human environment and provides the setting in which human life has to be lived.
As a result, Heidegger notes: “Ontologically, the world is not a way of
characterizing those entities which Dasein essentially is not, it is rather a

29
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACAL, Heidegger through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, 14.
30
M WHEELER, “Martin Heidegger”, [Link] [accessed 0n
August 27, 2022]
31
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 52.

10
characteristic of Dasein itself. According to him strictly, man cannot exist separate
from the world because to exist is to already be in it. In other words, man is thrown
into existence in the world32.

He considers ‘world’ neither cosmologically as an objective entity, nor

epistemologically as the object of knowledge, nor theologically as opposed to God,
but ontologically as the horizon of Dasein’s existence as Being-in-the-world.33 As a
result, we will consider the world from the perspectives of three different realms:
“the equipment world or world of implication”, “the environmental world or spatial
world”, and “the communal world”34.

[Link].2. The Environmental World

Environmentality is that characteristic of man by which he is able to relate

with non-human entities. The environment and man are intrinsically linked. Martin
Heidegger says, “Worldhood is an ontological concept, and stands for the structure
of one of the constitutive items of Being-in-the-world. However, we know Being-in-
the-world as a way in which Dasein’s character is defined existentially”35. “The
worldhood of the environmental world – ‘Environmentality’-will be revealed when
we ontologically interpret those entities within the environment, which we encounter
as closest to us”36.

The being of Dasein comprises various basic structures, which because the
being of Dasein is existence, Heidegger calls existential. Being in the world is the
most fundamental existential concept. By the world, he does not mean the earth or
the physical world, or the cosmos. The sense in which Dasein is in the world is not
that of one spatially extended thing being contained in another spatially extended37.

Dasein’s essence lies in its existence. Without a world we cannot have Being to be is to
be in commerce with, to be immersed in an environment. The things with which we are
practically concerned belong to a practical world. Dasein in the world Heidegger is
denying what Husserl affirms of the transcendental subject or ego. Man does not possess

32
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACAL, Heidegger through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, 8.
33
PAUL GORNER, Heidegger’s Being and Time an Introduction, Cambridge, 2007, 35.
34
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 52.
35
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time, 93.
36
BLESSY CHACKO, Existence as Thrownness; Martin Heidegger’s Ontology of Dasein, 10.
37
PAUL GORNER, Heidegger’s Being and Time an Introduction, 35.

11
 a nature already formed. On the contrary, he creates it and continues to re-create it as he
responds to the things and creatures of his experience38.
The first fact of the phenomenological analysis of the environment is that it
is filled with beings other than there-being. Heidegger is calling these surroundings
implements or equipment. The being may fall merely present-at-hand and ready to
hand39. As Heidegger states,

To the everydayness of Being-in-the-world, there belong certain modes of concern.

These permit the entities with which we concern ourselves to be encountered in such a
way that the worldly character of what is within the world comes to the fore. When we
concern ourselves with something, the entities, which are most closely ready-to-hand,
may be met as something unusable, not properly adapted for the use we have decided
upon. We discover its unusability, however, not by looking at it and establishing its
properties, but rather by the circumspection of the dealings in which we use it 40.
A referential totality is ultimately anchored in something, which is not
itself ready to hand. Paul Gorner is calling this encounter of ready-to-hand entity as
a hammer. It is used to hammer. It will produce anything quickly. It serves as
protection from inclement weather. Additionally, it is for Dasein’s benefit or for a
potential Dasein's benefit to provide shelter. sake-of-which”, and Dasein does not
exist as a physical object41. We can conclude the environmental world as, the
entities, encountered as equipments are ‘ready-to-hand’, and those encountered in
theoretical cognition is present-at-hand. It is not a separation of the two entities;
rather, it is a change in how Dasein “see” the entities.

[Link].2. The Communal World

“The community world is described by Heidegger as the realm of Dasein

which the world. Dasein-with is their “Being-in-themselves within the world”.
Along with the things, Dasein is giving itself significance in the world. In addition,
others like Dasein in the world. As a result, his reality includes both the entities of
Co-Daseins and the world of solitude”42. “The world of Dasein is a with-world.
Heidegger is showing that Dasein is not an isolated subject. Every being is
essentially being-with-others. The world, which Dasein and the other are ‘in’, is a
38
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 52.
39
NAVYA JEES, Dasein as The Being in The World, 5.
40
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 52.
41
PAUL GORNER, Heidegger’s Being and Time an Introduction, 43.
42
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time,155.

12
with world. The being of Dasein is being with other Daseins. The possibility of
being alone demonstrates that the being of Dasein is being-with43.

Martin Heidegger believed that the world and Dasein were mutually
constitutive, that is no world without Dasein, no Dasein without world. This world
has both a communal and an environmental aspect 44. Being with Dasein is
essentially for the sake of others. To the extent that it is liberated for some Being
with, Dasein with distinguishes the Dasein of others. Dasein is connected to both
communal and environmental elements45.

According to Martin Heidegger Dasein is not an isolated subject. It is not just a matter of
its being the case that I am not the only one of my kind. My being is essential being with
others. By ‘Others’ we do not mean everyone else but me—those over against whom the
‘I’ stands out. They are rather those from whom, for the most part, one does not
distinguish oneself—those among whom one is too… By reason of this with-like Being-
in-the-world, the world is always the one that I share with others46.
Joanna Hodge is explaining Heidegger’s ethics and Dasein as an
understanding of truth which reveals the difference between entities for which truth
is not an issue47. The world in Being-in-the-world is always the one I share with
other people. Dasein is always essentially Being-with, which is independent of other
Dasein's actual existence. Being with is a fundamental quality of Dasein. Because
Dasein is constantly taking care of things, Dasein feels concern for others. For
Dasein, care and concern are essential. Accordingly, “Dasein views itself as to-be-
along-with ready-to-hand entities and with other Dasein like itself; and the universe
is accordingly both as environmental and communal”48.

1.3. Being In
Being -in far from designating a spatial relationship, indicates an existential
relationship between Dasein who is the being-in-the-world. Dasein cannot be or be
understood without the world. For Heidegger being-in also includes the notion of
“staying close to” or “being familiar with”. Thus “in” when applied to other beings
is limited to spatial relations. But when we apply it to man this “inhood” indicates

43
PAUL GORNER, Heidegger’s Being and Time an Introduction, 56,58,60.
44
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACAL, Heidegger through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, 19.
45
BENNY MARAMATTAM, Class Note “Phenomenology”.
46
Paul Gorner, Heidegger’s Being and Time an Introduction, 57.
47
JOANNA HODGE, Heidegger and Ethics, Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London, 1995, 188.
48
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time,159.

13
familiarity with something or somebody49. Heidegger calls “man” as “Bersogen” or
concern when it keeps relationship with other things. While man’s relationship with
other men he designates with the term “solicitude.

“In” expresses that man is familiar with something, is used to something, is

conversant with something etc. Hence, Blackham says that “If a thing is said to be
“in” something else then the relationship is ‘spatial’. And if a being is said to be “in”
something, then the relationship is not primarily ‘spatial’ but means ‘to dwell’ in the
sense of the Latin word ‘habitare’. Being-in reveals man’s state of mind, like when I
say, “I am “in” trouble”. This in turn help to disclose man to his being. Disclosing
his situatedness. Heidegger described the various ways in which Being-in can
manifest itself as concern50.

1.3.1. Being-One- Self

Heidegger refers to the self, the final element of the Entity-in-the-world
interaction, as Dasein (man, the human life), which is not a substantial being with a
human essence or nature. Dasein is not a stable or permanent subject and lacks any
essential characteristics or qualities. Heidegger uses the word Existence which
denotes not an entity which is (in contrasts to one which is not), but rather as one
which “ex-sists”, that is which stands out or stands forth. He is constantly "on the
move." Through the existential decisions he takes, he continuously shapes his
nature. For Heidegger, Dasein is never a completed being. Dasein forms himself as
he goes along, working on his different existential goals, unlike other entities that
have a fixed nature with some observable features and properties like colour,
thickness, weight, etc. Heidegger believed that Dasein's essence is Existence51.

1.3.2. Being with Others

The being of Dasein is being in the world. Dasein is not a worldless subject.
Just as there can be no existence apart from a world, so also is existence not possible

49
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 47.
50
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, “Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, 26.
51
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACAL, Heidegger through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, 19.

14
apart from other existents. The instrumental world is a common world where we
encounter not only things, but also other people who are seen as Co-Daseins52. We
are related to these other existents not in terms of ‘concern’ by which we relate to
other things but in terms of personal concern or what Heidegger calls solicitude
which characterizes relations between selves. Thus, Heidegger insists there can
never be an isolated Dasein. We always deal with Co-Dasein53. Dasein as soon as he
discovers the world discovers also other Daseins that co-exist with him. Hence
Being-in the-world implies a sharing of this world with other Daseins and entering
into a mutual relationship with them.

1.4. Three Modes of Dasein

Heidegger examines three possible modes or ways in which Dasein as a
Being-in-the-world can live authentically after realising that Being-in-the-world is
the most fundamental state of Dasein. These include self-awareness or moodness
(Befindlichkeit); understanding (Verstandnis); and discourse or language (Rede)54.

1.4.1. Self- Awareness

This refers to an initial encountering of oneself in the world. Befindlichkeit

is a word that is almost impossible to translate but has the meaning of “being at a
place of how one feels” or, if used literally, “finding oneself”. These components
come together to form Befindlichkeit, which Heidegger defined as “finding oneself
in a situation”.

According to Heidegger, man “finds himself in the world” he “become

aware of himself” in the world 55. This encountering of oneself is also referred to as
“mood” or ‘moodness”. Heidegger introduces the idea of thrownness, which in turn
implies facticity, in keeping with the mood.
52
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, “Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, 26.
53
Paul Gorner, Heidegger’s Being and Time an Introduction, 56.
54
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 63.
55
PAUL VADAKEORAM, Heidegger Visions of Human Existence in The Expression and The
Appropriation of Being, 65.

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[Link]. Thrownness

The concept of thrownness denotes a situation whereby Dasein does

not know his whence or his whither but finds himself ‘flung’ or ‘cast’ into existence
without ever having anything to say about it.56 The ontological description of Dasein
is state of mind. Dasein is in some mood. That-it-is, which is unavoidable and
irrevocable, is the thrownness of Dasein. Additionally, known as Dasein's facticity.
The factical Dasein finds itself thrown into a world of entities, revealing its
inseparable relation to them57. As a result, Dasein is revealed as both that-it-is
(thrownness) and that-it-has-to-be (thrown existence).

According to Heidegger’s concept, Dasein is always some mood or other,

and shows itself even in the most indifferent everydayness as naked that it is and has
to be58. Heidegger explains the idea of thrownness as follows:

This characteristic of Dasein’s being, “that it is” - is veiled in its whence and whither, yet
disclosed in itself all the more univeiledly; 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 ‘there.’ The
expression ‘thrownness’ is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over 59.
Dasein is a Being always already in the world. Dasein never had anything
to say about his having been put there. He knows nothing of his “whence and
whiter”. At best, Dasein can only find himself already here having been thrown and
flung or cast into Being. As an existential, state -of-mind is the ontological
characterization of what we are ontically familiar with as ‘moods.

Dasein is always in some mood or other, and shows itself even in the most
indifferent everydayness. This character of the unavoidable that it is, in which its
origin and destiny- the-whence and whither-remain obscure, is called thrownness60.

1.4.2. Understanding: Dasein in its Projection

Understanding as the essential mode of disclosedness pertains to Dasein’s

potentiality-for-Being in the world. To understand or to be able to be is an essential
mode of Dasein as existing. It discloses what Dasein is capable of. For Heidegger,
56
FRANCIS LESCOE, Existentialism: with or Without God, New York, Alba House, 1973, 207.
57
BENNY MARAMATTAM, Class Note “Phenomenology”.
58
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACAL, Heidegger through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, 25.
59
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time, Harper Row, Publishers New York and Evanston, 8 April
1962, 174.
60
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACAL, Heidegger through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, 26.

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understanding is the power to grasp one’s own possibilities for being, within the
context of the life-world in which one exists. Understanding is conceived not as
something to be possessed but rather as a mode or constituent element of being-in-
the-world. It is not an entity in the world. However, it is a structure in being which
makes possible of understanding on an empirical level. Understanding always
touches on “the whole constitution of being-in-the-world”61.

According to Heidegger, understanding consists in “the existential Being of

Dasein’s own potentiality-for-being; and it is so in such a way that this Being
discloses itself what its being is capable of” 62. “And he that, a state of mind always
has its understanding, even if it merely keeps it suppressed. Understanding always
has its mood. This indicates that this phenomenon is conceived as a basic mood of
Dasein’s being”63.

Dasein understands itself and the world in terms of projection of possibilities. It

does not mean that Dasein throws meanings onto entities arbitrarily; it is from the
given possibilities that I project meaning onto entities. Understanding functions
through projection of possibilities. When understanding comes to the level of
awareness, it has already become interpretation. We hardly hear pure noise; noise is
heard as already interpreted. Hence, we hear rather the bell, the wind, the traffic, etc.
Meaning remains articulable in understanding, and articulated in interpretation.
Understanding refers to the existential projective character of Dasein64.

1.4.3. Discourse
According to Heidegger, Dasein’s third mode of being in the world is
discourse. For him, self-awareness and understanding are impossible without
discourse65. Discourse, for Heidegger is not language but the very foundation of
language. He says that discourse is the “significant articulation of the intelligibility
of Being-in-the-world” even before there has been interpretation of it. Language is
but the concrete expression in word and sentences of this intelligibility 66. For

61
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time, 182.
62
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, “Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, 34.
63
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time, 182.
64
JOHNSON J. PUTHENPURACAL, Heidegger through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, 29.
65
EMMANUEL KELECHI IWUAGWU, “Martin Heidegger and The Question of Being”, 34.
66
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Being and Time, 214.

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Heidegger, discourse is the ground of knowledge which helps to understand
language. Discourse according to him is the very foundation and instrument through
which Dasein relates and conveys himself to the other.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I was trying to show the trend and nature of Heidegger’s
thinking. He has explained the concept of Dasein and has analyzed the self-existence
in its integrated, intimate existential unity through a hermeneutico-
phenomenological method. One of the important books of Martin Heidegger is his
Being and Time. In this well-known work he gives a clear notion about Being. In
Being and Time, he investigates the question of Being by asking about its Being.
Heidegger moves from a phenomenological interpretation of human being towards a
fundamental ontology of Being. Dasein shows itself primarily as Being-in-the-
world, which is the fundamental way of its Being. The relation between Dasein and
world has been mistakenly taken to be one between the subject and object or one of
knowing; on the contrary, it is an existential relation of dealing with things and
being with persons.

Dasein is always a Being-in-the-world and Being-with others. Dasein is

absorbed in the world as its dwelling place. Heidegger claims for the level of
everyday involvement. He gave more importance to subject with the inner
experience standing over against outer objects do not necessarily arise in Dasein’s
way of being. Dasein could simply be absorbed in the world. As being-with, Dasein
is essentially for the sake of others. This work gives a clear picture about this
concept of being. In the first part I have dealt with, a small description of
Heidegger’s life and work. In the second part of this chapter, I try to explain the
concept of “Being”- which consist of Heidegger’s main philosophy and in the third
part about the three modes of Dasein. To explain the concept of Being we take up-
“Dasein”-as-Being-in-the-World. Heidegger looks at the world in a philosophical
way. According to him, the world in which Dasein exist is composed of
Environmental world and communal world.

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