The Question Of Being What It Is, Why It Matters. Essay

The Question Of Being: What It Is, Why It Matters. Martin Heidegger attempts to answer the question of Being by appealing to the terminology and methodology of Dasein, most commonly defined as existence. Dasein is not simply any kind of existence, however, but an existence that is unique from all other existences in that it asks the question of existence while existing in the existence itself. In other words, one must first understand Dasein in order to understand Being because Dasein is a kind of being that is concerned about its very Being. Contrary to the popular opinion that in order to truly and clearly comprehend any phenomenon, the subject which interrogates must necessarily stand outside of the object of the interrogation, Being cannot be understood from outside of Being. One may then argue that there is no outside of Being, a point to which we shall return later in this paper; therefore, every being is fit to address the the question of Being. Although every being is within Being itself, not every being asks the question of Being; hence Dasein alone can elucidate Being because Dasein is Being for Heidegger. It is a pure expression of Being and thus chosen to designate Being because its essence lies rather in the fact that is has always to be its Being as its own (54). Logically speaking, if the object of which Dasein interrogates is Being, and it accomplishes this task by interrogating itself, a being in Being, then the object of interrogation, Being, is precisely the subject which performs the act of interrogation, Dasein; it follows that Dasein is nothing but Being itself. Dasein answers the question of Being by disclosing Being through the revealing or unveiling of itself. In Being and Time, Heidegger articulates the way Dasein unveils itself by drawing a distinction between an existentiell and existential understanding of Dasein. By claiming that Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence, in terms of its possibility to be itself or not to be itself (54), an existentiell understanding of Dasein is to denote the existence of Dasein as either realizing or ignoring its possibilities for being or not-being; an existential understanding of Dasein differs in that it neither realizes nor ignores its existences but inquires into its existence, the being of Dasein, Being itself. It is an existential analysis of Dasein that will reveal Dasein, and ultimately Being. An existential analysis of Dasein reveals that Dasein tends to understand its own Being in terms of that being to which it is essentially, continually, and most closely relatedthe world (58). That is to say, Dasein is to be found in its average everdayness because it is concealed in the same way that the meaning of Being is concealed. Heidegger maintains that in using the common word is, we no longer know what we mean. The subject-object logic which we use every day conceals the true meaning of what existence really is. Therefore, one must apply this reasoning to Dasein and find the essence of Dasein in the average everydayness by stripping away all that is arbitrary and accidental in the world. One unfolds the true form of average everydayness by identifying the world of Dasein, which is the human world, or more precisely, the soul. Heidegger characterizes Being as the totality of beings. He appeals to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to assert the transcendental quality of Being, which requires Being to lie beyond every possible generic determination of a being in its material contentthat are necessary attributes of every something (56). This entails that Being must allow for the coming together of all other beings. Heidegger finds this being in the human soul, the being whose nature it is to meet with all other beings (56). To further determine Dasein as a human-kind of being, one need only to ask the who which asks the question of Being. Man, or more accurately, the human soul is the essence of average everydayness. In What is Metaphysics, Heidegger locates the uncovering of Dasein in the attunement of anxiety. Through his analysis of anxiety as a state-of-mind that provides the phenomenal basis for explicitly grasping Daseins primordial totality of beings, Being, Heidegger reveals Being