Philosophy - Heidegger - Being in Time - selected sections - Research Paper Example

Analysis of Heidegger’s Being and Time (Section 46-53) Heidegger emphasizes that the ontological investigation of the Dasein in the first division is only preparatory, since, primarily, it focuses on Dasein in its everyday false form of existence; next, it does not view Dasein holistically; and, lastly, it does not clarify the basic union of the existential constitution of concern. Heidegger, in the second division of Sein und Zeit, tries to strengthen this preparatory investigation by what he refers to as Dasein’s ‘primordial existential interpretation.

As described by Heidegger (1978), “The full existential-ontological conception of death may now be defined as follows: death, as the end of Dasein, is Dasein’s ownmost possibility—non-relational, certain and as such indefinite, not to be outstripped” (p. 303). It appears that to facilitate the conception of Dasein in a holistic way, Dasein’s being from birth to death should be studied. However, this is not possible in our context, because provided that we are capable of studying anything, we are not dead yet.

Heidegger claims that we could however understand our Dasein holistically and that we could be entirely ourselves if we take on a genuine connection to our death, and, certainly, that genuineness is simply being myself “in an impassioned freedom toward death—a freedom that has been released from the illusions of the One, and which is factical, certain of itself, and anxious” (Heidegger 1978, 311). The likelihood of being genuine is revealed to us in the appeal of conscience, which provokes us to be prepared for Angst and to be determined in understanding what we have chose to carry out.

Authenticity is described as a determined expectation of our own death, which allows us to reconnect with our being in totality. As stated by Heidegger (1978), “Being-towards-death is the anticipation of a potentiality-for-Being of that entity whose kind of Being is anticipation itself” (ibid, p. 307). Just by being determined can we synthesize the stages of our life into a significant totality, while in the absence of determined human life is scattered. Here, authenticity is the hint to making sense of the union of the constitution of concern, sine by determinedly expecting our death, the predetermined temporal constitution of existence is disclosed, while the union of the three facets of concern is underpinned by the three domains of existential time periods.

This is the reason Heidegger reiterates his preliminary existential investigation of Dasein by explaining in the second division the temporal meaning of division 1’s existentialia. Lastly, Heidegger argues that Dasein’s temporal constitution explains its historical existence; hence that historicity is a different Dasein’s existential. In the last section of the second division, Heidegger tries to explain the history of the natural idea of time as an infinite range of corresponding episodes, an idea that is quite distinct from that of the existential temporality where in we live into a predetermined future.

The normal idea of temporality, with which we reckon in everyday life and by which we usually evaluate our existence, supposedly is drawn from existential temporality, and Heidegger argues that it is because of the death of Dasein. References Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. London: Blackwell Publishers, 1978.