Existence and being-in-the-world
Explanation
Existence and being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein) are central concepts of twentieth-century existential philosophy, especially developed by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) in Being and Time (1927), a foundational work of the century. Heidegger proposed a radical reformulation of the question of being (die Seinsfrage) which he believed Western philosophy had forgotten since the Greeks, reducing it to the study of particular beings (Seiende).
Dasein (literally being-there, Heidegger's technical term for the human being in so far as open to the question of being) is not initially an isolated subject that later relates to an external world (as in Cartesian dualism). Dasein is constitutively being-in-the-world: it is always already immersed in a world of meanings, tasks, relations, before any theoretical reflection. The world is not a set of physical objects but a totality of significance (Bedeutsamkeit) in which Dasein understands itself and things.
The entities we encounter in everyday life are not objects (Vorhandenheit, presence-at-hand, mode of presence in theory) but tools (Zuhandenheit, readiness-to-hand, pragmatic mode in action). The hammer, in use, is not perceived as an object with properties but as a utensil for an end. Only when it breaks does it appear as an object with properties. Heidegger showed how much of Western metaphysics had confused this derivative (theoretical) mode with the primary (pragmatic) one.
The authentic existence of Dasein (Eigentlichkeit) is distinguished from the inauthentic (Uneigentlichkeit, life in the anonymous they of das Man: one says, one does). Inauthenticity is dispersion in ordinary tasks, forgetting one's own finitude, fleeing from anxiety (Angst: not fear of something particular but openness to nothingness, to fundamental finitude). Authenticity is being-toward-death assumed consciously and resolutely as a fundamental structure of one's own existence.
This philosophy has had enormous influence: on Sartre (French existentialism: Being and Nothingness, 1943), on Gadamer (philosophical hermeneutics), on Merleau-Ponty (lived body as being-in-the-world), on phenomenological psychiatry (Binswanger, Boss), on theology (Bultmann, Tillich), on deep ecology (Arne Næss), on contemporary Asian thinkers (Kitaro Nishida, Kyoto philosophers) and many other domains. Heideggerian philosophy is also controversial because of Heidegger's Nazi episode (rectorate in 1933-34, a question still debated today).
For the theory of consciousness, the existential perspective proposes a non-dualist view of the subject-world relation: consciousness is not an inner substance facing an outer world, but openness to the world, being-in-the-world as a fundamental modality of Dasein. This anticipates contemporary situated, embodied, enactive cognitive theories (Varela, Thompson, Noë, Gallagher), and offers precise phenomenological vocabulary for describing aspects of human experience (anxiety, profound boredom, authenticity, temporality of existing) that standard cognitive science has barely thematised. As one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophies on what it is to be a finite conscious subject, Heidegger's existential analytic remains an indispensable resource for any deep reflection on consciousness.
Strengths
- Profound ontological analysis of the human being.
- Pioneering critique of representationalism.
- Foundation of enactivism and the embodied mind.
- Vast influence on twentieth-century thought.
Main critiques
- Hermetic language.
- Problematic association with Nazism.
- Difficulty in articulating with empirical science.