What is Dasein?

Dasein: existence, being there. And the heart of one of the most problematic works of philosophy.
In the 19th century, it was worried that philosophy was becoming a bloodless subject, suggesting most of human existence is spent devising Newtonian theorems. To Martin Heidegger, there was a swathe of human life being left out: the social dimension, emotion and death. The last especially helps us work out whether someone is being authentic and facing up to who they really are. Dasein is an attempt to articulate what is different about people, especially in respect to these three concepts.
But who or what is “dasein”? Could it be pretty much anything, or is it a more specific concept, only concerning individual humans? How do philosophy and history go together, and can you give a general philosophical view of history? Or do we need to talk about individual periods of history in their own context? And are animals dasein?
It is these questions which make the concept problematic. Dasein attempts to explain our being but in doing so it potentially severs us from the context of the world within which we need to be understood.
Dr. Golob is the Subject Editor for 19th Century Philosophy for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at King’s College London. He is also the Associate Editor of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.
Authenticity: • Being authentic: what ...
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.rep.routledge.com
British Journal for the History of Philosophy: www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbjh20
19th century philosophy: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
20th century philosophy: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Being: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Ontology: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Martin Heidegger: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Emotion: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Friedrich Nietzsche: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Animal minds: www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Existentialism: www.rep.routledge.com/article...

[@loveyoursoul32]

this is the only philosophy video that has ever made sense because it is explained in such an appropriately structured way without compromising the fluidity of philosophy.

[@trashygit]

Three points to highlight before going deeper into the concept: 1- Combined to "Dasein" noun by Heidegger, the ordinary German expression of "da sein" can be translated as "there be". Does it make sense? Obviously no. Some interpreters attempted to translate it to "being there" which was an unfortunate attempt. Anyhow, the dictionary translation of "sein" is "be" or more correctly "to be". One way of using the "to be" verb in everyday English is in the form of "there is" or "there are". So German "da" is equivalent to "there" in English, and "be" is transformed into "is" or "are" depending upon the situation. This is why the literal translation of "da sein" should be "there be" and the meaningful translation should be "there is". This is not the only use of "to be": Just like "sein" can be used as "ich bin" or "du bist" in German language, English "to be" can also be used as "I am" or "you are". Therefore, returning to the combined version (dasein), Heidegger almost refers to something like "thereis" or "thereare" or "Iam" or "youare" in English. I say "almost", because as we can observe it is difficult, in fact impossible to find an exact English equivalent of "da sein", yet because English is a Germanic language, we can find the conceptual equivalent of "sein" as "be". 2- German language has two types of existences while English and many other languages have only one type of existence. This is the key element to understand why non-German speaking world suffer to comprehend what Dasein is. German language uses "da sein" or "there is" structure in order to describe what is in front of the speaker, what is factually right there, what is observable or actually experienced. If a German speaker says "da ist ein Buch", the translation will be "there is a book". And if anybody asks "where is the book?", one can confidently show and says "da" (there) or "hier" (here) . But things dramatically change after this point. For the hypothetical existences, or for the things that are not right in front of us, German speakers use "es gibt" format. If we apply it to our example: "Es gibt ein Buch"; meaning that the book exists, but not physically in front of us, it is not here or there, it is somewhere else, it is known to us, etc. The literal translation of "es gibt" is "it gives". English speakers use "it gives" format in their language, but not to describe the existence. This is why "es gibt ein Buch" is not translated as "it gives a book".Guess how we normally translate "es gibt ein Buch" into English: "There is a book". This is extremely important, because Heidegger definitely does not talk about "es gibt" existence but talks about "da ist" existence. Thus we have a second pillar: It is next to impossible to translate "da sein" into English without understanding the different existence categories in German. 3- Heidegger wanted to introduce a new way of thinking in philosophy, and turned the expression of "da sein" into a noun and started to write it with capital letter "Dasein", just like any other noun in German. If we wanted to do the same thing in English, we should have used something like "thereis" since we do not start ordinary nouns with capital (this is another unfortunate mistake made by some interpreters and tried to differentiate Dasein from ordinary beings by using capital Being); but "thereis" would still not correspond "Dasein" due to the reasons we explained at step 2 above. The noun "Dasein" became a special philosophical term which is assigned to what we conventionally know as "human being". By doing this, Heidegger wanted to separate his philosophy from the known concepts or categories about humans, and aimed to highlight the worldly or phenomenological existence of human being rather than hypothetical or conceptual definitions of self which have been the day job of traditional philosophy. Heidegger wanted to discover the essence of human existence without relying upon the transcendental concepts, linguistic descriptions or any other "logos". But Heidegger soon realised that his project was practically impossible: Human existence, philosophical explorations and/or all other human related activities are fundamentally embedded into language and human phenomenological experience is under the control of a sort of linguistic filter. This is why within the five years of the publication of "Being and Time" he gave up this project and his remaining career was dedicated to understand the language and its role. In a way, Heidegger realised that "da ist" has no real importance for us as humans, since the "es gibt" dominates the mental platform of our understanding.

[@akan1]

Greetings. Excellent. It is pragmatics and linguistics that must give a direction to the work. Thank you for your erudite unwrapping. OL.

[@KaliYugaSurfCo]

Excellent and helpful comment here. I just started Being and Time this morning. Dasein is much clearer to me now. Thank you.

[@mokezak]

Any chance I can cite you? Is this published in part somewhere? Or is there a compatible reference I can get an overview of this?

[@trashygit]

@Moke Zak, Feel free to cite this idea however you like. I have no personal issue or objection. As far as I know, this is not published anywhere. Hence I can guarantee that I found this on my own. What I cannot guarantee is that if anybody else discovered this too even though my readings did not reveal this discovery up until now. I have no idea in what way you are planning to utilise it, but obviously you have something in your mind since you are enquiring. So if you want to use this idea in an academic platform, I would recommend a couple of things; one linguistic and one philosophical: 1- Linguistic: Find a reliable (academically acceptable) German grammar book to argue this German language/usage/expression rule on "existence". This is not enough; you should also show how "da ist" and "es gibt" are translated into English with the same "there is" structure. Because while a German speaker doesn't have to talk about this issue understandably, a different language speaker should take this difference into consideration; and as I clearly claimed in the original entry, one cannot deal with Heidegger without realising this difference in the first place. If possible, try to find an academic German to English translation book or guidance talking about the rules governing this particular "existence" translations. 2- Philosophical: There are many different attempts to identify the main differences between the early, or "Sein und Zeit" (Being and Time) era of Heidegger and his late writings. Some even claim that the division is superficial as Heidegger always problematized the question of "being" throughout his career. However, I make this division relying upon my own readings. Because what I discovered was that his attention fundamentally shifted from Dasein and he started to talk about language in great details. If you have a look at "Sein und Zeit", the topic of language was barely touched and no particular importance was given. However, there is almost nothing else in the late Heidegger other than language. I came across some passages in late Heidegger where he specifically talks about "es gibt" issue (in German original), so I deduced my above verdict (see the number 3 in my original entry). So I can assure you there are enough discussions in Heidegger's texts on this issue. But you need to spend some time to discover them. You might not come to the same conclusion as mine of course, but the material is there nevertheless. If you follow these two steps, I believe you can support the idea on your own as you will be using the original source materials. I hope this helps.

[@mokezak]

trashy git thank you very much. I am a doctoral student studying Charles Taylor and his view of moral topology. Heidegger necessarily seeped in with notion of Dasein, which from the sources I have identified, remains cryptic. Your description was the best I’ve come across. I’m writing a paper utilizing the concept of Dasein and I want to make sure I use it properly. As you know, Taylor is aligned with Heidegger in Many ways, and the phenomenology and ontology of moral sources is varied depending on philosophical approach. I really thank you! I wish I could consult further with you. Warmly, Mark.

[@barrymarshall]

Very clear and pithy explanation of Dasein. Regarding Heidegger's point about what distinguishes us from other animals, it is his contention that we are the beings that question Being. Why is there anything at all and not nothing? Perhaps my pet cat or dog thinks the same thing, but they don't seem to have articulated it! Thank you.

[@jemford3281]

so beautifully and clearly put

[@rattangujadhur8215]

Thank you so much to explain this in clear terms.

[@sahifasultana5800]

Thank you for such a good explanation. Finally got to know what Dasien really means. with lots of Love from India!!

[@aaronwimberleymbamsf5776]

Great explanation of Dasein thinking

[@jayaramj9630]

Great explanation

[@shfizzle]

thank you. this might be the best video on the subject.

[@maltesetony9030]

Good, clear introduction.

[@julesjgreig]

Thank you

[@kevinwhite7647]

I’m either a lesbian, a carpenter, both, or neither.

[@chunkEcheez]

Some weird zooming but nice and clear explanation.

[@apostalote]

I think the range of Dasein’s construal is determined by ‘mood’. Anything that can be characterized by a mood is a Dasein, so this means individual people, groups, masses and even historical cultures can be dasein. Dasein for Heidegger is essential differentiated and characterized by disclosure and since mood is originary disclosure of the world, it is mood which defines the bounds of Dasein’s being

[@adaptercrash]

It's a medieval conception of God in the atmospheric ecosystem, that's old. We're trying to move on. Since he wrote that in 1930. They have bots, and people inside its very being-there in being-in-the-world in a form of towards death or being-at-hand, and they can control it and transformed it into a neo marxist political spectrum. It's literally just the atmospheric ecosystem with people attached to it In schizoaffective throwness towards the being-at-hand. They hear voices inside it. I heard it in the dream. It's a quantum mechanic reality in the atmosphere. They keep saying its mine and injustly define transcdental arguments within its horizon. I don't know much about the history of it since I went right to heidegger, in hegelian theory of history the world spirit will take you back within Daseins historicity of its phenomology... and we just wanted to in justice value theory. Sounds like a very dangerous game.

[@kiwi9660]

i think you guys mean the handbag company Dasein👍 very good products

[@LeethLee1]

Fantastic thank you. I think it's not an all encompassing theory but something that almost needs a seat at the table, or always attached to our utility belt of philosophy and science so that we don't lose ourselves. Bless

[@phil-0-suffer-2]

wish u were my professor

[@pauldano255]

Dazai

[@dsdjjjnnvvetth]

how can he attempt to explain what Dasein is without mentioning da Sein and das Seiende? smh

[@navis5284]

The irony is that Heideggerian existentialism is an evasion from reality...

[@msrhuby]

Me thinks philosophers think too much!

[@Noise-Conductor]

Nice hands.

[@mensabs]

The work is not problematic--people who don't understand Heidegger are, like this chap.

[@LethalBubbles]

he denies the existence of collective dasein at 0:44 so this explaination is worthless

[@Jebusite100]

Heidegger uses phrases like German Dasein, Greek Dasein, and Western Dasein. This guy in the video is a moron.

[@sarangchamling1131]

Its just make story not real

[@egondeur]

No matter what he means by Dasein, Nazis are not profound and obviously Heidegger was always on board with Nazi Germany.

[@orloification]

In the first 3 minutes or so, this guy has already shown that he is biased in favour of our time's strange confusion about sexuality, and has ripped off a Freudian slogan..