The Understanding

Beginning as a completely separate endeavour, the paper that follows has taken shape in terms of the task I originally gave myself. In the process of dealing with the critique of the enlightenment and modernity, it became apparent to me that the notion of subjectivity, itself, had been radically altered in the process of the critique. The critique of modernity seems to have altered the landscape of how we think of our selves and the world we live in. Once the “I’ proclamation is undermined, it seems that man comes to occupy a new space. No longer are we simply given over to ourselves as was previously held to be the case. Is objectivity possible, without the presence of a subject? Was objectivity possible in modernity, when we thought of ourselves as something like a subject? The narrative of the self seems to have undergone some radical retooling. When “man” is no longer the centre, or origin, of meaning, where does meaning dwell? How does understanding function in this world without determinate Being. In the examination that follows I hope to provide some of these questions.
Beginning with the deconstruction of the subject, and the removal of Being as a something determinate in the “I,” a new space opens up in the work of Heidegger. While simply a new narrative of existence it nonetheless seems to unfold a new paradigm of possible examination. In the examination that follows I will deal with the concept of understanding as it unfolds within this novel space. Furthermore I will deal with the concept of understanding as it appears in the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer.
The analytic of Dasein should be understood as a critique of what Heidegger believed to be the problem of the ethos, or weltanschauung of the Enlightenment project. As such the narrative of Dasein is offered as a possible way out of the totalitarian effects of man left to the power of subjective reason. If the Enlightenment could be characterized as a loss of self- the task of the existing Dasein can be interpreted as a manner of engaging with, and finding, itself as it is constituted in a ‘world.’ Finally, through this examination I hope to demonstrate ‘how’ the analytic of Dasein can be seen as opening the space, or making possible, some of the principle themes in the philosophy of the social sciences. I will engage with concepts like the importance of meaning, the interaction between understanding and interpretation, the concept of moods in psychology, language, and finally the role of metaphor in understanding.
I. Uncovering the Metaphysical.
Being and Time posits that the fundamental error of the entire western tradition has been the posing of the question such that an entity ‘is’ has been sought as an answer. What is Being? What is being asked, therefore, is that Being take on the character of definability which is, in fact, an impossibility. However, at the same time, by the sheer fact of existing one is already acquainted with Being, therefore, one always already lives in an understanding of Being.[1] It cannot be the case, therefore, that the subiectum, or the Hypokeimenon, “the word names that-which-lies-before, which, as ground gathers everything unto itself,” can be found within the “I” proclamation of man.[2] Rather, what has been sought by the western tradition has been the being of beings. The question of Being, of uncovering Being in-itself, is more fundamental.
“With the ‘cogito sum’ Descartes had claimed to be putting philosophy on a new and firm footing… has revealed itself as the implementation of a baleful prejudice, which has kept later generations from making any thematic ontological analytic of the ‘mind’…”[3]
In order to investigate Being, Heidegger imports the concept of Dasein as that entity for which Being is an issue. Dasein, as ‘being there,’ is encountered in its ‘there; the ‘there’ imparts with a notion of spatiality as a location wherein Dasein comes to encounter itself. Dasein, as such, has a three-fold structure, an ‘is’ as existence, or being, and a ‘there’ as a location in a “world,” and a relation of self to itself. It is impossible, therefore, to have Dasein without also having a “world.” Therefore, hidden within the “I” proclamation of Dasein, there necessarily lurks “world.” Thus, while Dasein is necessarily my specificity; it is also my being-in-the-world; as being-in-the-world, my Dasein is necessarily being-with the Dasein of others. As such it becomes apparent that the subject object distinction breaks down; “man,” as subject, is made manifest as a metaphysical presupposition.
II. ‘Where’ and ‘How’ We Are.
Dasein finds itself always already given over to the “there” as throwness, in its Being-there as such.[4] In this space Dasein has two constitutive ways of being, firstly, it finds itself in a mood, or state of mind. Secondly, it finds itself always already in understanding. Understanding is derived from a totality of involvements; Dasein is such that it is always being-with in a ‘world’ as the totality of possible involvements. Dasein, as being-in-the-world, as dwelling spatially, is that entity which, in concernful situatedness, circumspectively de-severs.[5] Therefore, although Dasein proclaims the ‘I’ as a reflexive representation of itself, existentially the ‘I’ remains furthest from Dasein in everydayness. Rather, what becomes most proximate is the phenomenon of ‘world,’ as the totality of involvements; as the wherein of Dasein’s understanding; as that in-terms-of-which the fore-structure of understanding is derived and the into-which the understanding is projected. [6] Dasein encounters itself proximally as already existing, as being there amongst entities, as already involved with the world of ‘significance[7], in doing what Dasein does. Hence, Dasein encounters itself in those entities with which it is concerned environmentally. Others are not encountered as something ready-to-hand, or as a present-at-hand[8] for contemplation; rather others are encountered environmentally, in terms of the world of Dasein’s concern. The environment, however, is encountered in everydayness as ready-to-hand; as such, in concern Dasein encounters the products of others circumspectively. Thus it becomes apparent that being alongside the Dasein of others has the character of togetherness, as being one Dasein amongst many, in concernful situatedness, within an environment.
The hermeneutic circle is decisive in placing hermeneutics itself on ontological grounding, an endeavour which Hans-Georg Gadamer made his own. At this point in the examination it seems necessary to illuminate this circle. It seems clear that understanding is a structure, a totality of involvements, which, Dasein as “throwness,” projects into the world. Interpretation, grounded in the fore-conception of understanding, makes understanding manifest in the ‘as’ structure. In essence, interpretation, interprets what the understanding has already understood in an assertion. As Heidegger states it:
“Whenever something is interpreted as something, the interpretation will be founded essentially upon fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception. An interpretation is never presuppositionless apprehending of something presented to us.”[9]
Meaning is that upon-which of the projected fore-structure and in ‘terms of which’ something becomes intelligible. Meaning is ontological in that it is an essential property of Dasein itself. I have, thus far, been merely delineating and illuminating the territory in an attempt to demonstrate ‘where’ we are and ‘how’ we exist there.
III. The Historical, Metaphorical and Linguistic Horizon.
Gadamer, in Truth and Method, engages with hermeneutics upon its ontological grounding and proceeds to critique the epistemological presuppositions of the tradition, whereby, it was assumed that the subject had some privileged access to the historical. Rather, as Gadamer states:
“In fact history does not belong to us; we belong to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, in society, and state in which we live. The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror. The self-awareness of the individual is only a flickering in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgements, constitute the historical reality of his being.”[10]
These prejudices, to which Gadamer makes allusions, can only be those present in the fore-structure of understanding. Thus, it is no doubt true that these prejudices predetermine if anything can have meaning for Dasein in the interaction with texts. Gadamer insists that the prejudices of the understanding are necessarily historical effects, of which we may or may not be aware. No methodological statement, or presupposition, can truly eliminate the affect of history upon understanding. It is, therefore, never the case that one can begin from a clean slate, even via the Cartesian method of doubt.[11] Wherever Dasein finds itself it necessary carries along with it the effects of history, or its historicity, and must therefore see itself as necessarily incomplete, or within an unfinished process.
It is necessary to bring into our purview the important concept of ‘horizon,’ as it is explicatedby Gadamer. In order to do so we must return to the constitution of Dasein itself, more specifically in terms of its temporal structure. Every particular moment has its limitations, in the sense of what can possibly be viewed from within the moment. For Gadamer, the term ‘horizon’ is the boundary, or the limit, of what can possibly be viewed in the moment. The ‘horizon,’ is not a static or fixed condition of the being of Dasein, but rather, is a limit within which Dasein moves and, is in turn moved by Dasein.
“To acquire a horizon means that one learns to look beyond what is close at hand-not in order to look away from it but to see it better, within a larger whole and in truer proportions.” [12]
The ‘horizon,’ therefore is required by the understanding in order to contextualize, or gain the proper perspective from which meaning can be grasped. It is therefore the case that the ‘horizon’ is shaped by the prejudices of understanding. However, as a process, or historically constituted, Dasein’s understanding is not simply rooted in the present, but is formed of its past, present, and projected into the future. Thus, it can be said that the ‘horizon’ of Dasein, which is historically constituted, can be transposed, and thus becomes fused within a horizon with others, in a kind of trans-temporal alienation from itself, returns to itself, having put its prejudices to the test.[13] The ‘horizon’ can therefore be seen as a process of dialogic mediation, which is not stuck in the present but rather trans-temporal. In the process understanding has, therefore, altered having discarded, or taken on new prejudices.
For Gadamer, along with world and historicity, our mode of being is fundamentally linguistic. Gadamer, furthermore, alludes to “the fundamental metaphoricity of language.”[14] As such, “language is the universal medium in which understanding occurs.”[15] It is therefore the case that “understanding occurs in interpretation,” which necessarily requires a kind of translation into the language within which Dasein finds itself. For Gadamer language is the medium where “I” and “world” meet.[16] Language is, therefore, both where Dasein finds itself and how Dasein lives itself. All experience of world, therefore, is essentially linguistic. Language, therefore, as Dasein’s mode of being-in-the-world is both a manner of existing and a space wherein common meanings can emerge. Language expresses both the infinite and finite
“Every word causes the whole of the language to which it belongs to resonate and the whole world view that underlies it to appear. Thus every word, as the event of a moment, carries with it the unsaid, to which it is related by responding and summoning.”[17]
Finally, for Gadamer, “Being that can be understood is language.”[18]
IV. Understanding, Metaphor and Meaning.
Dasein is understandingly situated in a ‘world’ and a language; both carry with them certain predilections and prejudices. In what sense therefore is objectivity to be thought of an ideal to be sought after? Rather, it would seem that the task of science itself requires a subject-object relation. In the narrative of Dasein, the subject-object distinction is lost, there is in fact only Dasein and the world of involvements which understanding always already understands pre-reflexively. If understanding takes place in a linguistic medium, which is fundamentally metaphorical, then interpretation is forced to interpret what is already understood and express something as something. The ‘as’ structure of interpretation, seems to leave open the possibility for metaphoricity of the understanding itself. Finally, it would seem that we are indeed prisoners of meaning, as meaning itself becomes a property of Dasein which can be said to exist in a meaningful way. Everything starts with meaning in terms of which the understanding is able to grasp anything at all.
What began as an attempt to engage with the critique of enlightenment; has somehow transformed, mutated, if you will into an altogether different enterprise. Yet, somehow, what is offered here is intimately related to the initial failure. Firstly, I attempted to deal with the presupposition of man as subject, as source, or logos of meaning. Understanding the enlightenment, as did Kant, in terms of a process, or a movement toward Enlightenment[19]; I sought to demonstrate ‘how’ the critique, or undermining, of the ‘cogito’ in effect served to uncover and deconstruct the fundamental grounding of the enlightenment project as such. Secondly, I turned to Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology; in the process of engaging with the text it seemed apparent that what was being alluded to was a kind of mediation of human understanding. If the subject, as the sole determinant of what is an object, can give itself over to technology, and in effect mediate its understanding technologically, how does understanding function such that it can be given over to, unconsciously I might add, something other than the subject itself? I decided to set aside my question and continued onward into an engagement with another Heidegger text The Age of the World Picture. This engagement left me with a further question which finally compelled me to set aside my initial project altogether; how does understanding function such that it might come to understand the world in terms of a picture? It became apparent to me, in both cases, that the understanding was functioning in terms of something else. If such is true than is this not further evidence that understanding is essentially metaphorical? In the process of asking these questions the current examination underwent a drastic transformation into the form that exists presently.















Bibliography

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. New York: Continuum, 2004.
Heidegger, Martin . Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.

Heidegger, Martin. The Age of the World Picture. in The Question Concerning Technology: and Other Essays. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977.

Kant, Immanuel, Was ist Aufklarung? in The Enlightenment. Ed Frank E. Manuel, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1965.


[1] Martin Heidegger. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. p. 23.
[2] Martin Heidegger. The Age of the World Picture. in The Question Concerning Technology: and Other Essays. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977. p 128.
[3] Heidegger. Being and Time, 46.
[4] Heidegger. Being and Time. p 172.
[5] De-severing; as a binging close of that which is at a distance, or as eliminating distance, such that that which is most proximate distantially might be furthest away from Dasein circumspectively.
[6] Heidegger. Being and Time. 190-194.
[7] Significance is the structural totality of world, as that which can be signified.
[8] A clarification of what is meant by the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand would seem to be necessary at this point. The-Ready-to-hand withdraws in circumspection in Dasein’s concernful absorption with it. The Ready-to-hand is not something for contemplation; rather, it becomes transparent in its use. The Present-at-hand, is that which is open to contemplation. The Ready-to-hand is possible, as that which was once Present-at-hand. Dasein encounters these entities, not of the character of Dasein, in its concern with them.
[9] Heidegger. Being and Time. 191.
[10] Hans-Georg Gadamer. Truth and Method. New York: Continuum, 2004. p 276-277.
[11] Gadamer. Truth and Method. 301.
[12] Ibid., 302
[13] Gadamer. Truth and Method. 307.
[14] Gadamer. Truth and Method. 431.
[15] Ibid., 389.
[16] Ibid., 474.
[17] Ibid., 458.
[18] Ibid., 474.
[19] Immanuel Kant, Was ist Aufklarung? in The Enlightenment. Ed Frank E. Manuel, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1965. p 34.