Abstract
This chapter provides an interpretation of the early Heidegger’s underdeveloped conception of the undistinguishedness (Indifferenz) of everyday human existence in Being and Time. After explaining why certain translation choices of some key terms in this text are interpretively and philosophically important, I first provide a concise argument for why the social constitution interpretation of the relation between ownedness (Eigentlichkeit) and unownedness (Uneigentlichkeit) makes better overall sense of Heidegger’s ambivalent attitude toward the social constitution of the human being than the standard existentialist interpretation of this relation. I then proceed to the heart of this chapter, which develops his inchoate conception of the undistinguishedness of everydayness by arguing that it specifies the third distinctive mode of concrete human existence in addition to ownedness and unownedness (qua disownedness). Accordingly, I show how unownedness is actually a generic phenomenon with two distinct species, namely, undistinguishedness and disownedness, which are at once closely related to, but also differ in significant respects from, each other. Consequently, instead of taking for granted a one-dimensional and mutually exclusive opposition between ‘authenticity’ and ‘inauthenticity’, I argue that we should adopt a two-dimensional and more nuanced understanding of the relations among undistinguishedness, disownedness, and ownedness that intersects with Heidegger’s underappreciated distinction between genuineness and ungenuineness. After raising and replying to some objections to this interpretation of undistinguishedness, I conclude this chapter by briefly sketching three of its philosophical consequences and pointing out its potential as an important resource for contemporary (critical) social theories.
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Notes
- 1.
All references in this chapter to Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (Heidegger 1993) will be indicated and abbreviated henceforth as BT; please keep in mind, then, that occurrences of ‘BT’ in the chapter actually refer to the pagination of the German text, not to any of its English translations. Although I have occasionally consulted the English translation of this text by Macquarrie and Robinson (Heidegger 1962), as well as Schmidt’s revision of Stambaugh’s translation thereof (Heidegger 2010), all translated passages into English from Sein und Zeit in this chapter are my own. The German pagination is given in both English translations. All italicizations in the quotations that I translate from Sein und Zeit are Heidegger’s own. Although the citation convention of non-English words typically italicizes these words in English texts, I have decided to leave unitalicized the longer passages from Sein und Zeit that I translate into English for the sake of clarity and practicality. This decision enables both Heidegger’s own emphases in the original German to be clearly displayed, and also the emphases that I myself wish to add into the cited passages to stand out clearly.
- 2.
Strictly speaking, Dasein is defined as the (kind of) entity that comports itself toward all entities (Seiende), including itself and others of its kind, on the basis of an understanding of the being (Sein) of entities (BT 12; cf. 6). Human beings and Dasein are not always coextensive, though usually they are so. Dasein is not fundamentally a (kind of) thing, object, subject, or organism, but a distinctive way of existing in and toward the world that involves the necessary embodied actualization of certain interdependent abilities, dispositions, and constitutive structures. For lucid explanations, see Carman 2003: 35–43 and Blattner 2006: 33–41.
- 3.
There has recently been a veritable explosion in the literature about the proper understanding of das Man: see, e.g., Schmid 2009: Ch. 9; Freeman 2011; O’Brien 2011, 2014; Richardson 2012: Ch. 4 and 5; Christensen 2012; Egan 2012; Rousse 2013; Han-Pile 2013; Blattner 2013, 2015; Magid 2015; Stroh 2015; McManus 2015; Koo 2015, 2016. Since its publication, Dreyfus’s influential interpretation (among much else) of the positive as well as the negative functions of das Man (Dreyfus 1991: esp. Ch. 8 and 13) continues to set the main terms of debate about this topic for many interpreters of Heidegger’s Being and Time especially in the English-speaking world, by serving either as an insightful interpretation worthy of sympathetic correction and defense (e.g., Carman 1994, 2003: Ch. 3 and 6), or else as a central target of criticism (e.g., Mulhall 2013: Preface to the Second Edition; cf. McManus 2015: Introduction). Besides Dreyfus 1991, some important past literature on this topic that has continually shaped and informed the context for the contemporary literature are: Löwith 2013; Theunissen 1984; Habermas 1987, 1992; Haugeland 1982, 1992; Rentsch 1999, 2000; Figal 1991: §§5, 7–8; Olafson 1987, 1994a, b; Dreyfus 1995; Schatzki 1992, 2005; Blattner 1999, 2006; Carman 1994, 2003, 2005; Keller and Weberman 1998; Holland and Huntington 2001: Part I; and Boedeker 2001.
- 4.
I will explain in due course why ‘owned’ is preferable to ‘authentic’, and ‘unowned’ to ‘inauthentic’, as the better English translations of these terms.
- 5.
Dreyfus, Haugeland, and Blattner propose that Heidegger’s use of ‘zunächst’ be translated as ‘primarily’ in English (Dreyfus 1991: Preface, xii). While there is very good hermeneutic sense in doing so, I have chosen to translate it as ‘initially’ in order to bring this translation closer to its colloquial use in German. That said, it is, indeed, informative to understand Heidegger’s use of ‘zunächst’ as also expressing ‘primarily’, especially in his frequent use of the expression ‘zunächst und zumeist’ (‘initially/primarily and mostly’) throughout Being and Time. In what follows the reader should thus also hear ‘primarily’ whenever I use ‘initially’ in this chapter.
- 6.
I will provide and interpret this textual evidence below. Dostal (1982) is the first to my knowledge that extensively examines Indifferenz as a third mode of human existence that is distinct from Uneigentlichkeit and Eigentlichkeit, though he writes in his article that it was Marjorie Grene who first brought it to his attention (1982: 43n1). Dostal also mentions his access to Dreyfus’s then still unpublished interpretation of Being and Time as another impetus for his reflections on Indifferenz as a distinctive mode of human existence (1982: 50n8; cf. eventually Dreyfus 1991: 27, 194, 235). Most interpreters of Being and Time do not note or else do much with this third mode of human existence. Some notable exceptions are Blattner 1999, 2006, 2013, 2015; Carman 2000 and 2005; Han-Pile 2013; Wiesnewski 2013: 32 f., 129 f.; and Magid 2015.
- 7.
I will explain shortly why it is better to translate ‘Indifferenz’ into English as ‘undistinguishedness’.
- 8.
Magid’s interpretation of Indifferenz notices and interprets how we should understand this use of ‘bzw.’ (beziehungsweise) in the original German (Magid 2015: 12–14). It will emerge that his interpretation and mine are in opposition. I will address his interpretation toward the end of Sect. 4.3 below.
- 9.
- 10.
For an interpretation of the anyone that provides the extended argument for this conclusion, see Koo 2016.
- 11.
I thank Gerhard Thonhauser for drawing my attention to this important passage in Heidegger 1989.
- 12.
- 13.
I have benefitted especially from Blattner’s insightful interpretation of their relations and differences, and take over, in particular, his introduction and use of a new term, namely, ‘disownedness’, for purposes of clarification and interpretation of the issues here (Blattner 2006: 127–167, and his 2013, 2015).
- 14.
Here and below, I am indebted to Han-Pile’s rich and subtle examination (2013) of Heidegger’s difficult idea of choosing to choose oneself. Her book chapter is very instructive as a whole.
- 15.
Notice in this particular passage that the experience of anxiety individualizes by revealing explicitly to Dasein both ownedness and unownedness (qua disownedness), not just ownedness, as possible ways in which it can concretely exist.
- 16.
I have taken the liberty of replacing Macquarrie and Robinson’s translation of ‘Indifferenz’, ‘Uneigentlichkeit’, and ‘das Man’, respectively, as ‘undifferentiatedness’, ‘inauthenticity’, and ‘the They’ (Heidegger 1962), which Han-Pile cites in her text, with my preferred translation of these terms in Being and Time, for reasons already given above in this chapter.
- 17.
Note that Käufer himself does not use the term ‘disownedness’ or its cognates in this book chapter.
- 18.
Blattner (2006: 139–144) argues plausibly that anxiety is, therefore, equivalent to severe psychological depression, which empirically speaking is an attitude toward the world that seems relatively persistent in severely depressed individuals. But notice that such individuals struggle with living in their lives with this general outlook on life and seek continually to try to escape it or at least keep it at bay.
- 19.
I thank Søren Overgaard for making me think hard about this issue.
- 20.
I thank Christian Schmidt for raising this objection, although he does not spell out the line of thought that presumably underlies his query in the way that I do here. Magid also makes this objection (2015: 11), although it does not feature as a main element in his line of argument, as far as I can tell.
- 21.
In this article, Magid takes over Macquarrie and Robinson’s translation of ‘Indifferenz’ and its cognates as ‘undifferentiatedness’ and its English cognates. Because his and my interpretations of Indifferenz are opposed, I will cite textual passages from him without substituting my preferred translation for terms like ‘Indifferenz’, ‘Uneigentlichkeit’, etc.
- 22.
This phrase quotes part of a sentence in Heidegger 1989: 250.
- 23.
The most prominent among them that he mentions in this footnote are Dreyfus (1991), Blattner (1999), and Carman (2000: 15 and 24). I myself have also made this claim elsewhere in a recent chapter (Koo 2016: 109–112). Thanks to Magid’s and Han-Pile’s interpretations, what I write immediately below modifies the force of this claim.
- 24.
- 25.
I have benefited much from the questions and comments of two groups of audience to whom previous versions of this paper were presented: the first at the original workshop focusing on Heidegger’s conception of the anyone and its relevance for contemporary social theory at the University of Vienna in December 2014; and the second subsequently at the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen in June 2016. I also thank Gerhard Thonhauser, Thomas Wartenberg, David Cerbone, and an anonymous reviewer of the penultimate version of this paper for helpful comments. Last but not least, I wish to thank Gerhard Thonhauser and Hans Bernhard Schmid, as well as Dan Zahavi, for their respective invitations to me to present this work on these occasions.
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Koo, JJ. (2017). Heidegger’s Underdeveloped Conception of the Undistinguishedness (Indifferenz) of Everyday Human Existence. In: Schmid, H., Thonhauser, G. (eds) From Conventionalism to Social Authenticity. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56865-2_4
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