Human Being as Dasein
Heidegger is concerned with how we can understand what being in the world means and our experience of it. He finds that the first phenomenological fact of existence is that we are always already out there in the world. He thus describes our human being (as opposed to the being of an inanimate object or non-human animal) as Dasein. The German expression literally means there-being. To describe human being as Dasein is an attempt to leave behind philosophical notions of the individual as subject, and more broadly, the subject-object duality of the individual and the world, that is, interior consciousness juxtaposed against an objective world outside of it. Rather, for Heidegger we are out there embedded in the world, engaged with tools and objects of our experience. Heidegger (1962) says, “Dasein finds ‘itself’ proximally in what it does, uses, expects, avoids—in those things environmentally ready-to-hand with which it is proximally concerned ” (p. 155). Only when these tools break down or go missing do we stop and treat these entities as separate, conspicuous objects. For example, college students relegate large segments of their personal and social lives to the virtual world and do not think twice about it—until the network goes down. Then they are suddenly faced with themselves and others in more traditional ways, if only temporarily. Heidegger’s Dasein, or there-being, intends to capture the immediacy for us of the “what is” of human experience as we experience it. This immediacy is fraught with meaning and implications for who we really are. Heidegger refers to human being first finding itself situated in a world as facticity. In contrast to the simplistic way existentialism is sometimes portrayed—that humans are absolutely free to choose—Heidegger’s notion of facticity is acknowledgement that parameters within which human possibility or freedom reside are delimited. Dasein is thrown into the world, which means that in some sense one is always a product of the time, place, and culture within which one is born, lives, and dies. But within this facticity, these circumscribed limits, there is freedom—in fact, the necessity of choice. In other words, as thrown, we are thrust into a set of circumstances
and freedom lies in choosing to embrace our thrown possibility. This duality exists at each and every moment of our existence and bears upon our potentiality for being authentic. Everydayness and the Theyasein’s inevitable tendency is to fall into an everyday mode of existence, an absorption into the common world of experience that is most readily at-hand. This everyday way of being Heidegger names the they (das Mann). The they is everyone and no one in particular. In this everyday mode of existence, we forget ourselves. It “dissolves one’s own Dasein completely into the kind of Being of ‘the Others’, in such a way, indeed, that the Others, as distinguishable and explicit, vanish more and more” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 164). This everyday mode of being tends toward the average, a leveling down of the truest and best possibilities of Dasein to a common currency of existence. It is the common world of experience made up of fads, styles, behaviors, and vernacular, in which we automatically participate and take for granted. We experience it ourselves in so far as our everyday and habitual concerns occupy our attention and behavior. Most of the time, then, the self which each of us is, is derived from the common understandings and possibilities which they define for us—the clothes we buy in shops, the notions and ideas we hold about current issues, the common expressions we utilize, the activities and events in which we engage. In other words, for the most part Dasein unknowingly surrenders its unique individuality to these commonly defined styles of living, thinking, and communicating and defines itself by them. It is not we ourselves, as individuals, who have constructed these, but rather das Mann. So that the way Dasein is absorbed for the most part in its everyday concern is in-the-world, is prescribed by the they. Heidegger (1962) says: “The ‘they’, which supplies the answer to the question of the ‘who’ of everyday Dasein, is the ‘nobody’ to whom every Dasein has already surrendered itself . . .” (p. 165). What is especially poignant about this tendency for college students is how it relates to what we typically refer to as the developmental stage in which they are establishing their individual identity. This is a time when they are most prone to trying on and fleeing into what is trendy or common precisely because they carry the burden of establishing their own authentic self-defined identity. While we cannot and should not try to avoid these average ways of taking up our lives, our everyday activities in the world of our concern, it is also the case that these are leveled down ways of knowing ourselves. In this everyday mode we have not really found our selves—in fact, we have lost our true selves, our authentic selves. In this mode, we are inauthentic. And yet, the designation inauthentic is not intended pejoratively or critically, but rather as a description of an existential fact. In its reduced-to-average mode, Dasein is alienated from its authentic self. Our everyday self, as suggested above, is a common reduction of our own genuine possibilities and the person we can authentically be. Heidegger (1962) describes our average everydayness as bringing Dasein “tranquility” (p. 222), and suggests that in some way it provides the illusion that all is well and everything is in order, when in actuality, something is amiss. Anxiety nxiety occurs when the totality of involvements, the entities within the world, the way Dasein was once engaged with the they world, falls away. In that moment “the world has the character of completely lacking significance” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 231). Nothing and no one is appealing or can be engaged, for in that moment Dasein no longer can understand itself in terms of the way the world is publicly interpreted, but rather is thrown back upon itself and its “freedom of choosing itself and taking hold of itself” (p. 232). Dasein has been individualized. Anxiety “pursues Dasein constantly and is a constant threat to its everyday lostness in the ‘they’ , though not explicitly” (p. 234). It is always there, omnipresent and on the verge of breaking
hrough, though we are very adept at fleeing from it. But what exactly is it that we are fleeing? “That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the-world as such” (p. 230) or our essential finitude, which demands that we will all die. When individuals move along comfortably in their everyday, inauthentic modes of engagement (e.g., when students are engaged in a social networking website, when they are eating in a food court with friends, or when they are engaged in studying), they enable themselves to lose sight of this central fact. Finitude and Death asein is always in relation to death, but most of the time in the awareness that accompanies our average everyday selves, this relationship is disregarded. We live as if death is an abstract idea that is off some time in the distant future, never really to happen. We typically do not live with its reality present to us, guiding our day-to-day decisions. This indifference is possible because “Along with the certainty of death goes the indefiniteness of its ‘when’” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 302). This uncertainty allows us to evade death by escaping into our everyday world of concern and living as if life is unending, full of infinite possibility. Even in experiencing the death of others (e.g., when we grieve for significant others), there is a distancing of that experience from the reality of our own death. We rarely identify that occurrence with ourown possibility of dying. The expanse of time ahead of us typically seems, if not infinite, lengthy and full of possibilities. This outlook is especially true for college students, who oftentimes behave and make decisions as if they were immortal. They often avoid acknowledging the reality that death could come at any moment. Yet, it is ultimately a critical fact of who we all are, and this fact defines our existence profoundly. “As soon as man comes to life,” writes Heidegger, “he is at once old enough to die” (p. 289). Now you might say that to dwell on this morbid subject is depressing, and certainly we would not advocate that our primarily youthful and full-of-promise college students be preoccupied with this issue. Heidegger himself clarifies that he is not suggesting that we brood over our impending death. But mortality, the ultimate human reality, needs to be reckoned with rather than avoided: what would everyday living be like, how would it impact us, to switch into a more realistic understanding of and appreciation for our mortality and death’s significance? For Heidegger, when Dasein truly reckons with the reality of death and owns that its fate is sealed by the limitations death imposes, our finitude, the everyday world falls away—others, the objects of concern, everything. These are the moments of anxiety described previously. Think of what happens to persons the moment they receive a diagnosis of cancer or another terminal disease. Think of what happens more typically to college students when they receive a diagnosis of HIV or are involved in a serious car accident. The dread and anxiety experienced in that moment are uniquely their own. There is nothing anyone can do for them. They are completely alone with the knowledge that they could be facing the end (or at least a radically modified existence). And although the possibility has always been there (and always is for each of us at all times), they are staring death in the face for the first time, and it is looking back at them. What these individuals do with that knowledge is telling. How often have we seen or heard that for someone in this situation, all priorities shift suddenly—whatever time remains is allocated to what is now deemed essential and most important. In the case of students awakening from a near-death experience with alcohol poisoning or overdose, their resolve about how to conduct themselves in the future is typically dramatically different than what had been the case up until that point. The previous examples are concrete instances when Dasein cannot flee from the reality of its situation (unless it goes into the mode of denial, which often happens, at least for a while). What Heidegger is talking about, however, is that while Dasein for the most part covers over and flees from this awareness of our being toward death, this reaction is not the only possibility. It is possible for this truth to somehow be kept in sight. “The entity which anticipates its non-relational possibility [death], is thus forced by that very anticipation into the possibility of taking over from itself its own most Being, and doing so of its own accord” (p. 308). In this regard, Heidegger says: When one becomes free for one’s own death, one is liberated from one’s lostness in those possibilities which may accidentally thrust themselves upon one; and one is liberated in such a way that for the first time one can authentically understand and choose among the factical possibilities lying ahead of that possibility which is not to be outstripped [death]. (p. 308) Each Dasein must “own” and reflect upon what this reality means for what she or he does in the sense of knowing and defining what is most valuable, most important, most essential—and then live in harmony with this. Heidegger says, “holding death for true does not demand just one definite kind of behavior in Dasein, but demands Dasein itself in the full authenticity of its existence” (pp. 309-310). Authenticity or Heidegger, being authentic does not require some exceptional effort or discipline, like meditation. Rather, it entails a kind of shift in attention and engagement, a reclaiming of oneself, from the way we typically fall into our everyday ways of being. It is about how we approach the world in our daily activities. Dasein inevitably moves between our day-by-day enmeshment with the they and a seizing upon glimpses of our truer, uniquely individual possibilities for existence. The challenge is to bring ourselves back from our lostness in the they to retrieve ourselves so that we can become our authentic selves. This finding of itself by Dasein, Heidegger says, is a response to the voice or call of conscience. He does not mean here anything like a moral imperative to do the right thing according to an external law, but rather a clear and focused listening to and heeding of one’s unique capabilities and potential. In doing so Dasein authentically understands itself and is able to act in the world accordingly. This type of action for Heidegger would be authentic and ethical action in the sense of its indication that one is being true to oneself, hence the language of conscience. For instance, in career development work in college and university, counselors offer guidance to students so they can better understand themselves in terms of their aptitudes, interests, and abilities. They encourage them to discover their true “vocation” (their calling), the type of work which would suit them and be their own. This calling is precisely what Heidegger is talking about. Heidegger refers to this unique and special moment in Dasein’s existence, when there is clarity about the self, as the moment of vision. In conjunction with this moment of clear vision, Heidegger uses the concept of resoluteness to capture what it means for Dasein to heed this call of conscience and act accordingly and consistently, over time. He says that resoluteness or resolve means “letting oneself be summoned out of one’s lostness in the ‘they’” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 345) and carving out one’s unique and authentic place in and approach to the world, doing one’s work with this special intent and self-knowledge. Connecting Heidegger’s Philosophy with Student Affairs ow does this philosophy bear upon theory and practice in student affairs work? One criticism might be that this theory is too esoteric and full of jargon, too abstract to be relevant. Another criticism might say that it is not empirically based, especially with current professional emphasis on evidenced-based practice. What Heidegger gives us is a larger picture, the study of the nature of how humans experience themselves and the world, which is prior and foundational to traditional theories and ways of thinking that student affairs has utilized to ground its practice. Heidegger’s phenomenology claims to take a step back from the way we ordinarily conceptualize and theorize about reality and begin from immediacy of experience, which has priority for him, and elicit the structure of experience from there. For Heidegger, true understanding of experience must begin with this phenomenological starting point, the immediacy of experience. This manner of understanding lies at the basis of human science and qualitative research. What Heidegger explicates in Being and Time are fundamental constituents of existence that necessarily inform experience—for example, the horizon of death and its implications for our lived reckoning with time. These core constituents of existence necessarily impact any theory we might choose to utilize as a ground for work with students in activities or programming. Dasein and Student Development theories of student development generally have a positive tone to them and convey growth and forward progress. Even when there are challenge and disintegration of old values or ways of thinking, there usually follow re-integration and re-consolidation into a new way of perceiving and experiencing. And while this process sometimes occurs by way of a temporary moratorium or regression to prior levels of development, the overall movement is conceived like a number line, with latter occurrences consecutively representing increased value or enhanced experience. In contrast to this developmental orientation, a definition of identity formation consistent with Heidegger’s notion of Dasein, with its fallenness (into the they) and thrownness, the back and forth motion of everydayness and authenticity, would not move along a comparable trajectory. Rather, there is a kind of repetition or ever-lasting return to our true selves, which we are fated to repeat. This condition is inevitably part and parcel of who we are. As Zimmerman (1981) pointed out, there is a kind of cumulative effect of numerous and repeated moments of resoluteness wherein the student may come to recognize her or his true self over time. If we accept the conception of identity and identity formation as fundamentally related to authenticity, then it provides an organizational principle for all our activities, which is to create an environment and numerous opportunities for students to discover their true selves. The Student’s Everyday World of Concern and the Theystin’s notion of involvement (1984) reflects an application of the philosophical idea Heidegger intends in his discussions of the way Dasein is first and foremost circumspect with the everyday environment. When a student is unable to become involved in the environment (due to feelings of discomfort or not being included), the student becomes distanced from her or his immediate environment. It becomes a problematic object of observation. When this happens, students are unable to engage in the absorbed way Heidegger describes and are self-conscious and isolated. The locale they are now living or working in has become disrupted, is not comfortable, and they may not succeed. Facilitating comfort, helping them feel at home, is a necessary first step for creating conditions in which later on they can better understand themselves. This process of acclimation, then alienation is consistent with what Heidegger has described as a natural inclination to fall into the everyday and is consistent with student affairs professionals’ intention to create an environment of self-discovery for students. It is also consistent with Sanford’s notion (1967) of providing the right balance of support and challenge. Thus many of our programs like orientation or first year seminar, which are intended to create an environment or atmosphere where students can begin to feel at home and are able to move through and readily engage in the world of the campus environment, remain absolutely critical. The question becomes toward what end are we making them comfortable? What is it that we as student affairs professionals hope that students will ultimately be able to do (or be) in the college environment, and beyond? What Heidegger’s philosophy would suggest is that this programming should be in the service of assisting students with discovering their true selves—over time. As such, we would need to select appropriate messages that convey this intent. First year programs hold the potential for creating the proper environment for a student’s emerging and subsequent process of self-discovery. Anxiety, Death, Authenticity, Resoluteness clearly, we would not want students to dwell on death and acquire morbid outlooks. The approach described in this article is not a proposal that campus leaders and other staff members routinely gather up students and ask them to contemplate, in some type of encounter group, their deaths and the significance of death on their lives. But being attuned to the transitional periods of students’ lives, while encouraging them to be more open to the call of conscience and challenging them to be more reflective about what truly matters to them, is important and desirable. Professionals do encourage this type of reflective process already, for example, in the area of career development and counseling when students go for help in crisis. Heidegger himself implies that these things (like the call to conscience) are not intended to be cultivated in others or even self-consciously in ourselves. Such contrived promotion of these concepts would be too subjectivistic or even moralistic, and that is not Heidegger’s intention. And yet, there definitely are times when students are more open to possibilities than at other times, when they are in an exploratory mode, whether these times concern their relations with others or with their world. For instance, every year on many campuses students who drink excessively are transported from residence halls to hospital emergency rooms for alcohol poisoning. Other students are present and aware of what is happening. They are deeply affected by what they witness and the possibility that the students will die. They themselves may or may not have been drinking with the students. This observation is a “teachable moment,” when student affairs staff can facilitate greater insight and resultant intent. One might ask students, “What does this terrible shocking experience say to you about your own lives and the choices and decisions you wish to make in the future?” In other words, besides being supportive, the staff member can also encourage reflective thinking that deeply informs students’ creation of their authentic selves. Zimmerman (1981) says: “The resolute person faithfully holds himself open for the moment of truth, although he cannot know when it will come” (p. 98). That openness to such moments of truth would apply to student affairs staff members in their work with students, as well as for the Dasein of all students in relation to their own being. Without being directive or forcing the issue, student affairs staff can aid students in their reflection and help them aim at a trajectory within the horizon of the student’s authentic self. Conclusion authenticity suggests a unifying theme for students’ transformative experience that trumps every other possibility. Heidegger would suggest that for each and every student, whether or not he or she is philosophical by inclination, there is a reckoning with the reality of Dasein—that finitude brings with it the reality of authenticity and inauthenticity, the need to hearken to the call of conscience and to be resolute in a way that guides the choices Dasein makes. While we are destined to fall away from this authentic mode of existence into the world of everyday concern, it is also within this world of concern that we build our lives by the decisions we make and the tasks we undertake every day. Hence, choosing one general direction over another (e.g., the pursuit of money as an end in itself or social service work), being a certain way, and being invested in certain values, rather than others, do result in a different totality and quality of experience. If the truth of students’ authentic existence is always to be discovered, then their purpose in attending a college or university may be greater than they know when they arrive. At some level, all students probably know that they will be altered in fundamental ways through their college experiences, but they probably do not really know in advance how this will occur, what this means. One might argue that they eagerly and willingly seek these transformations out—that is the reason they attend. This philosophical approach suggests that the aim of all of our programming and interactions would be to facilitate students’ understanding of themselves and help them discover how to find their way and be true to themselves, which could also entail exposing the everyday world and the possibilities of worlds beyond it.
