On Heidegger’s They-Self

‘The Self of everyday Dasein is the they-self, which we distinguish from the authentic Self …’

(Heidegger 1962, p. 167).

The above quotation is from Martin Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time. Wherein he sets himself the task of answering the question of The Meaning of Being. My aim for this discussion is to explain what Heidegger means by the titular quotation; to do so as simply as possible and avoid the barrier imposed by his complex prose and unique terminology as used throughout Being and Time. Having said that, a detailed account of Heidegger’s unique verbiage must be undertaken. We need to understand what he means by terms such as Dasein, they-self, and both the authentic and inauthentic existentiell modes. As well as situate them within his grander ontological structure of Being as Being-in-the-world and examine the issue of choice that presents itself from it. Finally, having done this, we can return to the quotation with a deeper understanding of what Heidegger means by it.

Heidegger wrote Being and Time with the aim of re-raising the question of what Being is. In doing so, he exposed the metaphysical approach of Being as distinct Subject and Object. (ed. 1993, p. 4). That separating Being into distinct parts conceals Being from us in its truest ontological sense. Unlike Descartes’ (2019) conception of I as distinct from the world, Heidegger argues we are both in and a part of the world. That we as beings in a world are beings-in-the world. (Heidegger 1962, p. 79). The world is not something separate to us that we must enter, like water pouring into a glass. It is not divided as internal and external; it is something we find ourselves within already and as part of. This unification is akin to James Clerk Maxwell’s unification of electricity and magnetism into electromagnetism; it is only through a lack of understanding of the fundamental underlying structure do the constituent parts appear divided and separate. In this respect, Heidegger unifies the constituent parts of Subject and Object of ontological discourse into Dasein as Being-in-the-world (Dooley & Kearney 2001).

Dasein is any being which finds itself concerned by and caring for its Being; its own existence (Heidegger 1962, p. 32). As human beings, we find ourselves thrown into and surrounded by a world that appears filled with beings. We seemingly already know Being in some ‘vague’ but factual way without needing to do anything. It presents itself as there ready for us as Being in every moment of our everydayness. Though, Dasein does not mean human beings explicitly, we can think of it as the existential structure of you and I before it has been covered over and hidden by ourselves. It is prior to and the basis on which interpretations of human-being is possible. This raises the question: if Dasein is prior to an interpretation of myself, where is the I? Who is Dasein? In response, Heidegger (1962) states that the “who” of Dasein is the “I” itself, the ‘subject’, the ‘Self’. In this regard, there is no distinction between Dasein itself and its interpretations of itself, they are one and the same. It is only through our viewing of Being-in-the-world as distorted do they appear separate and distinct.

According to Heidegger, it is in this distorted state that we find ourselves most often. He denotes this as our “everydayness” (Heidegger 1962, p. 165). It is in this everydayness that my identity as a student is made. Being a student orients me meaningfully within the world, informing both myself and others for whom student holds meaning. For Heidegger (1962) being a student is an existentiell. It is, something that belongs to us but is not an essential part of the structure of our Being. This is because being a student is not fundamentally what makes me be. My existence is prior to any such interpretation; however, it is not distinct from it. They are both always there as the unification of Being-in-the-world. In this sense, student is both a description and prescription of the world in which I find myself in. This world of shared meanings that being a student relates, Heidegger calls the “they” (Heidegger 1962, pp. 163-168). It is the shared meaning and explications of the public world which we share with others. We know this ‘they’ through discourse, which Heidegger refers to as “idle-talk” (Heidegger 1962, pp. 211-214).

Idle-talk is the language used to share meaning within a given domain of meaning. It is knowledge that is readily passed onto us, requiring little effort to grasp or use (Heidegger 1962, p. 211). While it is readily available, it comes with a cost. Our reliance on language disconnects us from the sources of meaning themselves. Also, the need to have shared understanding with others results in an “averageness” (Heidegger 1962, p. 69). For the most part, what is spoken in idle-talk is understood and what is spoken about is at best understood approximately (Heidegger 1962, p. 212). Such as in the passing down of traditions within societal and religious communities. Where the origination of the tradition is lost, but the rituals themselves continue. Similarly, by taking part in such idle-talk we lose connection to the origination of our being. Ultimately, we behave as anyone as the act of idle-talk is simply the repeating of that which is available for anyone. Moreover, by becoming anyone, we become part of the ‘they’, cut off from our primordial Self as Dasein (Heidegger 1962, p. 201). We know ourselves in the average ways afforded to us by the ‘they’ - the levelling down of our possibilities into the typicalness of ourselves as anyone. In this sense we are they-Self as “they” impose their they-ness onto the Self (Heidegger 1962, p. 167).

As they-Self, we become “entangled” within the ‘they’, understanding everything, including ourselves through it (Heidegger 1962, p. 223). In this sense, ‘they’ owns us and limits our possible ways of being. As Egan (2012) states, “[w]e accord ourselves [as] [they-Self] unthinkingly, allowing our actions and opinions to be dictated” by this public world of the other that we find ourselves in. Rather than flee from this dictation, we leap further into it (Heidegger 1962, p. 398). By being as ‘they’ are, we are disburdened of our existential baggage. ‘They’ provide a sense of meaning and distraction from ourselves as we truly are; the truth of our finiteness; the fact of our existence. That we will at some point cease to exist; we will die. In taking this burden from us we become “tranquilized” (Heidegger 1962, p. 399). We cannot help but fall further into ourselves as they-Self, becoming ever more entangled within it. According to Heidegger (1962) it is here in our everydayness, avoiding the inevitability of death, that we find ourselves inauthentic.

Conversely, we become authentic by taking ownership of ourselves as beings in the world and transparently relating ourselves as they-Self to ourselves and the certainty of our death. If the Self of everyday Dasein as they-Self signifies its lostness within the public world of the other, Dasein as Self-they signifies its ownership and modification of itself as Self within the public world of the other (Daves 2013, p. 35). Consequently, the possibilities disclosed by the ‘they’ are just that, possibilities presented to us which no longer predetermine us (Daves 2013, pp. 30-31). In this sense, becoming authentic does not separate us from the ‘they’ and ourselves as they-Self, rather we modify ourselves and our relation to it (Heidegger 1962, p. 168). Meaning, by taking ownership of ourselves as something we ground it to the existential fact of death. In doing so, we become the existential relation to ourselves as Self; through choice we can modify our being as a something original and as our own (Heidegger 1962, p. 313). The public world of ‘they’ still discloses to us our possibilities as something, however, it does not determine this world. In ownership of ourselves as Self-they we reclaim authorship of ourselves as Beings-in-the-world.

The possibility of authentic self-authorship presents itself to us in moments of existential anxiety and signals the initial awareness of ourselves as our ownmost Self. It is in realising the inevitability of death and becoming fully aware of it as a fact, that this turn towards the ownmost Self is possible: “[a]nxiety in the face of death is anxiety ‘in the face of’ that potentiality-for-Being” (Heidegger 1962, p. 295). Death is the one possibility we cannot share; it is ours and ours alone as “the end of Dasein, is Dasein’ s ownmost possibility” (Heidegger 1962, p. 303). Moreover, it is that possibility that is both factually certain, yet temporally indeterminate - we know it is inevitable, yet it is always the possibility temporally ahead of us. In its ahead-ness, we perceive ourselves in temporal terms. Our possibilities temporally projected towards death as beings existing now, with our past behind us and our future ahead, the future closed off by the horizon of death. Moreover, this horizon is “non-relational” (Heidegger 1962, p. 303). As such, in non-relation, we are detached from the world of ‘they’ and from ourselves as they-Self - we become free as foreign. Essentially, existential anxiety signifies our first experience of freedom from the objectification of the world as thing. However, this freedom also reveals to us the consequential truth of our finitude, the cost of choice (Heidegger 1962, p. 313).

For Heidegger, the ultimate truth that pegs us to the ontological grounding of our existence is the omnipresent possibility of death (Heidegger 1962, p. 438). It is in understanding our lives as toward death that the consequence of choice is revealed: That in choosing to be something, we also choose to not be something else. In this sense, we are fated in our choices toward definitive possibilities (Heidegger 1962, p. 436). This fate existentially defines us to ourselves as Beings-in-the-world as our choices concretises us factually. It is the possibility of death that illuminates us to our choice to be ourselves, qua Dasein, in totality (Wheeler 2020).

“When Dasein thus brings itself back from the ‘they’, the they‑[S]elf is modified in an existentiell manner so that it becomes authentic Being‑one’s‑Self [Self-they]. This must be accomplished by making up for not choosing. But ‘making up’ for not choosing signifies choosing to make this choice – deciding for a potentiality‑for‑Being, and making this decision from one’s own Self. In choosing to make this choice, Dasein makes possible, first and foremost, its authentic potentiality-for-Being."

(Heidegger 1962, p. 313).

In sum, we have defined Dasein as the being which is the unification of Subject and Object: a being not only in the world, but inseparable from it; a being that cares for its own existence; Dasein as Being-in-the-world. Additionally, that we as beings that care for own existence are ourselves Dasein. Moreover, that in asking who we are as Dasein, we answer as the subjective I of ourselves as Self. That we see this I as separate to the world through distortion of Being-in-the-world. The Self cannot be dissected from the world only interpreted in relation to it. That we as Dasein are subjectively ourselves in terms of the world. In this way, appropriating our sense of Self from the public world of the ‘they’ as they-Self. As they-Self, we are disburdened of the existential fact of our death. Consequently, becoming lost in the tranquilizing comfort this affords, we sign over Self authorship to it and become as anyone is within it. As such, we become inauthentic. We take part in idle-talk; we live as anyone lives; we are as anyone is. We let the world dictate ourselves to us and in so doing our Self conforms to they-Self. Furthermore, it is in this state of distortion we find ourselves most in our everydayness.

However, we can pull ourselves out from this infatuation with the world in moments of existential anxiety. These moments reveal themselves through our awareness of our possibility of having no-possibilities; the possibility of non-existence; our possibility of death. This discloses to us ourselves as temporal beings in the here and now – our past behind us and our future ahead toward the terminal horizon of death – and reveals the truth of our choices.
That in being we are choosing, in choosing we become concretised within the world as there in it. This concreteness also ties us down to the world, limiting and reducing our possibilities irreversibly till our end. In accepting our being as finite, we can recapture and take hold of our Self as they-Self by taking ownership of it and making it our own. In this way, relating ourselves as they-Self to ourselves as Being-in-the-world and interpreting ourselves in our choice originally. As Such, by relating our Self to our Being-in-the-world, they-Self becomes Self-they and thus becomes authentic.

Finally, in his re-raising the question of Being, Heidegger arguably reorients both the perspectives of ourselves and the Western Philosophical tradition. In this respect, nothing quite compares to reading his arguments in his own words for oneself. For my part, within the scope of this discussion, my intention was to do justice in my exposition of them.

References