What is Dasein?

Dasein: existence, being there. And the heart of one of the most problematic works of philosophy.

In the 19th century, there were concerns 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 is authenticity...  
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://www.rep.routledge.com
British Journal for the History of Philosophy: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbjh20
19th century philosophy: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
20th century philosophy: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Being: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Ontology: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Martin Heidegger: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Emotion: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Friedrich Nietzsche: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Animal minds: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...
Existentialism: https://www.rep.routledge.com/article...