The New Yearbook for Phenomenology andPhenomenological Philosophy V (2005): 145-163ISSN 15337472 ISBN 0-9701679-5-4

Being There: Heideggers Formally IndicativeConcept of Dasein1

Sren OvergaardDanish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research

1 . In t roduc t i on

The concept of Dasein is one of the most important concepts in Heideg-gers magnum opus, Sein und Zeit (1927). The reason why Dasein takes the prideof place in that work is fairly straightforward. Heidegger makes it clear from thebeginning that his overall aim is to pose anew a question concerning beingthat has allegedly remained unasked since Aristotle.2 If being is what we want to

1. This paper has been under way for a long time. I am grateful to Thomas SchwarzWentzer for his encouragement and comments on the first draft (ca. 2001). A second versionof the paper was presented at the first annual meeting of the Nordic Society for Phenome-nology in Helsinki, 2003. I benefited from many comments on that occasion, though I nolonger remember who made them. At a much later stage, I benefited from comments bySteven Crowell and an anonymous reviewer for The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenom-enological Philosophy.

2. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 17th edition (Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1993), 2. Henceforthreferences to this text will be made using the abbreviation SZ. Let me at once introduce theother works of Heidegger to which reference will be made more than once in the present ar-ticle (with abbreviations in square brackets): Gesamtausgabe Band 20: Prolegomena zur Geschichtedes Zeitbegriffs [GA 20], ed. Petra Jaeger (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979); Gesam-tausgabe Band 24: Die Grundprobleme der Phnomenologie [GA 24], ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Her-rmann (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975); Gesamtausgabe Band 26: MetaphysischeAnfangsgrnde der Logik [GA 26], ed. Klaus Held (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann,1978); Gesamtausgabe Band 27: Einleitung in die Philosophie [GA 27], eds. Otto Saame and InaSaame-Speidel (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996); Gesamtausgabe Band 29/30: DieGrundbegriffe der Metaphysik [GA 29/30], ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983); Gesamtausgabe Band 60: Phnomenologie des religisen Lebens [GA60], eds. Matthias Jung, Thomas Regehly, and Claudius Strube (Frankfurt a. M.: VittorioKlostermann, 1995); Gesamtausgabe Band 61: Phnomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles [GA61], eds. Walter Brcker and Kte Brcker-Oltmanns (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann,1985); Gesamtausgabe Band 63: Ontologie: Hermeneutik der Faktizitt [GA 63], ed. Kte Brcker-Oltmanns (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1982); Wegmarken [WM], ed. Friedrich-Wil-helm von Herrmann, 3rd edition (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996).

investigate, so Heidegger argues, then we must direct our phenomenologicalgaze at that place where being manifests itself, and that place is the under-standing of being that belongs to the entity (Seiende) we ourselves are. Heideggerlabels the entity in question Dasein. It seems, then, that the inquiry intobeingwhat Heidegger calls ontologydemands a preliminary investigation ofthe entity to which an understanding of being belongs, since the only way to ac-cess the ontological topic is through an analysis of the understanding in whichthe topic manifests itself.3 Put in Heideggers terms, the preliminary investiga-tion, the fundamental ontology, must take the shape of an analytic of Dasein (SZ,13). Hence it is not that Heidegger views the human life as philosophically im-portant as suchhe has no interest in the noisy preoccupation with ones ownlife of the soul (GA 26, 21)rather, he is exclusively dedicated to the pursuitof being, and focuses on Dasein because it is the entity that already stands in anunderstanding relation to being. This is the reason why Sein und Zeit grapplesthroughout with the question of the being of the human being (see SZ, 372).

But why the concept of Dasein as opposed to, say, transcendental sub-jectivity? It is tempting to interpret Heideggers introduction of the concept ofDasein as a clear indication that he has abandoned the notion of the subjectaltogether.4 However, this interpretation would not only make it very difficult toapproach the concept of Dasein and the phenomenological investigations ofthe entity so designated without simply repeating Heideggers statements on theissue, it is even in obvious tension with some of Heideggers own remarks onDaseinat least from the phenomenological decade.5 In the Freiburg lecturecourse from the winter of 1928-29, for example, Heidegger unambiguouslystates that Dasein is his term for the subject, and that his reason for avoiding thetraditional concept is precisely that he intends to perform a thorough revisionof the hitherto reigning concept of the subject [des bisherigen Subjektbegriffes](GA 27, 115). This suggests that it is by focussing on the traditional notion ofthe subject, or subjectivity, that one becomes able to fully appreciate what thenotion of Dasein is intended to accomplish.

My reflections on the concept of Dasein will be divided into four sections.In the first I shall take Husserls paradox of subjectivity as my point of depar-ture, aiming to show how it becomes necessary to pose the question of the being

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3. Heidegger has never expressed this point more lucidly than in his lecture course of the

summer semester of 1927: When we take on the fundamental problem of philosophy, [i.e.,] askabout the meaning of and foundation [Grund] for being, then we mustif we do not want tofantasizemethodically focus on that which makes something like being accessible: on theunderstanding of being that belongs to Dasein (GA 24, 319; see SZ, 372).

4. This is the contention, e.g., of Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann in his Subjekt und Da-sein: Interpretationen zu Sein und Zeit, 2nd edition (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann,1985), 10.

5.The expression is from Theodore Kisiel, The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time (Berke-ley: University of California Press, 1993), 59.

(Sein) of subjectivity. In the second section, I shall briefly outline Heideggersmethod of formal indication, and in the third the notion of Dasein will beunearthed as a formally indicative notion of the entity we have traditionallycalled subjectivity. In the fourth and final section, I shall briefly recapitulate themost important conclusions. In opposition to the claim that the notion of Da-sein signals Heideggers complete abandonment of subjectivity, I shall attemptto show that the concept of Dasein in fact allows us, perhaps for the fist time,to conceptually approach in something like an adequate way that very being thathas traditionally been labeled (transcendental) subjectivity.

2 . T he Pa r adox o f Sub j e c t iv i t y

After claiming in his phenomenological breakthrough work Logische Unter-suchungen (1900-01) that the transcendental ego of the Neo-Kantians was some-thing he had never been able to find, Edmund Husserl admitted some ten yearslater that now he had indeed discovered it. In his second major work, Ideen zueiner reinen Phnomenologie und phnomenologischen Philosophie I (1913), he formulateda transcendental phenomenology in which the notion of the pure, or tran-scendental ego became crucial. Husserl now viewed the constitution of theworld as something that had to take place in, or for this transcendental sub-jectivity. Alongside this transcendental subjectivity, Husserl acknowledged theexistence of a human, mundane subject that belonged to the realm of theconstituted. It is characteristic of Husserls transcendental philosophy that thetranscendental subjectivity is seen as identical with the mundane subject.6 All ofus, according to Husserl, incorporate transcendental subjectivities; we are allboth entities in the world, amidst other mundane entities, and subjects to whomthe world manifests itself.

Husserl realized that this account must appear paradoxical. He himself re-ferred to this as the paradox of subjectivity:7 how can I both be a humanbeing in the worldsomething constitutedand a subject in whom the worldconstitutes itself, all at the same time? How can something that is an insignifi-

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6. See, e.g., Edmund Husserl, Husserliana IX: Phnomenologische Psychologie [henceforth: Hua

IX], ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), 292. As Derrida once put it,this duplication of sense must correspond to no ontological double. Husserl specifies, forexample, that my transcendental ego is radically different from my natural and human ego;and yet it is distinguished by nothing, nothing that can be determined in the natural sense ofdistinction. The (transcendental) ego is not an other. Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays onHusserls Theory of Signs, trans. David B. Allison (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1973), 11-12. What Derrida calls an ontological double here is of course what Hei-degger would call an ontic double, another entity. That the transcendental ego might very wellbe an ontological double in Heideggers sense will appear from the present discussion.

7. Edmund Husserl, Husserliana VI: Die Krisis der europischen Wissenschaften un die transzen-dentale Phnomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel, 2nd edition (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 182,265-266.

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cant part of the world be that in which the whole world is constituted?Husserl never stopped believing that he could dissolve this paradox by carefullydistinguishing between the transcendental subject and the mundane subject, andonly attributing world-constitutive powers to the former. He further believed hecould show the necessity of every transcendental subject constituting not onlyits own private mundane double, but itself as mundanized. But clearly thesemoves do not make all difficulties disappear. A certain fundamental puzzle re-mains, one that it is unlikely that Husserl should have been able to solveespe-cially since he seems never to have recognized the problem. To a reader morefamiliar with Heidegger than Husserl was, the problem is evident, as can be il-lustrated by briefly turning to Husserls discussion with Eugen Fink in the mar-gins of the latters manuscript, the VI. Cartesianische Meditation.

Fink, at that time Husserls closest collaborator and most important criticalinterlocutor, claims at one point in the manuscript that the transcendental can-not as such be regarded as existing, but can only be regarded as the becom-ing of what truly is, viz. the world. What transcendental phenomenologythematizes, according to Fink, are only stages of pre-being [Vorseins] inwhich that which is (the world) constitutively builds itself up.8 Husserl is clearlyuncomfortable with this claim, as his marginal comments to Finks manuscriptdocument. Husserl argues that whereas the transcendental does not exist inthe natural-naive sense of the word, this does not mean that it has no being what-soever. According to Husserl, we have here a reformation (Umbildung) of theconcept of being, rather than an instance where this concept has no applica-tion at all.9 The discussion with Fink makes it evident that Husserl wants toclaim that transcendental subjectivity is something that exists, something thathas being, but that the concept of being which is applicable to this transcendentalsubjectivity is fundamentally different from the one that applies to the world andto mundane entities.

Thus, the following questions seem to become urgent: If the (mode of)being of the mundane subject is the same as that of other mundane entities,while the mode of being of transcendental subjectivity is of a fundamentallydifferent kind, then doesnt the task of describing these modes of being becomecrucial? And would we not have to say that no single mode of being correspondsto the notion of the subject? Is it not the case, rather, that two incompatiblemodes of being (Sein) belong to that being or entity (Seiendes) that we ourselvesare? And is this not a deeper paradox, a fundamental difficulty at the heart ofHusserlian phenomenology, a difficulty whose only solution lies in the explicitposing of the question of the being of subjectivity? Even if Husserl can show thenecessity of a self-mundanization on the part of transcendental subjectivity,

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8. Eugen Fink, VI. Cartesianische Meditation, Teil 1, eds. Hans Ebeling, Jann Holl, and Guy

Van Kerckhoven (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 137.9. Ibid., 137, notes 441-442.

one paradox, the paradox of being, remainsunless Husserl wants to claim(which he does not) that with the mundanization of transcendental subjectivity,the latter disappears, becomes eradicated by a mundane subject that toleratesno rival. In short, isnt Husserl forced to pose the question of the being of sub-jectivity?

As is well known, these questions are the very questions Heidegger con-fronted Husserls phenomenology with. The question of being, Heidegger saidin his Marburg lecture course of the summer of 1925with special emphasison the question of the being of the subjectmust be the most urgent ques-tion (GA 20, 158) for phenomenology. Accordingly, it was a question that Hei-degger himself set out to contemplate, and perhaps in due course answer.

Before we turn to Heidegger, let us pause for a moment and ask how comeHusserl did not see this problem of being.10 It is not as if Heidegger didnt takepains to make it intelligible to Husserl, as the letter from Heidegger to Husserl,dated October 22, 1927, shows. The letter clearly employs a Husserlian idiomtranscendental constitution being one of the key termsand it culminates inthe attempt to make the question of the being of transcendental (constitut-ing) subjectivity appear necessary to Husserl. Heidegger writes: This, the con-crete human being is as suchas an entity never a worldly real fact, becausethe human being is never merely occurrent, but rather exists. And the amazingthing is that the existence-mode of Dasein makes possible the transcendentalconstitution of everything positive (Hua IX, 602). And further on: The con-stituting is not nothing, thus it is somethingalthough not in the sense of thepositive. The question of the mode of being [Seinsart] of the constituting is notto be avoided (ibid.).

How did Husserl respond to this? Judging from the written commentsHusserl kept together with his shorthand copy of Heideggers letter, it seemsthat Husserl concentrated on Heideggers suggestion that the concrete humanbeing might be the place of constitution. Husserl thus emphasizes that man isan occurrent entity (Vorhandenheit) in the world, a real object like anyotherwith the important difference that certain properties (Eigenheiten) belongto the human being, properties that mere material things lack (Hua IX, op. cit.,603). It appears, then, that the idea that one could unveil the human being assomething with a mode of being that makes possible transcendental constitu-tion could not make sense to Husserl. It seems, more precisely, that Husserl per-ceives as self-evident the description of the human being as an occurrententity with additional properties or layers other than those of mere material en-

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10. I assume that Husserl did not see the relevance of Heideggers question of being.

This does not entail, however, that Husserl did not inquire into beingin fact, I am con-vinced that his phenomenology is ultimately concerned precisely with questions of being. Icannot argue these points here, but see Sren Overgaard, Husserl and Heidegger on Being in theWorld (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004), especially chapters 2 and 6.

tities, viz. first and foremost cognitive abilitiesand that considering this sort ofdescription self-evident, Husserl cannot accommodate any question about themode of being of the human being, and he certainly cannot ask whether thatmode of being might be such as to render the human being the place of thetranscendental.

Clearly, then, we need to re-conceptualize the entity we ourselves aretheentity that, according to Husserl, is both something occurrent and the consti-tuting subjectivityif we want to pose the question of the being of this entity.Years before the collapsed collaboration on the Encyclopaedia Britannica article,Heidegger had been struggling to develop just that: a new way of conceptualiz-ing entities, a way that would allow one to pose the question of their modes ofbeing.

3 . Fo r ma l Ind i c a t i on

The recent publication of Heideggers early Freiburg lectures has shed con-siderable light on the hitherto rather obscure question of Heideggers phenome-nological method. Unfolding in some detail the important notion of formalindication (formale Anzeige),11 these lectures in fact not only illuminate the yearspreceding Heideggers Marburg appointment, but also Sein und Zeit itself. In thelatter work the notion of formal indication appears several times, yet is neverexplained in any remotely satisfactory way.12

Formal indication, Heidegger tells us, is a certain methodological stagein phenomenological explication (WM, 29). In his posthumously published re-view of Jaspers Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, Heidegger repeatedly reproachesJaspers for his naive reliance upon mere observation (WM, 42-43). Heideggerargues that one must take the problem of method much more seriously, if oneis to successfully carry out the kind of investigation of human existence thatJaspers intends (WM, 28, 36-37). It is within this more complicated methodolog-

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11. The method of formal indication has attracted considerable attention among Heideg-

ger-scholars. See, e.g., Otto Pggeler, Heideggers logische Untersuchungen, in Martin Hei-degger : Innen- und Auenansichten, eds. Siegfried Blasche, Wolfgang R. Khler, WolfgangKuhlmann, and Peter Rohs (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1989), 75-100, especially 82-89; Th.C. W. Oudemans, Heideggers logische Untersuchungen, Heidegger Studies 6 (1990): 85-105;Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Heideggers Method: Philosophical Concepts as Formal Indications,Review of Metaphysics 47 (1994): 775-795; Ryan Streeter, Heideggers Formal Indication: AQuestion of Method in Being and Time, Man and World 30 (1997): 413-430. Formal indicationplays a major role in Theodore Kisiels The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time, as well as inother recent treatises on Heidegger, such as John van Burens The Young Heidegger: Rumor of theHidden King (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), especially 324-341, and Daniel O.Dahlstroms Heideggers Concept of Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), espe-cially 242-252, 435-445.

12. See SZ, 114, 116-117, 313. Formal indication still plays an important role in Heideg-gers thinking as late as 1929/30. See GA 29/30, 425, 428-432, 435, 441, 491, and passim.

ical structure, which Heidegger presses for, that the notion of formal indicationrepresents a stage. Since I cannot here deal with all aspects of Heideggersmethod and project, but must rather focus exclusively on formal indication, thislatter notion will unavoidably appear somewhat amputated in the following dis-cussion.13

Formal indication has to do with the choice of proper concepts in a philo-sophical investigation. More precisely, it refers to the kind of concepts that onemust use when beginning a philosophical investigation. The method of formal in-dication is thus a philosophical method of beginning (Ansatzmethode) (GA 60,62; GA 61, 141). Heidegger is convinced, on the one hand, that tradition andeveryday truisms can lead a philosophical investigation astray if it uncriticallyemploys traditional or everyday concepts. Yet, on the other hand, he seems toacknowledge the fruitlessness of inventing a wholly new language. Therefore, hesuggests as an alternative that we start out by using concepts that are sufficientlyempty of content not to lend themselves easily to traditional patterns ofthinking about that which is to be the topic of the philosophical investigation.These empty concepts may then be given content at a later stage, when the in-vestigation is well under way in the desired direction (GA 60, 82).

The formally indicative concepts must be empty in the sense that they donot directly contribute to the phenomenological description proper. But thisdoes not mean that they are totally devoid of content. Rather, one can discernboth a negative and positive aspect of formal indication. First, we must em-ploy concepts that fend off undesired connotations: The formal indication [ . . .] possesses [ . . . ] a prohibiting (deterring, preventing) character (GA 61, 141).14

However, we need more from our Ansatzmethode; in addition to the negativewarning we need a positive approach to our future theme. This is also suppliedby formal indication:

There resides in the formal indication a very definite bond; this bond saysthat I stand in a quite definite direction of approach [Ansatzrichtung], and it pointsout the only way of arriving at what is proper [Eigentlichen],15 namely, by ex-hausting and fulfilling what is improperly [uneigentlich] indicated, by following

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13. For a fuller treatment of Heideggers method in the twenties, See Theodore Kisiel,

The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time.14. When quoting from this volume I use Richard Rojcewiczs translation, Phenomenological

Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research (Bloomington: Indiana Universi-ty Press, 2001).

15. The notions authentic and inauthentic (eigentlich, uneigentlich), as they are used inthese lectures, carry none of the connotations they have in Sein und Zeit. Heidegger, rather,appropriates Husserls distinction between authentic and inauthentic thought (eigentlichen unduneigentlichen Denkakten), i.e., between thoughts which only signify and lack intuitive fulfillmentand thoughts which have fulfillment, or rather, are fulfilling acts. See Husserliana XIX/2: Logis-che Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, II. Teil, ed. Ursula Panzer (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,1984), 722. In the same sense, Husserl speaks in his 1907 lectures on thing and space of

the indication. (GA 61, 33)

The method of formal indication, then, is supposed to keep undesired con-notations at bay, and at the same time indicate the itinerary we must follow inorder to reach the right phenomenological description of the matter at hand.Let us focus on this positive aspect of formal indication first. What is thematter at hand? What is the Sache of phenomenology? As is well known, Hei-degger thinks philosophys proper theme is being (Sein), and he insists that philos-ophy as a whole is nothing other than ontology. Therefore, what formalindication indicates, what it leads us towards, must be being: Being is what is in-dicated formally and emptily, and yet it strictly determines the direction of theunderstanding (GA 61, 61). Formally-indicative concepts, then, are conceptsthat somehow indicate being, lead us in the direction of being.

As for the negative aspect, it is quite natural to assume that formal indica-tioninsofar as it is supposed to direct us to being (Sein)must prohibit anyexchange of the ontological theme with an ontic theme, i.e., must counter anytendency to focus on entities and their properties rather than being. That this isindeed the prohibition Heidegger has in mind is indicated by the following pas-sage:

The formal indication prevents every drifting off into autonomous, blind,dogmatic attempts to fix the categorical sense, attempts which would be de-tached from the presupposition of the interpretation, from its preconception,its nexus, and its time, and which would then purport to present an sich deter-minations of an objectivity, which has not been discussed with regard to itsmeaning of being [Ansichbestimmtheiten einer auf ihren Seinssinn undiskutiertenGegenstndlichkeit]. (GA 61, 142)

This passage is extremely revealing, if not exactly beautiful. First of all, itreveals what is perhaps the greatest obstacle to Heideggers phenomenologicalontology, namely that we never discuss something like modes of being, nei-ther in everyday life nor in philosophical treatises. We tend, rather, to vieweverything as either itself an object, or a property of an objectan objectwhose mode (or meaning) of being has never been inquired about. In otherwords, we tend to overlook the ontological issue, and focus exclusively on onticissues, issues regarding entities and their properties. As we will see in more detail

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the authentic manifestation (eigentliche Erscheinung) and the inauthentic manifestation (un-eigentliche Erscheinung), the two modes of manifestation attributed to the front side and theback side, respectively, of the perceived spatial object. See Husserliana XVI: Ding und Raum,ed. Ulrich Claesges (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 50. Heideggers notion of formalindication is thus closely associated with Husserls theory of empty and fulfilled intentionsfrom the VI. Logische Untersuchung. See to this Daniel Dahlstrom, Heideggers Method, andSteven Galt Crowell, Question, Reflection, and Philosophical Method in Heideggers EarlyFreiburg Lectures, in Husserl, Heidegger, and the Space of Meaning (Evanston, Illinois: North-western University Press, 2001), 129-151 and 282-287, especially 137-144.

later, overlooking or ignoring the question of being does not ensure ontologicalneutralityquite the contrary. If we fail to explicitly raise the issue of being,we are sure to take a certain inherited notion of being for granted, according towhich to be means to be present-at-hand or ocurrent (vorhanden): that is, tobe there in space and time, located among other spatio-temporal entities, or tomerely occur in some non-spatial way (e.g., as a psyche, a bearer of mentalstates). Second, the passage is clear that it is precisely the method of formal indi-cation that is supposed to prevent us from drifting off into ontologically blindand dogmatic ontic ways of conceptualizing entities.

At this point, both the negative and the positive aspects of formal indica-tions should be clear to us. On the one hand, formal indication prevents us fromdiscussing ontic matters for as long as we are doing ontological phenomenology.It prevents us, one could say, from falling victim to a metabasis eis allo genos, substi-tuting the matter at hand with a completely different Sache. To put it differently,formal indication commands ontic silence for as long as we are doing ontological phenome-nology.16 On the other handto turn to the positive aspectit points towardsbeing, it helps to direct our gaze towards the ontological problematic. Employing formal-ly indicative concepts, then, means employing concepts that both make it diffi-cult to conceptualize entities in terms of their properties, strata, or evenSpinozan attributes, and point towards a thematization of the modes of beingof entitiesconcepts that, as it were, lock our target on the theme of being.

One may feel that there is something suspicious about this notion of for-mal indication, the way I have presented it here. For example, it might beclaimed that what I have said is tautological, or at the very least obvious and triv-ial given Heideggers ontological question. When aiming to do ontology, weshould prevent an ontic problematic from interfering, while we strive to focuson the ontological problematicsurely, this goes without saying? Of course itdoes, but we must not forget that the problems we are dealing with here areproblems of language. Since being is the subject of neither everyday nor ex-plicit philosophical discussion, according to Heidegger, not only do we need tobring it into view, but we also need to use concepts that will further this thematiza-tion and allow us to remain focused on it. There is something obvious in thisit goes without saying that one should always describe something using thoseconcepts that are most suited to such a descriptionbut the crucial point is thatit is very far from obvious which concepts to use in ontological phenomenology.

At this point, however, one could introduce another sort of objection.How does one go about determining which formally indicative concepts tochoose, given that the concepts themselves are supposed to be what direct ourgaze? And further, how is the mere use of a particular word supposed to direct

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16. In John van Burens words, formal indication remains ontically non-committal. The

Young Heidegger, 337.

our gaze at something like being in the first place?17 There are no easy answersto these questions. But I think the proper replies to both questions should besought by way of spelling out in detail other aspects of the phenomenologicalmethod Heidegger is working with. Remember that Heidegger says formal indi-cation is a certain methodological stage in phenomenological explication(WM, 29); it alone is not the whole method of phenomenology. Formal indica-tions, I would claim, should be introduced only when we already have somethinglike modes or manners of being in view. When we already have some grasp ofphenomena in terms of their being, then we also have some rough notion ofwhat concepts to avoid. And Heideggers final claim is that if we have come thatfar, then we are also able to pick out concepts that (positively) help us to stay fo-cused on the ontological problematic. Of course, the big question then becomeswhat methodological tool might be used to get us in the position of havingmanners or modes of being in view. I think something like Husserls epochmakes a significant contribution to bringing this about; but the issue is contro-versial to say the least. In lieu of providing what in the context of this paper isbound to be a superficial and sketchy argument for the claim that the epoch isimportant here,18 I will put the matter to a side with a quotation from Heideg-gers Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs:

This bracketing of the entity [i.e., the epoch] takes nothing away from theentity itself, nor does it purport to assume that the entity is not. This reversalof perspective has rather the sense of making the being [Seinscharakter] of theentity present. This phenomenological suspension of the transcendent thesishas but the sole function of making the entity present in regard to its being.(GA 20, 136)

In the hope that the basic idea behind formal indication is now somewhatless mysterious, I will turn next to Heideggers concept of Dasein. AlthoughHeidegger does not seem to state this explicitly anywhere, Dasein is, as I willattempt to show, a paradigmatic example of a formally indicative concept.19

4 . T he Conce p t o f Dase in

Dasein, Heidegger says, is the entity (Seiendes) we ourselves are (SZ, 7),the entity usually labeled the subject or the human being. In other words,Dasein is an ontic notionit does not denote being, or a mode of being, but a

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17. These objections were brought to my attention by Steven Crowell.18. A more extensive argument for the claim is found in Overgaard, Husserl and Heidegger

on Being in the World, chapter 3.19. As examples of formal indications, Heidegger gives existence and death, but not

Dasein, as far as I know. However, he does emphasize that all his philosophical conceptsshould be understood as formal indications (GA 29/30, 430), so Dasein is obviously in-cluded. Daniel Dahlstrom has argued that Dasein is a formally indicative concept, but notin connection with the points that I am pursuing here. See Dahlstrom, Heideggers Concept ofTruth, 290.

particular entity. It does so, however, in a formally indicative way. In order tobring this point into focus, it might be advisable first to discuss briefly why Hei-degger thinks the usual way we conceptualize the human being or the subject isontologically problematic.

Heidegger is well aware that human being (Mensch) does not necessarilyhave the connotation of animal rationale. There are other ways of conceiving theentity we ourselves are, notably those associated with the notion of the per-son (SZ, 48; GA 63, 21). Although this latter conception of the human beingincorporates an important insight into the being of the human being (namely,into its transcending character), both these ways of conceptualizing the kindof entity we ourselves are have in common a curious lack of interest [Bedrfnis-losigkeit] in posing the question concerning the being of the so conceived entity(SZ, 46). And ignoring ontological questions does not in the least ensure onto-logical neutrality, as Heidegger attempts to demonstrate. Take the conception ofthe human being as a unity of body and consciousness, for instance. Nei-ther the body nor consciousness is explicitly interrogated regarding itsmode of being (SZ, 48, 56), so the unity made up of these (the human being) isbound to be ontologically obscure (SZ, 56). This does not mean that no modeof being is presupposed, however, but rather that the idea of being underlyingthis conception remains that of simply occurring, either in terms of occupyingsome space in the physical world or in terms of being some non-spatial andnon-material substance underlying non-material states and qualities. Implicitly,Heidegger charges, the guiding idea is always that of a pre-given thing of somesort (GA 63, 21), and the manner of being attributed to it as a matter of courseis invariably that of presence-at-hand or onhandness (Vorhandensein) alongthe lines of non-human things (SZ, 49). According to Heidegger, the notion ofsubject fares no better. Regardless of whether one dismisses the soul-sub-stance as well as the thingliness of consciousness and the objectivity of the per-son, it still amounts ontologically to positing something the being of which,explicitly or not, retains the meaning of presence-at-hand (SZ, 114). One caninsist ever so uncompromisingly that the subject is no thing; in the absence ofan explicitly posed question of being, this amounts only to ontic noise, and theontology of Vorhandensein silently retains its sovereignty (see SZ, 46, 320).

How is the concept of Dasein supposed to improve on this situation? Thefirst thing to notice about this concept is its prohibitive character. Daseinthere-being, being-there, being-herewhat does it mean? We cannot im-mediately say, and that is precisely the point. This concept in no way facilitates,in fact it obstructs, any thinking about this entity in terms of parts, proper-ties, layers, states. It does not even hint at consciousness, or body, oranything of that sort. In short, it makes impossible any immediate lapse into

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ontic characterizations of the entity we ourselves are.20 Subject and humanbeing, in contrast, easily invoke ideas of consciousness, mental states, a body, asoul, and the like. That is, they lead immediately to considerations of an ontic na-ture, considerations that are all the more ontologically loaded because of theirontological silence. Although an ontic notion in the sense that it denotes an entityrather than a mode of being, the concept of Dasein has the special feature ofbeing ontically silent, in fact hindering any ontic consideration of the entity weourselves are. Dasein, therefore, displays the negative aspect characteristic of aformally indicative concept.

But, Heidegger points out, this does not mean that Dasein has only anegative function. As he explains, [t]his label Dasein for the mentioned out-standing entity does not denote any what; it does not distinguish this entity ac-cording to its what, like a chair in contrast to a house, but rather it expresses, inits own way, the manner of being [die Weise zu sein] (GA 20, 205). In other words,Dasein not only prohibits ontic considerations, but also leads the way to thespecific question of the being of the entity thus labeled. It denotes the entity weourselves are (ontic) in such a way that we are denied any recourse to ontic char-acterizations at the same time as we are directed towards the question of themode of being (ontological) proper to the human being. The concept of Da-sein, accordingly, displays the positive as well as the negative trait characteristicof formally indicative concepts.

What, then, does Dasein indicate about the mode of being of the humanbeing, about the subjectivity of the subject (see GA 27, 72)? First of all, let usrecall that formal indications are not themselves descriptions, but rather the kindof concepts to be used at the outset of a phenomenological investigation, so asto prepare the ground for the descriptive phenomenological-ontological workproper. That is to say, we may not expect the positive content of the conceptof Dasein to constitute a complete theory of the being of the subject. To besure, it expresses, in its own way, the manner of being, but its own way is theformally indicative way. With this caution in mind, however, it is in fact possibleto indicate several aspects of the being of the human being using nothing butthe concept of Dasein as a guiding clue. Etymology aside, Dasein is, in Hei-deggers use of it, to be read as a conjunction of the two concepts of Da andSein. Neither of these is supposed to be understood in any even remotelyprofound manner, in fact they can be perfectly adequately translated here (or

20. John Sallis, Delimitations: Phenomenology and the End of Metaphysics, 2nd, expanded edition(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 109: But why Dasein and not simply man(Mensch)? Certainly there could be no beings with the character of Dasein who would not alsobe men, nor conversely. The point is that the designation Dasein is open to a radically differentway of thematizing the being so designated, in contrast to a designation such as man, in whicha virtually uncontrollable complex of presuppositions is operative, most notably, those con-nected with the determination of man as rational animal.

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there) and being.21 So the human being is a there, i.e., a locus, aplacebeing (sein) human is being that place (Da) (see GA 20, 349). A place,of course, is something that can be occupied by someone or something. For in-stance, in the place where my desk now stands there was an armchair previously.A there is something in which something can manifest itself (a desk, anarmchair), it is a sphere of dis-closedness (Erschlossenheit) into which somethinglike desks and armchairs can enter. As Heidegger says, [t]he expression thereindicates this essential disclosedness (SZ, 132). So being-there, accordingly,indicates that disclosedness simply is the manner of being characteristic of thehuman being. Dasein is the entity that is something like a there (GA 27, 136).To be human is to be a there, that is, to be a sphere of disclosedness (SZ, 132-133). This, on Heideggers account, formally indicates a number of further spec-ifications of the being of the human being. Of the three indications Heideggermentions, let me consider two.22

First, a human being is a dimension of disclosedness in the sense that otherentities, whether with the mode of being of equipment (Zeug) or mere occur-rent entities (Vorhandenes), or indeed other humans, are manifest to a humanbeing. These entities, moreover, are manifest in and through a nexus of refer-encesin order to and for the sake of or what Heidegger calls the world(see SZ, 74-75, 364). Being a there, then, means being the peculiar place forthe whole of what is (GA 27, 360), or to put it differently, being-in-the-world(In-der-Welt-sein) (SZ, 53). Because Heidegger believes that entities can only mani-fest themselves if their mode of being is understood, then by implication, beingthe place where all that is manifests itself means being the site of the under-standing of being (Sttte des Seinsverstndnisses).23 Although Heidegger doesnotas far as I knowexplicitly endorse this reading anywhere, Da-Seincould then perfectly well be understood to signify the place of being, the place(Da) where (modes of) being (Sein) and therefore also entities manifest them-

21. See Dahlstroms comments on the proper translation of this concept, Heideggers Con-cept of Truth, xxiii-xxv.

22. An aspect I shall not take into account is the dimension of disclosedness to ones ownDasein: Not only is the world disclosed in its significance [Bedeutsamkeit] in the letting-be-en-countered [Begegnenlassen] of concern, [disclosed] as an oriented Wherein of the being of Da-sein, but Dasein is itself, in its being-in, there, itself for itself there (GA 20, 348). Also when aDasein resides alone amidst something occurrent is its being amidst . . . manifest; and pre-cisely also when the Dasein in question does not notice [erfat] itself and reflect upon itself atall [ . . . ], also when it, in its being-amidst the occurrent, does not think of itself. The beingamidst . . . is thus manifest before all objectification through others and for itself [fr sich selb-st] (GA 27, 134). For a recent study of Heideggers account of subjectivity that lays specialemphasis on this problem of self-awareness, see Steven Crowell, Subjectivity: Locating theFirst-Person in Being and Time, Inquiry 44 (2001): 433-454.

23. Sein und Zeit, 439, marginal note b to p. 8. In the Niemeyer edition of the book (theone I am using here), the marginal notes are only printed in the 15th and later editions.

selves.24 Clearly, on this reading, the indication inherent in the concept of Da-sein displays a deep structural kinship with Husserls concept of transcenden-tal subjectivity, rather than (as Husserl thought) with the latters notion of themundane subject, the human being.25 Indeed, to quote once again from Hei-deggers 1927 letter to Husserl, Dasein indicates nothing but the place of thetranscendental (Hua IX, 601). The crucial point to keep in mind, however, isthat we may not take this to mean that a Dasein could be there, could merelyoccur, without this transcendental disclosedness. Nor is the disclosednessany relation that becomes established between the human subject and being,or the world, but rather, disclosedness is the very manner of being of the human being,as pointed out above (see WM, 138).

A second indication implied in the concept of Dasein is that the dimen-sion of openness or disclosedness that constitutes being-there is essentiallyalso an openness to others. As Heidegger puts it, as being amidst occurrent enti-ties Dasein is itself manifest [ . . . ]; qua Dasein, it is unhidden, also when noother Dasein in fact notices it (GA 27,129). The disclosedness of Dasein isalso a manifestness to an external perceiver, whether in fact one is present ornot; as a sphere of openness, Dasein has already entered into the others mani-festness [Offenbarkeit] (GA 27, 138). How this insight naturally leads Heideggerinto a discussion of intersubjectivity, or Mitsein, need not concern us here. Thepoint I am trying to illustrate is simply that Heidegger uses the Da of Dasein toconvey not only the disclosedness of a world, and of being, and uncoverednessof entities to the human being, but also how that entity in its being is itself dis-closed or, even better, exposed. Not only in the sense that it is exposed to an ex-ternal perceiver, but also in the sense that it is exposed to the world, i.e.,vulnerable. We humans, as Heidegger observes, are together with [in eins mit] themanifestness of the present-at-hand also manifest (GA 27, 134).

Now if the first mentioned indication could, in some sense, be interpretedas a redefinition of transcendental subjectivity, then this last mentioned aspectseems only to belongin a Husserlian opticto the mundane subject. Afterall, Husserls transcendental subjectivity may perfectly well be the place of themanifestation of all that is, the dative of manifestation,26 but as such, it ishardly itself something manifest. Surely, only the mundane subject is manifest inthis manner. But Heidegger, we recall, was highly critical of this differentiationbetween a transcendental and a mundane, or human subject, arguing instead

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24. For some corroboration of this reading, see John Sallis, Delimitations, 112-118. Similar-

ly, Otto Pggeler, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers, 4th edition (Stuttgart: Gnther Neske, 1994),259-260.

25. For Husserls anthropological understanding of Heideggers concept of Dasein,see Randbemerkungen Husserls zu Heideggers Sein und Zeit und Kant und das Problem derMetaphysik, ed. Roland Breeur, Husserl Studies 11 (1994): 3-63, especially 12-13.

26. This expression is from Thomas Prufer, Heidegger, Early and Late, and Thomas

that the concrete human being could not have the being of a worldly real fact,but should precisely be conceived as having a mode of being that (this is theamazing thing) makes possible the constitution of such worldly real facts(Hua IX, op. cit., 602). To put it differently, Dasein might signify being-in-the-world, but it does not signify being-intraworldly (innerweltlich) (GA 24, 240).27 Thisis precisely what the concept of Dasein indicates to us: being a there is notbeing on hand, is not merely occurring, but rather being a place of disclosednessof being (Sein) and of a world, yet a place of disclosedness that is itself disclosed.The Da carries both these meanings. Dasein never has the being-mode[Seinsart] of within the world merely at-hand (SZ, 43), but on the other hand itis, in a quite literal sense, in the world and not just related to the world. Beinga there, Dasein is also exposed.28 As Heidegger puts it in his first Marburg lec-ture course, Dasein is in the world in the way that it has the world visible. Having-visible means the co-visibility [Mit-sichtig-sein] of that entity that is in the world.This co-visibility is expressed in the Da.29

To accentuate how this amounts to an important revision of the notion ofthe transcendental subject (more precisely, of that subjects mode of being), letme briefly reintroduce a more traditional conception of subjectivity. ForHusserl, to be sure, the mundane subject, the human being, is the subject in-sofar as it is in the world. Considered as a transcendental subjectivity, however,the subject is not in the world, but the one to whom the world and everythingintra-mundane (including the same subject, considered as mundane) manifestsitself. Yet from very early on, Husserl was working his way towards conceivingthe transcendental subject as a bodily subject, an effort that Merleau-Ponty would

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Aquinas in Edmund Husserl and the Phenomenological Tradition, ed. Robert Sokolowski (Washing-ton, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 197-215, especially 200.

27. As one recent commentator puts it, while the traditional modern interpretationseems to adhere to a notion of subjectivity as a thing that is not in the world, Heidegger in-troduces an interpretation according to which subjectivity is a Being-in-the-world that is not athing; Einar verenget, Seeing the Self: Heidegger on Subjectivity (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998), 2.Two cautions, however. First, Heidegger insists that even those who resist ever so stubbornlythe interpretation of subjectivity as a thing fall prey to the interpretation of subjectivity ason hand, as merely occurrent (SZ, 46, 114). Second, I am not sure that Husserl would agreewith the traditional modern interpretation that verenget outlines. After all, Husserls tran-scendental subject eventually turns out to be a bodily subject.

28. The key concept that Heidegger employs to capture part of this exposedness is, ofcourse, the concept of Befindlichkeitone of the existentials of Dasein. I shall not, however,address the particulars of Heidegger analysis of Befindlichkeit and moods, but instead focus onthe broad issue of how Dasein constitutes an apt formally indicative reformulation of tran-scendental subjectivity.

29. Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe Band 17: Einfhrung in die phnomenologische Forschung, ed.Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994), 288-289.

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later develop into a full-blown phenomenology of incarnate existence.30 As abodily subject, the transcendental subject would seem not to be extra-mundanein any strong sense, and it would certainly be exposed to the gaze of othertranscendental subjects. Indeed, it is through this bodily existence of the subjectthat Husserl, in the Cartesianische Meditationen, is able to establish the existence oftranscendental intersubjectivity.31 In his analysis of the body, then, Husserlwould seem to redefine transcendental subjectivity along precisely the same linesas Heidegger, perhaps even in a more concrete and lucid manner.32 Does notbodily subject convey much more lucidly what Heidegger struggles to bringout in his abstract reflections on the there? It appears quite understandablethat Husserlians are happy to emphasize that Heidegger explicitly refuses to giveany account of the body in Sein und Zeit (see SZ, 108).

But let us view the matter with ontological eyes. Is Husserls and Merleau-Pontys talk of the body in fact an apt way to indicate the being of the subject?Is it not rather the case that in order for the phenomenology of the embodiedsubject to be ontologically adequate, an ontological elucidation of the humanbeing must be presupposed? Even Merleau-Pontywho more than anyone elsehas emphasized that we are our body,33 rather than some thinking substancesomehow connected with a bodystill occasionally speaks of consciousness ashaving or inhabiting a body.34 That is, he falls back, at times, into a mannerof expressing himself that strongly resembles the dualistic position he has al-ready overcome. Of course, these few references taken out of their context willsuffice for a criticism of Merleau-Ponty, but they may serve to bring to light

30. For Husserls early reflections on world-constitution and kinesthetic body, see Husser-

liana XVI: Ding und Raum, and Husserliana IV: Ideen zu einer reinen Phnomenologie und phnomenol-ogischen Philosophie, zweites Buch, ed. Marly Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952).Merleau-Ponty knew some of Husserls manuscriptsamong them Ideas IIfrom first-handstudies at the Husserl-Archive in Leuven, Belgium, and Husserls presence is felt throughoutthe pages of Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception.

31. See Edmund Husserl, Husserliana I: Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortrge, ed.Stephan Strasser, 2nd edition (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991), 121-178. For arguments to the effectthat the theory of the experience of the other presented in the Cartesian Meditations shouldnot, in fact, be seen as establishing intersubjectivity, but ratheraccording to other Husserl-manuscriptsas presupposing more original forms of intersubjectivity, see Dan Zahavi, Husserlund die transzendentale Intersubjektivitt (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996) and James G. Hart, The Personand the Common Life (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992). At any rate, it can hardly be contested that, ifnot in all relevant texts, then at least in the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl attempts to establishintersubjectivity through an experience of the bodily presence of the other subject.

32. Daniel Dahlstrom concedes that Husserls account of the kinesthetic movements ofthe body clearly indicates a tangible level of transcendence [ . . . ]indeed, a level of transcen-dence, in relation to which, Heideggers talk of being-in-the-world or being-here has anoddly abstract, even gnostic ring (Heideggers Concept of Truth, 164).

33. Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge 1962), 206.34. See, e.g., Phenomenology of Perception, 351.

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what Heideggers concern ultimately is. There are, I believe, places in Sein undZeit where Heidegger hints that his reason for refusing to discuss the body couldbe precisely his desire to avoid anything resembling Cartesian dualism with itsfateful ontological consequences. Let us recall that the there of Dasein meantboth the disclosedness of world, entities, and their being, and an exposedness, adisclosedness to an external perceiver. Now as Heidegger points out in Seinund Zeit, it is tempting to construe the first characteristic as belonging to thesoul, and the other as having to do with the bodily nature (Leiblichkeit) of thesubjecta Leiblichkeit easily conceived as founded in corporeality (Krper-lichkeit).35 We have then essentially returned to a dualistic stance. The humanbeing is construed as a union of (physical) body and soul, and the being of thethus composed entity as such is all the more obscure (SZ, 56). Even if the bodyis not construed as founded in a physical body, the ontological problem of howto understand the being of the whole human being (des ganzen Menschen) isbound to appear utterly perplexing (see SZ, 48; GA 20, 173). In Heideggersview, this inevitably remains the curse of the theories of the embodied sub-ject, as long as the ontological question has not been explicitly posed. We areleft with a number of different domainsconsciousness, body, sensuousness,and so onbut what holds them together? What is the being-character of thewhole being [des ganzen Seins]?this is what Heidegger wants to know.36 Husserland others might be on the right track, but they lack the proper terminology tomake intelligible how a human being, after all, is one entity, with one mode ofbeing. Heidegger, in other words, ignores the body in Sein und Zeit precisely inorder to be able to thematize the being of the human (transcendental, bodily)subject.37

With the formally indicative concept of Dasein we have paved the wayfor a phenomenological elaboration of precisely this question: what manner of

35. The distinction between Leib (lived body) and Krper (physical body) has beenmade famous by Husserl. See Husserliana VI: Die Krisis der europischen Wissenschaften und dietranszendentale Phnomenologie, 109.

36. Martin Heidegger, Wilhelm Diltheys Forschungsarbeit und der gegenwrtigenKampf um eine historische Weltanschauung, ed. Frithjof Rodi, Dilthey-Jahrbuch fr Philosophieund Geschichte der Geisteswissenschaften 8 (1992-93): 143-180, 162. This article consists of ten lec-tures Heidegger gave in Kassel in 1925.

37. That Heidegger is by no means oblivious of the phenomenon of embodiment is ar-gued by David Michael Levin in his The Ontological Dimension of Embodiment: Heideg-gers Thinking of Being, in The Body: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Donn Welton(Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 122-149. See also Sren Overgaard, Heidegger on Embodiment,Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 35 (2004): 116-131. A completely different perspec-tive is adopted by Lilian Alweiss in her book The World Unclaimed: A Challenge to Heideggers Cri-tique of Husserl (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2003). Pace Alweiss (The World Unclaimed,87), Heidegger is quite clear that Dasein should not be conceived of as disembodied: thewhole being of the human being [is] characterized in such a way that it must be grasped as thebodily being-in-the-world [leibmige In-der-Welt-sein] of the human being. Heidegger, Gesamtaus-

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being belongs to the human being? With the notion of there, we are equippedto understand how being human means both to be a place of disclosednesswhere everything that appears appears, and to be a place of disclosedness that isitself disclosed. We can understand this, moreover, as aspects of the one singlemode of being of this entity. In other words, we are not forced to construe thesubject as tormented by a split personality, as having two, completely differentmodes of being, and yet at the same time we can bring to light both how thesubject is literally in the world, and is in the world precisely as the dative of man-ifestation of this world. With the formally indicative concept of Dasein, then,we are conceptually equipped, perhaps for the first time, to approach the sub-jectivity of the subject (GA 27, 72).38 And if we do so, we might discover howour insights into the being of Dasein converge with Husserls (and Merleau-Pontys) deepest insights into the bodily nature of transcendental subjectivity.

5 . Conc lu s i on

In kind of a zigzag fashion (a term both Husserl and Heidegger applied totheir phenomenological method), moving continuously back and forth betweena traditional notion of the subject and Heideggers formally-indicative con-cept of Dasein, I have tried to substantiate the claim that with the concept ofDasein we become able to understand, in a deeper way, perhaps, than was hith-erto possible, the kind of entity we ourselves are. With the concept of Daseinwe have the conceptual means to make intelligible how (to express the point in aHusserlian idiom) we can both be mundane entities, in the world, and tran-scendental subjectivitiesand how we can exhibit both these traits in one and thesame mode of being. Human beings are never merely on hand within the world, butrather, we are there in the double sense of being the sphere of disclosednessof a world (and of being, and entities), and being ourselves disclosed. It iswrong, at this point, simply to introduce the body into the account. The conceptof body invokes the notion of the presence of a particular entity distinguish-able from other entities, and even if one is ever so emphatic that conscious-ness is not related to the body like the sailor to the ship,39 the dualistic picturetends continually to assert itself anew. Rather than preparing the ground, then,for an adequate ontology of the subject, the bodyif prematurely intro-gabe Band 18: Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, ed. M. Michalski (Frankfurt a. M.: Vitto-rio Klostermann, 2002), 199.

38. See, too, Heideggers Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 5th

edition (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991), 87.39. As Descartes, of course, would be the first to emphasize. Nature also teaches me [ . .

. ] that I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but that I am veryclosely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit. ThePhilosophical writings of Descartes, Vol. II, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and DugaldMurdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 56.

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ducedonly obscures the ontological question. It is starting from the formal in-dication of Da-Sein that one should attempt to reach the problems of con-sciousness and embodimentnot vice versa. On the basis of Heideggersconcept of Dasein, it is possible to make intelligible the phenomena of bodyand consciousness, but starting from either of the last mentioned, the chancesof reaching an ontologically adequate understanding of the entity we ourselvesare, are poor (see SZ, 207).40

Yet we must bear in mind that Dasein is only a formally indicative con-cept, and in fact all that has been said in the present article must be understoodas nothing but formal indications. What I have said about the being of thehuman being has, at best, pointed to a direction for takeoff, and, ideally atleast, it should be cashed in and fulfilled subsequently (GA 61, 33). At anyrate, it is important that one does not rest content with extracting theses outof Heideggers discussion of Daseine.g., that Heidegger dismisses the no-tion of the embodied subject and replaces it with the notion of Dasein, or thatHeidegger dismisses the notion of a transcendental subjectivity altogether.Rather, in a dialogue with the tradition that Heidegger is himself in constantdialogue with, one should try to probe ever deeper into the issue of how, if atall, Heideggers re-conceptualization of the subject might constitute a genuinebreakthrough. We must take Heideggers phenomenology of Dasein as provid-ing only hints that it is up to us to develop and critically evaluate. Perhaps this isthe right place to recall an old and resigned Heideggers reply to WilliamRichardsons questions:

I hesitate with my answers, for they are necessarily no more than indications[Hinweise]. The lesson of long experience leads me to surmise that such indi-cations will not be understood as an invitation to engage personally in thebusiness of thinking the matter through for oneself. [Instead,] the indicationswill be taken up as opinions expressed by me, and will be propagated assuch.41

40. See Otto Pggeler, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers, 260: When Heidegger thus thinks

the human beings as the place, the There of being [Da des Seins] [ . . . ], then the questions ofthe body-soul-spirit-union of the human beings, and of the organization of society and histo-ry are not therefore precluded; the point is precisely to find the foundation upon which thesequestions must be posed. See, too, Steven Galt Crowell, Husserl, Heidegger, and the Space ofMeaning, 212-213.

41. Heidegger, Preface/Vorwort, in William J. Richardson, S. J., Martin Heidegger:Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), VIII-XXIII. The quota-tion is from VIII/IX. The translation is in part that of William J. Richardson.