Interlude: Musings of the Fellowship, Part IV

In the few days that followed, Wittgenstein and Levinas were making great progress in healing. At times they even took part in conversations, but when I tried to ask about their experiences, they fell silent and their faces turned dark. Whatever horrors they have endured remained between them. Levinas told us that he too had wandered into the Citadel BAT to find the answer to the question of Being, but said that he was not altogether satisfied with the secrets it held. There was too much egoism here, he complained: the analysis of Dasein was too much centered on the individual and cared too little of the world of Others, of the relationships among which we live. When I pressed him about it, he did not want to explicate further and only said that "you will see for yourself." True enough, I thought, for I had come here to witness the Citadel for myself, and that is exactly what I shall do.

Dasein-Toni: Isn't Wittgenstein pretty when he sleeps? Just like a baby!
Kant: Yeah, he surely is. Lips pursing and all. And look: there is some drool on his pillow! How adorable!
DT: *chuckles* It is indeed. And he is such a good chap all around... hehe, I once heard this story about him. Want to hear it?
K: Sure, go right ahead.
DT: Well, Witty is very ascetic and likes routines. So, this one time he was visiting a friend in a great mansion, and the butler wanted to know what his favourite food was so that they could cook it for the nights festivities. Right. And guess what Wittgenstein answered?
K: Smashed potatoes?
DT: Uhh? No... that wouldn't be funny now would it?
K: Well, Smashing Pumpkins then? Haahaa!
DT: Very clever, wiseass.
K: Thanks.
DT: Oh, well, anyhow, he responded: "I don't care, as long as it is the same!" Haha, what a chap!
K: The same as what?
DT: Huh?
K: You said, "as long as it is the same." I asked: the same as what?
DT: What?! The same... just the same!
K: You can't say "the same" unless you specify the thing it is "the same" to. It's like saying "my nose is funnier than" or "raccoons are identical." That's a violation of the syntax of language.
DT: Oh, come on, you dillweed! It just means that his favourite food is the same, that he likes to eat the same food. That's how addicted to routines he is. I am sure you understand that.
K: No, as a matter of fact I do not understand the nonsense you spew out. I don't care how routined he is, he still can't break the laws of syntax.
DT: You are hopeless.
K: At least I am proficient in language.
DT: You are just a horribly pedantic nitpicking asshole that has no sense of humour.
K: No I am not.
DT: Yes you are.
K: You are.
DT: Fuck... I'm through with this crap. Why don't you give a synopsis of what we have learned instead of being a prick.
K: I will not.
DT: What?
K: I don't want to. You hurt my feelings.
DT: Come on, now. Don't be a baby.
K: Well, you seem to like Wittgenstein as a baby!
DT: Uhh... okay, what's this?
K: Nothing. Forget it.
DT: Kant... are you jealous?
K: No! No I am not. I don't care. You can like Witty as much as you want to. Go ahead. Never mind me.
DT: Oh, Kant, you fuzzy buzzy little pumpkin, come here! I still love you, my napkin.
K: Oh, grizzly-Toni, I've been so lonely lately! *sniff*
DT: That's okay, come here, let it all out...

Heartrending moments later...

DT: Could you give us the synopsis now, please?
K: Well, okay. Here goes. In the latest passages Heidegger examines the way in which Dasein exists in the world. He calls this manner of being being-in-the-world. The basic idea seems to be that the certain intensionality, or directedness, of Dasein creates a relation between the world and Dasein. This relation could perhaps be characterized as consciousness.
DT: Yeah, Dasein's ability to question its existence sort of creates a second-order being: being that not only is, but is also able to reflect on its being.
K: That's right. It is this reflexive relation that creates consciousness. A reflexive relation is, of course, a relation in which something is related to itself, in this case a being is related to itself through reflection.
DT: Of course. But didn't you have a similar thesis?
K: I sure did. The whole point of transcendental unity of apperception is that in order for us to be conscious to begin with, we must be able to say "I think" of any representation we have.
DT: You mean, of course, that consciousness arises when a being thinks of itself. That consciousness is nothing but continuous apperception.
K: Precisely. One could say that consciousness arises when a subject that examines an object takes itself as the object of examination: the subject examines subject and thus objectifies itself. The subject-as-an-object is the self we experience.
DT: Simply put: when a subject realises that when it examines a certain object it is in fact examining itself, then it becomes conscious. It sort of realises itself as a being among other beings. It is like a mental analogy for realising that the thing reflected in a mirror is oneself - indeed something that is often taken as a sign of consciousness - perhaps faultily though, because the inability to realise this may as well be a result of different eyesight or other factors.
K: Right. So we could say that Heidegger has the same sort of idea here: that the being of a being that realises its own being is different from the being of a being that does not realise its being.
DT: Whoa! Well, I guess it makes sense when I think of it - just seems like a load of indecipherable nonsense when I first heard it. A being that realises its own being is Dasein and the being that does not is just a present-to-hand-being, and the manner of being of the former is different from that of the latter. Okay, got it.
K: Glad to have you with us.
DT: Thanks, mr. smartypants.
K: Hah! Well, anyhow. To really examine being we must examine this manner of being that is our being, that is, being-in-the-world. For this reason objective sciences are not enough for resolving this issue, since they explicitly examine things of the world instead of our manner of being in the world. This is not very different from my thesis that transcendental philosophy, that is, philosophy that examines the mode of and the conditions for our being, precedes science as well as metaphysical expositions.
DT: Yeah. It could be said that science applies the methods and tools we have been given within the framework of our being, whereas your transcendental philosophy and Heidegger's fundamental ontology studies beyond these tools to their very nature.
K: Kind of, yes. But I think the talk about "beyonds" remain far too vague to properly grasp. After all, one could ask why sciences could not use their tools to examine their tools - a microscope can be used to examine another microscope and so on. What is important is that these tools are very fundamental indeed: reason, logic, senses. You can't use senses to examine the trustworthiness of senses, after all. Therefore empirical, scientific study cannot get to the bottom of things, because it cannot study the most fundamental tools it has in a proper fashion.
DT: Yeah, good clarification. It remains a huge problem as to how these tools should be examined then. Your transcendental philosophy attempts to explicate them through necessary conditions: you use certain counterfactual thought-experiments to show that in order for us to have a certain given thing, such as experience, in the first place, something else is required. Heidegger seems to want to examine these boundaries through phenomenological analysis: there is something to be uncovered in our very experience. It may not be scientifically valid information we get out of this, but it will be information nonetheless, and since science has already been ruled out as a possible source for knowledge about these things, the phenomenological analysis surely holds its ground.
K: Well said. I am not sure if anyone understands one bit of that, but at least it sounds cool.
DT: Thanks. That's what I live for.
K: Anyway. There is still another aspect to our study. It is the idea of authenticity.
DT: Yeah, almost forgot about that. Whac'ha think?
K: "Whac'ha"?
DT: Sorry.
K: You are pardoned. Now authenticity may sound complicated, but I think it is fairly simple. Dasein can be in different modes: it can sort of "live" its essence of questioning its being, that is, ponder about its existence; or it can choose not to do this. In our everyday life we are not pondering about this question of being, we are not perplexed about it, so to speak. In this mode we are non-authentic. We are more or less like other things in the world: we are men and women, we are desk-clerks, bus-drivers and university lecturers. In the mode of authenticity we face the problem of our existence, and I think it is safe to say that everyone is in this mode at least from time to time.
DT: Especially at night we tend to think the Big Questions: What is my purpose here? Who am I? Why am I me? What should I do with my life? Where am I heading? And so on.
K: Indeed. Some think of these more often than others, surely. Yet Heidegger clearly says that neither of these modes is "worse" than the other: it is certainly a poor life in which one never thinks of these things, but it is equally useless to be always indulged in mere pondering of being. That is: we must think of how we live, but we must also remember to actually live.
DT: It seems that at times Heidegger proves very important aspects of our being. He works a sort of fundamental psychology. He does not merely psychologize that we must remember to live our lives instead of just planning it, but shows its fundamental, almost ontological significance.
K: Quite. Now in the authentic mode, that is, in the pondering mode, we construct ourselves. It is in that mode where we take an inventory of our possibilities and actualities and choose our direction. Either we note that we are not what we should be and perhaps work to remedy that, or we see that we are on the right track. Or perhaps we simply think we are on the right track because we lack the insight to see otherwise. This is also an interesting point about being human: we ourselves change who we are by this immense psychological process. It is not easy to change oneself, but it is what we should do - and what, indeed, we must do. The phrase "I can't help myself" is the biggest lie there is.
DT: Agreed wholeheartedly! I don't know, but I have the feeling that Heidegger will find the key to happiness deep within our being, just where I think it ought to lie. It is not the world that makes us happy or unhappy, but it is us: we choose the way we relate to the world, and happiness is just one feature of this relation.
K: Yes, it would seem that this point can be extracted from Heidegger's philosophy. Whether he himself makes the claim, we shall see.
DT: Indeed. Thanks for the synopsis, Kant. I guess we ought to rest now, since tomorrow our journey continues to whatever horrors lie ahead. Good night.
K: Good night, Dasein-Toni.