Ferrara Chapter IV “Heidegger’s Hermeneutic Phenomenology”
Unlike Husserl, Heidegger believes that phenomenology is never pure but rather based on interpretations. Heidegger contends that one’s understanding is marked by one’s historical preconceptions. The result of Heidegger incorporating cultural and intellectual tradition into phenomenology is ultimately a subjective interpretation. Heidegger’s approach requires persons to recognize and utilize, in a positive and fruitful way, their own fundamental biases. In Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, descriptions are never “pure” but are always marked by an “interpretation” rooted in the analyst’s historical tradition (Ferrara 90).
Martin Heidegger
In Being and time, Heidegger addresses the question, “What is being?” In order to do this he must first examine the nature of human existence. Heidegger uses being to refer to being in the world. Heidegger proposes a character Dasein that represents mans existence and he alone is always on the way to understand its being. It is through Heidegger’s discussion of phenomenological method in Being and time, that he pushes in a radically different direction from Husserl. Heidegger states, “the meaning of phenomenological description as a method lies in interpretation…The phenomenology of Daesin is a hermeneutic in the most primordial signification of this word” (Ferrara 105).
Through the interpretation of the Greek roots, phenomenology, to Heiddegger, means letting things show themselves without overpowering them with linguistic categorization. Heidegger asserts that after the time of the pre-Socratic Greeks, Western man moved away from the primordial use of speech as logos. Western man’s conceptual thinking places a concept between the phenomenon and the knower, removing the phenomenon from immediacy (Ferrara 106). Heidegger believes it was through Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, that the shift from understanding truth about things in their immediacy moved towards correspondence to a thing represented as an idea or a form. It is Heidegger’s goal through phenomenology to uncover the hidden meaning of things in their being.
According to Heidegger, Dasein’s being in the world must be understood as a place where Dasein occurs. Dasein possesses “understanding”, which allows the ability to comprehend his potential for being. In Dasein’s world there is equipment that serves. Like Dasein, the equipment is being. Unlike Dasein, the equipment cannot question its “equipmentality”. Heidegger’s hermeneutic model is marked by giving freedom to the phenomenon being studied in order to let it show itself as it is being. Heidegger later states, that truth is freedom. Heidegger notes, “The world of Dasein is a with-world. Being-in is Being-with Others” Man is not separated from the world but is in and with the world.
The Goal for Dasein is to live authentically in which he is transcending the present and anticipating the future. The ability to live authentically comes from one facing the nothingness that is death and understand it as the end of one’s “being there”. The authentic existence is marked by the “having been” (the past) arising from the future which releases from itself, the present. (Ferrara 112). “Fallness” is defined as the lack of anticipation of the future and the forgetfulness of the “have been”. “Fallness can be overcome by transcending the present and looking to the future.
Personal Reaction:
I am actually feeling a little depressed about this chapter. Heidegger’s world of Dasein is compellingly presented to the point where I empathized with him. I feel that I am not living my life authentically. Too often I am not looking towards the future. I feel that very often I may be in a state of “fallness”. I often do not learn from my mistakes (my have been) and don’t always anticipate the future. Maybe I haven’t been in a state of nothingness yet where death is imminent. Regardless I still have the choice to be authentic or not, regardless of my situation. That is the essence of my “being”, that I always have the power to make choices. It is time to start consistently making the “authentic” choices.
I know this chapter is deeper than life-style and decision-making. My engagement with the text based on my historical preconceptions led to a more personal interpretation. Maybe I will try to engage the text again in a more Husserlian view. I will attempt to suspend my “baggage” and try to engage the text from a more pure point of view.
Although there were (and probably never will be) any firm conclusions about “being” the message on human existence was rather compelling. Heidegger’s move away from the western notion of examining objects from their concept in favor in engagement of the thing itself reminded of a scene from John Carpenter’s film “Dark Star”. Apparently, it has already been floating around you tube as an example of phenomenology. However, I believe it to be closer linked to Heidegger’s concept of phenomenology than Husserl’s.
