Dreyfus on Heidegger's Criticism of Cartesianism - Nature as Available

In discussing how nature becomes an 'intraworldly entity which is proximally available' (BT: 128, 95] Dreyfus begins by assessing how natural materials take place in Dasein's dealing with equipment. Here I find Dreyfus' interpretation to be particularly faulty, since he posits that "Dasein's self-interpreting everyday activity and nature codetermine what can be available for what". To support this thesis, he quotes Heidegger as saying:

"In the environment certain entities become accessible which are always available, but which, in themselves, do not need to be produced. Hammers, tongs, and needle, refer in themselves to steel, iron, metal, mineral, woods, in that they consist of these. In equipment that is used, "nature" is discovered along with it by that use- the "nature" we find in natural products" (100, 70).Dreyfus interprets this passage as saying that because of the properties of iron Dasein, having some task for which these properties appear useful, "appropriates iron into its referential whole... Yet of course, nature cannot be used in any way whatsoever... When something thus becomes unavailable, its recalcitrant properties or an aspect “announce themselves”, as does nature's contribution to the equipment's serviceability".

The problem is that by saying the properties of iron allow for it to be assimilated would entail the occurent properties of iron are somehow first and foremost what determine its assimilation as equipment; something that would require that Dasein has some (unconscious) apprehension of what these properties are in putting them to use. I think Heidegger's point is rather that whichever properties get discovered and thus assigned to the entity will be in direct accordance to the role these entities may play in equipment, and thus in relation to Dasein's sense of worldhood: "even the phenomenon of nature... can be grasped ontologically in terms of the concept of the world.." [94, 65].

This priority must be kept in mind, even if these properties, once discovered, make evident how an entity can be appropriate for some uses and inappropriate for others. He makes this explicit when he states that "In equipment that is used, "nature" is discovered along with it by that use"-[100, 70, My Italics].This is different from saying that iron has a recalcitrant set of properties which cause its assimilation into practice; rather, objective determination in assigning properties can only derivatively be assigned to objects on the basis of (un)availability. This distinction is not innocent, since if we follow Dreyfus we would be forced into accepting entities have a set of objective properties before they are discovered, and thus that Dasein's appropriation must be made to fit these properties.

But this is clearly in conflict with Heidegger's view that categories are derivative from use, and not the other way around. In other words, properties, qua linguistic predicates which function holistically with respect to Dasein's world, are never interpretation-independent.Entities present-at-hand are discovered always in sight of whatever tasks Dasein is engaged in, and the equipmental-whole to which it is imbued, and so in direct accordance to how entities show themselves as unavailable in practice. Discovery, in the Heideggerean sense, is therefore not about strictly discovering properties in entities which determine their potentiality for use; but how in terms of use one may derivatively assign a peculiar description about how an object shows itself. This is why in the act of appropriating the object for use; its possibilities for objective determination are already discovered, albeit not yet determined assertorically or in theory.

The properties discovered appear as having been there before, as the 'always already', but of course not as objective determinations on present-at-hand objects.The ontological priority of practice guarantees that no single set of properties can be said to be ontologically prior to its correspondent role inside a referential whole in equipment. At this point, we still have nothing like properties in objects, but just the horizon for such a future determination. Thus Heidegger: "Anything available is, at the worst, appropriate for some purposes and inappropriate for others; and its "properties" are, as it were, still bound up in these ways in which it is appropriate or inappropriate, just as occurentness, as a possible kind of being for something available is bound up in availableness" (115, 83)

In this way, when nature ends up conspicuously showing up as present-at-hand, it is always from the horizon of availability. Dreyfus does not quite get the subtly of this point, since he interprets Heidegger as saying occurent properties, in appearing constant, must have belonged to the object before and irrespective of its appropriation as equipment. But this is not what Heidegger tells us:

"Conspicuousness presents the available equipment as in certain unavailableness... It shows itself as an equipmental thing which looks so and so, and which, in its availableness as looking that way, has constantly been occurent too." (102-103, 73, My Italics)

The crucial thing to note about that passage is that only in sight of the role of the entity in availability is it shown as having a recalcitrant set of properties. This is to say that when we discover iron to be resistant or heavy, it is always in relation to some task; it doesn't break and so is appropriate to be used as a shield, it is too heavy too when I find it unsuitable to make fishing cranes from, etc. The predicates 'resistant' or 'frail' will be assigned to 'wood' as something present-at-hand on the basis of how it turns up as (un)available, and so in terms of its appropriateness for certain purposes and projects.

The assignment of predicates which can function as properties are never Dasein-independent in the sense that the meaning of such predicates can never be understood in isolation to the activity in which the present-at-hand entity is disclosed, even if it appears as having always possessed those qualities prior to their discovery in malfunction.This thesis is backed up by Heidegger's claim that even if we were to spell out any given set of occurent properties for those objects in nature which are present-at-hand, this would still not suffice to give us the phenomenon of the world. Since being-in-the-world does not consist of synthetically piling up occurent objects prior to putting them into use, Heidegger contends use must be ontologically prior to the rubric of 'nature':

"Nature as the categorial aggregate of those structures of being which a definite being encountered within-the-world may possess, can never make worldliness intelligible." [93-94, 65] and "nature as reality can only be understood on the basis of worldliness" [History of the Concept of Time, 199].

Dreyfus understands Heidegger's claim that we are for the most part not dealing with isolated, present-at-hand entities. The cognitivist objection would be that before an entity can be appropriated into a referential whole and thus be put into use, it must have been discovered in some way or another. Heidegger accepts this much: as long as we do not think that we first deal with entities qua occurent objects which are present-at-hand, we can make room for a story about how entities get incorporated into use by circumspection. Thus even "when the equipmental characters of the available are still circumspectively undiscovered, they are not to be interpreted as bare thinghood for an apprehension of what is just present-at-hand and no more" [112, 81]. Whether this is a plausible thesis is not for us to determine here.

On Dasein's 'Mineness'.

The question about the 'mineness' of Dasein has been somewhat controversial. Clearly, Heidegger cannot mean that Dasein is something that just happens inside a mind, or IN a person.Doing so would push him against the fence. In any case, the answer turns around the question whether Dasein is a private or a public term. Are institutions, societies and cultures Dasein? Or is Dasein merely ashortcut for individual human existence?

Dreyfus has (correctly) pointed that Heidegger often treats Dasein as referring to individual human existence. But I think this ambiguity is part of the problem, since it is less clear that he is always thinking of an individual. In any case, the crucial question is about what it would imply if Heidegger were to say Dasein is a subject, an individual, a particular entity. This would seem to make of it something merely present-at-hand (occurent, extant), which is of course exactly what Heidegger thinks the tradition has misinterpreted. But we surely cannot dispose of subjectvity just like that and use Dasein without any rigor to mean anything one wants; culture in some places, individuals in others, and at some points not even that. One wouldn't gain anything from such gross conceptual simplification.

But I think the answer Heidegger wants to give is that Dasein is human existence in general- and that in this framework it is never the case that Dasein is first and foremost a subject without a world. Dasein is the entity which in any case anyone could call his own. Only entities such as Dasein can ask, assert and therefore relate to being (a dog cannot ask 'what is x?' or assert 'x is y').This is different from saying that all ontologies must begin from the mind and then proceed to constitute the world, since all we are saying is that ONTICALLY Dasein is the entity which everyone can call one's own. There might be occasions, however, when explaining equipment for instance, that an analytic of Dasein shows Dasein is not 'itself':

Perhaps when Dasein addresses itself in the way which it is closest to itself, it always says 'I am this entity', and in the long run says this loudest when it is 'not' this entity. Dasein is in each case mine, and this is its constitutio; but what if this should be the very reason why, proximally and for the most part, Dasein is not itself? [Ibid]

Since the being of humans is characterized by this relation to being(existence), one can call oneself Dasein ontically as the being for whom being is an issue. This doesn't entail that when trying to explain the world we must begin by positing private mental contents opposed to external, objective stuff. It also doesn't entail that reality is 'made up' of ideas, or that what is first given is the 'I' of pure consciousness. In Heidegger's conception ofthe world, dualism is not tenable, simply because Dasein's existance doesn't begin by dividing subject and object, but by everyday involement, and dealings with Zuhanden entities (available, or ready-at-hand), which are not like this at all.

Heidegger is not saying that we are not entities or subjects but some vaguely unified spirit, but that characterizing Dasein in terms of subjectivity is to assume the world only gets experienced for and from a subject, that it pressuposes human existence entails an objectifying need for constant self-reference, whether tacit or explicit, in which the pure 'I' of consciousness accompanies all intentional acts. But 'In clarifying Being-and-the-world we have shown that a bare subject without a world never 'is' proximally, nor is it ever given. And so in the end an isolated "I" without Others is just as far from being proximally given." [B&T, Pg 152, 116]

According to Heidegger, the idea of a subject as that which weilds private contents, opposed to the world, blurs ontology up, since we have to now explain how this world comes into relation to being for a consciousness.This is either impossible (Kant) or simply unecessary (Husserl). But Heidegger thinks this problem arises from assuming that we live inside a world of ideas or phenomenal representations; the world is already disclosed for Dasein. Dasein is nothing but a relation to beings on the basis of the 'openness' of a world. There is nothing 'behind appearances' simply because what appears can only do so on the basis of the prior disclosure and assumption of the world. To deny the world is solipsism; to self-contain it isidealism. Dasein is nothing but being-in-the-world, since it has always grown into it without bulding it from theory.

Dasein is an entity, the entity for whom being is an issue. But this doesn't mean Dasein is different from the world, since strictly speaking Dasein IS being-in-the-world, and as such a world can only be for an entity like Dasein. (This is not to say the world is an invention of a mind, or that every would disappear or be destroyed if there is no subject, but that all relatedness to being can only occur for a being such as Dasein, with the possibility of calling into question 'that it is'). Dasein is not primordially an 'I' since the world precedes any such characterization. In its everydayness it doesn't deal with objects, but with equipment. It doesn't determine itself as a subject- a subsistent 'I' which and the other as an object, to ontologically attempt this reduction is what Husserl attempted and failed to do. In this sense, Dasein is 'mine' only insofar as I can claim my existence as belonging to myself as an entity, but this is no ontological determination.

That Dasein is not exclusively nor primordially a subject or 'I' does not exclude that Heidegger wants to explain how something like subjectivity, in an ontological manner, is made possible. This he does in Being and Time and the lecture courses mentioned above (1925-27).This is a difficult issue, and it has taken a lot of twists and turns inthe literature. Dreyfus has discussed this with particular detail in his book, as have a number of other commentators (Crowell, Boedeker Dostal Jr). There doesn't seem to be a concensus on the subject. I think the short answer is simply: Dasein is the way in which entities which care for being relate to being. This is broad enough to include both for self-interpretation without assuming self-interpretation to be at the basis of ontological inquiry. The 'I' is not disposed of, but neither assumed as the ontological clue.

The assertion that it is I who in each case Dasein is, is ontically obvious; but this must not mislead us into supposing that the route for an ontological Interpretation of what is 'given' in this way has thus been unmistakenly prescribes. Indeed it remains questionable whether even the mere ontical content of the above assetion does proper justice to the stock of phenomena to everyday Dasein. It could be that the "who" of everyday Dasein just is not the "I myself" [B&T, Pg. 150, 115]

As long as we don't take the fact that Dasein is an entity to imply that it is a mind with private contents first and foremost, I think all is in good order.On the general note, I think this topic can ammount for some very good questions. A good question that follows is whether animals have a world ornot (Heidegger says NO), and whether his interpretation is fair. The text where this is discussed is The Fundamental Concept of Metaphysics(1929/30). The notion of worldhood is discussed all throughout his work,including the abovementioned lecture course and Being and Time.