DE Weekly: Heidegger, Dasein, & Temporality
Below is an archived email originally sent on May 5, 2025.
Heidegger, Dasein, & Temporality
“Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing? That is the question,” wrote Martin Heidegger in his Introduction to Metaphysics. “. . . this is obviously the first of all questions,” he continued.
Heidegger was right; questioning our being certainly is the “first” of all questions, for every other question about the nature of being arises from it.
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher––one of the major contributors to phenomenology, the study of human consciousness and human experience. Because of this, he was also a major influence on existentialism.
I wrote last week about Jean-Paul Sartre’s concepts of facticity and transcendence. The week before that, I wrote about how the existentialists conceptualized the past, present, and future; specifically, how we exist in each.
I also mentioned how much of what Sartre concluded derived in some way from Heidegger’s own writings. To say Heidegger was a key driver in existentialist thought would be an understatement.
The two most important concepts from Heidegger’s philosophy to understand are Sein und Dasein, or “being and being there” in German. Of the two, Dasein is the more important.
Dasein is the term Heidegger lifted from the German word for “existence,” molded into a key concept to explain the mode of human beings in the world––or our “Being-in-the-world.”
This was groundbreaking in that he challenged the existing metaphysics and ontology (namely, Aristotelian metaphysics and ontology) by drawing our gaze from the world as a whole to the world as experienced by the individual.
Whereas traditional Aristotelian metaphysics and ontology are concerned with reality in general and the nature of the world, Heidegger’s ontology is concerned with the nature of human existence––how humans experience the world, how humans experience themselves, and how aware we are of it all.
Dasein does not simply refer to our existence. It encompasses our mode of being––how we exist––and what we must do with this mode of being.
How do we confront our existence? How do we accept our mortality? How do we deal with the paradox of the Other as it relates to our own quest for transcending our own facticity?
These are all questions Heidegger posed and propped up for other existentialists to take and run with.
Heidegger’s “Dasein” is characterized through the way we, as humans, exist in the world and experience the world. In this way, we are unique. Other things like tables, chairs, rocks, trees… they exist, but they are not beings-in-the-world.
In other words, they don’t exist in the same way we do. Dasein does not apply to them.
Also worth noting for Heidegger (and for other existentialists) is that we did not choose to be born into this world, into this mode of being.
We were thrown into it.
This “thrownness” is another key point for Heidegger. We are “thrown” into the world without a say in it––indeed, without a say in the circumstances into which we are born.
This is what Sartre would call our facticity––the circumstances of our birth and of our being which are unchangeable and inescapable. The freedom we are “condemned” to.
For Heidegger and Sartre alike, the catch is this: we may not be able to change some facets of our existence, but we do have the freedom––indeed, the responsibility––to choose our own existence from thereon out. To make our own meaning.
This is what the existentialists meant when they said we “project” ourselves into the future. Dasein (our being-in-the-world) projects into the future––we are always projecting ourselves beyond what we are today.
In this way, Dasein is a project. Dasein is our life.
Like any project in life, we can tackle it authentically or inauthentically.
Approaching Dasein with authenticity involves embracing our freedom and responsibility and aiming to transcend our facticity to make a meaningful life.
Approaching Dasein with inauthenticity, on the other hand, is often marked by preoccupying ourselves too much in the lives of the Other; the more we concern ourselves with things outside ourselves and outside of our control, the less authentic we are in living for ourselves.
It is in this manner, too, which Heidegger means Dasein is “temporal.” The temporality of Dasein is precisely what makes it so fundamental to our existence.
Temporality, for Heidegger, is a primary foundation of Dasein. It gives Dasein its understanding of being.
To put it into understandable terms, we are beings-in-the-world (Dasein), and we exist in a structure of time which we can make sense of: the past, present, and future (temporality).
We are thrown into the world, we experience it, and we make sense of it in our own way––mainly, through understanding our past, living in the present, and projecting our own future.
Our temporality helps us understand our Dasein. This helps us to give meaning to our own existence.
Temporality, too, can be approached with authenticity and inauthenticity.
Inauthentic temporality would tell you to forget your past, and screw your future––you must live in the present.
Authentic temporarily advises us to embrace and accept our past, live presently in the present, and plan for your future––acknowledge the temporality of your existence and embrace it.
“. . . When time is nothing but speed, instantaneity, and simultaneity, and time as history has vanished from all Being of all peoples . . . then, yes then, there still looms like a specter over all this uproar the question: what for? –– where to? –– and what then?” –– Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
I hope you enjoyed a reprieve from the usual existentialists I discuss for another one. And one of the greats, at that. If you’re looking for more to read, Heidegger is a good place to start.
For more content, follow @TheDailyExist on X. For other social links, click here.
I write this newsletter for free–I love sharing my thoughts with you all, and I’ll continue to do so for free. But if you like what I write and want to show your support, you can always click here to share a tip. Thanks for keeping me going–it’s much appreciated.