Brian Hamilton

A Curious Anthropocentrism

Richardson again, on what Heidegger understands as the “sense” of a being: “Briefly: the sense of any being is its Being, insofar as this is comprehended by There-being [Dasein]” (85). ‘Sense’ is presumably Sinn, which carries also carries the larger and more fundamental scope of ‘meaning.’ I don’t know what to make of this curious anthropocentrism, where other beings are really dependent on being recognized by There-being for their basic sense, despite Richardson’s constant insistences that this is an ‘ontologico-existential’ condition rather than an ‘ontic-existentiell’ one. Does it make any difference here? I wonder with this is true only of other beings-in-the-world, or if also of the World as such. And if of the World, then also of God?

Other examples: only There-being is truly historical while all other beings take on historicity (are ‘World-historical’ rather than ‘properly historical’) only insofar as they are correlated with the There-being that no longer exists (R 90n.184); also “‘There is’ truth only insofar, and as long, as There-being is…” (Being and Time, q. in R 97). (The second point makes some sense to me, that truth is only truth so far as it is comprehended—what’s an uncomprehended truth?—but then Christianity dissents with the idea that There-being is not alone in being capable of comprehension. Rather, the God in three persons has always existed in mutual comprehension and more.)

5 January 2007 |
tags: Phenomenology