Blattner (1999:32-34) – compreensão de ser (Seinsverständnis)

In §9 of Being and Time, whose aim is the preliminary presentation of “The Theme of the Analytic of Dasein” (the title of the section), Heidegger explains “existence” thus: ” The ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence… All of this entity’s being-so is primarily being” (SZ:42). Or, as he puts it in a slightly different way, “this entity, in its being, comports itself to its being. … It is being that is in each case at issue for this entity” (SZ:41-2). He enlarges on this definition later, this time introducing the language of understanding: “Dasein is the entity that in its being comports itself understanding to this being. The formal concept of existence is herewith indicated” (SZ:52-3). Dasein is the entity whose being is always at issue in what it does, that is, the entity who always has an understanding of itself, and whose self-understanding is constitutive of its “being-so,” its being what or who it is.

This central, existentialist thesis lies at the heart of Heidegger’s conception of human being. Let us formulate it thus:

The Existentiality Thesis: If Dasein is A, then it is A because it understands itself as A.

To clarify this thesis, we must specify what Heidegger means by “understanding.” To see the dangers of not doing so, consider a rather straightforward, or perhaps untutored, interpretation of the Existentiality Thesis, one based on the assumption that by “understanding” Heidegger has in (33) mind something like knowledge. In this case, the Existentiality Thesis would entail that Dasein knows about everything that it is (Cartesian transparency taken to an extreme). This would render it impossible that Dasein have any features it does not know about and would probably make self-deception impossible (depending on one’s analysis of that phenomenon).

Fortunately, we need not defend this claim, since Heidegger makes clear that by “understanding” he does not have in mind some form of awareness or cognition:

By the term understanding, we mean a fundamental existentiale,¹ neither a sort of cognition, distinguished in some way from explaining and conceiving, nor even cognition in general in the sense of thematically grasping (something). (SZ:336)

Cognition, Heidegger claims, is derivative of the more basic phenomenon of understanding:

If we Interpret (understanding) as a fundamental existentiale, we thereby indicate that this phenomenon is conceived as a fundamental mode of the being of Dasein. In contrast, “understanding” in the sense of one possible sort of cognition among others, perhaps distinguished from “explaining,” must thereby be Interpreted as an existential derivative of primary understanding, which co-constitutes the being of the There. (SZ:143)

The more basic phenomenon is competence, capability:²

In ontical discourse we often use the expression “to understand something” to mean “to be able to manage a thing” (einer Sache vorstehen können), “to be equal to it” (ihr gewachsen sein), “to be capable of something” (etwas können).

In understanding, as an existentiale, that of which one is capable is not a What, but rather being as existing. (SZ:143)

In fact, the word “understanding” has a number of closely related meanings. We use it principally in two ways: to describe a cognitive stance or propositional attitude toward a content, such as when we say, “I understand the Existentiality Thesis,” and to describe a sort of ability we have, as when we say, “I understand the Germans.”³ In the latter statement we (34) express the idea not that we grasp some content (though understanding the Germans will likely involve that), but rather that we are competent with certain sorts of people, that we are capable of handling ourselves among them. (We can use the word “know” this way too: “Bo knows baseball.”)

Thus, in Heidegger’s vocabulary, to say that Jones understands something is to say that she is capable of it. To say, therefore, that Jones understands herself as being (or, to be) A, is to say that she is capable of being A. And indeed, Heidegger endorses this consequence, when he writes, “Understanding is the existential being of Dasein’s own ability-to-be (Seinkönnen)” (SZ:144).⁴ Thus, if we wed the Existentiality Thesis to Heidegger’s account of understanding, we see that the former claims not that Dasein is aware of whatever it is, but rather that it is capable of whatever it is.

Now, this is a surprising claim. Suppose that Jones is six feet tall. The Existentiality Thesis then seems to imply that Jones is capable of being six feet tall. But what could that mean? Jones may be six feet tall, but is she able to be, or capable ⁵ of being, or competent at being six feet tall? Jones’s height is one of her properties, not (cap) abilities. Jones is six feet tall and is able to run ten miles per hour. Let us call these two sorts of item, respectively, “state-characteristics” and “ability-characteristics.” Heidegger claims, then, that all of Dasein’s characteristics are ability-characteristics.