Sheehan (2015:xvi-xvii) – Dasein – Da-sein – Existenz

Heidegger often (but not always) distinguished between Dasein on the one hand and Da-sein or Existenz on the other. Strictly speaking, the first word refers to any concrete, existentiel person, whereas the other two refer equally to the “essence” or existential structure of any human being. (I use the adjectives “existentiel” as referring to any specific person, and “existential” as referring to the essential structure of human being.) However, Heidegger frequently obscures this important distinction by writing simply “Dasein” (unhyphenated) when he actually means Da-sein/Existenz. In order to emphasize the unique characteristic that Heidegger intends to bring out by both Dasein (existentiel) and Da-sein/Existenz (existential), I will translate all three of those terms as “ex-sistence,” hyphenated to stress its etymology. In each of these three terms Heidegger would have us hear the Latin ex + sistere, where the “ex-” or “out-and-beyond” dimension of human being forms an openness or clearing that he called “the Da.”¹ (In chapter 5 we shall see that this “Da” should never be translated as “there,” “here,” or “t/here.”) But ex-sistence does not mean “standing out and beyond,” as if we ourselves took the initiative to “take a stand.” Rather, sistere is a causative verb: “to make someone or something stand out and beyond.” Therefore, as Heidegger uses ex-sistere of human (xvii) being, it means “to be made to stand out and beyond.” Thus the term Existenz is already a pre-indication of what gets expressed in Heidegger’s early work as Geworfenheit and der geworfene Entwurf (both of which I will interpret as “thrown-openness”) and in his later work as Ereignis.² (p. xvi-xvii)

1. See GA83: 72.23-24: “Das sistere — ex: Wesen der Existenz des Menchen.” See ibid., 69.4: “Exsistentia, εκστασις — distentia.”[↩]
2. See GA65: 239.5 = 188.25.[↩]