World

Part 1

“Knowing, the epistemic relationship to the world, Heidegger says in paragraph 13, is a founded mode of being-in-the-world (SZ 61/BT 88). That is, it is a deficient mode of relating to the world, and out of this deficient mode, the perception of the world as present-at-hand is born. This is a fascinating thought. Once we begin to relate to the world as a world of knowledge, or potential knowledge, then we apprehend the world as a realm of objects which we perceive. And perceptions, according to the traditional philosophical parlance, can be captured in propositions. Those propositions are things we can assert the truth or falsity of based on evidence, and science can be understood as the totality of true propositions.

Heidegger sets out to undermine that whole picture—objects, subjects, knowledge, perception, representation, propositions. We have to forget about the problem of perception—there is no such problem—and forget about the primacy of epistemology. Rather, for Heidegger, I am my world. The world is part of my being, part of the structure of my existence. I am part world.” – Simon Critchley, Heidegger Thinking

It isn’t hard to find people who claim to know things. We’re located in New York City; here, there are billboards, flyers, pamphlets, and screens aplenty claiming to have all sorts of knowledge pertaining to topics like love, death, God, politics, the thoughts of others, and the future. Similarly, the Internet has allowed such claims of knowledge to be plastered on all the devices connected to it. So, lots of people think they know things. Lots of people also seem to want to know things a lot. People pay ridiculous amounts of money to have the knowledge some of the other people claim to have bestowed on them. Even if it’s something more typical like going to university, such a situation would share this structure of giving people money so you can hear their “words of wisdom.” When you put it like this, the situation becomes strange; you may wonder whether any of these people with claims to knowledge, be it a fortune-teller in an alleyway or a tenured university professor, really have anything to say that is as valuable as the idea of knowledge we venerate in society.

This topic is of great concern for Heidegger in Being and Time. He thought that the knowledge most people were professing to have at the time, be it in the natural sciences, theology, and even philosophy, was actually not the kind of deep and fundamental knowledge that scientists, theologians, and philosophers were claiming it was. This is because, as the excerpt quoted above indicates, such knowledge is “founded.” This basically means that it assumes too much to be considered foundational knowledge about Being itself, or ontological knowledge. Rather, such knowledge is “founded” on Being, such that it assumes the ontological foundation of reality and then abstracts from there to develop new systems of knowledge that aren’t foundational. However, to actually study Being as Being, one must remember to not abstract from it, but to confront it. This means, first and foremost, diving into the world that we find ourselves, resisting any urge to appropriate it in a way that would satisfy our epistemological desires.

When one does this, many, if not all, of the classical “problems” of philosophy slip away. As the passage above indicates, no longer must we question our perception, nor do we need to separate the world up between subject and object. We simply exist. It’s sort of like a meditation, but instead of an emptying out of content, you experience the richness of the world as you encounter it as a Being-in-the-world, or Dasein, yourself. We find ourselves always-already part of existence, never separated from it as most of the canon of western philosophy insists that we are. The world is always our home, and we are always a part of it. This is the result of a correct start to the phenomenological investigation of Being. So, next time someone runs up to you telling you they have finally figured out what life is all about, consider whether they have realized the nature of existence and the world as such, or whether they are “comporting” Being away from its most primordial form. According to Heidegger, the former is the only way towards actually “figuring it all out” and obtaining ontological knowledge.

Next, we will take a look at how Heidegger specifically distances himself from his philosophical predecessors with respect to the notion of “world.” This will add some more philosophical detail to Heidegger’s conception of the world and presents an interesting argument against the other attempts to understand the world that were tried in the past. We hope you’re excited! Stay tuned for that coming soon.

This article was inspired by Heidegger Thinking, Simon Critchley’s book on Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, to be published by New York Review Books in September. If you like what’s on our Substack, then we encourage you to check out the book and get a copy of your own.