Heidegger and a Metaphysics of Feeling by Elkholy Sharin N.;

Author:Elkholy, Sharin N.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2008-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Angst and the Temporality of Da-sein

To become authentic Da-sein must understand its death and guilt as constant for as long as it exists. This is why Heidegger wants Da-sein to relate to its being-toward-death. “The most extreme not-yet has the character of something to which Da-sein relates” (250/231). But what is it that is to be related to in the nothing of death and the nothing of the call? Both the caller and the called are one and the same mode of being: Da-sein disclosed in the nothing of Angst. Yet, clearly Heidegger wants to make some sort of a distinction within this sameness disclosed in death and called in conscience. Otherwise he would not use two different terms for one and the same nothing. A distinction would allow for a relation of death to itself whereby the nothing circumscribes Da-sein’s self-understanding and the understanding of its possibilities in such a way that possibilities are let be to show themselves as they are. Nevertheless, it is difficult to grasp the way in which the caller might differ from the called, they are not only both similarly characterized by the nothing of Angst, but they also occur simultaneously.

Fortunately the terms caller and called themselves point to where a distinction may be located within this one and the same mode of being. These terms designate a difference in direction. “Whereas the content of the call is seemingly indefinite, the direction it takes is a sure one and is not to be overlooked” (274/253). This difference with regard to directionality is how being-toward-death and being-guilty are mapped onto the “temporal” (zeitlich) ecstasies of the “future” and “having-been,” respectively. In a “calling back that calls forth” Angst is temporalized wherein the nothing is differentiated with respect to a directionality that reveals the authentic meaning of the being of Da-sein as temporality.

We have already answered this question in our thesis that the call “says” nothing which could be talked about, it does not give any information about factual occurrences. The call directs Da-sein forward toward its potentiality-of-being, as a call out of uncanniness. The caller is indeed indefinite, but where it calls from is not indifferent for the calling. Where it comes from—the uncanniness of thrown individuation—is also called in the calling, that is, is also disclosed. Where the call comes from in calling forth to … is that to which it is called back. (280/258–259, Heidegger’s emphasis)

Here a movement forward and a movement backward are introduced into one and the same mode of being: the uncanniness of thrown individuation of being-toward-death. Where “the call comes from” and that to which the called is “called back” to are one and the same: Da-sein individuated in the nothing of Angst. Moreover, where the call “calls from” in returning to itself is also where the call calls Da-sein “forth to”—the nothing. In calling Da-sein forward to its sheer possibility disclosed in Angst, Angst ridden Da-sein, who is both making the call and the receiver of the call, is disclosed at the same time.

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