Reinterpretation Of Chapter 35-38 In Heidegger's Being And Time

In his work Being and Time, Heidegger regards being-there, namely, “man”mentioned by him, as a contradictory unity between authentic being and non-authentic being, and gives a detailed discussion on the two forms of existence. Chapter 35-38 interpreted by this paper is about the discussion on non-authentic being. In fact, nonauthentic being refers to man in reality, namely, “daily being”. This kind of man habitually treats and understands everything including himself in an objectified way,making them dissolving in “co-existence” and “public opinion”. The distinct authentic self has not faded away, but it has been deeply buried or covered. In other words,everyone, being “averaged”, becomes and has to become “ordinary man” without unique personality. In Heidegger's opinion, “ordinary man”, as non-authentic being, is generally featured by “fallenness”, which means “ordinary man” keeps away from and deeply covers authentic self and authentic truth. Heidegger reveals the understanding of “ordinary man” from three aspects like “idle talk”, “curiosity” and“ambiguity” to explain “ordinary man” – this “fallenness” phenomenon.Everyone's true and unique insight and feel cannot be expressed in language, for all words and concepts used for expression have been understood averagely. It is almost impossible for men to exchange with each other and know each other's authentic, unique understanding and feeling by virtue of these words and concepts understood by average, thereby making language in communication “idle talk” with little truth and reality.According to Heidegger's view, authentic being is man who integrates himself into the world in survival activities. His simultaneous unconscious awareness activities such as understanding and comprehension prove that self and the world are an integral whole and he predicts things contained in this whole. However, man at the“ordinary” state does not know he can know and predict the integral world and things contained in it. Instead, he treats curiously things in front of him in “objectified” way and shifts constantly his attention to one new thing to another, immersed in what he sees on the surface. He has a character to pursue whatever is novel, but he never investigates into the truth and essence of these things. He wants to know everything,but he nearly understands nothing. He sees a lot of things, but no one really exists.Based on the above two points, it can be concluded that men think they live intruth, but in fact, they live in rootless ambiguity and superficial opinions. These opinions include the world, society, others and self, none of which involves truth.More than that, everything truthful is deeply covered. Finally, Heidegger summarize“temptation”, “momentary ease”, “dissimilation”, “imprisoning” and “falling” as the characteristics symbolizing ordinary man's fallenness.With regard to the concept of “ordinary man”, Heidegger holds a view as follow:distinct existence of “ordinary man” proves that although everyone in history and reality never losses authentic self, nevertheless, humans' more than two thousand years of civilization development is not really on the right track. This problem is worthy of modern people's attention and introspection.