Heidegger's Concept of Being-in-the-Πóλις

Abstract

This article explores the hypothesis that Heidegger's (1927/1996) interpretation of Aristotle's practical concepts in Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy (2002a/2009)—especially in connection with the term πóλıς (pólis), the community of humans, besides filling a gap regarding a more detailed description of being-with-others in Being in Time (Heidegger, 1996), also offers a convincing answer to the so-called existential solipsism problem and a positive insight of how rhetoric can be brought together with hermeneutics and phenomenology to enlighten the coexistence. To carry out this task, we will present some implications of Heidegger's translation of κoıvωvíα (koinōnia, usually rendered as community) as Miteinandersein, that is, being-with-one-another, and its connection with the expression (zōon lógon échon), which designates the human being as the living thing that (as living) has language.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Funding for this research was provided from CAPES-Brazil as a scholarship for post-doctoral studies.

Notes

¹The expression “Dasein-with of Others” translates Mitdasein der Anderen (Heidegger, 2001, p. 153; 2006, 117). The term Mitdasein is difficult to render for many reasons, among which: (a) There is not a correspondent term in other languages, because it is a Heideggerian invention; (b) it has roots in Heidegger's special use of the word Dasein; and (c) the option for more familiar terms, like coexistence, entails a considerable degree of interpretation, besides the loss of its association with the stem Dasein. Joan Stambaugh maintains it in German as Mitda-sein (Heidegger, 1927/1996, p. 110) in her translation of Being and Time; Theodore Kisiel renders it as co-Dasein (1993; p. 502); Jean-Luc Nancy uses the term in German, but explains that it means “Being-there-with,” and associates it with the term “co-existence” (2000, p. 3; 2008, pp. 2–4).

²Here and on most occasions, I provide Heidegger's translations of Aristotle's terms in English and keep the German and Greek words between brackets, or indicated either right after or before the translation. Nevertheless, there are situations in which the usage of translations is not possible. This is because (a) Heidegger does not offer translation for every passage that he quotes from Aristotle; (b) he tends to keep the terms in Greek in his argumentation; (c) his translations of Aristotle are very controversial and cannot be identified without the reference to the Greek terms; (d) he translated in different ways the same terms throughout his works—ϕρόνησις is rendered in 1922 as “the kind of seeing around one which has to do with care for human well-being (circumspection)” [fürsorgliches Sichumsehen (Umsicht)] in the “Phenomenological Interpretations in Connection with Aristotle—An Indication of the Hermeneutical Situation” (1989/2002b, p. 130; also cf. J.-F. Courtine's translation, 1989/1992a, p. 37); in the 1923 “Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy” it appears again as circumspection or “looking around” (Umsicht) but also as the “‘looking around’ in the moment” (“Umsicht” im Augenblick; Heidegger, 2009, p. 178; 2002a, p. 265), and in the 1924–1925 lecture course “Sophist: Plato” it is called looking-around-insight or “circumspection-insight” (Umsicht-Einsicht; Heidegger, 1992b, p. 19; 1997, p. 15).

³The expression does not appear in Aristotle's works, being, therefore, an interpretation of Aristotle offered or reproduced by Heidegger in his philosophical production. The most relevant source to its coinage is perhaps the following passage from Politics (1957/1991c, Pol. A 2, 1253 a 9 sqq): “” that Heidegger translates as “In the mode of speaking about … human beings uniquely have their being-there among that which lives” (In der Weise des Sprechens über … hat einzig der Mensch sein Dasein unter dem, was lebt; Heidegger, 2009, p. 33; 2002, p. 46). According to the note 3, we will keep this expression in Greek, not only because Heidegger maintains it in this form, but also because choosing only one form of rendering it results in a simplification of his interpretation and conceals the importance of deconstructing these terms.

⁴Like Heidegger, I leave πόλις untranslated, for Heidegger's interpretation highlights specific aspects of this being-with-one-another that ground itself in the λόγος.

⁵It is not a radical replacement, because with-world, for instance, reappears in Being and Time, as Kisiel (1993) acknowledges, whereas self-world will be almost completely abandoned.

⁶Usually translated as happiness. Heidegger avoids rendering it in this way, focusing instead on the discussion of its structural moments.

⁷In Being and Time, he makes explicit: “And just as praxis has its own specific kind of sight (‘theory’), theoretical research is not without a praxis of its own” (Heidegger, 2001, p. 409; 2006, p. 358).

⁸Limit – πέρας. Also : “circumscription,” “delimitation.” [“Begrenzung,” “Ausgrenzung”] (Heidegger, 2009, p. 15; 2002a, p. 19).

⁹“What we should take away from this general consideration of the is this: It is that which is there as the in the consideration of the being-there of human beings, what ” (Heidegger, 2002a, p. 72; 2009, p. 51).

¹⁰“It is on the basis of this potentiality for hearing, which is existentially primary, that anything like hearkening [Horchen] becomes possible” (Heidegger, 1927/2001, p. 207; 2006, p. 163).

¹¹Remarkable in the quoted passage is Heidegger interpretive violence concerning , terms that are rendered as the just and the unjust, according to B. Jowett translation (Aristotle, 1991c).

¹²“The human being is not only a speaker and a hearer, but is for itself such a being that hears itself [auf sich hört]” (Heidegger, 2002, p. 104; 2009, p. 72).

¹³According to Heidegger: “δόξα is simultaneously set forth as the basis and the motive of discoursing-with-one-another, of negotiating-with-one-another” (2002, p. 151; 2009, p. 102).

¹⁴By the same token, it cannot be addressed here the averageness of δόξα and its relevance to being-with-one-another.

¹⁵It should be clear, therefore, that this discussion on Heidegger's interpretation of Aristotle's philosophy concerns the totality of our existence in the world. The relevance of Heidegger's account of rhetorical discourse exceeds the boundaries of a theoretical approach of language, whereas it involves concrete dealings and behaviors in the world with others and consequently the commonality of sharing a meaningful world in the mode of coexistence. From this standpoint, any behavior that Dasein engages in his everydayness accomplishes the being-with-one-another (κοινωνία) in accordance to his concrete situation. Being-with-one-another is the ontological form of community that is possible by means of λόγος as communication. Economical dealings, a teacher–student relation, the therapeutic dialogue, political deliberations, and the performance of a play to an audience, are examples of Dasein's engagement in the world that presupposes a common basis (δόξα) upon which something is already viewed in some aspect. This rhetorical-phenomenological account of language encompasses different forms of behavior concerning a view, like encouraging, exhorting, refuting, confronting, persuading, but all of them depend on the fundamental openness to the other, the hearing (Hören) through which belonging together (Zugehörigkeit) is primordially enacted.

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Roberto Wu

Roberto Wu, PhD, is Professor of Philosophy at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. He received his doctoral degree from PUC-Rio, Brazil, in 2006, and completed a sabbatical at Boston College, MA, in 2014, where he engaged in a study of Heidegger, Levinas, and Gadamer. His research interests focus on hermeneutics, phenomenology, and rhetoric. He is the organizer of the Hermeneia International Symposium, which takes place every 2 years at UFSC.