Heidegger's ontology of others is solipsistic. Others are not contingent upon 'being-with'.

dukkha

The way I understand Heidegger (I'm no scholar), he seems to be saying that 'being-with' is a sort of condition of the possibility of experience. As in, 'being-with' is fundamental to Dasein. It's a fundamental ontological condition of experience.

But what if say you were born on a desert island and never met or knew about other humans? How could 'being-with' others be a part of your experience?

Heidegger seems to be saying that 'being-with' is a necessary part of experience, but I cannot see how the desert island person would experience 'being-with'. And at the same time it seems absurd to say that the desert island person doesn't experience anything at all. So Heidegger seems in this case to be forced to say that the desert person DOES experience 'being-with' - even though this seems impossible. How can someone who has no knowledge or comprehension of others experience 'being-with'?

So 'being-with' seems contingent to me, rather than a necessary condition of experience. Contingent on say being socialized among other people, learning language, customs, etc.

Also, 'being-with' in Heidegger's ontology seems open to accusations of solipsism? Other people in Heidegger's ontology seems to me, as something which can be reduced to just an aspect of ones experience. As in, others can be reduced to NOTHING MORE than ones experience of 'being-with' others. That there is no actual others out there, rather there's just this ontological mode of experience one is in, which is 'being-with'. Or not, as the case may be - for the desert island person for example.

How does Heidegger's ontology cope with someone who does NOT experience 'being-with'? For that person, their 'Dasein' does not contain the aspect of experience of 'being-with', and so for them there literally are no other people in the world. But we want to avoid this situation where, Dasein which contains 'being-with' exists among others, whereas Dasein which does not, is alone in the world. Because other people are MORE than just an aspect of one's experience (Heidegger seems to be saying this is a necessary aspect, but I don't buy it - it appears contingent. What about autistic people? Or babies? Where is the 'being-with' for them?). There is only one world and it contains others.

I want other people's existence to be a fact of the world. Rather than just an aspect of my experience. It seems to me that other people exist regardless of whether I do, or do not experience 'being-with'. But for Heidegger, at least on my reading of him, he seems to be saying that there are no other people over and above what he says is a necessary condition of experience - 'being with'. It sounds like well if that experience of 'being-with' didn't exist in the universe, then other people would not exist at all. If you didn't experience 'being-with', then you would be alone in the world. Heidegger ontology does not seem to be able to say that the person who experiences himself alone in the world - IS OBJECTIVELY WRONG. His experience is not correct.

There are more to others than just a condition of my experience. People are over and above, and independent of my experience of 'being-with' others. If my experience did not contain 'being-with', other people would still exist, and this would be an objective fact. The existence of other people is not contingent upon an aspect of my own experience. I exist regardless of whether you experience a public world or not. Heidegger seems to be saying, experiencing a public shared world is a necessary condition of experience (and therefore solipsism is a fundamentally confused concept), and seems to leave the ontology of others there. But others are more than just an experience of publicity/shared world!

Heidegger seems solipsistic to me. He grounds the existence of others within ones experience, but other people are more than that, right? Sure, he may insist that ALL experience contains as a necessary condition to exist 'being-with', but we want more than that. I want to say that other people exist as an objective ontological fact, and whether people experience 'being-with' others, or not, is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the existence of others. Other people should not be grounded in a condition of experience - even a necessary one. Others are over and above that - they exist regardless of whatever you experience. Right?

The existence of other people is not contingent upon ones experience of a public, shared world. It's absurd (and wrong!) to deny this.

Erik

Greetings dukkha,

I don't think I understand your issue here. Of course others exist objectively whether they are part of my 'being-with' or not. The public, shared world in which we're brought up opens up an understanding of the being of beings for us. This ontological disclosure is not something that's given upon birth, but slowly develops through acculturation into the language and practices of our social-historical community. So in a way that may cause offense, for instance, I don't think Heidegger would consider babies to be Dasein. Or even those with, say, advanced Alzheimer's or significant brain damage. The world is largely, if not entirely, closed off to them, just as it appears to be for most (all?) 'world poor' non-human animals. Heidegger would agree that they are biologically human, but they are no longer 'daseining' to state it a bit differently, as an ongoing activity rather than an objective thing. The idiosyncratic terminology Heidegger is using here throws people off, since he's using 'world', and other seemingly familiar terms, in much different ways than is normally done (ontologically rather than ontically) .

I'm also curious as to how a human being could possibly be born alone on a desert island, without any attending to their needs from other human beings, and somehow manage to not only stay alive, but gain an understanding of itself and its world without language? I can imagine a hypothetical scenario - say a shipwreck in which a pregnant mother swims ashore a deserted island - in which the mother died after giving birth, but I can't fathom how that baby would survive and develop alone in that environment. Seems like an entirely unrealistic possibility and therefore not a significant challenge to the notion that to be Dasein (which, to repeat, is not synonymous with biological humanity) necesarily involves 'being-with' as part of its ontological constitution.

dukkha

I don't think I understand your issue here. Of course others exist objectively whether they are part of my 'being-with' or not. — Erik

But Dasein can't 'step beyond' Daseins fundamental ontological condition (being-with) and claim objective facts about the world. The existence of others beyond Daseins experience of 'being-with', is not something which Dasein has access to. Others beyond Daseins experience of 'being-with', is something transcendent to Dasein. So how can you state the objective existence of others as an obvious fact?

Heidegger says 'being-with' is a fundamental part of human experience, so you can't just say ''independent of my 'being-with' experience of others, other people exist'', because you literally have no access to the world independent of your ontological constitution.

So for Heidegger there is no 'objective truth' about the existence of others. Or at least one which can be known (or even coherently conceptualized). Can Dasein even talk about the world beyond Dasein?

Erik

But how could anyone ever step beyond their own experience in any meaningful way? That seems like a crazy demand to establish the 'objective' existence of anything. We can't transcend our perspective, and therefore solipsism seems incapable of ultimate refutation. I mean, how would you possibly confirm the objective existence of others, of anything, beyond the way in which you experience them? Maybe have a chat with them? Kick a ball around? Start up a discussion on an internet forum? What are you looking for here in your use of the term 'objective'? Something idiosyncratic, apparently, and perhaps that's what's preventing me from grasping your point.

Besides that, I think Heidegger's main issue with your line of inquiry would be this: before we can even begin to prove that a world of others exists beyond our experience, let's set aside our theoretical assumptions for a bit and pay closer attention to that experience itself. It may very well be that I'm a figment of your imagination, but your solipsistic experience involves others like myself in an intimate and necessary way. This relationship opens up a horizon of intelligibility in which things make sense to you, in which you can ask a question like you're doing now. Those skeptical questions have a background and a history of which we're a part. How do we prove these questions - and the philosophers who formulated them - did not originate in our head? Well, for one thing we could show that even we are never 'in our head', but rather out in the world with others - even when they are not 'objectively' present with us!

dukkha

But how could anyone ever step beyond their own experience in any meaningful way? That seems like a crazy demand to establish the 'objective' existence of anything. We can't transcend our perspective, and therefore solipsism seems incapable of ultimate refutation. I mean, how would you possibly confirm the objective existence of others? Maybe have a chat with them? Kick a ball around with them? What are you looking for here in your use of the term 'objective'? — Erik

It seems that for Heidegger, the existence of others is neither an objective or subjective fact. Heidegger tries to sidestep this realist notion by an analysis of others which places them not in an external or internal world, but rather grounds them in this notion of 'being-with', a necessary part of Dasein's ontological condition.

This leads him wide open to accusations of solipsism. We want the existence of others to be an objective fact, not just a condition of experience.

Sure, Dasein experiences itself among others in a shared world. But through grounding others within the structure of Daseins experience, Heidegger cannot speak of others existing beyond or outside of Dasein.

The question of whether others actually exist independent of whatever Dasein experiences is side stepped by Heidegger. For Heidegger it is unintelligibe to speak of others 'outside' of Dasein, and so one cannot coherently make claims about the objective existence of others - which leads to solipsism. Heidegger's ontology cannot even make sense of claims about other minds existing independently of ones experience.

Of course others exist objectively whether they are part of my 'being-with' or not. — Erik

Heidegger cannot intelligibly claim this. He's trying to avoid the realism of other minds existing objectively (or not), and so in my opinion lapses into a solipsism. One in which he can claim to be among others in a shared world. And yet cannot talk about others having any independent or separate existence beyond Daseins *experience* of a shared world - because he's grounded others within the structure of Dasein. It is unintelligible to speak of others separate from what Dasein experiences.

Heidegger can intelligibly speak of others, but the ontological status of the others he talks about is less real than the way in which others exist for say a non-solipsist realist. For the realist others exist as a brute ontological fact of reality, independent of any claims about their existence, or any experience of their existence. For Heidegger, others have been shifted from the realists ontological fact of reality, into an existential structure of a beings experience.

Which strikes me as solipsistic. I want others to exist in the realist sense.

Erik

It seems that for Heidegger, the existence of others is neither an objective or subjective fact. Heidegger tries to sidestep this realist notion by an analysis of others which places them not in an external or internal world, but rather grounds them in this notion of 'being-with', a necessary part of Dasein's ontological condition.

↪dukkha

Realism and Idealism are both predicated upon a tacit acceptance of an inner/outer split. This starting point leads to myriad 'problems', the likes of which we're seeing here, and this modern philosophical orientation is precisely what Heidegger will try to undermine through the existential analytic.

This leads him wide open to accusations of solipsism. We want the existence of others to be an objective fact, not just a condition of experience.

↪dukkha

Seems a false dichotomy. Why can't something be both an objective fact and a condition of experience? Like the world we live in. Or a fully functioning brain. Others exist both objectively and 'subjectively', ontically and ontologically. But again, it may be better to jettison the language of modern philosophy which, Heidegger will try to show, conceals more about us and the way we exist than it reveals. The existence of individual human beings is an ontic fact, while the existence of others 'ontologically' as being-with is entirely compatible with this. Grasping that so-called 'ontological difference' is essential for anyone who wants to make sense of Heidegger. Completely non-negotiable, in fact, if engaging him is something you're genuinely interested in.

The question of whether others actually exist independent of whatever Dasein experiences is side stepped by Heidegger. For Heidegger it is unintelligibe to speak of others 'outside' of Dasein, and so one cannot coherently make claims about the objective existence of others - which leads to solipsism. Heidegger's ontology cannot even make sense of claims about other minds existing independently of ones experience.

↪dukkha

There is no 'inside' for Heidegger, so how could there be an outside? I used that term because it's more accurate, I believe, than the view that our experience takes place inside our head, but it's still misleading when measured against Dasein as articulated through Heidegger's fundamental ontology. It's like you're caught trying to place Heidegger within a paradigm whose foundations he feels are dubious.

This conceptual paradigm of subjects, objects, inner, outer, sense-data, etc. etc. will be replaced with a new one involving things like being-in-the-world, being-with, present-at-hand, ready-to-hand and the like. Heidegger is difficult to comprehend, in part, because he tries to forge a new language that will ultimately lead to a reinterpretation of what it means to be the opening or emptiness in which Being comes to presence through beings. It's an extremely radical position, and even he acknowledged later in life that he was still caught up in the language of metaphysics while writing Being and Time.

But back to the matter, solipsism flows from the modern outlook, with its Cartesian starting point and subsequent fixation on epistemological issues. Of course skepticism is a natural outgrowth from the guiding assumptions at work here. Those assumptions are precisely what Heidegger will call into question, with a corresponding attention being placed on how we interpret ourselves and our world 'initially and for the most part', characterized largely by practical, engaged activity in a public and shared world.

I'm sure you're making an interesting point here, but I just can't quite grasp the issue or problem. I do think you've created an unnecessary either/or scenario regarding objective fact vs. condition of existence of Dasein.

I'll keep following along if others want to try to engage you on the issue. Where are you, John?

Wayfarer

I got as far as 'born on a desert island' and then wanted to ask, 'what happened to your mother'?

Michael

You need to understand the distinction between the ontic and the ontological in Heideggerian terminology. To offer a simple explanation from Wikipedia:

Heidegger uses the term ontic ... when he gives descriptive characteristics of a particular thing and the "plain facts" of its existence. What is ontic is what makes something what it is.

For an individual discussing the nature of "being", one's ontic could refer to the physical, factual elements that produce and/or underlie one's own reality - the physical brain and its substructures.

...

Something that is ontological is concerned with understanding and investigating Being, the ground of Being, or the concept of Being itself.

For an individual discussing the nature of "being", the ontological could refer to one's own first-person, subjective, phenomenological experience of being.

Given that Heidegger doesn't deny the ontic existence of unknown people, he wouldn't qualify as a solipsist.

↪Wayfarer

Maybe he's Mowgli?

Wayfarer

↪Michael

Woof!

mcdoodle

It takes quite an acrobatic feat, in my view, to accuse Heidegger of solipsism. 'Being with' is not a propositional idea that one can take or leave; it is just how it is to be Dasein, we are 'thrown' into such a state of being. I think you have to leave your propositions at the door like outdoor shoes to enter the realm of Dasein. Later they return through the door marked 'science' to be castigated by him. But for me, while I don't take that further step, I find the initial basics illuminating: analytic philosophy often seems preoccupied with 'the scientific image', and here is a strain of thought that instead hurls us into the primaryness of human experience. I don't see how you shine a light on such a view by imagining someone who is somehow born motherless on a desert island and miraculously survives into adulthood.

Janus

↪dukkha

Two points: Heidegger probably thinks "being-with" as a linguistically, culturally and historically mediated disposition. So, if someone could somehow have been on a desert island alone from birth until maturity, then they would have no language or culture or history and hence would have no disposition of being-with. Whether or not you then understood them as experiencing anything, would depend on whether you understand animals as experiencing anything.

I could be wrong, but you seem to be suggesting that being-with is impossible without other humans, If a fully enculturated dasein who had already developed the disposition of being-with was stranded on a desert island would you say they could not be-with on account of the fact there that were no other daseins present?

dukkha

Heidegger tries to dissolve the problem of other minds through his analytic of the experiencing self (Dasein) claiming Dasein always is being in (the world), and being with (others). For Heidegger, the problem of solipsism is simply a misunderstanding that arises of out Cartesian reductionism essentially. There is no problem to solve.

Heidegger, in order to avoid solipsism, must invoke special pleading in regards to the ontological status of other people. So, things in the world only exist in relation to an experiencing self. Other people are things in the world, therefore one must embrace solipsism (the meaning of the existence of others for us is always with reference to *my* experience of others). But he doesn't embrace solipsism.

Therefore Heidegger must make an ontological distinction between two types of experience - one of objects and of people. How is this special pleading justified?

Is there an *ontological* difference between say the experience of a couch, and the experience of a human? If not, then a human is just a thing in the world and therefore only exists in regard to an experiencing self.

Imagine all that reality consists of is your experience, nothing else. There is nothing beyond what you are experiencing. But because of the structure of your experience - living as a body in a public world - you experience yourself as among others.

But they don't exist!

If kettles only exist with respect to an experiencing self, then what is the ontological status of other selves? Again to put this in more rigorous terms: analyzed,

Marty

Is there an *ontological* difference between say the experience of a couch, and the experience of a human?

Yes, that's the distinction between Dasein and the ontic.

And it's obviously not "special pleading", as Heidegger writes thousands of pages dividing the essential differences between the two.

Janus

↪dukkha

You only included half the picture. Without the existence of others there can be no self; so if the existence of others is neither subjective nor objective so it is also with the self. So solipsism would simply be an incoherent position for Heidegger.

Ian Lomboy

I think Heidegger is solipsistic when he states that Dasein withdraws itself from "the they" in the state of anxiety upon being confronted by the reality of death. How can Dasein manifest as anti-solipsistic in relation to authentic existence?

_db

Also, 'being-with' in Heidegger's ontology seems open to accusations of solipsism? Other people in Heidegger's ontology seems to me, as something which can be reduced to just an aspect of ones experience. As in, others can be reduced to NOTHING MORE than ones experience of 'being-with' others. That there is no actual others out there, rather there's just this ontological mode of experience one is in, which is 'being-with'. Or not, as the case may be - for the desert island person for example. — dukkha

If I remember correctly, this is one of the points that Levinas, one of Heidegger's contemporaries, differs from Heidegger. For Levinas, Ethics is first philosophy, as when we are approached by the Other, we are subjected to a demand - "do not kill me", "recognize me", "I am not you", etc. We are given this responsibility towards the Other that we have to fulfill in order to justify ourSELVES.

Heidegger avoids placing any value on Being. This is precisely the fundamental point I find questionable in his ontology. The fact that there is a care structure, anxiety, the sense of the Other, etc. is because there is an implicit value generation going on.

Janus

↪Ian Lomboy

"Withdrawal from the they" is the movement towards an authentic existence. "The they" represents the generalized conventional social formulations of 'what one does' in situations. For Heidegger authenticity consists not in generality, but in singularity; you live your life authentically when you see it in its absolute particularity and respond to creatively it in terms of each unique moment.

Janus

Heidegger avoids placing any value on Being. — darthbarracuda

This is because the (conventional, which is to say, arbitrary) placing of value on being is unnecessary, and actually a kind of devaluation, for Heidegger; being is always already suffused with value, which may only be seen in the absence of our own impositions.

bloodninja

If kettles only exist with respect to an experiencing self, then what is the ontological status of other selves? — dukkha

Dear dukkha,

Exist is an ontological term that has the very specific meaning in Being and Time of taking a stand on your being. Kettles don't take a stand on their being and so don't exist in Heidegger's terminology. You seem to be using exist with the meaning it excludes in B&T, namely the ex-tantness of something objectively present.

I think he thinks the problem of other minds is purely uninteresting. This is because the question of whether there actually are others out there in the objective world apart from my inner subjective experience of them is a problem only if you presuppose the derived/founded cartesian subject-object position as your ontological starting point. Once you take this derived starting point what you exclude are all the foundational and shared existential phenomena that Heidegger is articulating. One of the main points Heidegger is making is that we are primarily and usually not isolated minds as such; dasein is neither mind nor consciousness nor subject. Nor is dasein somehow inner and the world outer. In the basic average everyday level of phenomena that Heidegger is articulating, the "self" is not really distinct from the other. The everyday self is other, and dasein is the world existingly. This is not solipsism, far from it. It might be solipsism if Heidegger was making a metaphysical or epistemological claim, but he is not. He is making a phenomenological claim about intelligibility.

Brian

But what if say you were born on a desert island and never met or knew about other humans? How could 'being-with' others be a part of your experience? — dukkha

I think Heidegger's response would be that such a human being would not be a Dasein at all, as being Dasein and being a biological human being are not for Heidegger the same exact thing.

Being-with, Heidegger argues, is only a necessary feature of the experience of any entity that could be called a Dasein. Much of Dasein's understanding of the world is determined by its experience of other Dasein.

It's existence without other Dasein would be so radically different - would such a being even have language? - that it would probably be more akin to what it is like to be a biological animal than to be a Dasein.

I look forward to your response to this.

Dan123

dukkha,

I sympathize with your way of construing the problem of Being-with in Heidegger's Early Philosophy. As many commentators in this forum believe, it would seem that your (mis)understanding of Being-with takes its departure from the subject-object split of an inner realm of private subjective experiences cut off from a noumenal world of "how things really are." This urge to (mis)construe Dasein as a self-enclosed subject over and against a world of objectively subsisting objects can be strong, despite all of Heidegger's attempts to overcome that very construal.

Let me work within what I take to be your understanding of Being-with to bring it down from within.

I think you are implicitly arguing for something like this: It would seem that, from at least one interpretive angle, the fact that Dasein is not a Cartesian subject - a worldless ego with mental representations in it that may or not correspond to 'the outside' - does not exclude the possibility that entities within-the-world are not the 'real' things-in-themselves, because those entities are, rather, still entities merely experienced by Dasein. On this interpretation, the things-as-experienced-by-me (ready-to-hand entities, the Others, etc), while not being mere categorical representations, are, at the end of the day, 'given' to me and to me alone, even if such things are always-already infused with meaning and significance on the basis of 'my' being-in-the-world (the a priori, referential structure of significance to which Dasein is thrown into and projects towards in terms of possibilities). Moreover, even if my experience never escapes the horizon of Temporality, there are still things as they are in-themselves beyond the horizon that structures and makes possible that which is disclosed within the range of my Being-in-the-world, including other people. However, surely we want to say that there are people who just flat out exist independent of my experience, independent of the way the world is disclosed to me within the historical horizon that delimits my way of understanding and navigating life. So, because Heidegger tells us that Temporality is the a priori condition for the possibility of entities within-my-world being what they are to me, including other people, it follows that, for Heidegger, there are no people-in-themselves. Thus, for Heidegger, there are other people only insofar as they are experienced by me within the range that which structures the social, interpersonal aspect of what it means to me qua Dasein, namely Being-with. Hence, solipsism. But this is absurd. There are people 'out there' beyond the horizon of Dasein's experience.

Here's the problem: The entities disclosed within-the-horizon that structures "experience" are the very things-themselves. You are literally 'getting at' reality through the horizon to which Dasein is immersed-in and structurally is. The entities encountered within-the-world are "snatched out of their hiddenness" or "freed" through Dasein as Being-in-the-world. Dasein is always-already 'outside', that is, alongside-entities-within-the-world and in solicitous engagement with Others. The persons you encounter are not illusions-given-to-you-through-your-an-inner-constructive-activity. Rather, they in-themselves-real persons that are-encountered-or-disclosed-by-you-only-on-the-basis-of-a-co-openness-to-a-world which allows for any such encounter. The world is public. Daseins are out-there in the same worlds (though there are a multitudes of overlapping worlds that disclose different regions of Being) that allow you to encounter another person as another person from within a specifically situated, worldly context. Being-with helps constitute this co-openness. And it always-operative, even when no one is around. Because Being-with, along with moods, spatiality, etc, makes possible loneliness, language, and a host of other comportments or ways of engaging Dasein's lived contexts, your desert island example, according to Heidegger, requires Being-with in the first place to make any sense at all.

One interpretation that I think follows this line of thinking is outlined in Dreyfus's Being-in-the-world (Chapter 15).

The above interpretation, I think, is one way to make sense of Being-with without falling into solipsism and idealism. Though it is radical, and somewhat strange.

Wayfarer

One interpretation that I think follows this line of thinking is outlined in Dreyfus's Being-in-the-world (Chapter 15). — Dan123

I think you'll find Dukkha has moved on. Thoughtful post, though. You will enjoy this movie trailer, Dreyfus is in it.

Heiko

Other people in Heidegger's ontology seems to me, as something which can be reduced to just an aspect of ones experience. — dukkha

I doubt he uses that phrase. Being with others is part of human existence. Observation tells us that everyone is in contact with someone else at least once in their lifes... No need to come up with people who were breeded by a lost retort in the jungle and then raised by apes later on: The book is not based upon speculation. It takes Dasein as it is and must do so as the whole analysis of Dasein was meant to serve as basis for further investigations into Being itself. Things are how they are, and not how they could be.

Dan123

Heiko,

I respectfully disagree. The desert island is an example of a possible context in which Dasein could find itself, and as such, one that Dasein could be "thrown" into. Desert-stranded Dasein (or Tarzan for example), like any Dasein, is a being who copes and dwells in a contextually situated milieu of meaning. The island-world that surrounds him (to which he is constitutive of) is intelligible and matters to him ("Dasein's Being is an issue for it"; "Care is the Being of Dasein."): the island is home, bad weather is a danger, a shooting star is a sign of events to come, the tree tops are for the birds to hangout and sing, the sun is a god to worship, the horizon is a reminder to have hope that there might be others out there like me, etc. So it does not seem to be a stretch to say that Heidegger's existential-ontological analysis of human existence ought to account for such an example, I think.

The question then becomes 'What role, if any, does Being-with play in making possible Dasein's immersion-in a stranded-island or Tarzanian context in which there are no people but me?' Heidegger says

Being-with is an existential characteristic of Dasein even when factically no Other is present-at-hand or perceived. Even Dasein’s Being-alone is Being-with in the world. The Other can be missing only in and for a Being-with... Being-with is in every case a characteristic of one’s own Dasein; Dasein-with characterizes the Dasein of Others to the extent that it is freed by its world for a Being-with. Only so far as one’s own Dasein has the essential structure of Being-with, is it Dasein-with as encounterable for Others. — Being and Time

So, Being-with, as an existentiale - a constitutive structure of the way Dasein is related to and immersed-in the world - is necessary to Dasein, even if no one else is ever around.

Banno

Heidegger seems solipsistic to me. He grounds the existence of others within ones experience, but other people are more than that, right? Sure, he may insist that ALL experience contains as a necessary condition to exist 'being-with', but we want more than that. I want to say that other people exist as an objective ontological fact, and whether people experience 'being-with' others, or not, is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the existence of others. Other people should not be grounded in a condition of experience - even a necessary one. Others are over and above that - they exist regardless of whatever you experience. Right? — dukkha

I think this is spot on. I made a very similar point during a debate in a previous incarnation. The argument extends to all who infer the existence of others from their experience.

frank

↪Banno

You'd only need inference if you washed up on a deserted island as a baby and were subsequently raised by pelicans.

Banno

↪frank

even then, perhaps not. There are pelicans, at the least.

Heiko

So, Being-with, as an existentiale - a constitutive structure of the way Dasein is related to and immersed-in the world - is necessary to Dasein, even if no one else is ever around. — Dan123

Frankly, I think Dasein simply is not possible under that condition.

Dan123

So, Being-with, as an existentiale - a constitutive structure of the way Dasein is related to and immersed-in the world - is necessary to Dasein, even if no one else is ever around.
— Dan123
Frankly, I think Dasein simply is not possible under that condition. — Heiko

Heiko,
In regards to precisely what condition do you think Dasein simply is not possible? Do you mean to say that you do not think that Being-with is a necessary component of Dasein's Being, that Being-with is a contingent, rather than necessary, way in which Dasein relates and understands? Do you mean to say that Being-with cannot possibly be constitutive of Dasein if there is never anyone else around? Do you mean to say that Being-with cannot possibly delimit and make possible the ways in which Dasein is alone? Something else?

Heiko

Dasein wouldn't be "da" if it wasn't with others. Of course that does not mean the factical presence of others but an existential-ontological determination, i.e. a necessity making it possible.

Dan123

I think this is spot on. I made a very similar point during a debate in a previous incarnation. The argument extends to all who infer the existence of others from their experience. — Banno

For Heidegger, to infer the existence others from one's own experience is misinterpret what it is to be a human-being. Dasein is fundamentally not a 'mental sphere of subjectivity cut off from the outside' who has to ask, know, or "infer" about that which is 'out-there', a point your claim misses. As Dasein, my way of Being and understanding the world that I am immersed-in is fundamentally not a kind of knowing in which I reach out or transcend an inner sphere of mental states to which I “return with one’s booty to the cabinet of consciousness.” For Heidegger, Dasein is always-already 'outside' with Others and alongside things.

So, rather than the desert-island being an example that proves that Being-with is a contingent aspect of Dasein's Being, Being-with is necessary for the desert-island example in the first place. Not solipsism, but a radical strand of realism that blends hermeneutics and phenomenology (though this point is far from being universally agreed upon within the scholarship).

Heidegger's ontology of others is solipsistic. Others are not contingent upon 'being-with'.

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