Heidegger Division One Being and Time: Stephen Mulhall

Contents

Introduction 1

The question of being 1

Reclaiming the question 2

The Priority of Dasein 2

Philosophy, history and phenomenology 3

Chapter 1 The Human world, scepticism, agency and cognition 4

The Cartesian Circle 4

The worldhood of the world 5

Chapter 2 The Human world: Society, Selfhood and self-interpretation 6

The individual and community 6

Passions and projects 7

Chapter 3 Language, truth and reality 9

Language: Assertions and discourse 9

Chapter 4: Conclusion to division one: The uncanniness of everyday life 9

Falling into the world 9

Anxiety and Care 10

Anxiety, scepticism and nihilism 11

Introduction

The question of being

Being and time looks to answer the forgotten question of the meaning of being. But at the end of the book he is only just at the point where he can start to pose the question.

Ontic being is the what of the specific thing that I see, Being is the nature of existence in general. We implicitly understand something of being as we interact with things. Ontic knowledge is of a particular type of entity, e.g. within biology. Biology investigates life, maths investigates numbers, chemistry chemicals and underpinning this are ontological presuppositions that enable the object for investigation.

What being is what it means for this particular type of entity to be and to distinguish it from another type of entity? What is its particular mode of being? This guides our everyday engagements with being and our ontic investigations.

That Being is the fact that that being is, is an example of Being and being. Heidegger argues that what being has been not well understood and we end up just defining things as things, res extensa, rather than looking specifically at the different between one type of being and the other. So we just get res extensa and res cogitans

What and that being correlates to essence and existence?

Reclaiming the question

Why have we forgotten the question of Being?

Answers: It is merely the most abstract of concepts and is not a being.

But Being is that which defines beings as beings, the ground of their articulatability as what and that being. The abstract being would be a class but beings don’t have Being by membership of a class, as the being of number is radically different from the being of horse. Being is not a being, nor is it a uniform property as Being connects radically different existent things, imaginary things, real things, abstract things, physical things, mental things etc. If Being isn’t a being, and our standard ways of understanding is ontically then we need some new tools.

The Priority of Dasein

Asking a question presupposes an answer, and it is the same with the question of Being. Any question is an interrogating of something that prompted the question, an enquiry where something is discovered. The question can be carried out in particular ways which reflect the Being of the enquirer. Thus we start asking the question from a vague meaning of Being, it is not a neutral enquiry. Being is that which determines entities as entities, the thing that means a being exists but is not a property but the nature of the entity that means it exists.

The object that we need to interrogate as to the meaning of Being then is Dasein, as it already has an everyday understanding of Being as it poses the question, and Being is an issue for it. Dasein chooses how to live in a way no other do. Cats might make choices, but they do not create projects in their lives different from other cats, they do not face the prospect of their death, one day is much the same as another, its cat day. Cats are determined by self-preservation, pleasure and reproduction, they don’t create their lives.

What being is only appropriate to animals, and things? Dasein doesn’t have an essence as the question of its Being is an issue for it, it had an essence Being wouldn’t be an issue for it, as it would just need to enquire as to its essence. Dasein in choosing its being, is choosing its essence which can change. So what is most important to me is my family, finance, friendships or cleverness.

We choose how we relate to our biological aspects, the desire to pleasure, to reproduction, to safety etc. We can only choose our being in relation to the society\time we exist in and when we choose, we must continue to affirm that choice at every moment until we die.

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Existentiell understanding is the effect of the choices that Dasein makes to define it ontically. So my choice to be religious defines something of my ontic being, it is my existentiell choice.

Why investigate Dasein first to investigate Being?

1.       It’s being is to be related to being

2.       It relates to other beings as part of its being, ontic ontological. This is to say that how I relate to objects is part of my being.

3.       Because being is a question for it, and every question presupposes an answer there is an everyday knowledge however unclear that Dasein has to Being

The existential analytic of Dasein is fundamental ontology as the being of Dasein is to have its being as a question and its being is to relate to the being of other objects, so it is related to a broad number of instances of being and comes closer to Being itself.

Philosophy, history and phenomenology

How do we understand Dasein?

1.       Radicalise the everyday understanding?

2.       Look to the existentiell understandings of one of the ontic sciences, but they are on the basis of existentiell dogma, their first principles.

The approach decided is to show Dasein in its everydayness. This then doesn’t treat Dasein as a specific existentiell choice, which would be the case if we investigate it as a certain type of person in a certain type of situation, e.g. economically, or qua intelligence, or breeding.

You need some presupposition to direction your investigation. Heidegger takes this as temporality is the meaning of the Beign of Dasein. His existential analytic will show the constitutive structure of Dasein as modes of temporality.

Dasein doesn’t just have a past, it lives it. It chooses from its possibilities of its past, it is guided by its past, it takes its past into the future. Dasein also standardly interprets itself in a traditional way, one that it has grown up in. Thus its history shapes its self-understanding.

Phenomenology: he doesn’t explain his phenomenology in terms of Husserl. Rather in terms of logos: a discourse which is making manifest what one is talking about. Correspondence theory depends on an object already having been shown for a truth to agree with, but is it not theories of truth that get the object to show itself, so are we not in a circular argument. Phenomenon is that which shows itself from itself. The everyday view of phenomena is: A phenomena can show itself as what it is not, or show itself indirectly by means of a symptom, alternatively the phenomena may show itself as what can never be seen i.e. phenomena as opposed to noumena.

Heidegger’s definition of phenomenon is close to Kant’s understanding of space of time, phenomena are conditions of experience, not things that can be experienced in themselves

Heidegger’s view of phenomena, is that predominantly they lay hidden but they can show themselves. The meaning and the ground of that which shows itself is the phenomena.

Structure of the project

Section 1 Understanding Dasein and temporality

1.1   Existential analytic of Dasein

1.2   Dasein grounded in temporality

1.3   Temporality the transcendental condition for the question of being

Section 2: a phenomenological deconstruction of the history of ontology

2.1   Kant’s schematism and time

2.2   Descartes cogito

2.3   Aristotle’s temporality

However only the first two sections were published in Being and Time, the other sections can be understood as with the basic problems of phenomenology and Kant and the problem of metaphysics.  It could be that Being and Time is unfinished because of the nature of the question of Being. It starts on a history of thought, and will on the basis of questioning come to a new ground. But it doesn’t stop there, and on the basis of this new ground new questions can be asked.

Because the question of Being has been forgotten by philosophers, then Heidegger first of all has to show that asking the question about the meaning of Being is an important one, a significant one.

The project of understanding the meaning of Being, starts with presuppositions the questioner has as this question is part of a history and is part of their Being. When you understand the effects of the history of Being and the nature of enquiring as an aspect of the Being of Dasein, then you can return to re-pose the question from a deeper root. Then you unearth other aspects, of history and being and then re-pose the question from a different deeper root, and so on ad infinitum.

That Dasein on one hand has an everyday understanding of Being, and on the other hand has forgotten to question it can be explained by inauthenticity.

Chapter 1 The Human world, scepticism, agency and cognition

The first division of Being and time, looks at Dasein in its everydayness. It sees it as Being-in-the-world, then investigates, world, and Being-in. The unification and the founding of Being-in-the-world is care.  Dasein’s being is Care.

He makes this analysis to deepen the relation between Dasein and temporality.

Dasein has being as an issue for it, and Dasein’s being is related to its being by mineness. Again Dasein has its being as mine, as opposed to yours in a different way from cats. That’s my life isn’t a thing a cat might say, a cat lives it life, it doesn’t create it and have ownership of it.

Dasein doesn’t have properties it has possibilities. Existentiell, is the chosen existence of Dasein. Existentialia are the possibilities for existence. Dasein can be an individual, different from the rest of his species, a cat cannot. Dasein can choose itself, be true to itself or can lose itself, in short be authentic or inauthentic.

Everydayness is chosen as the primary mode to identify Dasein as no way of being has been made primary which could affect the investigation. Average everydayness avoid the sedimented and prejudicial historical self-understanding. Average everydayness is however inauthentic. So often the ontological structure of the being of objects is projected onto Dasein.  Dasein is often interpreted as what being, as something that has an essence. But this is appropriate to physical objects. Authenticity is one of Dasein’s existentialia, i.e. one of the ways it can choose to exist.

The Cartesian Circle

Previous philosophers have always been spectators, Descartes watched the ball of wax, Hume watched the billiards, Kant the ship sailing off, indeed the project of Newtonian science, seeks to remove all trait of the observer, to get a gods eye view. Heidegger is in his world as an actor not as a spectator.

If you viewed physical objects purely as what they looked like for a spectator, then this would miss the fact that objects are used by humans for a purpose. A world that we are spectators on, is one that we don’t inhabit or engage with, we rather just look.

The spectator model has humans as related to physical objects in space, by spatial co-ordinates. However objects can contingently exist within other objects, but Dasein doesn’t contingently have a world it is part of its essential structure to have an environment. Likewise objects are related in space by distance, but Dasein can encounter an object, take it as a possibility for it that can be put to use for its projects, whilst a ball may knock another, it doesn’t take it as one of its possibilities to use it in a variety of ways for its desires.

Heidegger didn’t say that a theoretical objective understanding of objects was wrong but rather it misses that we use objects.

Present at hand objects are theoretical

Ready to hand are practical

Both present at hand and ready to hand exist because Being is within a world, has an environment. The world isn’t a construct of present at hand objects it is what enables them.

Present at hand is derivative of readiness to hand, as in activity, when something blocks your way, impedes you then you notice it. Alternatively when there was something you want to happen but didn’t you might notice what was missing or what got in the way. It is only when there is a deficiency of care, when we are not absorbed in the world that the present at hand appears. Knowing is one of the activities that Dasein can concern itself with but it is a detached way of being. To have subjects and objects gives an irrefutable sceptical position as how can the subject every be sure they know the object correctly. However if we are being-in-the-world then we are related to objects and we can do that in a number of ways, when care is deficient I can look at it as a theoretical object.

The worldhood of the world

There are 4 ways to understand the world

1.       Ontically, as the totality of present at hand entities

2.       Ontologically, as the being of the totality of present at hand entities. The condition therefore of such entities

3.       Ontically as the place where Dasein exists

4.       Ontologically as the condition of any world/environment, i.e. the worldhood of world

Heidegger uses the term heavily in term 3, i.e. the place where Dasein exists, but wants to describe the ontological aspect of the world, its worldhood.

The first thing about the world it is the place where you get the totality of the ready-to-hand, the hammer, which points to the nail to the wood etc. All of which are related to the care of the carpenter. Thus the ready to hand have a world they participate in and an individual ready-to-hand object makes no sense. The more handy a tool is, the more the person using it, is caught up in it, and isn’t aware of it, but rather is aware of its purpose. If a tool fails then it becomes conspicuous and can turn into something present-at-hand. When tools fail the workshop it is part of announces itself.

 A sign announces the totality ready-to-handiness equipment of the world it is part of. However this isn’t just objects but ways of behaving, e.g. traffic. The totality of equipment is the world, which is neither present at, or ready to hand. Rather it is the condition for both.

There is an equipment totality, which involves a web of references and ways of behaving that is in-order-to of Dasein’s care.

The handiness of the ready to hand are all in order to of Dasein’s care. Therefore the world is a part of the ontological structure of Dasein. Dasein’s basic mode is activity, its derivative mode is to contemplate. Dasein has to have a world in which to act, to choose its existence, in the face of the Other, as mine rather than yours or its.

Heidegger’s world is quite different from the geometrical Cartesian space. Heidegger’s world is constructed through use, spatiality is near or far. My neighbour is a lot further from me, that my friend who visits from Manchester. Objects are handy or unhandy to my desires, and that defines their significance, and their spatial relation to me, as near or far. Dasein exists spatially and discloses the spatiality of objects. Geometric space is an abstraction from this.

You can never entirely reduce ready-to-hand to present to hand as the system of relations that provides the in order which does define a singular in order which, there may be several purposes and some which Dasein isn’t aware of but rather in the doing becomes aware of, I hammered the nail to release anger, to hear that clanking noise, to fix the shelf, to be useful, to please my partner. Likewise the totality of equipment is an unlimited as the imagination of Dasein, a hammer could be many things, depends on how Dasein cares for it. Again the totality of the hammer depends on the context where you find it, it will change its potential uses. In this way readiness to hand cannot be reduced to presence at hand. The latter appear finite, but the former infinite. But that’s not true there seem an infinite number of facts that you can find about present at hand. You can’t reduce knowing how to knowing that, as you need to apply the former in an infinity of situations and propositionally you couldn’t cope with that.

Chapter 2 The Human world: Society, Selfhood and self-interpretation

The individual and community

How does Heidegger deal with the problem of other minds? He doesn’t like with Strawson he takes the Other\person as logically primitive. I was taught what it means to be me by the Other, they taught me the concepts that I describe my feelings in, all my behavioural reactions, all the words that decorate my perception and you want to tell me the other mind  doesn’t exist?

Being-in-the-World is the structure of everyday Dasein, the Other is implicated in the world and is therefore an essential part of Dasein, part of its Being. We encounter the other in terms of the equipment totality of things that are for the other, or from the other. Readiness at hand also produce other Dasein, if it is a possibility for me it is also a possibility for other Dasein. The ontological structure of Being, is a Being with other.

You can only be alone, if you are ontologically with the other. Aloneness is a deficiency an absence of something. You don’t get the description the other way withness! Daseins basic orientation to objects is ready to hand, its basic orientation towards the Other is solicitude.

With objects you can show concern, indifference, neglect or carelessness. This needs opening up as to why solicitude is the base structure of being with Others.  Any moral question is a concern for the view of others, any ought is again a view from the Other. Who is the Other?  They are not a definite group, but rather an impersonal construction we each have, drawn from the experiences we have had, about what our values, morals, and standards of behaviour should be.  It is our impersonal view of ourselves from the lens of another, and it is the judgement from that.  In some ways our self-reflection, is highly intertwined with this view from the Other. I guess this is because we meaningfully judge ourselves, and our meaning is derived from the Other. The view of the Other then is something of what is expected of me, how I might view myself in the eyes of others. So when you mind read, you are speaking the voice of the Other. When you project onto another, you are speaking the voice of the Other.  So really it’s when you think what others might think of me, would think of me, when you judge your actions in the eyes of others.

Whilst the ontological structure of Being of Dasein has a mineness, in its everydayness it lives a theyness, an inauthentic existence as it lives as it how others think it should. You can see the theyness at work, by a buy in to popular culture. But could you make this as an authentic choice, say mobile phones, have you any friends without them. How can you make an authentic choice: I guess it’s a level of degree, how much do you do things in your own way, but then this could merely be an inversion of what das man says, they say left, well I’ll turn right. To make an authentic choice then is to choose on your unique perspective. Whilst this unique perspective is derived from popular culture, concept and the like the authentic choice would be to notice your desires and how you want to create your life and as you take choices the choices that are closer to there are more authentic, the choice that are closer to the “what is expected of you”. To move towards authentic is to take the more unusual choice, the not conform choice, the more difficult maybe. Thing is then it puts the significantly mentally disturbed as potentially authentic.

Ontologically Dasein is Being With. To be authentic, then you need to create a life on the basis of your unique perspective with the they-world, so your relationship with Being-With is a unique one, within a shared environment. To be more authentic then also requires you engage with the Other as Other and not They. I.e. to listen to their uniqueness not to lump what the Other says, into your that’s what people are like sense. If you understand people as inhibitors of roles, the father, the man, the shopkeeper then you engage with them inauthentically. When we engage with the Other as objects then we engage with them inauthentially, as classes rather than uniquenesses.

Engaging with ourselves inauthetnically, is when we accept our socially designed desires, and ways of doing them unquestiongly. We act authentically when we decide given the cultural historical meaning of an act or how it should be performed, now when I do it, how is it for me, how does it suit me in this moment to do this. Everything that Dasein is given has come to it from others, however Dasein creates, Dasein can see how it is for it at this moment, to know what is mine. Therefore on the basis of what is given then there is a choosing in the moment, how do I want to do it, what is right for me. Any time you define action in terms of idealization, or averageness, or an abstraction then this is the They talking. Authenticity is then a way you react to what you inherit, your roles your behaviours, you concepts.

Passions and projects

So Heidegger has investigated Being, its mineness, authenticity, he has investigated the world, now he investigates the sense of Being In. The Being-In of Dasein is a comprehending one, conceivably a using one.

Dasein is between subjects and objects, Dasein is the clearing where entities can show themselves, although only on the basis of failed ready to handness.

Daseins Being in, has two elements: state of mind and understanding. State of mind, is the sense of an affective state in the face of a world that matters to Dasein. Moods are the best representation of this, depression, anger etc. In moods there is a passive sense that relates to state of mind. This being different from an emotion created in a situation by an engagement with something\someone. We swop one mood for another and the mood we have orients how we are oriented to the world and how objects are disclosed for us. Heidegger claims that a mood is a revealing of how the world is and therefore does not point to an inner state, but rather a condition of the world. What this means is that in face of its projects Dasein is open to a world that can affect it in certain ways and mood is one of them.

Whilst mood has a Being-In face, and discloses something about the world, it also opens up the world in certain ways as the world will respond to Dasein in certain moods. I guess that is because an emotion can be part of a social communication e.g. anger, shame etc.

A mood whilst defined by a word, contains a complex of customs and concepts associated with it. So when you say you couldn’t experience the pride of a samurai that is because the customs associated with that word have gone. So to feel a mood points at a world that can evoke that mood, the possible responses to it, the thoughts and assumptions that underpin it, the institutions that relate to and the resources that relate to it.

Interpretation of objects as present at hand, comes after our engagement with them as ready to hand, when they don’t work, or show a gap in providing our needs. Dasein projects its possibilities onto the world, how it wants to live and engages with chains of instruments to enable that. The horizon of perception in which this takes places is the historic understanding of other possibilities, possibilities that others have taken and remain available for Dasein to take.

Terminology

Foreconception: the prior understanding of use we have for an object

Forehaving: the domain that the object is used within, practical projects, or art etc.

Foresight: How the domain is embedded in the totality of references.

The importance of this, is that any object has a use(s), which is embedded into area(s) of concern, which will be part of the totality of concern for Dasein and culture.  When an object doesn’t serve me, it calls to be put back into this chain of hierarchy. Sometimes I guess the links between these layers get missed and ways of being start having ontic significance, whereas I take my daughter to school as I care about her, and have always wanted a child. This is a different perspective of taking the trip to school on that rainy day as an independent entity, a thing that can be judged as such and not pleasant.

The other aspect of this, is that there is no preconception perspective, there is no god’s eye view, science is always prejudiced. So any interpretation you should ask what is my preconception. This can apply to yourself as therapist or to the client, you see the x as y, but what are your preconceptions to take x as x in the first place. As soon as we pose a question we hold in that what might a possible answer look like, therefore we have some knowledge, some assumption of our quest.

Chapter 3 Language, truth and reality

Language: Assertions and discourse

Assertion is grounded in interpretation. Interpretation is grounded in understanding, understanding is grounded in language.

Assertion=a pointing out a definite characteristic of something, that communicates

Assertion is like when you mend the tool, you have the fore conception about the object, the for having about the domain, and the foresight about the totality. Assertions make explicit fore conceptions. As we make a definite assertion about the object, we have stood back from using it, stood back from projecting our possibilities on to it, to define it as that object which does enable that purpose through that property. We thus dim it down, we reduce its possibilities, we reduce its level of relationships to the equipment totality. This points at cognitive understanding as reductive, treating things theoretically as reductive, only when they engage in the totality of equipment, of how it can be used, in the areas that it can be used, to fulfil our Beings does the full sense of objects come.

Therefore assertion and discourse is part of the ontological structure of the disclosedness of Dasein. We might talk we do talk of the Being of Dasein but yet assertion is restrictive, it reduces the totality of ready to handness to this object present at hand.

Assertions are speech acts with determine properties of present at hand objects. The discourse is the conceptual framework that the assertion must draw from (could also be institutions, memes, media etc.) The framework determines what makes the entities entities, so presumably definition of their being, I guess also what determines meaning, I guess also the totality of references that we might find hammer in.  The discourse holds the essence of entities.

Language is composed of words, discourse not so. Language is the worldly manifestation of discourse. Discourse is an existentiale structure of Dasein and equi primordial of Daseins disclosedness as mood, and understanding. Daseins disclosedness, its being there is therefore discourse, mood and understanding.

Language can state present at hand objects but its primal purpose is communication, it points at the other.

Discourse is I think that which language speaks about, it is the being there, the existence, the engagement I have with that which I want to speak about, it is the discourse. Discourse is the conceptual understanding of the objects, their definition, they describe what “reality” may be. Actually no, the discourse holds definitions that may describe the world, if they are found. Language is propositional. Thing is all this is the thought of Mulhall, discourse seems a broader subject than this, it seems to point to the overall ready to hand relationships that can make sense of the object. 

Chapter 4: Conclusion to division one: The uncanniness of everyday life

Falling into the world

Dasein in its everydayness has Being With as part of its structure. How then do the They disclose themselves ontologically in Daseins Being With? Heidegger focuses on three aspect, idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity.

In idle talk, we don’t seek to disclose the object as it is, but rather it is more important what we say about it, rather than the object itself, the talk therefore is groundless. We don’t question what is said about the object we take it as true and pass it on.IN Idle Talk there is the assumption that we understand the object as we don’t question what we say, therefore idle talk closes down a current or future investigation into the object. An impersonal, groundless understanding thus is the theme of Daseins everyday relation to the world and others.

Idle talk can be seen as it is talk that is divorced from any task at hand that might root the engagement in the ready to hand.

New objects are sought due to their newness, not to engage with them, to understand them.  Dasein becomes curious but for shorter and shorter periods in the seeking of novelty. In this detached engagement then superficial understanding is taken for deep and vice versa, thus ambiguity is part of Daseins everydayness.

Dasein is thrown in this everydayness, of idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity. Dasein’s everydayness is characterised by falling, not that this represents a negative characteristic. Dasein falls into the lostness of the they, it is alongside its world of concern.

Dasein is uprooted from any genuine understanding of itself, to understand which is its own and which the they, in its everydayness.

Being has been misinterpreted and the question lost due to the falling of Dasein and the fact that the present at hand objects around it, provide a paradigmatic way of understanding which then gets applied to Dasein. I guess you could also argue that if to be is to do, to use, philosophy doesn’t provide enough use. Theoretically then the new exotic theory can be the same pull of the novel as promotes curiosity, just saying!
Falling is a product of Daseins absorption in the they, which is an ontological structure of Dasein. So to become authentic one has to recover from the default lostness of inauthenticity. The they world tranquilizes Dasein this tranquilisation finds its expression in frenzied activity a constant curiosity driven drive for the novel for the exotic, which leads to a constant alienation of yourself and your environment. Authenticity is a modification of inauthenticity which is Daseins base state.

Anxiety and Care

Dasein is scattered amongst the objects of its curiosity dispersed within the they. Strange then when Dasein is presented as a unified being-in-the-world that it is so fragmented. Anxiety gives us direct access to Daseins unified Being. Anxiety is objectless, you can’t run away from it, as you are it. Fear has an object, fear is of an object, you can run away from fear. For Heidegger anxiety is the threat of possible objects

Anxiety rescues Dasein from its fallness, as the they receded as anxiety individuates. Anxiety is in Dasein it cannot run away from it, anxiety is I am thrown into a world not of my choosing, Anxiety is I must project myself onto this or that possibility. In anxiety Dasein is thrown back on itself. In anxiety Dasein is shown the authentic or inauthentic possibilities. This is more like Angst than anxiety. Dasein is buried in its particular choices of the everyday but any choice is merely a current possibility, Dasein can never be fully at home, or at ease in the world.

Through the experience of uncanniness anxiety lays bare the thrown projection fallen of Dasein in the world. Care is the central theme that connects Daseins relation to objects and other Dasein. In anxiety, this care is shown. Dasein is thrown into a world that matters to it, it cannot fail to matter to it. Whilst within Being and Time, care is shown to be the basic ontological structure of Being, Heidegger points to Time as being what he thinks will be the underpinning of Care, but that’s for a later book.

Anxiety is feeling of fear that some vital part of you is threatened but there is no escape from this fear. So either you are in a threatening situation, a no win situation, or you are the perpetrator of the feared consequence. So I guess Anxiety points at something that is vital in you. It individuates.

In falling Dasein flees to the they. In anxiety Dasein confronts itself, it is afraid of itself in its world, there is no object that is threatening, rather it is Dasein in its world that is threatened. Anxiety as ontological is the basis for fear.

The anxiety of Heidegger is the dread of freedom, it is where the world drifts away in meaninglessness and I am stood there by myself that is the feeling of anxiety. I must live my life but everything is meaningless.

Mood is a base way that Dasein encounters being.

Anxiety, scepticism and nihilism

Uncanniness is Dasein’s being-in-the-world is to not be at home. We are worldly, our world is an essential part of us, but because we project and continually do so, there is no requirement that how things are, are how things will remain, quite the opposite. So whilst the world as an environment is necessary, this world that we choose is contingent. Therein I think lies the uncanniness. Therein lies anxiety as the contingencies of the world can drop away and nothing is left, as we create it, it has no substance.

If Dasein removes it care from the world, then we fall into nothingness, if Dasein does this happens, if other Daseins do this happens.

I don’t get why meaninglessness, a falling away of the world results in anxiety not depression. I suppose anxiety keeps the desire to live, the responsibility to life, depression doesn’t.