Janus Head 63 Dialogical Dasein: Heidegger on "Being-with," "Discourse," and "Solicitude" Bradley Warfield Abstract In this paper I argue that the Heidegger of Being and Time is a dialogist, and ought to be situated in the tradition of other twentieth-century dialogists like Bakhtin and Gadamer. Specifically, I claim that Heidegger's conceptions of the "Being-with," "discourse," and "solicitude" of Dasein in BT illustrate his endorsement of a conception of dialogicality. There are three advantages to proposing that Heidegger is a dialogist in BT. First, this paradigm offers a more perspicuous vocabulary for describing the discursive nature of Dasein's Being-in-the-world as a Being-with others. Second, it provides a better way of understanding the normative dimensions of "solicitude." Lastly, it helps to underscore how Dasein's identity remains social even in the seemingly individualizing moment of becoming authentic. -Introduction In this paper I shall show how Heidegger's notions of Dasein's "Beingwith" (Mitsein), "discourse" (Rede), and "solicitude" (Fursorge) illustrate how he has a conception of the dialogical in Being and Time. For my purposes here, the dialogical involves the following characteristics: 1) it is descriptive of discourse; 2) it requires the participation of at least one (embodied) person or agent; 3) given (2), it must be understood in terms of spatial metaphors or analogues; 4) it is inherently unfinalizable or open-ended; 5) it entails address and responsibility; 6) it has a normative dimension; and lastly, 7) it involves a to-and-fro movement inherent to interlocution. Importantly, the dialogical is not reducible to actual dialogue (i.e., conversation), for, as I shall show, the dialogical identifies the dynamics which obtain in actual dialogues and, by way of extrapolation, ascribes the characteristics of such dynamics to being itself. Janus Head, Volume 15, Issue 1, Pages 63-85 Copyright Trivium Publications, Pittsburgh, PA. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 64 Janus Head There are at least three advantages to proposing that Heidegger is a dialogist in Being and Time. First, this paradigm offers an alternative, and more perspicuous, vocabulary for describing the discursive nature of Dasein's Being-in-the-world as a Being-with others. Second, it provides a better way of recognizing and understanding the normative dimensions of "solicitude." And third, it helps to underscore the ineliminable sociality of Dasein's understanding of itself and of others, such that its identity remains social even in the seemingly individualizing initial moment of becoming authentic. A Brief Sketch of Dasein's Being-in-the-World But before I attempt to show how Heidegger is a dialogist in Being and Time, it will be helpful to sketch briefly some of the basic features of his project therein. As is well known, Heidegger explicitly rejects the Cartesian metaphysical view of the self as a "thinking substance" (res cogitans), which exists separately, and is utterly distinct, from a supposedly independently existing external world of objects.1 For Heidegger, the Cartesian self-world distinction neglects the fact that the human self always finds itself already immersed within a world, not as a self-enclosed 'ego' standing over and against an 'external' world of extended objects whose 'true objective' nature the 'ego' is burdened with trying to access through an act of pure cogitation. (Thus Descartes's strenuous attempts to prove (metaphysically) how the self as 'subject' can ever obtain (epistemologically) indubitable knowledge of both itself and of the 'external' world of 'objects' from which it is supposedly cut off.) As Heidegger says, Descartes "takes the Being of 'Dasein' (to whose basic constitution Being-in-the-world belongs) in the very same way as he takes the Being of the res extensa-namely, as substance" (BT 131; Italics original). Heidegger, then, rejects any notion of a "self " whose basic constitution is one of "thinking" or "consciousness." Thus Heidegger, in his description of the incorrect traditional Western metaphysical picture of the "self," writes, "The question of the 'who' answers itself in terms of the 'I' itself, the 'subject,' the 'Self '" (BT 150). For Heidegger, there is no 'pure' "I" or "ego" lying 'behind' the "self 's" outwardly manifested actions. In Heidegger's view, Descartes's metaphysical picture of the self-world relation means that he cannot offer an accurate description of how human beings encounter situations in their everyday lives (HPK 85). Guignon puts this clearly when he describes Dilthey's view, which was so influential for Heidegger, saying the "dualistic oppositions [of self and world] Janus Head 65 are derivative from and parasitic on a more original kind of experience in which we exist as a 'self-world' unity. In our most familiar experiences, we are not aware of an 'I' or 'self ' distinct from what is experienced. The subject-object opposition of traditional epistemology is... a high-level theoretical abstraction with no relevance to understanding concrete life."2 And for Heidegger, because any adequate picture of human beings must begin by looking at how they live in their everyday world (i.e., their everyday "dealings") (BT 95), Descartes's account cannot be correct. Contra Descartes, Heidegger claims that "Dasein itself-and this means also its Being-in-the-world-gets its ontological understanding of itself in the first instance from those entities which it itself is not but which it encounters 'within' its world, and from the Being which they possess" (BT 85; Italics original). As will become clear, Heidegger ascribes paramount importance to Dasein's kind of Being as being "always already" situated within a contextual world of relations. Because it is important to recognize the full extent to which Heidegger's view of Dasein as primarily relational and contextually situated emerges from his views regarding traditional epistemology, especially in its Cartesian form, I shall turn now to a basic sketch of some of the more fundamental features of his ontological project in Being and Time. It is well known that Heidegger took the "question of Being" (BT 2) to be the most important-that is, most fundamental-question of all. He devoted his entire philosophical corpus to trying to answer the question: what is Being? The task of answering this question fell to what he called "fundamental ontology" (BT 34). Ontology is the study of Being in general. Specifically, one can ask, "What is it to be rather than not be? The necessity of accounting for this question is seen, as Heidegger pointed out, when we ask ourselves: Why is there something-anything-rather than nothing? Human beings can ask such ontological questions. Ontological investigation takes into its purview, then, the Being of "entities" ("das Seiende"). The ontic is a kind of investigation which studies properties and relations of particular "entities." As Guignon puts it, the term "entities," for Heidegger, "refers to anything of which we can say that 'it is' in any sense.... Symphonies, landscapes, thoughts, numbers, people, love, historical events: all of these are in some sense."3 For Heidegger, Being has a specific relation to entities. Namely, Being is the condition for the possibility of there being anything at all like entities, and of their being at all like the kind of entities they are. Being, Heidegger says, is "that which determines entities as entities, that on the 66 Janus Head basis of which entities are already understood..." (BT 25-26). In his view, Being "determines" entities in that it defines their basic make-up, and it does so in a twofold sense: by both "that they are" (traditionally called 'existence') and "what they are" (traditionally called 'essence' (MH 93; Italics original)." As Polt describes it, "Being is what allows us to encounter every entity" (HI 41). Any inquiry into the question of Being, then, is one which seeks to find out what it is to be an 'X' for any particular type of X." One could, for instance, inquire into the Being of a particular chair-in so far as it exemplifies "chairness"-just as readily as one could inquire into the Being of Winnie the Pooh, the honey-loving bear, or Macbeth, the tortured Prince. These entities form one of the two distinct kinds: nonhuman entities; Macbeth is, after all, a fictional character.4 The other distinct kind of entities is that of human beings, what Heidegger refers to as "Dasein" (literally "being-there," or, more straightforwardly "being-here").5 Dasein is fundamentally distinctive from nonhuman entities in its ability to ask about the nature of its own Being. As Heidegger says, "Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological" (BT 32; Italics original); that is, "Dasein, in its Being, has a relationship towards that Being-a relationship which itself is one of Being" (Ibid). In Heidegger's view, "Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it" (Ibid; Italics original). This means that in its everyday living the question-or meaning-of Dasein's Being arises for it. That for Dasein the meaning of its Being arises, or is an issue, for it is to say that its Being is something about which it cares. This feature of Dasein is what Heidegger calls "existence," and he takes over this term from the original Latin "ex-sistere," meaning "standing out." Heidegger, in fact, conceives of such care as an ontological structure of Dasein: "[T]he Being of Dasein itself is to be made visible as care" (BT 83-84; Italics original).6 But entities such as chairs and cats, for instance, do not have the question of the quality of their Being show up for them as something about which they should care. Moreover, Heidegger says that "Dasein has turned out to be, more than any other entity, the one which must first be interrogated ontologically. But the roots of the existential analytic, on its part, are ultimately existentiell, that is, ontical" (Ibid; Italics original). The "existential" / "existentiell" distinction, for Heidegger, emerges in reference to kinds of understanding which Dasein exhibits. "Existential" understanding is a workedJanus Head 67 out understanding "of the essential structures of Dasein" (HPK 68). "Existentiell" understanding pertains to the "characteristics of a unique individual" (Ibid). It refers to an individual's understanding of how she is to live her life, which roles she should take up, etc. "Existential" understanding is revealed through ontological investigation, where the fundamental structure of Dasein's Being become illuminated for me. Yet I can access understanding of these possible ways for me to be through ontical investigation and without having undertaken (the more primordial) ontological investigation. Heidegger's use of the term Dasein is intended to indicate, among other things, the "situatedness" ("Befindlichkeit") of human beings. Heidegger ascribes paramount importance to human beings' "situatedness" to underscore the fact that we, as individual Dasein, are "always already" situated within a particular historical, cultural, socio-economic, etc. context in the world. (This is why Dasein should be understood more as "being-here" than as "being-there.") His distinctive use of the double adverb "always already" is meant to highlight the fact that we are "thrown" into a world not of our own choosing. We are born in a particular time period, to particular parents, in a particular cultural, religious, etc. milieu. That is, we simply find ourselves in a given context 'prior' to our explicitly recognizing it as such. But becoming aware of my "facticity"-e.g. that I am a white, middle-class male, born in Maryland, that I have one brother, etc.-enables me to understand myself in certain ways which themselves shape my "existentiell" understanding of the "factical" possible ways for me to be (i.e., the roles I can assume, etc.)-e.g. that I can assume the role of a supportive, or estranged, brother, that I can choose to own up to, or reject, the commitment I have made as a professional academic-intraining, and that I can choose to accept that I am over thirty-years-old, or flee from that fact by acting out in adolescent ways. According to Heidegger, what enables me to become aware of my facticity by way of "interpretation" is the "existential" characteristic of my Being as Dasein that he calls "understanding:" "As understanding, Dasein projects its Being upon possibilities" (BT 188). And "Interpretation is grounded existentially in understanding; the latter does not arise from the former" (Ibid). "Interpretation" is "the working-out of possibilities projected in understanding" (BT 188-189). In a very real sense, then, Dasein is "understanding," to the extent that, as a particular case of Dasein, I instantiate, in my "interpretations," various 68 Janus Head modes of "taking a stand" with regard to my life. As he puts it, "Understanding is the existential Being of Dasein's own potentiality-for-Being; and it is so in such a way that this Being discloses in itself what its Being is capable of" (BT 182; Italics original). That we are always already enmeshed within a complex totality of involvements-that we can never step out, so to speak, from the world in which we live-makes up a distinctive feature of Dasein's Being; namely, that Dasein's understanding of itself must be conceived primarily through its relations to itself, other Dasein, and the nonhuman entities Dasein encounters in its "Being-in-the-world." He employs the hyphenation to emphasize that he conceives "the compound expression 'Being-in-the-world' as 'a unitary phenomenon'" (BT 78; Italics original). Heidegger claims that such "relationality" is an ontological feature of Dasein-Dasein's kind of Being is Being-in-the-world-which he describes with the terms "Being-in"7 and "Being-with." He says explicitly that "'Being-in' is thus the formal existential expression for the Being of Dasein, which has Being-inthe-world as its essential state. 'Being alongside' the world in the sense of being absorbed in the world...is an existentiale founded upon Being-in" (BT 80-81; Italics original). It is important to note, however, that "being alongside" is a misleading translation, and should be translated as "being always already in," "being amidst," or "being at home with" the world. My discussion above of the picture of Dasein's "Being-in-the-world" which Heidegger offers elucidates the full extent to which, in our everyday "concernful absorption" (BT 101) in our "dealings" in the world, we experience ourselves and the world not as Descartes's picture would suggest, but rather as selves "always already" enmeshed within a world of involvements. As Guignon explains, Heidegger's "description focuses not on the situations in which we are passive spectators, but rather on the contexts in which we are active and engaged in the world" (HPK 86). Guignon notes further that "In the picture that takes shape in Heidegger's description of Being-in-the-world, there is no longer any way to draw a distinction between a subject and a set of objects that are to be known" (Ibid). Contrary to the traditional picture, the "who" of Dasein is in Heidegger's view by definition non-isolatable. This is because "From the world [Dasein] takes its possibilities, and it does so first in accordance with the way things have been interpreted by the 'they.' This interpretation has already restricted the possible options of choice to what lies within the range of the familiar, the attainable, the respectable-that which is fitting Janus Head 69 and proper" (BT 239). Heidegger uses the term "the 'they'" ("Das Man") to invoke those instances in which we refer to "what one typically does" when "one" is acting appropriately or properly, that is, in accordance with the norms and expectations of one's society. When, for instance, I offer a purportedly justificatory explanation for prohibiting, say, "jaywalking," I might say, "One does not do that," in order to convey the sense of impropriety such an act would evince. Thus Heidegger uses the "they" to refer to all of us in general and each of us in particular as those who explicitly and implicitly sustain the norms for what is typically expected of us. The "they" is thus the sustainer and purveyor of general opinion. The "they" is the 'ground,' so to speak, on which the intelligibility of our social relations, values, beliefs, goals, possibilities, etc. rests. As a complex web of meanings, the "they" lets our enactment of our "existentiell" possibilities have the meaning they do. In this sense, the "they" is of indispensable importance to Dasein's understanding of others and of itself (as being inextricably bound up in relation to others). We now see the full extent to which Heidegger claims the "they" bears on the "self " such that the self can at no time ever disentangle itself from the "they," and stand, at it were, over and against it as an isolated individual self. In Heidegger's view, we are always already both the "they-self " and the "authentic self," where the "they" and the "authentic self " are "existentialia" (i.e., ontological characteristics) of Dasein, not "existentiell" modes of being. This leads him to say, "For the most part I myself am not the 'who' of Dasein; the they-self is its 'who'" (BT 312; Italics original). And, moreover, that "The Self...is proximally and for the most part inauthentic, the they-self " (BT 225). I described earlier how, in Heidegger's view, we are "thrown" into a world not of our own choosing. Because as everyday Dasein, we find ourselves always already "thrown" into a particular context pregnant with possibilities for us to take up, as our "ownmost potentiality-for-Being" allows, we cannot ever 'catch up' and 'get behind' ourselves as everyday Dasein, whose Being is "Being-in-the-world," such that we can view it sub specie aeternitatis. Heidegger captures this feature well when he says, "In no case is a Dasein, untouched and unseduced by this way in which things have been interpreted, set before the open country of a 'world-in-itself ' so that it just beholds what it encounters" (BT 213). Heidegger says further, "Dasein constantly lags behind its possibilities. It is never existent before its basis, but only from it and as this basis. Thus 'Being-a-basis' means never to have power over one's ownmost Being from the ground up" (BT 330; Italics original). Heidegger is pointing to the fact that, as "thrown" 70 Janus Head "Being-in-the-world," we as individual Dasein find ourselves in a current of everyday life beginning from our birth, and, if we choose to, we can let ourselves remain entirely adrift and follow this current, which is comprised of the norms, routines, and conventions of public life. The qualifier "if we choose to" suggests, however, that there is a sense in which we can choose not to remain adrift. And this is indeed the case, according to Heidegger. Such a case involves our choosing definitively (but not unalterably) to take a stand regarding our lives. But there is another sense in which we cannot ever not be adrift to some extent precisely because we are always already "thrown" into a world. Even if we choose to take a definitive stand of "anticipatory resoluteness" with regard to ourselves and our lives, such taking a stand does not mean that we have stepped out of the current in which we find ourselves. We cannot ever step out of the current and gain an irrevocably solid footing. As Dasein, the extent to which we let ourselves remain adrift is up to us. It is important to note, however, that the notion of "choosing" which I identified above must be understood whereby if we choose to remain adrift, then our choosing to do so is in fact a manner of choosing not to choose. This mode of being (noncontingently) adrift is what Heidegger calls "falling" ("verfallen") (BT 210). As Heidegger says, "Being-in-the-world is always fallen (BT 225). That is, "Falling is a definite existential characteristic of Dasein itself " (BT 220). As Polt puts it, "falling is necessarily our normal, everyday mode of existing" (HI 76). Therefore we cannot not be in a state of "falling." Having described "thrownness" above, it is now evident how, as Polt notes, "falling is so pervasive because it is a direct result of thrownness" (Ibid).8 Of falling, Heidegger says that, "This 'absorption in...' has mostly the character of Being-lost in the publicness of the 'they'" (BT 220). For example, that I spend my weekdays working as a graduate student means that I assume the role of "graduate student," with all of the expectations and responsibilities that that entails. But the particular manner in which I take up such a role depends on how I understand myself as the kind of person who has such a role. Insofar as I am still a student, I could adopt the expectation "one" has of "students" by spending my time away from schoolwork by, say, drinking a lot of alcohol as a way of 'cutting loose' from the weight and pressure of my weekday responsibilities. While at the bar, I can engage in the kind of routine conversations "one" has at a bar, the 'chit-chat' (i.e., what Heidegger calls "idle talk")9 that is expected Janus Head 71 in such social settings. I can therefore quite readily let myself drift along with the routines of everyday life as such routines are established and understood in the specific social and historical milieu in which I live. In this way, I live my life according to how "one" in my situation lives "one's" life. Heidegger's description of "thrownness" and "falling" is meant to identify how each of us, as a particular case of Dasein in our everyday modes of "Being-in-the-world," lets the "they"-of which we are a part-with its superficial ways of being and doing, obscure from us the insight that the "existentiell" possibilities of our everyday "Being-in-the-world" are in fact possibilities for living in a way radically different from how we have lived heretofore.10 One of the consequences, then, of letting ourselves remain adrift and be overtaken by, or delivered over to, the "they" is that we let ourselves overlook our possibilities as possibilities (BT 306). That we overlook our possibilities as possibilities amounts to a leveling out of the contours of our individual "ownmost potentiality-for-Being" of which our "existentiell" possibilities are a manifestation. In other words, our failure to see our possibilities as the possibilities they are for allowing us to take a stand toward ourselves and our lives means that we cover up and snuff out-although never altogether such that we cannot alter our course- that which is most distinctive about us as particular cases of Dasein.11 That we can never not be in the states of "thrownness" and "fallenness" is what informs his claim that, even in becoming "authentic Being-one'sSelf " (BT 313) (as an "existentiell" mode), one is still a placeholder in the "they" (as an "existential"). That is, although we can be more or less authentic, all of us inexorably are, as an "existentiell" mode, part "theyself." I described earlier an example of the way in which I can let myself remain adrift in the "they." And I noted how such a "remaining adrift" involved my choosing not to choose. Such a way of being is, in that case, one of disowning my choices and, ultimately, my responsibility. I noted, further, how the particular way in which I take up my role as a graduate student-as one among other contemporaneous roles I have-depends on how I see and understand myself with regard to my life as a whole. This helps illustrate how, for Heidegger, in becoming authentic, the change one makes is not in the "what" but in the "how." For instance, my becoming "authentic Being-one's-Self " (Ibid) is not just a matter of substituting for my old set of actions a completely new set, such that I forego going out to the bar and drinking each weekend, although it may involve that. Rather, the change in becoming authentic would lie in my chang72 Janus Head ing the particular way in which I undertake those actions, such that my attitude toward them, and my understanding of their significance, takes on a radically different meaning. This is what Heidegger means when he says, "Authentic Being-one's-Self takes the definite form of an existentiell modification of the 'they'" (BT 312). But he is careful to note that, just because I may become authentic, it is just as possible for me to become less and less authentic, possibly to such an extent that I drift back entirely into the "publicness of the they" (BT 220) and into authenticity. It has frequently been argued that Heidegger does not regard Dasein's "existential" "falling" as deserving of moral disapprobation (or, for that matter, of the "anticipatory resoluteness" of authenticity as deserving of moral approbation). On this view, his use of the notion of "inauthenticity" is especially confusing at first glance, for the terms "authentic" and "inauthentic" for us in English typically have a moral or ethical connotation insofar as they reflect a value judgment. But upon considering that the German words Heidegger uses for "authentic," "eigentlich," and "inauthentic," "Uneigenlichkeit," are derived from "eigen" meaning "own," then we get a better sense of how his notion of authenticity should be understood; namely, as Guignon suggests, as "enownment."12 Nevertheless, as Mark Wrathall has noted, "It is implausible to deny that authenticity is at least sometimes used in an evaluative sense. Taylor Carman suggests... that Heidegger actually has two distinct notions running side by side-a descriptive and a normative sense of 'authentic.'"13 Heidegger as Dialogist: "Being-with," "Discourse," and "Solicitude" Heidegger's conception of "Being-with" illustrates, in part, how he endorses, albeit tacitly, a conception of the dialogical in Being and Time. In Paragraph 26, he writes: "According to the analysis which we have now completed, Being with Others belongs to the Being of Dasein, which is an issue for Dasein in its very Being. Thus as Being-with, Dasein 'is' essentially for the sake of Others.... Even if the particular factical Dasein does not turn to Others, and supposes that it has no need of them or manages to get along without them, it is in the way of Being-with" (BT 160; Italics original). This passage describes how Dasein's Being-with others is an ontological, non-contingent feature of its existence. As Heidegger's description above, Janus Head 73 along with those he offers of the They, emphasizes, as individual Dasein, we cannot, as it were, escape being-with others. The social world is so pervasive, then, that it is only in theoretical abstraction from our everyday lives that we can consider ourselves as an isolatable individual, and even when doing so, it is always already from a standpoint situated in a social world of others. As Charles Taylor puts it, "One is a self only among other selves. A self can never be described without reference to those who surround it" (SS 35). This is what Taylor refers to as the "transcendental condition of interlocution" (SS 38-39). He describes the Levinasian view when he writes in Sources of the Self: "The close connection between identity and interlocution also emerges in the place of names in human life. My name is what I am 'called.' A human being has to have a name, because he or she has to be called, i.e., addressed. Being called into conversation is a precondition of developing a human identity, and so my name is (usually) given me by my earliest interlocutors" (SS 525, endnote 13; italics original). Our sociality is so comprehensive, though, that, as Heidegger points out, even when we are alone, we are not somehow removed from the condition-or the way or manner-of "Being-with" others. Thus Heidegger asserts, "Being-with is an existential characteristic of Dasein even when factically no other is present-at-hand or perceived" (BT 156). He describes this further by saying, "Being missing and 'Being away' [Das fehlen und 'Fortsein'] are modes of Dasein-with, and are possible only because Dasein as Being-with lets the Dasein of Others be encountered in its world" (BT 157). Thus, William Blattner accurately claims, "Even...if one is a hermit or recluse, having retreated to a cabin in the hills of Idaho to get away from everyone, others matter to one, in this case, as being despicable or to be avoided. Being a recluse is an anti-social way of understanding oneself and one's relations to others. Being anti-social is a 'privative' way of being social; it is a stance on the significance of what others pursue."14 Heidegger's descriptions of "thrownness," "falling," "Being-with," the "they," and "discourse," among other central notions in Being and Time, show how we are born into a language community of interlocutors- a "we"-and we develop our identity as an "I" only by virtue of, not separate from, the shared practices, evaluations, and articulations of social interaction.15 Blattner calls Heidegger's position here "ontological communitarianism" to underscore how Heidegger wants to avoid any notion of an ethical or political communitarianism (HBT 68). Echoing 74 Janus Head Heidegger, Taylor argues that "There is no way we could be inducted into personhood except by being initiated into a language" (SS 35), or as Heidegger refers to it, "discourse," which is the condition for the possibility of "language." Discourse, for Heidegger, does not refer to speech as verbal utterance. Rather, as Richard Polt suggests, "Heidegger describes discourse (rather vaguely) as the articulation and expression of" the world's intelligibility.... "Discourse makes it possible for me to share my situation with others in language."16 Thus Heidegger claims that "As an existential state in which Dasein is disclosed, discourse is constitutive for Dasein's existence. Hearing and keeping silent [Schweigen] are possibilities belonging to discursive speech" (BT 204). Indeed, Heidegger's differentiation of "communication"-in which, in one form, interlocutors merely "make assertions" or "giv[e] information" (BT 205)-from discourse suggests he is aware of the qualitative distinction between dialogical and monological interlocution, where "communication" is a strictly monological phenomenon.17 Discourse in general and language in particular (as Heidegger distinguishes them) play an indispensable role, then, in the formation of human identity. In sharing "webs of interlocution" (SS 36), Taylor claims, I articulate my identity as "an answer to the question of who I am through a definition of where I am speaking from and to whom" (Ibid). My identity comes to be constituted through my interaction with others, by what "stances" I take towards them, and how I respond to the stances they assume towards me. As Taylor notes, "[O]ur identity is never simply defined in terms of our individual properties. If I really identify myself with my deferential attitude toward wiser people like you, then this conversational stance becomes a constituent of my identity."18 If the picture I have drawn of Heidegger so far is accurate, then his descriptions of the ontological features of Dasein's Being-with others illustrate how human beings, in their everyday discursive comportment with one another, are mutually solicitous of one another, irrespective of the attitudinal stance they may actually adopt. That is, human beings, as discursive agents amongst fellow interlocutors, find themselves perpetually called upon and addressed by others and themselves. We find ourselves situated within human discourse in such a way that we are always already both addressers and addressees. (This particular aspect of solicitousness is one which came to feature so centrally for Levinas and one which he captured so powerfully.) I think this is precisely what Heidegger has in mind when he says that, "As a Being-in-the-world with Others, a Being Janus Head 75 which understands, Dasein is 'in thrall' to Dasein-with and to itself; and in this thralldom it 'belongs' to these" (BT 206; Italics mine). The solicitous pull we feel from others-our sense of being called upon or addressed by others-is coeval with the outward-directed anticipation we have, noncontingently, toward others-our sense of calling upon others. The pull we feel from others would not arise, then, without the anticipatory outward-looking orientation we have as one of our ontological features. The ontological feature of outward-looking anticipation is precisely what Heidegger is describing when he says both that "Dasein 'is' essentially for the sake of Others" (BT 160; Italics mine). That this outward-looking other-directedness is an essential feature of ourselves as particular cases of Dasein means that it is an ineluctable feature of our sociality, "it is in the way of Being-with," that is, it is our very mode of Being-in-the-world. Even though this other-directedness is an ontological feature of our existence, as Heidegger emphasizes, this does not preclude our ontically choosing to ignore or remain impervious to the pull or call of others. Indeed, as Heidegger insists in his description of everyday inauthentic "falling," our normal mode of going about our daily lives is precisely this (ontic) avoidance of the pull or call of others. Moreover, as I shall show in greater detail later, our choice to remain impervious to the pull or call of others exemplifies monological action. Heidegger captures the different modes of our discursive comportment in his conception of "solicitude." The normative dimension we find in Heidegger's notion of authenticity is present as well in both "solicitude" and "care" (Sorge), with the latter forming the basis from which Heidegger derives his conception of the former. Blattner offers a clear description of these notions: "Simply in so far as Dasein is being-in-the-world, it is also being-with, and simply in so far as its own life matters to it, the lives of others matter to it.... Heidegger calls this mattering 'care,' and others' mattering to me he calls 'solicitude' (Fursorge, literally 'caring-for'). It is important to bear in mind that just as 'care' does not refer to a specific emotional state, such as worry or devotion, neither does 'solicitude.' 'Solicitude' is just a technical term for the way others matter to us simply in so far as we lead our own lives" (HBT 67). Consider the following two passages, the second of which is especially illuminating for my purposes. Heidegger writes: "[T]hose entities towards which Dasein as Being-with comports itself do not have the kind of Be ing which belongs to equipment 76 Janus Head ready-to-hand; they are themselves Dasein. These entities are not objects of concern, but rather of solicitude" (BT 157; Italics original). and "[W]e understand the expression 'solicitude' in a way which corresponds to our use of 'concern' as a term for an existentiale. For example, 'welfare work' ["Fursorge"], as a factical social arrangement, is grounded in Dasein's state of Being as Being-with. Its factical urgency gets its motivation in that Dasein maintains itself proximally and for the most part in the deficient modes of solicitude. Being for, against, or without one another, passing one another by, not 'mattering' to one another-these are possible ways of solicitude. And it is precisely these last-named deficient and Indifferent modes that characterize everyday, average Being-withone-another" (BT 158; Italics mine). These passages show that Heidegger understands "solicitude" as an ontological structure of Dasein's Being-in-the-world. Further, that Heidegger speaks here of "deficient"-and elsewhere of "positive"-modes of "solicitude" illustrates how he tacitly holds a normative conception of solicitude. In identifying the deficient and positive modes of solicitude, Heidegger clearly seems to be offering a description of the ways that individual Dasein can fail or succeed as discursive selves or agents, although he of course omits any talk of "agents" per se. That is, he seems to suggest that we can be better or worse at comporting ourselves discursively with others, we can be more or less attuned to others. As he says, "solicitude is guided by considerateness and forbearance. Like solicitude, these can range through their respective deficient and Indifferent modes up to the point of inconsiderateness or the perfunctoriness for which indifference leads the way" (BT 159; Italics original). Thus, for Heidegger, solicitude marks one's modes of "opening oneself up [Sichoffenbaren] or closing oneself off" (BT 161). Only through solicitude can the "disclosure of the Other" arise at all (Ibid).19 The deficient modes of solicitude-"passing one another by" and "not 'mattering' to one another"-describe, I think, the way that we can fail to heed and appropriately respond to the solicitous pull of others by closing ourselves off from and making ourselves unavailable to others. These deficient (monological) modes thus account for the ways that we can be impervious to the call of others' addresses to us. Janus Head 77 The "positive modes" of solicitude have "two extreme possibilities": "leap[ing] in" for the other and "leap[ing] ahead" of the other (BT 158). Solicitude, as Heidegger writes, "can, as it were, take away 'care' from the Other and put itself in his position in concern: it can leap in for him. This kind of solicitude takes over for the Other that with which he is to concern himself. The Other is thus thrown out of his own position; he steps back so that afterwards, when the matter has been attended to, he can either take it over as something finished and at his disposal, or disburden himself of it completely" (BT 158; Italics original). Heidegger continues to say, "In contrast to this, there is also the possibility of a kind of solicitude which does not so much leap in for the Other as leap ahead of him [ihm vorausspringt] in his exisentiell potentiality-forBeing, not in order to take away his 'care' but rather to give it back to him authentically as such for the first time" (BT 158-159; Italics original). Heidegger's statements about solicitude-in both its positive and deficient modes-show that it is dialogical in character. The deficient modes of solicitude represent, however, a failure to fulfill the dialogical potential inherent in the phenomenon of solicitude, and thus amount only to monological action. It should be unsurprising that the "deficient" modes of solicitude fail to live up to the dialogical potential inherent in solicitude. But based on his description of "leaping in" for the other, contra Heidegger's implicit suggestion, this "positive" mode seems monological in character as well, as it involves Dasein acting without regard for the interlocutory partner's agency which makes the to-and-fro of mutual reciprocity possible in the first place. In "tak[ing] over for the Other" whereby "[t]he Other is thus thrown out of his own position," Dasein in fact remains impervious to the to-and-fro movement constitutive, in part, of the dialogical. Thus, I want to suggest, it is only in the positive mode of "leap[ing] ahead" of the other that the dialogical potential in solicitude gets fulfilled. Dasein's fallenness in the "they" is the reason why average, everyday Dasein is ignorant of and impervious to the dialogical character of 78 Janus Head Being-with and solicitude, and thus "proximally and for the most part" comports itself monologically, even if at times it can appear otherwise. As Heidegger says, "Being-with-one-another in the 'they' is by no means an indifferent side-by-sideness in which everything has been settled, but rather an intent, ambiguous watching of one another, a secret and reciprocal listening-in. Under the mask of 'for-one-another,' an 'against-oneanother' is in play" (BT 219). Notwith-standing Dasein's appearing to comport itself dialogically, its fallenness in and conformity to the "they" renders it impervious to the dialogical potential of discursive Being-with. "[T]he 'they' presents every judgment and decision as its own, it deprives the particular Dasein of its answerability" (BT 165), Heidegger says. Heidegger describes what the authentic fulfillment of such dialogical comportment entails when he writes, "Proximally Dasein is 'they,' and for the most part it remains so. If Dasein discovers the world in its own way [eigens] and brings it close, if it discloses to itself its own authentic Being, then this discovery of the 'world' and this disclosure of Dasein are always accomplished as a clearingaway of concealments and obscurities, as a breaking up of the disguises with which Dasein bars its own way" (BT 167). Only in the positive mode of solicitude as "leap[ing] ahead" of the other does "Dasein discove[r] the world in its own way and brin[g] it close" (Ibid) authentically. Such solicitude entails Dasein acknowledging and heeding, most often tacitly, the dialogical character of Dasein's Beingwith. If the picture of Heidegger as a dialogist in Being and Time is accurate, there still seems to be at least one pressing issue that requires address. Namely, is the "call of conscience," as an integral part of the apparently individualizing moment of authenticity, truly dialogical? Heidegger's conception of the "call of conscience" is arguably one of his most obscure in all of Being and Time, lending itself rather easily to mis-interpretations which take it as nothing less than mystical. The call of conscience emerges, in Heidegger's view, as a response to Dasein's feeling of "being-guilty." Facing up to this feeling of being-guilty is what Heidegger refers to as "resoluteness." "By 'resoluteness' we mean 'letting oneself be called forth to one's ownmost Being-guilty,'" (BT 353; Italics original), Heidegger writes. Heidegger's conception of the call of conscience is arguably one of his most obscure in all of Being and Time because even his use of the Janus Head 79 terms "conscience" and "guilt," as Blattner has pointed out, is misleading. In using the term "conscience," Heidegger is not describing the ordinary ethical conception we have in which conscience refers to the experience of feeling remorse about some past action or course of events. Heidegger in fact does not understand "conscience" or "guilt" in moral terms; they lie outside of morality altogether. Rather, by "conscience," Heidegger refers to the ontological condition for the ontic possibility of anything like our ordinary conception of conscience to arise at all. As Taylor Carman puts it, "[J]ust as existential death and guilt are hermeneutic conditions of our ordinary concepts of death and guilt, so too conscience in the existential sense is what makes possible our ordinary ethical notions of conscience and conscientiousness" (HA 292). Heidegger makes it clear that the "call" "is a mode of discourse" (BT 314; Italics original) and thus has a discursive structure: the "call" (Ruf) issues from Dasein's ownmost possibility and its "uncanny" "authentic Being-one's-Self." The "call" is issued to the "they-self." That is, the call of conscience addresses us in our everyday inauthentic mode of going along with the "they." Thus Heidegger says, "Conscience summons Dasein's Self from its lostness in the 'they'" (BT 319). Even though "calling" is a mode of discourse, and the "call" addresses and summons us, the "call" itself should not be understood as the issuing of a "vocal utterance" (BT 316). Not only is "vocal utterance" "not essential for discourse, and therefore not for the call either" (Ibid), but authentic "discourse" is, in his view, "silence." This is why Heidegger uses scare quotes around "voice" (Stimme) (BT 313). Indeed, he explicitly says, "Conscience discourses solely and constantly in the mode of keeping silent" (BT 318; Italics original). Nevertheless, "conscience" has a "disclosive" character, in that it "gives us 'something' to understand" (BT 314). Somewhat strangely, this means that that which the "call" is "about"- i.e., what gets 'said' in the "call"-is "nothing," understood as 'no-thing' (BT 318). As Carman notes, "The call has no determinate propositional content" (HA 293). "Nothing" gets 'said' in the "call" because of the indefinite nature of Dasein's "Being-guilty." Heidegger conceives of "guilty" ("Schuld," meaning "debt") as a kind of "indebtedness."20 But this "indebtedness" describes neither some definite "factical" possibility nor an "existentiell" mode which Dasein should, but has failed to, take up. It is not as if Dasein's "guilt" is somehow a result of its not having chosen the 'right' projection over and against other possible ones. The indefiniteness of Dasein's "Being-guilty" lies, rather, in a general and indeterminate sense of having come up short with respect to one's life as a whole. What 80 Janus Head we 'hear' in the call of conscience is a kind of existential guilt wherein we realize that we are not being all that we can be. Further, what makes the call of conscience possible is Dasein's Being as Care-that is, that in Dasein's Being, its "Being is an issue for it" (BT 32; Italics original), it is that about which Dasein cares. Thus Heidegger says, "Conscience is the call of care from the uncanniness of Being-in-the-world-the call which summons Dasein to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-guilty" (BT 323). 21 "Conscience," then, motivates us to recognize and to understand normatively the fact that we have our own life to live. It is clear that, in Heidegger's view, "conscience" has a character of "mineness." He describes the "mineness" of "conscience" when he says that "the call...comes from" the "uncanniness of thrown individualization" (BT 325; Italics original). But, interestingly, he says that the "caller" is "'nobody,'" in the sense, I think, of 'nobody in particular' (BT 323). And, moreover, that "The caller is, to be sure, indefinite; but the 'whence' from which it calls does not remain a matter of indifference for the calling. This 'whence'-the uncanniness of thrown individualization-gets called too [mitgerufen] in the calling; that is, it too gets disclosed [miterschlossen]. In calling forth to something, the 'whence' of the calling is the 'whither' to which we are called back" (BT 325-326). It is evident here that the call of conscience is issued from me to me, or, as Heidegger says, "The call comes from me and yet from beyond me and over me" (BT 320; Italics original). "The call of conscience," Heidegger writes, "has the character of an appeal to Dasein by calling it to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self; and this is done by way of summoning it to its ownmost Being-guilty" (BT 314; Italics original). In its "appeal" and its "summoning," the call of conscience attests to the presence of Dasein's "ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self " as the possibility Dasein has of becoming "authentic Being-one's-Self." What gets expressed in the call of conscience, then, is the identifiable difference between on the one hand Dasein's inauthentic self and on the other its authentic self, or its "ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self." The call of conscience is therefore an abrupt arousal from Dasein's having had its authentic voice drowned out by the voice of the they. That the call of conscience is discursive does not mean, however, that it assumes the form of typical kinds of discourse. As Carman writes, "[C] onscience does not literally have the structure of dialogue or conversation, or even of inner monologue, for the voice of conscience does not in fact articulate any definite interpretation of anything" (HA 294). The call Janus Head 81 of conscience does not involve Dasein's talking to itself in any way. And there is no ontological to-and-fro structure characteristic of dialogue or conversation. This would seem to suggest that the call itself is monological. Such a conclusion would be a mistake, though, for it would overlook the dispositional stance required for the call of conscience to summon Dasein in the first place. In fact, the call of conscience involves Dasein's having adopted the same dialogical attitudinal stance as mentioned earlier: "When Dasein understandingly lets itself be called forth to this possibility, this includes its becoming free for the call-its readiness for the potentiality of getting appealed to. In understanding the call, Dasein is in thrall to [horig] its ownmost possibility of existence. It has chosen itself " (BT 334; Italics original). Conclusion I want to conclude, in part, by noting two important aspects to keep in mind for my claim that Heidegger is a dialogist. First, I am not claiming that he offers an explicit theory of dialogue. Nor am I claiming, secondly, that he identifies explicitly a sense of to-and-fro movement between interlocutors. I noted earlier that Heidegger endorses a notion of the to-and-fro because he does offer descriptions of the dynamics of interlocution which affirm tacitly a conceptual awareness of such back and forth movement. We find such descriptions in his discussion of "listening to," "hearing," and "keeping silent" (BT 206-208). Heidegger writes, for instance, that "Keeping silent is another essential possibility of discourse, and it has the same existential foundation. In talking with one another, the person who keeps silent can 'make one understand' (that is, he can develop an understanding), and he can do so more authentically than the person who is never short of words. Speaking at length [Viel-sprechen] about something does not offer the slightest guarantee that thereby understanding is advanced. On the contrary, talking extensively about something, covers it up and brings what is understood to a sham clarity-the unintelligibility of the trivial" (BT 208; Italics original). Heidegger is correct to note that just because an interlocutor does not remain silent does not mean she is acting with appropriate sensitivity to the to-and-fro of dialogue or conversation. It may be that precisely 82 Janus Head in remaining silent the interlocutor is responding with the appropriate sensitivity and receptivity to her interlocutory partner. Conversely, it may be that the talkative interlocutor is the one insensitive to the particular circumstantial context of the dialogue or conversation. He may do so unconscious of his motives, but more often than not, it seems, as Heidegger emphasizes, such talkativeness is undertaken precisely to cover up or smooth over any latent possibilities of deeper, more meaningful understanding. As an illuminating example, one need only recall Tolstoy's description of the behavior of Ivan Ilych's colleagues and wife at his funeral.22 Tolstoy's depiction there accurately captures, I think, an instance of what Heidegger calls "idle talk." Idle talk, then, is a case in which most of the necessary conditions for dialogicality enumerated at the outset of this paper would be successfully met, yet it would still fail to be dialogical because it would fail to meet the condition of address and responsibility, that is, it would be an instance of the interlocutors failing to have the proper interlocutory attitude necessary for achieving dialogicality. At least one further question remains, though. If all of the necessary conditions for dialogicality are met in a given interaction, does that guarantee that the interaction is an instance of authentic action, as Heidegger understands authenticity? I do not think so. This shows an important aspect of the relation between dialogicality and authenticity within the context I have described. I want to suggest that authentic action would necessarily be dialogical, but dialogical action would not necessarily guarantee authenticity. Though a full-fledged discussion of this is more appropriate for another study, I think it is plausible to suggest that this would be due to the lofty criteria that Heidegger has in mind when he discusses authenticity, criteria that most people never fulfill. These caveats notwithstanding, Heidegger's notions of Being-with, discourse, and solicitude indicate the dialogical nature of his thought: 1) the dynamics of language, as the way in which discourse gets expressed, are inherently unfinalizable or open-ended; 2) such dynamics require embodiment and 3) interlocution; 4) they entail address and responsibility; 5) the various modes of solicitude have a normative dimension illustrative of the dialogical; 6) simultaneous with the recognition of address is the recognition of a sense of a solicitous pull from or call by others; and lastly, 7) a recognition, albeit tacit, of the to-and-fro of interlocution. Janus Head 83 References Blattner, William. Heidegger's Being and Time: A Reader's Guide. (New York: Continuum Press, 2006). Carman, Taylor. Heidegger's Analytic. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Dahlstrom, Daniel. The Heidegger Dictionary. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). Dreyfus, Hubert L. Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division 1. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990). Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Mark A. Wrathall. Eds. A Companion to Heidegger (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, Vol. 29). (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007). Guignon, Charles. "Achieving Personhood." The Psychology of Personhood: Philosophical, Historical, Social-Developmental, and Narrative Perspectives. Ed. by Jack Martin and Mark H. Bickhard. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). --. Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1983). --. "Martin Heidegger: Being and Time." Central Works of Philosophy, 4. Ed. by John Shand. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006). --. "What is Hermeneutics?" Re-envisioning Psychology: Moral Dimensions of Theory and Practice. Frank C. Richardson, Blaine J. Fowers, Charles B. Guignon. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999). Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.. (New York: Harper Press, 1962). Martin, Jack and Mark. H. Bickhard. Eds. The Psychology of Personhood: Philosophical, Historical, Social-Developmental, and Narrative Perspectives.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Polt, Richard. Heidegger: An Introduction. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). Schatzki, Theodore R. "Early Heidegger on Sociality," from A Companion to Heidegger (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, Vol. 29). Ed. by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall. (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007). Shand, John. Central Works of Philosophy, 4. Ed. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006). Taylor, Charles. "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man," in Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers, Vol. II. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). --. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). --. "To Follow a Rule," from Philosophical Arguments. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories. Trans. with Intro. by Rosemary Edmonds. (New York: Penguin Books, 1960). Wrathall, Mark A. "'Demanding Authenticity of Ourselves': Heidegger on Authenticity as an Extra-moral Ideal." Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle, 2014. 84 Janus Head Notes 1 See Guignon's descriptions of these issues in Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge. (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1983), esp. Chapter 3, pp. 85-145. I shall abbreviate this hereafter as HPK. 2 Guignon, "What is Hermeneutics?, in Re-envisioning Psychology: Moral Dimensions of Theory and Practice. Frank C. Richardson, Blaine J. Fowers, Charles B. Guignon. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999). 3 Guignon, "Martin Heidegger: Being and Time," in Central Works of Philosophy, 4. Edited by John Shand. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006). Italics in the original. I shall hereafter abbreviate this as MH. 4 Such nonhuman entities constitute a "what," and Heidegger uses the term "Reality" to designate them. 5See Daniel Dahlstrom's The Heidegger Dictionary. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). 6 Heidegger uses the word "Care" ("Sorge") as a technical term throughout Being and Time. For my purposes here, however, I shall not offer a detailed discussion it. See Being and Time, Division I, Chapter VI, titled "Care as the Being of Dasein," p. 225. To give a sense of the paramountcy which Heidegger gives it, I cite the following remarks: "Care, as a primordial structural totality, lies 'before' ['vor'] every factical 'attitude and 'situation' of Dasein, and it does so existentially a priori..." (BT 238; italics original). And: "Being-inthe-world is essentially care" (BT 237). 7 "Being-in" as an "existential" of Dasein should not be understood as a "Being-insomething" in the sense that we would mean it when we say that "water is 'in' the glass," as such a "Being-in-something" is proper only to the kind of Being of entities, not Dasein (BT 79). Such a notion of "insideness" as that designated in the expression "the water is in the glass" applies strictly to things "present-at-hand" (BT 82), where the "water" and the "glass" are entities or things (BT 79). They "have the same kind of Being--that of Beingpresent-at-hand--as Things occurring 'within' the world" (Ibid). Simply, only those 'things' which Descartes called "substances" have the kind of Being of "present-at-hand." See also Dreyfus (1990, esp. Chapter Three) and Blattner (2006, p.42). 8 Heidegger in fact places these two features together, as he titles § 38 "Falling and Thrownness." See Being and Time, p. 219. 9 See Being and Time, p. 211 for the beginning of § 35, entitled "Idle Talk." 10 It obscures from us also the fundamental structure of Dasein. This can be addressed only through fundamental ontology-the kind which Heidegger undertakes. 11 Heidegger cautions, however, that such "falling" "does not express any negative evaluation" as if "we were to ascribe to it the sense of a bad and deplorable ontical property of which, perhaps, more advanced stages of human culture might be able to rid themselves" (BT 220). 12 See "Achieving Personhood," p. 14, for Guignon's claims regarding this. Specifically, he notes that "authenticity" should be understood as connoting that which is "most proper." 13 See Wrathall's paper "'Demanding Authenticity of Ourselves': Heidegger on AuthenJanus Head 85 ticity as an Extra-moral Ideal," from the Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle, p. 154, n. 7. Wrathall is referring to Carman's Heidegger's Analytic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 271. I shall hereafter abbreviate Heidegger's Analytic as HA. 14 William Blattner, Heidegger's Being and Time: A Reader's Guide. (New York: Continuum Press, 2006), p. 67. I shall hereafter abbreviate this as HBT. See also Theodore R. Schatzki's "Early Heidegger on Sociality," from A Companion to Heidegger (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, Vol. 29). Ed. by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall. Schatzki's discussion is thematically similar to mine, but our respective interpretations differ significantly. 15 As Taylor succinctly puts it, "[W]e are aware of the world through a 'we' before we are through an 'I.'" "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man," in Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers, Vol. II. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 40. 16 Richard Polt, Heidegger: An Introduction. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 74. 17 For Heidegger, the understanding we have of others is not a matter, strictly speaking, of knowledge as propositional or predicative knowledge: "[T]he understanding of Others...like any understanding, is not an acquaintance derived from knowledge about them, but a primordially existential kind of Being, which, more than anything else, makes such knowledge and acquaintance possible" (BT 161). 18 Charles Taylor, "To Follow a Rule," from Philosophical Arguments. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 173. 19 Further evidence of this is gleaned in Heidegger's phrase that "the explicit disclosure of the Other in solicitude grows only out of one's primarily Being with him in each case" (BT 161). 20 Heidegger explicitly says this when he writes, "This 'Being-guilty' as 'having debts' ["Schulden haben"]..." (BT 327; italics original). 21 For a (relatively) concise summary of the connection between these terms, see Being and Time, p. 343. 22 See also Paragraph 51, pp. 296-299 of Being and Time for Heidegger's description of "idle talk" as part of the inauthentic fleeing in the face of death.