Characters of Factical life

Armed with the previously made claims, Heidegger turns to the analysis of the concrete actualization of the access. As he has insisted in the previous lecture courses, not every manner of accessing is authentic. Thus initially, the question is about the ways of relating in which the authentic relation is somehow lost. Everybody can stand before God and ask about God and God answers everybody, but not everybody is able to hear (150 [203-204]).

When it concerns them themselves, and when it shakes them up and questions their own facticity and existence [Existenz], then it is better to close one’s eyes just in time, in order to be enthused by the choir’s litanies which one has staged before oneself. (148 [201])

140 _{It should be noticed that the reference to Kierkegaard is made by Heidegger in the margin of the running}

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Thus, human beings do wish that the “truth” [“Wahrheit”] reveals itself to them, that nothing is closed off to them (aesthetic), but they themselves close themselves off against it: “ab ea manifestari nolunt” [they do not want to be discovered by it]. (148 [201])

It does not suffice to wish to have the truth [Wahrheit], but rather the manner of relating to the truth becomes significant. The question is not only how one relates, but also how one relates authentically: “[s]o the ‘questioning’ and ‘hearing’ does not suffice unless their How has been appropriated genuinely [echt angeeignet ist]” (150 [204]). The meaning of not to “appropriate the how genuinely” refers in my opinion to the question of how one closes oneself off from the authentic relation. At the same time, according to Heidegger, by closing oneself off from the truth, the truth becomes concealed, but “he [the human being] does not become concealed before it [truth]” (148 [201]). That is, even when one closes oneself off, something of the truth comes forth. Thus, it should be asked, what of the truth comes forth when the appropriation is not authentic and how is authentic access lost according to Heidegger in his analysis of Augustine’s experience of life?

With respect to pointing out that something of the truth comes forth even when authentic access is lost, Heidegger emphasizes that Augustine experiences life as a burden: he experiences himself as a burden to himself. For Heidegger this is an essential insight for two reasons. Augustine experiences himself as a burden to himself, while he experiences his life as scattered into a manifold (defluxus). And yet, God demands a counter-movement, that is, a movement into ‘the One’. This is what is really desired, what is hoped for (151- 152 [205-206]). At this point Heidegger sees in Augustine’s confessions the fundamental character of factical life arising – it is concern [Bekümmerung]. Life as scattered into a manifold and directed to a hope is experienced in the manner of being concerned. Life as it is experienced is a life in concern of things and others. Life is lived in this way. Furthermore, to the extent that there is a hope for a counter-movement, Heidegger points out the historicality of factical life in this concern, which opens into the horizon of awaiting [Erwartungshorizont] (153-154 [207-209]). As he states to the students taking part of the lecture course: “[l]ife is enacted [vollzieht sich] in the direction of that which expectation runs ahead” (205 [272]).

That life is lived in this way – as concerned and actualized in the direction of hope (that is, actualized in the horizon of expectation, being-ahead) – and how life is lived in different directions come about through Augustine’s confession of how different temptations take hold of him. At the same time, through tentatio, as the fundamental character in which Augustine experiences life, Heidegger can be seen to articulate the ways

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of closing oneself off. In this respect, he emphasizes that Augustine’s aim – the search for God – must be kept in mind (155 [209-210])! Seen from the search for God, the temptations are to be regarded as referring to the fact that life is pulled down. That is, the three forms of tentatio are at the same time seen as three directions of the possibility of defluxus(155-157 [210-212]).141

The first form of temptation is concupiscentia carnis (desire of the flesh). How are the temptations gathered under the name of desires of the flesh experienced? They are experienced as the troubles of the day, the daily troubles (158 [214]). Such as for example eating and drinking, necessities of life and yet experienced as temptations. How are they temptations? Not in themselves, but rather as they become delights which are aimed at. The possibility of (life itself) taking delight in necessities creates uncertainty which then quickly turns to excuses and escapes to momentary experiences in order to bury any trace of itself. It is tempting to set aside possibilities and settle oneself into what is meaningful [Bedeutsamkeit]142_{. It is tempting to escape into multitude, seeking endlessly something} new and beautiful, not to let oneself be disturbed but simply to be drawn into the joyful and multiply the manifold (162-165 [218-221]). And not only tempting, but rather the manifold is experienced as taking over, whereby the genuine and authentic [echte und eigentliche] relation is lost:

“Ego capior miserabiliter” [I am miserably captured], I am being drawn into it miserably. “Haereo in ubique sparsis insidiis” [I become in the snares laid everywhere] and thus lose the genuine and authentic orientation toward the lux vera, illa pulchritudo “cui suspirat anima mea die ac nocte,” deus decus meum [true light, that beauty “after which my soul sighs day and night,” my God and beauty]. (164-165 [221])

The second form of temptation, concupiscentia oculorum (desire of the eye or the superfluous curiosity of knowing) is dominated by the desire to see. It is curiosity, which aims to know (167 [224]). Heidegger describes it as accessing through ‘taking-cognizance- of’ [Kenntnisnahme], that is, the familiar manner of approaching from the previous lecture courses: grasping through ordering and objectifying whatever is aimed to be accessed. In the present lecture course he adds that in this case the relational sense is self-willed. This relation directs life and determines how something is experienced (169 [226]). In this way, the objectifying access is also applied to the search for God:

141 _{In connection with Heidegger’s explication of three forms of temptations, Claudius Strube (1995: 261) for}

example considers this theme to be at the center of Heidegger’s attention when interpreting Augustine. According to Strube, Heidegger already developed here what later on in Sein und Zeit will be accomplished as the existential analytic of fallenness (ibid.).

142 _{In the English translation of this lecture course the German ‘Bedeutsamkeit’ is translated as ‘significance.’}

In order to sustain coherence throughout the thesis, I will use from here on the notion of ‘meaningfulness’ as in previous chapters, except in cases when quoting the translated text of Heidegger’s lecture course.

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(God has to endure becoming a factor in human experiments. He has to respond to an inquisitive, pompous, and pseudo-prophetic curiosity, that is, a curious looking-about-oneself in regard to Him, which does not submit [fügt] to His sense of objecthood, that is, which is non-sense [Un-fug].) (167 [224])

In the third form of temptation, ambitio saeculi (“secular ambition”), self-importance becomes the end of delight (170 [228]). It is a manner of bringing oneself to the fore within the context of the with-world143_{, arranging one’s life in order to be loved or feared by others} (171 [229]). It is a mode which aims to validate oneself within the with-world and is seen as motivated by cowardly weakness and insecurity (171, 173-174 [229, 232-233]). In this temptation, one is not directed towards God anymore, but rather to oneself seen from other human beings: “[e]t a veritate tua gaudium nostrum deponamus, atque in hominum fallacia ponamus [And we give up our joy in your truth, and place it in the deceitfulness of human beings]” (174 [233]).

For Heidegger, these three forms of temptation are factical manners of experiencing. In all these three forms, factical life experience is expressed and yet authentic access is concealed. However, as was said, although humans conceal the truth for themselves in these forms, something of the truth nevertheless is expressed. What comes forth (is expressed) are the basic characters. As such, according to Heidegger, each manner of temptation reveals the basic character of life – concern. Life is lived in the concern of things and others around oneself. Also, in all experience as concern, the basic tendency – delight – is always co-present (165-166 [222]). This means that all experiencing is always directed. It is directed to a certain appetitus (appetite), as Heidegger says (166 [222]). What one is directed towards in different forms of temptation differs. In the first form of tentatio, one is directed towards being entertained. In the second form, one desires to know. It is the appetite “of looking-about-oneself (not of dealing-with) in the various regions and fields, ‘what is going on there’” (166 [223]). In the third form, one desires to “validate oneself” (173 [232]). Now, according to Heidegger, what one is directed towards, what is hoped for makes up one’s own factical concern. In this sense, Heidegger is able to confirm his claim that the search itself makes up one’s (my) concern for facticity (141 [192]). The question is in what sense these manners of experiencing are regarded as closing off authentic access.

Indeed, each form of temptation is seen as the search for God, as the search for a happy life. However, for Heidegger, not being directed towards what is searched for

143 _{In the translation of this text the Mitwelt is translated as ‘communal world.’ In order to sustain coherence}

throughout, I will use from here on the notion of ‘with-world’ as in previous chapters, except in cases when quoting the translated text of Heidegger’s lecture course.

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authentically (according to oneself), simultaneously means to close oneself off from oneself. For this reason, he leads the problem of access to the thematization of the question of how the self unfolds through the forms of temptation. According to Heidegger, in the first case, the self is absorbed into the dealings-with. In the second form, the self is not absorbed nor had – it simply does not come to itself. In both of these forms, according to Heidegger, self as self does not articulate itself actualizationally, but rather is being lived by the world and determined by with-worldly relations (170 [228]). With respect to the access had in these forms, Heidegger insists that in the first case the relational sense remains in content, is pulled into it, and in the second case the relational sense is self-willed (166, 169 [222-223, 226]). In the third form the self articulates itself actualizationally (self as self is aimed at), but according to Heidegger, in the manner how self is articulated here the self is lost for itself in its ownmost way (170, 171 [228, 229]). The self is lost, as far as it is motivated by self-importance. One relates to oneself with respect to others and thus the self-world becomes directed by the with-world (170, 179 [227, 239]). All in all, each form of temptation as a possibility of defluxtion thus closes the access to what is searched for. It remains to ask: how is access properly gained?