The Role of Suffering in Heidegger’s Concept of Happiness

____________________________________________

A Thesis Presentation to

St. Anthony Mary Claret College

Undergraduate Department

_____________________________________________________________

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Bachelor of Arts

Major in Philosophy

__________________________________________

Val V. Cea

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If you die before you die, the moment you die, you will no longer die

-Rabindranath Tagore

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I. Introduction ……………………………………………………… 1

A. Background of the Study …………………………………………….. 1

B. Statement of the problem…………………..……………………….… 3

C. Significance of the study…………………..………………….....……. 4

D. Scope and Delimitations of the Study…..…..…..…..…..…….…..….. 5

E. Review of Literature and Related Studies…..…..…..………..………. 6

F. Conceptual Framework…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..……..…..….…. 12

G. Definition of Terms…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..……………....…… 15

H. Methodology…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…….………….… 18

I. Division of Thesis…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..……..…...……....….. 19

Chapter II Martin Heidegger ……………..…..…..….…….………..…… 21

A. Life and works……..……..……..……..……..……..…..…..….…... 21

B. “Sein und Zeit/Being and Time” ……..……..……..…..…..……….. 28

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Chapter III. What notion of suffering can be discerned in Heidegger? ……… 30

A. Heidegger’s notion of suffering as a radical hermeneutics of human being.

Dasein ..…..…………………...…..…...…..……..……..….…..…..…..…. 31

1. Being-in-the-world…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…….…..… 31

2. Mitsein (Being-with).…..…..…..…..…..….…..…..…..…..…….…… 35

3. Throwness.…..…..…..…..…..… .…..…..…..…..…..……….…..….. 38

4. Dasein’s attitude towards the world around him

or his being “worlded” ……………………………………...……….. 38

i. Zuhanden (ready-to-hand) ……..……..…..……..……..………..… 39

ii. Vorhanden (present-at-hand) ……..………..……..……..……….. 40

B. Ontical account of suffering……..……..……..……..……..……..……….. 41

1. Psychological interpretation of suffering……..……..……..……..…… 41

2. Religious interpretation of suffering……..……..……..……..……..…. 42

C. Hermeneutic Circle of Suffering……..……..……..……..……..……..…… 43

Chapter IV What notion of happiness can be discerned in Heidegger? ……….. 53

A. Heidegger’s concept of death …..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…….. 53

a) Potentiality-for-being…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…... 54

- Anticipation/Advent

b) Authenticity with others…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..… 56

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c) Beings realization through time…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 61

B. Ontical account of happiness…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…... 64

a) What is happiness in the field of psychology? …..…..…..…..…..….. 64

b) What is happiness in the field of religion? …..…..…..…..…..…..…. 65

Chapter V. What is the role of Suffering in Heidegger’s concept of Happiness?..67

Chapter VI. Summary, Findings and Recommendations……………………… 72

A. Summary…………………………………………………………………72

B. Findings…………………………………………………………………73

C. Recommendations…………………………………………………….…75

D. Trends and Prospects……………………………………………………76

E. Bibliography…………………………………………………………..…78

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Chapter I

A. Background of the Study

All of us want to achieve happiness. Different people offer, partial, if not

absolute solutions to happiness. From this human desire for happiness emerge

various disciplines or schools with their respective ways on how to achieve it.

World religions offer various and different descriptions of happiness. For

the Catholics, life on Earth is described in terms of temporality. The contemplation

of God is the supreme delight of the will; and perfect happiness as a complete

well-being is to be attained not in this life, but in the afterlife. As for Buddhism,

Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. By

following the Noble Eightfold Path, one can be freed from suffering that will

result in Nirvana or the state of everlasting peace.

Philosophy also offers various grounds on happiness. “Let us eat and drink

for tomorrow we’ll die” is the famous line from the school of Epicureanism. But

the idea of Epicurus should not be linked with gluttony1; instead he should be

acknowledged for distinguishing various types of pleasures. For example, some

pleasures are intense but they last only a short while. Others are not so intense but

1 Samuel Enoch Stumpf and James Fiesier, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, 8th edition, (Ohio: McGraw-hill international, 2007), 94.

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they last longer. Also, some pleasures have painful aftermath while others give us

a sense of calm and repose. Epicurus tries to refine the principle of pleasure as the

basis of conduct.2

For Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, happiness is characterized by

having a good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills his human nature in an

excellent and virtuous way. His philosophy focuses on the teleology of human

nature. People have a set of purposes which are typically human: these belong to

our nature. The happy person is virtuous; he has outstanding abilities and

emotional tendencies which allow him to fulfill his common human ends. For

Aristotle, then, happiness is "the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with

reason": happiness is the practice of virtue.3

All of the above mentioned schools of thought have their focus on the

human. He in his existence attempts to grasp the world he is in. In his day-to-day

living he experiences various kinds of existential struggle: subsistential,

intrapersonal, status, ideological, and spiritual. Because of these struggles man

tries to confront who he is. Philosophers have given their own ideas and

interpretations concerning “being”. And one of them is Martin Heidegger who

2 Stumpf and Fiesier, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, 95.

3 Ibid., 83.

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disagrees to the ideas of some philosophers such as Thales who believed that all

things on Earth find their nutriments in water.

Martin Heidegger in his works introduced the notion of “Being-there”. It is

a concept to describe our individual existence as "being thrown" into the world. It

denotes the arbitrary or inscrutable nature of man (Dasein) that connects the past

to the present. Awareness and acknowledgment of the arbitrariness of Dasein is

characterized as a state of "thrown-ness" in the present with all its attendant

frustrations, sufferings, and demands that one does not choose, such as social

conventions or ties of kinship and duty. One’s “humanness” manifests his very

own existence of throwness.

In this study, the researcher will try to show suffering and happiness in the

scope of Heidegger’s philosophy, and its relevance to the present day world. In

this study, the researcher will explicate Heidegger’s thought on being, and

gradually synthesize its nature with the Christian notion of suffering and its

relevance to life.

B. Statement of the problem

The researcher is interested to venture into the ideas of existentialism to

explain man’s angst and struggle in the world. He will attempt to come up with a

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new approach to man’s insatiable search for happiness through a rigorous study of

the works of Heidegger especially his descriptive account on being.

The following questions will also guide the researcher in realizing the objective

of this research:

A. What notion of suffering can be discerned in Heidegger’s philosophy?

B. What notion of happiness can be discerned in Heidegger’s philosophy?

C. What is the role of suffering in Heidegger’s concept of happiness?

The researcher believes that these questions will help him pursue points and

concepts of his propositions guided by necessary philosophical concepts.

C. Significance of the study

Every human being wants to know the purpose of his life. In the process, one

cannot avoid the experience of pain and suffering. In man’s anguish, he cannot but

think of some ways on how to overcome it.

Many of us find our time in front of our television sets. Some prefer surfing

the net, while others indulge themselves with food. Not only in material things that

we devote our time with but also with intangible things such as ideologies. Many

young women nowadays are conditioned by the media with their promising

advertisements on beauty products. Men and women are provoked to smoke

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cigars, drink alcohol, and drive fast with fancy cars. They are also conditioned by

the media in believing that these things enhance their masculinity or status. In this

modern 21st century, we are made to believe in things that are injected by the

media. Such is the power of indoctrination that cannot be outwitted because it is

part of the society’s structure that, according to Heidegger, is a disturbing reality

causing Dasein to be in the state of oblivion. But we cannot do away with it for it

is the basic or the fundamental element of our being.

Thus this paper is intended to show man’s ability to deal with his existential

combats present in the world he is in. It will lay down clear interpretations of

Heidegger’s philosophy. It will also bring about the relevance of suffering in the

researcher’s religious vocation, especially, with his congregation’s attitude

towards suffering.

D. Scope and Limitations

Guided by the books, journals, and internet articles about Heidegger’s

philosophy, the researcher will attempt to discuss the fundamental ideas of

Heidegger’s descriptive account on being. With the help of various articles in the

areas of religion and psychology, the researcher will show the difference between

Heidegger’s ontological description and his ontical description of suffering and

happiness. Hence, the researcher will limit his research to the limited literature on

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Heidegger’s philosophy specifically on his concept of being and death. He will

also take into consideration some articles on religion and psychology that talk

about suffering and happiness.

E. Review of Related Literature

The researcher believes that several reference materials are necessary in this

research to guide him in laying out his ideas throughout the entire discussion and

to help him in defending his propositions. The books which will be cited come

from different fields of studies that are intended by the researcher to present

ontical accounts of suffering in order to show to its readers the innovative aspects

of this research and that would be the ontological account of suffering.

The following studies are related to the subject matter of his investigation:

TY Lee, Anyone can go to heaven just be good, KepMedia International Pte Ltd 22 Jurong Port Road Tower A #04-01 Singapore 619114, 2007.

This little book presents the basic concepts of Buddhism in a concise manner.

Buddha’s teachings allow us the experience of heaven on Earth by showing us

how to attain such blissful states of mind. Apart from states of mind, Buddhists

believe that there are several realms or planes of existence in the universe, and

these can be places of suffering or places of happiness. Buddha encouraged all of

us to lead upright and virtuous lives in order for us to be reborn in a higher realm,

and more importantly to protect ourselves from rebirth in the lower realm. But the

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ultimate objective of Buddhists would be to attain Nirvana. It is the total absence

of all cravings and sufferings. This can be done by cultivating the positive

qualities of generosity and kindness, patience and compassion, morality and

wisdom.

Flavian Dougherty CP. , The Meaning of Human Suffering, Human Sciences Press, New York, NY, 1982.

In this book by Flavian Dougherty, a member of the Congregation of the

Passion edited some of the articles and essays from different fields of studies

addressing human suffering. In a compassionate and thoughtful manner, famous

clergy and human service professionals address the fundamental problem of

suffering from philosophical, theological, and existential perspectives. This book

investigates past as well as contemporary attitudes toward this perennial and

topical issue. Throughout the book, serious consideration is given to the key

question of how to reconcile suffering with the Christian belief in a God of love.

While exploring modern religious viewpoints, the contributors recounted the

tragedies of Hiroshima and the Holocaust, and the ordeals of the third World and

Black Americans.

In its eclectic approach to the meaning of suffering, the book examines the

following: the contrast between Freudian and Marxist theories and Christian

beliefs; a comparison between the Buddhist and Christian approaches to the

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transcendence of suffering; the violence and strife which has characterized the

long history of Israel; and the New Testament’s teachings on suffering,

particularly as reflected in the Passion and Death of Christ. For the clergy,

professionals involved in the human services and concerned laymen, this

publication offers an inspired and dedicated contribution to our understanding of

suffering.

William Sargant, Battle for the Mind, Pan Books Ltd, 33 Tothill street, London, S.W. 1959.

The mechanics of indoctrination, brainwashing, and thought control is well

discussed and explained in this book. This remarkable book wants to show

how beliefs – whether good or bad, false or true – can be forcibly implanted in the

human brain – the science of indoctrination. It also explains how people can be

switched to arbitrary beliefs absolutely opposed to those previously held – the

science of brainwashing. In detail, and with the aid of fascinating photographs, the

author describes the methods used by politicians, priests, psychiatrists, and police

forces the world over to achieve these ends.

Donelson R. Forsyth, Group Dynamics 5th edition, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010, 2006.

In the Fifth Edition of his best-selling book, Forsyth combines research,

empirical studies supporting theoretical understanding of groups, and case studies

to illustrate the application of concepts to actual groups, thus providing students

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with the most comprehensive treatment of groups available. Forsyth builds each

chapter around a real-life case and draws on examples from a range of disciplines

including psychology, law, education, sociology, and political science. Because he

tightly weaves concepts and familiar ideas together, the text takes students beyond

simple exposure to basic principles and research findings to a deeper

understanding of each topic.

Agosta Lou, A Heideggerian Approach to Empathy, An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts. Volume 6, No. 2, Fall 2011.

  The choice to be authentic with other human beings is neglected by

Heidegger in “Being and Time”. It is pushed down into a few parenthetical

remarks that dismiss empathy. The possibility of authentic human being with

others is delimited but, for the most part, not developed. This article gathers

together those remarks and amplifies them with an analysis of human being with

other human beings by applying the basic Heideggerian distinctions of

affectedness, understanding, interpretation, assertion, and speech to an

interpretation and implementation of empathy.

Edited by John Perry, Personal Identity, University of California Press Berkely Los Angeles, California, 1975.

The volume brings together the vital contributions of distinguished past and

contemporary philosophers to the important topic of personal identity. The first

part sets forth the attempts of John Locke, Anthony Quinton, and H.P. Grice to

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analyze personal identity in terms of memory. The eleven other selections are

largely critical of this approach and provide alternative perspectives.

This book depicts various elements that contribute to Heidegger’s concept

of being. In Heidegger’s book Being and Time he restated the problem of being.

He wrote in his book that the need for restating the problem on being recounts the

works of past philosophers who conceived being as objects of studies and

observation which stop being from its nature as being-in-the-world.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The End of Suffering and the Discovery of Happiness: The Path of Tibetan Buddhism, Hay House, May 1, 2012.

This book presents a clear and straightforward road map to how we might

end our experience of suffering and discover happiness, drawn by the most

celebrated spiritual master of Tibetan Buddhism: His Holiness the 14th Dalai

Lama. In this insightful volume, not only does His Holiness describe what religion

can contribute to mankind, but he also accentuates the significance of a truly

practicing religion and understanding what mankind really needs. Familiar for his

ever-smiling face and his message of love, compassion and peace, he explains the

three turnings of the wheel of dharma; the purpose and the means of generating the

mind of enlightenment, and the twelve links of dependent arising, among other

things. This new title offers an easily accessible and illuminating glimpse into the

core of Tibetan Buddhism.

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James Davies, The Importance of Suffering, Simultaneously published in USA and Canada by Routledege, 2012.

In this book, James Davies considers emotional suffering as part and parcel

of what it means to live. This book therefore offers a new perspective on

emotional discontent and discusses how we can engage with it clinically,

personally and socially to uncover its productive value.

The Importance of Suffering explores an understanding on emotional

suffering, suggesting that it does not spring from one dimension of our lives but

often the outcome of how we relate to the world internally in terms of our

biological make up, habits and values, and externally in terms of our society,

culture and the world around us. Davies suggests that suffering is a healthy call-to-

change and shouldn't be chemically anesthetized or avoided. The book challenges

conventional thinking by arguing that if we understand and manage suffering

more, it can facilitate individual and social transformation in powerful and

surprising ways.

The Importance of Suffering offers new ways of thinking and, therefore, of

understanding suffering. It will appeal to anyone who works with suffering in a

professional context including professionals, trainees and academics in the fields

of counseling, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, psychiatry and clinical psychology.

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Sarah M. Whitman MD. , Pain and Suffering as Viewed by the Hindu Religion, The Journal of Pain, Vol 8, No 8 (August), 2007, 607-613.

In this journal article, Sarah M. Whitman considers physical pain as a

never-ending phenomenon that will result to constant visit to the doctor for

medication and therapy. She evaluates pain in the sphere of physical and spiritual

sense; moreover, she assesses that pain experienced by the body will not harm nor

damage the spirit.

Suffering, both mental and physical, is thought to be part of the unfolding

of karma and a consequence of past inappropriate action (mental, verbal, or

physical) that occurred in either one’s current life or in a past life.4 Suffering is

seen as a part of living until finally achieving moksha5. Until reaching this state,

suffering is always present in life’s path. Hindu tradition holds that as we remain

on earth in human form, we are bound by the laws of our world and will

experience physical pain.

F. Conceptual Framework

The researcher believes that an exposition of this study through words and

concepts will give a sufficient exposition of his ideas. Nevertheless, to provide an

abstract or bird’s eye view on the subject matter, he made a schematic presentation

4 Sarah M. Whitman, “Pain and Suffering as Viewed by the Hindu Religion”, The Journal of Pain, Vol 8, No. 8 (August 2007), 609.

5 Complete release from the cycle of rebirths. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/moksha

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of conceptual framework. This framework will make use of symbols, images and

diagrams.

Schematizing Heidegger’s work is a crime against Heidegger himself.

Conceptualizing a philosophical activity is a regression towards Plato’s Idealism.

Given that the researcher presented his conceptual framework in his thesis is for

the sake of making his work intelligible to non-philosophy majors.

In the diagram below there are four spheres that give the readers an overview

of the entire project. The focal point of the schema is the Dasein which is

represented by a human figure. The Dasein is a being which comports itself in the

world. It occupies in the diagram a sphere which represents the ‘world’. It is then

enveloped by another sphere with the entity ‘they’. The first sphere is distinct from

the other spheres because of the broken lines which permeate movement.

The first sphere and its first layer are distinguished by broken lines to suggest

the possibility of a dynamic movement between spheres. But there is a distinction

between these spheres.

On the one hand, the first sphere consists of Dasein’s attitude towards the

world and of Dasein’s basic structure. The basic structure of Dasein includes the

following: Being-in-the-world, Being-with, and throwness. The attitude of Dasein

to the world or care (sorge) includes: vorhanden (present-at-hand) and zoharden

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(ready-to-hand). Consequently these attitudes of Dasein towards the world

produce three notable phenomena in the world: publicity, media, and technology.

On the other hand, the second sphere that envelops the first sphere has in it the

entity called ‘they’. This entity is comported by Dasein in its everydayness. It is

where Dasein’s being disperses to. Inside the second sphere is Heidegger’s notion

of ‘Authenticity’. It can also be understood as Being-as-such, Potentiality-for-

being, and individuality.

The third sphere holds the two above mentioned spheres. This sphere signifies

the entire notion of suffering that can be discerned in Heidegger’s work. Above

the center of the sphere is labeled as ‘hermeneutic circle of suffering’. This

signifies the endless movement of Dasein from authenticity to the ‘they’ which is

described in a back-and-forth movement. This back-and-forth movement is

explicitly shown through the arrows that correspondingly depict a cycle. The

arrow from Dasein points to Heidegger’s notion of Angst or anxiety. It is where

Dasein’s being worlded collapses and finds himself in a world of use. From angst

there is an arrow going to the second sphere which is authenticity. This mode of

being suggests the partial separation of Dasein from the ‘they’. But Dasein cannot

endure life without the ‘they’; after all it is the Das Man that gives meaning to

Daein’s average everydayness. So, Dasein will return to the ‘they’. All in all

Dasein is in the ever-changing phenomena.

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The only avenue to the termination of this cycle is represented by the arrow

conjoined with the third sphere and is located at the right portion of the third

sphere. Moreover, its tail described by its broken lines suggests that there is a slow

movement that will lead Dasein out of the Hermeneutic Circle of Suffering. This

arrow points out to the fourth sphere found in the most right portion of the

diagram.

The fourth sphere is where the notion of happiness can be discerned. Being-

towards-death is a possibility of being or the potentiality-for-being. It is also an

anticipation and resoluteness of its being. This facticity of being particularly of

Dasein is the avenue for Dasein to be free from any use whatsoever by the ‘they’.

G. Definition of Terms

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The following are the definition of terms primarily used and necessary in this

research. The terms are defined in the context of this research.

Role – comportment (opposed to nature) – dynamic disposition of being.

Suffering – The consciousness of being alive.

Happiness – The authentic potentiality, being-towards death, when one can

never be represented.

Hermeneutic Circle of Suffering – the dynamic of life within an unceasing

cycle of Dasein from the ‘They’ to the mode of authenticity, the “I”.

Ontology – The metaphysical study of the nature of being and existence.

(Word Web)

Ontological – from the greek word ‘ontos’ which means the ‘is-ness’ of things.

Ontical – ‘whatness’ of a thing which appeal to different fields of inquiry such

as mathematics, psychology, and religion; and its explication is through subject-

matter formulation of things that explain reality.

Dasein – is Heidegger’s assertion of being as being-there.

Mitsein – ‘being-with’ is an existential character of Dasein towards being-

with or alongside the world.

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Being-in-the-world – is an existential character of Dasein with regards to its

relationship with the world and of the beings that dwell in it.

Thrownness – is Heidegger’s concept of being as the state of being thrown

into the world. It is a factical or an existential characteristic of Dasein.

Care – is a fundamental basis of our being-in-the-world. It is Dasein’s attitude

toward being that is in the world.

Inauthentic – is a mode of being that is present in the ‘they’. This mode is

characterized of having Dasein to experience ‘publicness’ in its ‘average’

‘everydayness’.

Authentic – is a mode of being that can be experienced by the Dasein of

having this potentiality to temporarily separate himself from the ‘they’.

Present-at-hand – in German language it is translated as ‘Vorhanden’. This is

an attitude of being towards other beings in the world. It can also be likened to the

ontical approach to things.

Ready-to-hand – in German language it is translated as ‘Zuhanden’. This is an

attitude of being towards other beings in the world. It can also be likened to the

ontological approach

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Angst – in English it is translated as ‘anxiety’. This state of Dasein is brought

by the collapsing of Dasein’s being worlded.

Possibility – is a given attribute of Dasien as having the ability to have a

projection of the future. It is the infinite possibilities of Dasein despite of its

finitude.

The “They” – Das Man; the aggregation of individuals or the mass-itself.

Death – is the permanent end of all functions of life in an organism or some of

its cellular components.6 It is for Heidegger a phenomenon wherein Dasein’s

usefulness is disposed of.

H. Methodology

The methodology employed in this research is the textual method. The

researcher is primarily relying on the wide use of books, journal articles and

philosophical essays in his investigation. The libraries that have contributed much

in this research are from St. Vincent Mary Strambi Seminary Library, St. Anthony

Mary Claret College Library.

In addition to the books and library materials, browsing the internet is also

one of the essential sources. Moreover, through constant discussion with different

6 Collins Dictionary: Complete and Unabridged, sixth edition, (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004), 429.

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resource persons, the researcher was able to gather reliable and accurate

information on the matter. The researcher got some of these related topics, some

articles and essay in connection in making this research.

I. Division of Thesis

To be able to examine clearly the main ideas of this thesis, the researcher

establishes four basic divisions or the four fundamental chapters regarding his

research.

In chapter I of the thesis, the researcher presents the following: background of

the study, statement of the problem, significance of the study, scope and limitation

of the study, review of related literature, conceptual framework, methodology, and

definition of terms. The researcher made an overview presentation of what would

be the main course of this research.

Chapter II will talk more about the life and work of Martin Heidegger. The

researcher believes that a better understanding of the life and work of his main

philosopher will lead also to a firmer grasp of the topic. The main source of this

thesis is from Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. The salient points drawn from his work

are of the explication of the Dasein.

Chapter III will discuss on the discernible notion of suffering that can be drawn

from Heidegger’s philosophical work Being and Time. This section will cover

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Heidegger’s exposition of the structure of human existence. Dasein has in itself a

structure which constitutes its being. The following will be discussed in this

chapter: Mitsein, Being-in-the-world, Throwness, Dasein’s attitude towards the

world around him or his being “worlded”. The ontical account of suffering is also

included in this chapter such as the interpretation of religion and psychology to

suffering and happiness. Technique, Media, and Publicity will also be accounted

for in the understanding of this section.

Chapter IV will discuss the discernible notion of happiness that can be drawn

from Heidegger’s philosophical work Being and Time, specifically on his concept

of happiness. Heidegger’s concept of death plays an important role in his concept

of happiness. It requires authenticity to be able to face death. And it is through

being-with that an individual achieves authenticity. Happiness is also discussed in

the fields of religion and psychology. By giving different views on suffering, the

researcher hopes to somehow give light to the understanding of Heidegger’s

phenomenological approach to happiness.

Chapter V will discuss on the role of suffering in Heidegger’s concept of

happiness. It is where the tension between two extremes meets and is related to

suit Heidegger’s philosophy.

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The last section of this paper will be reserved for the research paper’s

summary, findings, recommendations, trend and prospect, and bibliography.

Chapter II

Martin Heidegger

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A. Life and works

All of the text to be found below that recounts the life and works of Martin

Heidegger were from a reliable web page specifically the European Graduate

School.

Martin Heidegger was born September 26th, 1889 in the Black Forest

region of Messkirch. He began gymnasium at Constance in 1903, but was later

transferred in 1906 to Bertholds gymnasium in Freiberg. At this time he boarded at

the archiepiscopal seminary of St. Georg. A mentor, Dr. Conrad Grober, gave him

a copy of Brentano's "On the Manifold Meaning of Being According to Aristotle,"

and this early exposure to Brentano, who also influenced Husserl's

phenomenology, made a great impression on Heidegger.

He took up studies to be a Jesuit by entering the Society of Jesus at Tisis, in

Austria, though likely for health reasons, he was rejected as a candidate.

Heidegger then decided to study for his priesthood at the Albert-Ludwig

University in Freiberg, where he began lecturing and publishing papers. Here he

first encountered the writings of Husserl, and was also directed by his superiors to

change his studies from theology to mathematics and philosophy. Heidegger

embraced the change in his direction, studying closely the work of Husserl and

completing his doctorate, "The Doctrine of Judgement in Psychologism," in 1914.

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The following year he completed his habilitation with his dissertation, "The

Doctrine of Categories and Signification in Duns Scotus." At this time he married

Elfride Petri, in March, 1917, and shortly thereafter joined the German army. He

thrived in the army and was promoted from private to corporal within ten months,

but had to be discharged for health reasons. Shortly after the birth of his son, Jorg,

in 1919, Heidegger, in a letter to a colleague, confessed that he had decided to

break with "the dogmatic system of Catholicism."

Heidegger gained notoriety quickly as a phenomenologist, under the

guidance of Husserl, becoming his assistant in 1919, and would later succeed him

as professor of philosophy, at Freiburg. He lectured and made a colleague of Karl

Jaspers, continuing a dialogue with him for many years. During this time,

Heidegger's second son, Hermann, was born. By 1924, Heidegger was promoted

to become an associate at the University of Marburg, where he would write his

most recognized work, Being and Time (Sein und Zeit,1927; trans. 1962). He was

coerced to hurry the publication of the book to retain his position at the University

of Marburg.

Along with Husserl, the pre-Socratics, the Danish philosopher, Soren

Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly influenced Heidegger. In his most

important and influential work, Being and Time, Heidegger is concerned with

what he considers the essential philosophical (and human) question: What is it, to

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be? To even ask the question, remarks Heidegger, implies that at some level the

answer is already understood. As a student of Husserl, Heidegger felt that

Husserl's thinking was trapped by its relationship to a concept of God and the

transcendent. Heidegger shifts the mode of the subject undergoing

phenomenological investigation by immersing it into its own contemplation as a

being both within language (time) and within the space world, hence, between a

concept of being and time. Throughout the history of philosophy the question of

being had been forgotten and had become more concerned with the ontic, missing

that which makes such an understanding of beings possible: between the "is-ness"

(Being) and being as the subject of discourse or self-reflection. Heidegger argues

that ontology as phenomenology must necessarily be hermeneutic, or interpretive.

Truth is always both concealing and revealing. When one interpretation is opened

up, other interpretations are necessarily closed off. In this sense, ontology is

always provisional.

Heidegger describes the quality of Being in the concept of Dasein. The

subject is thrown into a world that consists of potentially useful things, cultural

and natural objects. Because these objects and artifacts come to humanity from the

past and are used in the present for the sake of future goals, Heidegger posited a

fundamental relation between the mode of being of objects and of humanity and

29

the structure of time. The individual is always in danger of being submerged in the

world of objects, everyday routine, and the conventional, shallow behavior of the

crowd. The feeling of dread (Angst) brings the individual to a confrontation with

death and the ultimate meaninglessness of life, but only in this confrontation can

an authentic sense of Being and of freedom be attained. Dasein is a consciousness

of the thrown quality of being between concepts that form the reality of the

present, and the concern for the safety of the subject into the future. Dasein in this

sense is a consciousness of consciousness. Being comes into existence at the limit

of the thrown-ness of everyday existence between past and future.

After writing Being and Time, Heidegger later had a turn in his thought.

This work anticipates hermeneutics (i.e., Gadamer) and post-structuralism (i.e.,

Foucault, Derrida, Levinas). In such works as An Introduction to

Metaphysics(1953; trans. 1959), Heidegger turned to the interpretation of

particular Western conceptions of Being. He felt that in contrast to the reverent

ancient Greek conception of Being, modern technological society had fostered an

instrumentalizing attitude that had deprived Being and human existence of

meaning, a condition he called nihilism. Humanity had lost its true vocation; to

recover a deeper understanding of Being that was achieved by the early Greeks

and lost by subsequent philosophers.

30

Through his lectures at Marburg, Heidegger influenced many thinkers,

including Herbert Marcuse, who would become a primary figure in Critical

Theory. It was here also that he met Hannah Arendt, who later became his lover.

Count Kuki Shuzo introduced Heidegger's work to Jean-Paul Sartre, who was his

French tutor in Paris. Shuzo would also become the first to offer a book-length

study of Heidegger, "The Philosophy of Heidegger," published in Japan. The

connection of Heidegger' s thought to the East has not received much attention

over the years. But it is clear that he first had his greatest impact in Japan with the

writings of Count Kuki Shuzo. Further, Heidegger carried on a relationship with

D.T. Suzuki, whom he met with on several occasions. He attempted to translate

Lao Tzu into German, but never finished the project. Heidegger's conception of

Galessenheit (releasement) is influenced by Lao Tzu, whose writings on "wu wei"

(non-action) hold similarities to Heidegger's releasement-toward-things. With

releasement, the human being enters meditative thinking, often characterized by a

profound humility, which understands Being as a "gift" and holds itself open to the

"call" of language. With Gelassenheit, Heidegger turned toward the difficult

nature of the subject of language, the logos, by which beings are gathered and

named. Although in naming, Being remains concealed.

In 1933, Heidegger was appointed the rector of the University of Freiburg.

At this time, he also joined the National Socialist Party. One year later, Heidegger

31

would resign as rector due to disputes with faculty and local Nazi officials.

Heidegger continued his involvement with the National Socialist Party until 1945,

although the degree of his involvement is still under debate. Despite the urgings of

Marcuse and others, Heidegger never publicly apologized for his involvement with

National Socialism. With the de-nazification hearing in 1945, Heidegger was

banned from lecturing and teaching at any university by the French Military

Government, and furthermore ruled that the university refuse Heidegger Emeritus

status and pension him off, stripping him of his professorship. Though he

continued to write and speak, he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1946. He

applied for, and was granted, emeritus status, providing that he would refrain from

teaching. In 1947 he published On Humanism to distinguish his phenomenology

from French existentialism. By 1950, Heidegger was reinstated to his teaching

position, and, one year later, he was made professor Emeritus by the Baden

government. During the next decade he published a number of works

including: An Introduction to Metaphysics (1953, trans. 1959), What is Called

Thinking (1954, trans. 1968), What is Philosophy (1956), and On the Way to

Language (1959).

During Heidegger's arrest from teaching, he found a collaborator, Medard

Boss drafting, "Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology," which

would become a seminal work in existential psychology. Heidegger hoped that

32

Boss' application of his philosophy to psychology would help those in need of aid,

as well as bring his thought to a larger audience. Throughout his career, Boss

would continue to promote a Daseinanalytic approach to psychotherapy and

medicine.

Heidegger's original treatment of such themes as human finitude, death,

nothingness, and authenticity led many to associate him with existentialism.

Indeed, his work had a crucial influence on the French existentialist Jean Paul

Sartre. Heidegger, however, eventually repudiated existentialist interpretations of

his work. Since the 1960s his influence has spread beyond continental Europe

making an enormous impact on philosophy Western philosophy.

In 1961 Nietzsche I and II were published, in 1970 Phenomenology and

Theology (Phänomenologie und Theologie) published, and in 1975 the first

transcripts of Heidegger's various lectures were published, as he wished. The

completed transcripts would fill more than 100 volumes, featuring all his major

lectures. Heidegger died in Frieburg on May 26th, 1976.

B. “Sein und Zeit/Being and Time”

All account on Martin Heidegger’s work Being and Time was taken from

Encyclopedia Americana.

Being and Time is a work by the German Philosopher Martin Heidegger

that greatly influenced existentialist writers, particularly Sartre. Title Sein und Zeit,

33

it was first published in 1927 and its English translation in 1962. The book,

planned as a total investigation of Being, was never completed, but Heidegger

write other works expounding and elucidating its tenets. Although Heidegger was

a strong proponent of the idea that language is meanings, especially those

concerned with truth and reality, he was disturbed by the great controversy over

the interpretation of his treatise. He claimed that few students grasped its meaning,

and it is likely that he chose not to complete his magnum opus because of the

possibility of further misinterpretation.

Being and Time deals with the problem of human existence. Man,

according to Heidegger, comes from nothing and inevitably must return to

nothing. Plunged into a sea of brute facts, which have no intrinsic significance,

man projects meaning into the world by transforming these facts-the “that-which-

is” –into tools for his purposes. He is then confronted with a choice: he may either

bury himself in the world of his making or he may face the true fact of his

existence-his death and the return to nothingness. To live truly as a man, he must

make a resolute choice to face the “nothing” and live with the dread that this

choice entails. For it is as “nothing” That Being as such (as distinguished from the

“that which is”) is revealed to man. Heidegger claims that only by contemplating

and living with the fact of death and nothingness can man pay proper homage to

the sustaining cause of his existence.

34

The researcher is very interested and strongly agrees on Martin Heidegger’s

description of the basic human conditions. He’s studies on Nietzsche affected his

philosophy that he regard human being as nothing. Dasein as a being being there

thrown into the world with others, sees everything as something ready-to-hand for

use, and so, Dasein looks at the world as a world of usefulness.

As a descriptive philosopher Heidegger observed that throughout history

specifically philosophy, everything there is, is a product of the struggle between

constancy and change, idealism and kinesis, being and nothingness, reason and

will, and anarchy versus archeology.

Like a solipsist who disregards others and looks at everything as a product

of his creative mind, Dasein, at the same scale, looks at the world as if it is for his

own disposal. The danger here lies on the fact that Dasein’s being worlded will

soon collapse. This factual reality of Dasein will cause anxiety and will result to its

potentiality-for-being or authenticity.

Chapter III

What notion of suffering can be discerned in Heidegger?

35

D. Heidegger’s notion of suffering as a radical hermeneutics of human being

The starting point of the exposition of Heidegger’s notion of being lies in its

movement from its ontical to ontological understanding of human being. “The

notion of ‘human being’ can be deceptive. This is particularly so since, throughout

the history of philosophy, definitions of ‘human being’ have tended to resemble

the definition of Human beings are subjected to reism

This kind of approach to “human being”, Heidegger noted in his Being and

Time, is ontical. This concerns fields of studies that are grounded to subject-object

relationship. Different fields of study such as religion, psychology, science,

mathematics, posit the ‘whatness’ of things that can be analyzed and studied. But

adopting Heidegger’s notion of “human being”, his assertion of the German word

Dasein posits the phenomenological state of human being as “being-there”.

Dasein

Dasein is a German word and is sometimes translated as "being-there" or

"being-here". Mostly it is not translatable at all. Heidegger, after Nietzsche, used

36

the word, but as a more dynamic and embedded reference for "human being" or

"human entity." A Dasein is then a new coinage for a human being that is there, in

a familiar world, and in a mood. Dasein also has unique capacities for language,

intersubjective communication, and detached reasoning. Furthermore, average

humans have an understanding of being insofar as they understand what things are

and that they are e.g. "My dog is brown" or "Today is Sunday." Heidegger

believed that this pre-reflective understanding of being, that which “determines

entities as entities”7.

5. Being-in-the-world

One of the constitutive items of Dasein is Being-in-the-world. As a

constitutive state it should be grounded and necessarily a priori. It is a unitary

phenomenon that has constitutive items. “An emphasis upon anyone of these

constitutive items signifies that the others are emphasized along with it; this means

that in any such case the whole phenomenon gets seen”8

Three elements can be brought out in the basic constitutive state and traced

more closely back to its phenomenal composition according to History of the

Concept of Time prolegomena by Martin Heidegger translated by Theodore

7 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans./ ed. John Macquarie, & Edward Robinson, (Harper Perrenial Modern Thought, 1962), 25.

8 Heidegger, Being and Time, 78.

37

Kisiel. The first item is the ‘in-the-world’ in the particular sense of the world as

the how of the being-ontologically, the worldhood of the world. Next is the entity

as it is determined from the ‘who’ of this being-in-the-world and from the how of

this being, how the entity itself is in its being. Lastly ‘in-being’ or ‘being-in’

Through this basic constitution becomes the theme of the analysis according to three aspects, it is still wholly there as itself in each particular consideration. What the aspects bring out in each case are not pieces, detachable moments out of which the whole may be first assembled. Bringing out the individual structural moments is a purely thematic accentuation and as such always only an actual apprehension of the whole structure itself.9

‘Being-in’ as a constitutive item of Being-in-the-world is the first to be

given attention in Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. There is an inclination to

understand this Being-in as Being-in-something.10 Ontically, to be-in

suggests a spatial location. The book is in the book shelves, the water is in the

glass, the ballpen is on the table, the cat is on the mat, the classroom is at the third

floor, are some of the examples that shows the common understanding of Being-

in-something. These things are being present-at-hand. A relationship between

entities being present-at-hand is impossible, because only Dasein as Being-there

9 Martin Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time Prolegomena, trans./ ed. Theodeore Kisiel, (Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1985), 157.

10 Heidegger, Being and Time, 79.

38

can manifest itself in touching, and thus become accessible in its being present-at-

hand.11

Dasein like any other entities in the world can be said of as a being present-

at-hand. To do this he must have disregard his existential state of being. To have a

firm grasp of this line, think of human beings as studied under the fields of

physiology, anthropology, biology, sociology, neurology, and psychology. These

fields look unto human beings as mere subject of their scientific investigation to

describe what is already given. Man in this line is seen as reducible like a thing to

be analyzed or examined, but for Heidegger, there is a need to have a deeper

understanding of meaning of human existence.

Page eighty two of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time stated the facticity12

of Dasein. The concept of facticity implies that an entity ‘within-the-world’ has

Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its

‘destiny’ with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world.

Because Being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein, its Being towards

the world is essentially concern.13 Humans are fascinated with its world. Toddlers,

in relation to Dasein’s being ‘fascinated’, are always asking the whatness of

11 Ibid., 81.

12 Whenever Dasein is, it is a fact; and the factuality of such a fact. It is also a definite way of being and has a complicated structure which cannot even be grasped as a problem until Dasein’s basic existential states have been worked out. Heidegger, Being and Time, 82.

13 Heidegger, Being and Time, 84.

39

things. They may ask also why and what is that thing so and so. This phenomenon,

if taken into consideration, is a concrete manifestation of Dasein’s fascination with

the world; and because of this, Dasein is absorbed in the world.

Being-in-the-world as a constitutive state of Dasein can be seen in two

ways: ontical and ontological. Ontically means that Dasein sees the world as a

place for entities that is characterized by their appearance. It is as it is a place for

Being present-at-hand and ready-to-hand. Ontologically, Dasein sees everything in

the world as something readiness-at-hand in service or of disposal in his ‘world’.

A laundry washer doing laundry for example is in the world of washing. He

is in the state of doing his work which is to wash. Then a visitor arrives with his

own agenda. This visitor has his own world that is to visit. The laundry washer

stops washing the clothes, remove the soap in his hands, and attended the business

of the visitor. There are three worlds in the example given; the world itself, the

world of the laundry washer, and the world of the visitor. The laundry washer who

is in the world of washing stopped and entered the world of his visitor is a good

example of the manifestation of Being-in-the-world, specifically in its constitutive

state Being-in.

Throughout his life Dasein is in a ceaseless struggle on how to dwell in the

world he is in. To have this constitutive item Being-in-the-world is to bear this

strife or suffering. Too many fields of studies offer their specialty in alleviating

40

suffering. Yes, they also somehow helped in alleviating life, but to some point,

these theories and methodologies will no longer suffice. Such is the struggle

between Dasein as the interrogator and the regional ontologies with their utmost

aim of alleviating life.

6. Mitsein (Being-with)

In clarifying Being-in-the-world we have shown that a bare subject without

a world never ‘is’ proximally, nor is it even given. And so an isolated “I” without

others is just as far from being proximally given.14

To talk about Mitsein means being-with-others, but this is something more

than a fancy word for companionship. Heidegger's conception of Mitsein is that

we all live in a world shared with others (through shared meanings and a shared

situation). This does not mean that we all get along in some Kum Ba Yah kind of

way but rather that there is a shared, public nature of the self. Mitsein, then, is

about the ways in which we write ourselves onto others and others write

themselves onto us. Because our world is made up of others who use the same

language and tools we use, we cannot define ourselves or our world without

reference to others. Being-alone then becomes a way of being-with because one

needs to be in the same world with others in order to even conceive of a concept

like "being alone."One of the main conditions of Dasein is Being-with-others. It is 14 Heidegger, Being and Time, 152.

41

a part of the unitary phenomenon and a basic state of Dasein called Being-in-the-

world. It is a facticity which makes the mode of authenticity and inauthenticity

possible.

Man’s substance is not spirit as a synthesis of soul and body; it is rather

existence.15 Human being comes from nothing, but is there. As an existentialist

Martin Heidegger asserts that existence precedes essence. Ontically an ‘I’ is

nothing without the ‘They’ for it is in the latter that the former persist. In relation

to this, in social psychology there is no ‘I’ without the society (more of John

Donnes’s saying “no man is an island”). In this line, to attribute oneself as an

ontic, one is proximally ‘given’, but Heidegger asserts that it is not the givenness

of the subject but its open possibility that should be given attention.

Being-in is Being with others, and to have Being in is to have Being-in-the-

world. Other than “I” the “They” also have this Being-in-the-world. By this is to

assert that each and every human being have their own world. A world that is

subjective. To have Being-in also implies that we have concern, and through

which we gain access to other’s world. To put things plainly, through inter

subjectivity entities that have Being-in-the-world can have an encounter with each

other, and such an encounter will shape their respective worlds.

15 Heidegger, Being and Time, 153.

42

A basketball player is playing in the basketball court. He is in the world of

playing basketball. But, then another player who is better than him entered the

court and played. The winner is of course the better player. The lesser player

decides to talk to the player who beat him and ask for tips on how to be a good

player just like him. In this example, the lesser player who asked the better player

for tips had entered in to his world. He is fascinated with his world. From which

he takes something of use to take as his own. Such an example is taken and can be

regarded as ‘they-self’ or inter subjectivity.

7. Throwness

The everyday world is unavoidable, and it is outside Dasein's control.

Dasein does not choose the world it finds itself in, nor is it responsible for its

content. Dasein is already in the world dealing with what it receives from

the ‘past’. The word ‘past’ here is the throwness of Dasein. Our experience of the

present as falling is a combination of having been thrown, yet having some ability

to control where we are heading. Whatever it is that enables this ability to project

indicates that falling is not the proper concept to describe our existence at the

present. 

8. Dasein’s attitude towards the world around him or his being “worlded”

43

Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time deals with the problem of human

existence. Man according to Heidegger comes from nothing and inevitably must

return to nothing.16 Dasein as discussed on the previous section of this chapter is

an entity ‘being-there’. Its existence is not of substance but of existing itself with

others in the world. Human beings are basically nothing, but exist in the world

where he projects meaning from the entities found in the world present-at-hand.

The ontical world is somewhat revealed to him and from it create new a world of

his own making. This phenomenon is described as Dasein’s being worlded in the

world. In this state he sees the world not anymore as entities present-at-hand but

entities with use or ready-at-hand. This state of being is a part of Dasein’s Being-

in-the world.

iii. Zuhanden (ready-to-hand)

In everyday living things are encountered through being-in-the-world. The

kind of relationship that Dasein have towards the things or entities in the world is

dispersed into a manifold ways of concern. The kind of concern that is prevalent is

not a mere perception of things, but by its function or manipulability.

Such things are for Heidegger equipments. “They are essentially

something in-order-to.”17 They constitutes serviceability, conduciveness, usability,

16 Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time Prolegomena, 318.

17 Heidegger, Being and Time, 97.

44

and manipulability. It is the reality that Dasein looks not of the properties present-

at-hand of the entities found in the world, but of its function.

“The kind of Being which equipment posses – in which it manifests itself in

its own right – we call ‘readiness-to-hand’.”18 Other than having its serviceability,

conduciveness, usability, and manipulability, it also serves as an extension of the

user. A good example will be of a driver who exclaimed “You almost hit me!” The

driver does not look at the car as an object with properties, but he owns it as if the

car and he is one.

iv. Vorhanden (present-at-hand)

As discussed, Dasein does not look at entities as something other than

entities being ready-to-hand; but in some cases, entities can be of no use. “Pure

presence-at-hand announces itself in such equipment, but only to withdraw to the

readiness-to-hand of something with which one concerns oneself – that is to say,

of the sort of thing we find when we put it back in repair.”19

A concrete example will be of a craftsman and his hammer. A craftsman is

building something using his hammer, when this craftsman is in the process of

hammering he does not perceive the hammer as a long piece of wood with a piece

of metal on the end of it instead the craftsman perceives his hammer for its use, its

18 Ibid., 98.

19 Heidegger, Being and Time, 103.

45

action of hammering a nail in order to attach two things together. It is only when

the hammer breaks and the craftsman must ponder about how to fix it that the

hammer is viewed as a piece of wood with a piece of metal on the end of it, before

this the hammer is merely an extension of the craftsman hand, a thing which can

be used to fulfill the needs of the craftsman.

E. Ontical accounts of suffering

3. Psychological interpretation of suffering

Suffering and pleasure are respectively the negative and positive affects, or

hedonic tones, or valences that psychologists often identify as basic in our

emotional lives.20 The evolutionary role of physical and mental suffering, through

natural selection, is primordial: it warns of threats, motivates coping (fight or

flight, escapism), and reinforces negatively certain behaviors. Despite its initial

disrupting nature, suffering contributes to the organization of meaning in an

individual's world and psyche. In turn, meaning determines how individuals or

societies experience and deal with suffering.

20 Giovanna Colombetti, “Appraising Valence”, Journal of Consciousness Studies (2005): 106-129.

46

Many brain structures and physiological processes are involved in

suffering. Various hypotheses try to account for the experience of unpleasantness.

One of these, the pain overlap theory. Thanks to neuroimaging studies, that

the cingulated cortex fires up when the brain feels unpleasantness from

experimentally induced social distress or physical pain as well. The theory

proposes therefore that physical pain and social pain share a common

phenomenological and neurological basis.

4. Religious interpretation of suffering

Suffering is inseparable to religion. It plays an important role in faith in

matters regarding moral conduct (do no harm, help the afflicted,

show compassion); spiritual advancement in life through life’s hardships or

through self impose trials (mortification of the flesh, penance, ascetism); and

ultimate destiny (salvation, damnation, hell). The problem of religion in the issue

of evil is rooted in the notion of suffering in itself. The trouble of religion is the

difficulty in reconciling the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent god with

the existence of evil.

Suffering is a fundamental part of any religion. Buddhism in its four noble

paths focus on the problem sought by Gautama in his time: suffering or dukha.

47

They state the nature of suffering, its cause, its ending, and the way leading to its

end (which is the Noble Eightfold Path). Buddhism considers liberation from

suffering and the practice of compassion as basic for leading a holy life and

attaining nirvana.

In Hinduism suffering is something that is held by an individual’s negative

behaviors which is Karma. 21 Every soul has its own Karma which extends beyond

the individual’s life span. An individual’s character and fortune is determined by

Karma. If one did wrong in his past life, then in his second life he will be leveled

down following samsara (e.g. From man to a frog, from a frog to a tree, from a

tree to a stone, etc…). Karma literally means “actions” which entails a chain of

cause and effect. The consequence of killing is equivalent to accumulating plenty

of karma; on the other hand, the outcome of doing what is right is a release of

karma. The goal of every soul is to attain liberation from karma or moksha and

from the eternal wheel of fortune or samsara.

F. Hermeneutic Circle of Suffering

Heidegger develops this hermeneutic circle of suffering by deconstructing

the history of philosophy as an inevitable or necessary strife between metaphysic

of presence versus the metaphysics of flux.

21 New Catholic Encyclopedia volume viii, Mc Grawhill book company New York, S.v. “Religion”

48

Thales was the first pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who emerged at around

586 BCE. At that time people were so absorbed by Homer’s gods because they

were unable to explain the phenomenon around them. Deep within him, Thales

experienced angst that made him feel separated from the public. This anxiety

springs from his realization of the possibility of explaining the things around him

without resorting to Homer’s anthropomorphic gods. The strife present between

Thales and the people at his time shows that there is in everyone an inner voice

that forces one to be in a ceaseless movement from individuation to the public.

Throughout the history of philosophy, philosophical ideas revolve around

the tension between the philosophers under the metaphysics of flux and of the

metaphysics of presence. The latter posits ontical interpretations while the former

on ontological interpretations. On the one hand, Ontical interpretations establish

order and system hoping to give off some compelling solutions to the problem of

existence. On the other hand, ontological interpretations held that capturing

existence is next to impossibility.

Heidegger in his work Being and Time regarded the disregarded question of

Being. As an influential philosopher he pointed out that throughout history

humanity try to capture something out of nothing. This is tensions in philosophy

are present from Plato and Aristotle up to Kant/Hegel and Nietzsche/Kierkegaard.

49

The first tension is between Plato and Aristotle. Plato in his philosophy tries

to encapsulate everything in his philosophical assertion of his world of ideas. The

world of ideas are said to have permanence, stability, and order. This philosophical

assertion reflects Plato’s ambition to establish permanent system of ideas. His

brilliant student Aristotle however opposed his teacher’s philosophy in particular

with the world of ideas. Aristotle’s compelling answer to his teacher’s flaw is that

of the dynamism present between forms and ideas. For him ideas cannot be

separated from the forms, but one can make a separation of ideas and form in his

mind through abstraction. The only problem with him is with his metaphysical

god. His four causes manifest an ontical approach to god.

The second tension is between Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and

Eckhart. It was the books of the Platonists that first made it possible for him to

conceive the possibility of a non-physical substance, providing him with a non-

Manichean solution to the problem of the origin of evil. In addition, the books of

the Platonists provided him with a metaphysical framework of extraordinary depth

and subtlety, a richly-textured tableau upon which the human condition could be

plotted.22 His philosophy is influence by Plato that is greatly manifested in his

confessions.

22 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/#OntEud

50

Aquinas’ philosophy is greatly influenced by Aristotle. He draws his five

ways from Aristotle’s four causes.23 In explaining the existence of God a tension

between Aquinas’ metaphysics and Meister Eckhart’s philosophy made a great

impact in the history of philosophy. Eckhart’s philosophy was not appreciated.

Only until his co-Dominican priest Aquinas did appraised his work by his

realization of God’s being as non-being. So much was said by Aquinas in his

Summa Theological in explaining the existence of God, but because of Eckhart he

acclaimed that his work is nothing compared to God. Contrary to Aquinas, Eckhart

tries to explain the existence of God through “via negativa”. Augustine and

Aquinas’ metaphysics is contrary to Eckhart’s philosophy. Being versus non-Being is the

source of the medieval period’s philosophical tension.

What is said in Thomas’ writings remains too much under the spell of metaphysics lay hold of is precisely not God. The depth of the divine God is such that it continually withdraws behind every name which is addressed to it, eludes every conceptual net which is thrown over it.The strongest formula which Eckhart uses to express the transcendent mystery of the divine abyss is found in his famous sermon in the “poverty of spirit.” Not only must the soul become poor in spirit in order to receive God, stripped of all attachment to creatures, to its own thoughts about God and personal desires, but God himself must also become poor, that is, stripped down of all his attributes and properties of everything which we call “God”. Hence, Eckhart writes “I ask God to get rid me of God.” Here in what I have elsewhere called Eckhart’s “mystical atheism” is Eckhart’s strongest formulation of the abyss and nothingness of God’s Being and the utter impotence of any metaphysics theology to seize him with its concepts.24

23 http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/aquinas.shtml

24 John D. Caputo, Heidegger and Aquinas: An Esssay of Overcoming Metaphysics, (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 275-276.

51

The next philosophers dwell more on the battle between two contradicting

positions: will and reason. Philosophers under the umbrella of reason includes:

Kant and Hegel. On the other hand, philosophers under the umbrella of will

include: Nietzsche and Kierkegaard.

Immanuel Kant is considered to be the peak of the modern period of

philosophy. He synthesized two of the warring philosophical ideas at his time:

rationalism and empiricism. He gave birth to idealism. In his Critique of Pure

Reason he argues that we can only obtain substantive knowledge of the world

via sensibility and understanding. In this work three points are crucial: the

relation of reason to empirical truth; its role in scientific enquiry; and the

positive gains that come from appreciating reason's limits.

In line with Kant’s philosophy, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German

philosopher, developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or "system",

of absolute idealism to account in an integrated and developmental way for the

relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, psychology,

the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy. 

God is dead. Nietzsche is famous with this quote. The term ‘God’ here is

used as to refer human existence. By saying god is dead, he means, mummifying

existence. It is because of the restraints caused by the ‘herd’ that man had frozen

52

his possibilities. He coined the term overman that can also be understood as

superman. For him every human has a superman in themselves. They want to

assert their creative individual over the herd and separate themselves. In the

process of asserting one’s superman there is a struggle of withdrawing one’s self

from the herd. If he successfully asserts his individuality, then he faces the

consequence of being separated to the herd forever.

The process of unconcealment in the process of becoming is a movement

that was also adapted by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. According to

him, "we can alienate ourselves from everything, but we cannot alienate our

possibility of becoming. His notion of 'leap of faith' is an unconcealment of one's

becoming. By this he means that in one's everyday life one is faced with

uncertainty. It is as if a man does not anymore see a road, but even with this

uncertainty he continues to walk. In relation to the metaphysics of the flux,

Kierkegaard advocates possibilities. The man in the example may say to himself "I

do not see a road anymore, but I know that I am not lost... I can make another

road." More on this is dealt in Kierkegaard's notion of recollection or anamnesis.

There are two major streams in philosophizing that are phenomenologically

engaged in a tug-of-war in the history of philosophy. The question “Why is there

something rather than nothing?” is addressed via a clash between archeology

versus anarchy, singularity versus plurality, constancy versus change, ideal versus

53

real, essence versus existence, universality versus particularity and so on. This

question proves that these two factions of metaphysics provide the history of

philosophy a great concern, whether a thing can be framed or not. These factions

are the metaphysics of presence and the metaphysics of flux.

The concern of the metaphysics of presence is if it is possible to frame or to

put into a system a thing for a subject. A great example would be Plato who

asserts a metaphysical dualism. For him there are two realms, the world of ideas

and the world of chaos. Entities that resides the world of chaos are nothing but

replica or a mere copy of the original entity that is in the world of Ideas. Entities in

the world of ideas are static. Hence, the outset of system, order, and technology

arises. A classroom discussion will not start without a subject matter to discuss

with. A subject or a theme is a thing that is framed and studied. This phenomenon

can best elaborate the metaphysics of presence that will inevitably result to reism.

In contrary to the metaphysics of presence, the metaphysics of flux says

otherwise. The latter posits that everything is static and that all can be put into a

system in order to find order. In this faction it strongly holds the position that

everything is in constant flux. A great example would be Heraclitus. He as a

naturalist philosopher believes that everything came from fire but he is actually

talking about strife as his main philosophy. He is against permanence. Life is for

him a constant struggle from something to nothing.

54

Both factions of metaphysics are rooted in the Greek word ‘logos’. The

actual meaning if translated is ‘marketplace’, but for the metaphysics of presence,

‘logos’ is used as ‘word’. Again, for the metaphysics of presence, things can be

put into a system; by this light, things are framed or put into a system of words

with definite meaning in order to give order. Socrates as one of the major

proponents of this course goes against the sophist who asserts that there is no

objective knowledge. Georgias for example would say “man is the measure of all

things”. This assertion will take its root from the metaphysics of flux whereas

beings cannot be put into a standard. For the metaphysics of flux ‘logos’ will be

taken as its literal translation that is ‘marketplace’. In an actual market place,

people gather to converse with each other or perhaps to bargain or buy something.

Such an activity is for the metaphysics of flux a phenomenon that can best

describe their point that everything is in constant flux.

Heidegger’s philosophy can be seen as rooted to the tension present

throughout the history of philosophy. He captures and focuses on the tension

rather than the warring positions. He focuses on the strife the suffering.

For Heidegger there is no original in this world only interpretation. The

word hermeneutic literary means interpretation of text in a form of exegesis.

William Dilthy and Freidrich Schleiermacher are some of the major proponents of

Hermeneutics. For them to understand the meaning of a text as a whole is first

55

understood in terms of parts, but for Heidegger no, hermeneutic for him is the

interpretation of life itself. He got this new approach to hermeneutic from the

Greek god Mercury the messenger. Zeus use Mercury in communicating with the

people living in Earth, but as a god, Zeus does not use human tongue. It is the job

of Mercury to relay Zeus’ message to the people in Earth. In doing so he interprets

the message of Zeus. Such is the activity that is happening in everyday life. So for

Heidegger philosophy has no settlement that makes it an open ended inquiry.

Heidegger’s method of philosophizing is non systematical. He does his

work through the method of phenomenology that he learned from his close teacher

Edmund Husserl. In this method he deconstructed the history of ontology to have a

strong foundation in answering the ambiguous question of Being. By

deconstruction he debunked dogmatized or systematic philosophical activity

towards Being by some known philosopher such as Parmenides and Plato. From

the process of deconstruction he started a new way of approaching the question of

Being.

Through his method he laid down the basic human conditions through his

influential philosophical work Being and Time. He asserts that human beings come

from nothing and inevitably will return to nothing. Humans are thrown into the

world wherein he has no control of. Yet he projects meaning from thing or entities

in the world. He then creates his own world or subjective world out of the world as

56

it is. This state of ‘worldedness’ will collapse sooner or later when Dasein realizes

that he is afterall nothing. From this he then experiences the feeling of angst. He is

anxious of the reality that he must face, the reality of being nothing. He then will

try to separate himself from the world and be in the state of Being-in as such. It is

where authenticity and inauthenticity determines the possible Dasein. Again,

Dasein is not a ‘given’ but a being full of possibilities. With this he has freedom. It

is of his own making whether he faces death in an authentic way or in an

inauthentic way. To be authentic is to face nothingness head on to accept the

reality that humans are nothing at all, while to be inauthentic is to be imprisoned in

the world of use/worlded. Heidegger mentioned about death as the way to

authenticity. To be free from the world of use, but he doesn’t recommend suicide.

Such action is a form of inauthentic living. Heidegger is against escapism25.

Dasein will withdraw from this state of worldedness. It can be manifested

though being a hermit. One who is in solitude, but he cannot stay a hermit forever,

for it is discussed that an “I” is nothing without the “They”. So he will return to

being worlded. This process is in a form of a cycle. This profound interpretation of

human condition is a series of circular movement that the only way out is death,

and so this phenomenon can be discerned as the hermeneutic circle of suffering.

25 An inclination to or habit of retreating from unpleasant reality, as through diversion or fantasy. Collins English Dictionary 6th ed., HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 2003, 559.

57

CHAPTER IV

What notion of happiness can be discerned in Heidegger?

C. Heidegger’s concept of death

Death marks a new beginning. Heidegger as the father of philosophy of

death have posed that Dasein in his Death does not end his possibilities. It is also

set the mode of Dasein with his average everydayness in which Dasein is absorbed

with. It is also where authenticity and inauthenticity brought into light. To be

authentic for Heidegger is for Dasein to realize that no one can represent his dying

except him himself. It is a phenomenon wherein Dasein imposes his individuality

that makes him authentic. Time is also a part of Heidegger’s philosophy of Death.

58

It is where temporality as where Dasein’s mode of authenticity and inauthenticity

is made clear. Temporality is Time. Dasein has mortality that makes death

possible, but, putting it to Heidegger’s work, mortality is a passage for natality.

Everything under temporality has this mortality and natality that makes

Heidegger’s philosophy of death relevant to Christian theologians. The possibility

of something that has being-in-the-world does not end with death, but marks a new

beginning.

a. Potentiality-for-being

Dasein looks at the world-things as ready to hand for use, but when will it

be finished? “Being-finished in the first sense first and foremost means being on

hand. Being-finished in the second sense means no longer Being on hand.”26 A

hammer that is used for hammering is seen as a being ready-to-hand, but if it were

broken, then it will be seen as something present-at-hand. This constitutes the

former Being-finished. The latter Being-finished means no longer being on hand.

This implies that an object that is again seen as something present-at-hand is taken

as a flowing continuity of comportments and processes. The wood of the broken

hammer has in it myriads of possibilities. It can be used as a material to create a

new object e.g. pencils case, pencil, pencil holder, etc... Not like Aristotle,

Heidegger take in consideration the possibility despite the being-finished of an

object.

26 Heidegger, Being and Time, 312.

59

Dasein’s Being-worlded will soon collapse. He will soon realize that he is

so absorbed in the world of use and of the world of others that he will start to

question his very being. It is only because that everything from the world of use

comes from nothing and will inevitably return to nothing. This suggest that Dasein

will look at himself, as part of his having being-in-the-world as absorbed in the

world of use, as something ready-to-hand. To elaborate this point more clearly,

take for example a man who works as a janitor in Jollibee. The man is absorbed in

the world of Jollibee as a working staff. Sooner in his life he will realize that he is

merely used by the company to maintain the cleanliness of their facilities. In this

example, the man’s being worlded collapsed as he realized that his present way of

living is incompatible with his ego.

This realization will make Dasein feel the ontological feeling of angst. The

fields of psychology, biology, sociology, anthropology, may give various account

of something but it is inevitable that established theory will no longer suffice the

needs of Dasein. Because every theories or methodologies employed are brought

into the fore for Dasein to question their intelligibility. This feeling will make

Dasein behave in a way that he will try to withdraw himself from the world of use.

The man in the example will try to separate himself from the world of use,

that is to have the time to reflect in his life whether he enjoys his present self. The

man cannot totally separate himself from the world of use (not like Nietzsche’s

60

superman), He will still need the ‘they’ in order to persist. He needs to work for

the company in order to earn some living. He is still subject in the world of use.

Therefore everyone is a philosopher. A tricycle driver, though busy, still has the

time to reflect while doing his work. Dasein in this light is moving in a spiral

motion. This constant struggle of Being-there towards authenticity and the mass-

itself constitutes the fundamental comportment of existence.

To be authentic is to have the realization that everything comes from

nothing, but realization alone will not stop Dasein from being manipulated. Dasein

wants to impose his individuality, but with this strife, this causes Dasein to have

this angst. He’s only refuge will be of his being-in-as-such.

b. Authenticity with others

Dasein is in constant struggle from withdrawing himself from the ‘they’.

Dasein for a time is something, but the collapse of his being-worlded made him to

a realization that he is nothing. He is a man of possibilities. This realization makes

him authentic, and to be authentic is to be of no use to the ‘they’. To be authentic

is not to be manipulated, but again, Dasein is in a constant strife of becoming

authentic. The only way to be no longer subject to manipulation is through death.

Death does not stand out in Dasein, but stands before Dasein in its being,

and constantly at that, as long as it is Dasein.27 This means that death is not 27 Heidegger, Being and Time, 313.

61

something that is encountered by Dasein in the world, but is something imminent

in the part of Dasein. It is something inevitable because it is a part of the structure

of Dasein that is being-ahead-of-itself. The being that will occur to Dasein that can

be at any moment is that of his own most ‘I am’.

Care as being-ahead-of-itself is as much as the same time a being-possible. ‘I can’, or more accurately, I am this ‘I can’ in a superlative sense. For I am this ‘I can die at any moment.’ This possibility is a possibility of being in which I always already am. It is a superlative probability. For I myself am this constant and utmost possibility of myself, namely, to be no more. Care, which is essentially care about the being of Dasein, at its innermost is nothing but this being-ahead-of-itself in the uttermost possibility of its own can-be. Therefore Dasein is essentially its death. With death, the impending is not something worldly, but Dasein itself.28

‘I am’. No one can take away ‘my’ dying from ‘me'. “Every Dasein, insofar

as it is, has already taken this way of being upon itself. Death is in each instance

and in its time my own death; it belongs to me in so far as I am.”29 This realization

can be said of as a form of authenticity in a sense that Dasein does not take the

‘others’ as something as a representation of the phenomenon of dying.

In everyday life, news is aired on television sets. Most of the stories that are

aired are showing people dying. May it be caused by natural disasters e.g.

typhoons, earthquakes, tsunami; or caused by something or someone e.g. murder,

28 Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time Prolegomena, 313.

29 Heidegger, Being and Time, 310.

62

rape, kidnapping. Televisions are full of it. This reality suggests that someday

‘someone will die’.

Dasein is contaminated by the ‘they’. In the publicness with which we are

with one another in Dasein’s everydayness, death is ‘known’ as a mishap which is

constantly occurring. Dasein as a being-in-the-world is absorbed in the world. To

be absorbed is to be with the ‘they’, and looking at the phenomenon of death, the

‘they’ has something for Dasein. Death is interpreted differently if one is to

consider the ‘they’. In the average everydayness of Dasein, the Idle talk of the

‘they’ somehow covers up the phenomenon of death. As the Das Man is

concerned, idle talk causes ambiguity to the knowledge that is relayed by the

‘they’ to the individual Dasein. In this line, through Idle talk, the ‘they’ manage to

conceal the possibility of death. It talks of death as in a fugitive manner.

“One of these days one will die too, in the end; but right now it has nothing

to do with us”. This assertion coming from the ‘they’ is so ambiguous as to say

death as something indefinite and that someday will arrive, but which is not yet

present-at-hand, and is therefore no threat. The expression “one dies” the public is

telling that someday someone will die, but “this ‘one’ is nobody.” (Heidegger,

Being and Time 1926) Dying, which is essentially Dasein’s in such a way that no

one can be a representative, is perverted into an event of public occurrence which

the ‘they’ encounters.

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In the dying of others we can experience that remarkable phenomenon of Being which may be defined as the change-over of an entity from Dasein’s kind of Being (or life) to no-longer-Dasein. The end of the entity qua Dasein is the beginning of the same entity qua something present-at-hand.30

Too many individuals talk about death, and it is too prevalent that they

manage to publish it in magazines, news papers, tabloids, books. They manifest

themselves also through media via radio, internet, and televisions. Even through

different institutions may it be a religious sect, academic institution, political

institution, medicine, and so on. These things produce different thoughts about

death that conceals the phenomenon itself.

Dasein as absorbed in the world can lose itself to the ‘they’ that gives the

appropriate way towards death. For Heidegger the ‘they’ in Dasein in its

everydayness confines itself to admit the ‘certainty’ of death in an ambiguous

manner in order to weaken that certainty by covering up dying still more and to

alleviate its own throwness into death. Religious institutions for example have

these ideas of resurrection and incarnation. A man at his eighties who is terminally

ill can find tranquility and security by letting himself be influenced by what his

religion has to offer. In this manner the ‘they’ provides a constant tranquilization

about death. Thus Dasein has an understanding about death through the ‘others’,

30 Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time Prolegomena, 311.

64

but the understanding that he gained from the others is giving a new explanation to

the phenomenon of death; hence understanding the phenomenon of death

inauthentically.

The ‘they’ in Dasein’s average everydayness contaminates the anticipator

which is Dasein itself. Dasein anticipates death, but this attitude towards death is

greatly influenced by the ‘they’. Such as telling Dasein how painful or miserable

death is that all humans must and inevitably face. All talks made by the ‘they’

conceal the very meaning of death that is to be authentic; but is there any other

way by which Dasein can face death in an authentic manner?

What can reverse the process of sinking deeper and deeper into the 'they'? 

How can we extract ourselves from our conformity, rise above our enculturation? 

How is it possible to become more whole, centered, & integrated in a world that

prevents precisely these qualities from emerging? Beginning as conformists whose

'decisions' have already been made by culture, how can we become more free,

unified, & focused? It is only through “freedom towards death – a freedom which

has been released from the illusions of the ‘they’, and which is factical, certain of

itself, and anxious.”31

     Our Existential Predicament is perceived, perhaps, as ontological anxiety.

That is why Martin Heidegger asserted the idea that everyone is a philosopher 31 Heidegger, Being and Time, 311.

65

because everyone has this ontological anxiety. Everyone even the sidewalk

vendors has it. It is the rope by which we can climb out of the pit of

inauthenticity; 

it is the handle by which we can grip our own beings. “Being-towards-death is

essentially anxiety.”32

     First we must acknowledge our ontological anxiety. This includes peeling

away the protective evasions we have so cleverly woven to protect ourselves from

the deepest truth of our being.

     Once we have revived our ontological anxiety, we must keep it alive, not

allow it to die away into comfortable obscurity once again. Instead of letting our

being-towards-death fade back into the diversionary small-talk of the 'they', we

must focus our lives around this 'threat'. Then our ontological anxiety can become

the light of our being. “Returning to this deepest truth of our being can bring us

back to ourselves.”33

c. Beings realization through time

Death is not the end, but the beginning of the end. It is so amazing to think

that death serves as a passageway to new beginning were lies infinite possibilities.

32 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 310.

33 http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/XP226.html

66

Dasein-finished entails two comportments. First, Dasein as being on hand or

present-at-hand implies the corporeality of Dasein. Second, Dasein is no longer

being on hand. Dasein is, in a sense, being on hand as a corporeal thing. He is still

in the world even though he is not ‘there’ anymore. Even as a corpse he has still

possibilities. A patient who died for example because of a newly discovered

disease or sickness can be a subject for studies.

All came from nothing, and will inevitably return to nothing. In the world,

things are seen as being-present-at-hand and being-readiness-to-hand. Dasein is in

the world and to be more specific was ‘thrown’ into the world. He lives in the

world with ‘others’, Dasein looks at things of its ‘thingness’. The chair for

example is seen by Dasein as something to sit on. The chair is something.

Gradually Dasein will have his own world where everything is a thing for use, but

there is a contradiction here. If all came from nothing, then why is it that things are

something? What is outstanding here is the Being of Dasein persists in the process

of its becoming. The world is inhabited by the ‘they’. In the public world of the

‘they’, the readiness-to-hand of things are manifested. So despite Dasein’s

authentic being-towards-death he is still a subject in the world of use as being-

present-at-hand.

To be present-at-hand is to be nothing in a sense that it has free itself from

manipulation. It is nothing and not something that a thing has myriads of

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possibilities. To be nothing is to have infinite of possibilities. To be ready-to-hand

is to be something and to be something is to be subject to the world of

manipulability. Dasein anticipates being who he is that he and everything else

comes from nothing and will inevitably return to being nothing.

Dasein projects itself to being present-at-hand through being-ahead-of-

itself. And being-ahead-of-itself is a form of anticipation. “Expecting is founded

upon awaiting, and is a mode of that future which temporalizes itself authentically

as anticipation.”34 Dasein is certain of the uncertain. Dasein anticipates its death

and is certain that he will return to being nothing that is, being present-at-hand as a

corporeal thing. Death is uncertain because Dasein does not know when or where

exactly it will occur. Dasein is certain of his death that marks the end of his being

ready-to-hand ready for use, and marks the beginning of his no-longer-there. He

anticipates returning to being nothing and in doing so he held his angst that pushes

him towards an authentic being-towards-death.

Man is the god of his own world. He can choose whether to be authentic or

inauthentic in the face of death. Now that he knows that he is a man of

possibilities he can make things even in the face of uncertainty. Life is uncertainty

itself. Happiness then is the anticipation of the end, because it is in the end that

possibilities and new beginnings are possible.

34 Heidegger, Being and Time, 387.

68

D. Ontical account of Happiness

a. Psychology

Psychologist Martin Seligman asserts that happiness is not solely derived

from external, momentary pleasures,35  and provides the acronym PERMA to

summarize Positive Psychology's correlational findings: humans seem happiest

when they have; Pleasure (tasty food, warm baths, etc.), Engagement (or flow, the

absorption of an enjoyed yet challenging activity), Relationships (social ties have

turned out to be extremely reliable indicator of happiness), Meaning (a perceived

quest or belonging to something bigger), and Accomplishments (having realized

tangible goals).

Abraham Harold Maslow, an American professor of psychology,

founded humanistic psychology in the 1930s. A visual aid he created to explain his

theory, which he called the hierarchy of needs, is a pyramid depicting the levels of

human needs, psychological, and physical. When a human being ascends the steps

of the pyramid, he reachesself-actualization. Beyond the routine of needs

fulfillment, Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience, known

as peak experiences, profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or

rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a

part of the world.

35 Seligman, “Can Happiness Be Taught,” Daedalus journal, (Spring 2004).

69

b. Religion

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings. For ultimate

freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana,

a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by

overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as

acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy

goals for lay people. Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving

kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.

The primary meaning of "happiness" in various European languages

involves good fortune, chance or happening. The meaning in Greek philosophy,

however, refers primarily to ethics. In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human

existence consists in felicity, Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia, or

"blessed happiness", described by the 13th-century philosopher-theologianThomas

Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life. Human

complexities, like reason and cognition, can produce well-being or happiness, but

such form is limited and transitory. In temporal life, the contemplation of God, the

infinitely beautiful, is the supreme delight of the will. Beatitudo, or perfect

happiness, as complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but the next.

70

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CHAPTER V

What is the role of Suffering in Heidegger’s concept of Happiness?

Existence is in constant struggle. Some of the philosophers from the pre

Socratic period up to this day are dedicated in saying that nothing is

imperturbable. These philosophers are under the umbrella of the metaphysics of

the flux. To be specific, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Aquinas, Eckhart, Kierkegaard, and

Nietzsche are some of the proponents of this activity. All of them assert that

existence is in a ceaseless struggle of becoming towards its being.

For Aristotle and Aquinas everything is in a constant process of becoming.

Happiness is attained only by reaching perfection which is Being. Aristotle posits

that everything is in the process of perfection towards their final cause that is to be

perfection itself. In a similar manner Aquinas take in consideration the final cause

of Aristotle. For him everything is moved by the unmoved mover and is

contingent. All is created by God and aims to be with him to be one with him. The

final cause for both philosophers is to be reunited with Being for Aristotle and

God for Aquinas.

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For Eckhart and Kierkegaard, existence is in a constant process of

unconcealment or unfolding. For some, Eckhart’s philosophy is heretic because he

asserted that God is nothingness.36 The period he is at is very much influenced by

Aquinas’ thinking. Too many were said about God: omnipotence, omnipresence,

and omniscient, are just some of the many attributes that mummifies God. It as if

God is limited in such a way that the attributions given serve as a prison that

encapsulates the profoundness and greatness of God. Today he is acknowledged

by those who at first see him as a heretic. Aquinas was the first to understand and

acknowledge Eckhart’s work. It is then when he acclaimed that his summa

theological and summa gentiles are of no match compared to the greatness of God.

The unifying thread among these life-styles is Kierkegaard’s key teaching

that there are three “stages” – the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious.37 In the

activity of existing no one can avoid this but experience the constant tensions

brought by these stages. In his famous work Either/Or, man have the choice

whether he will live in an aesthetic life (pleasures) or to see things as duty. Human

beings for him lives in a life full of possibilities. The future holds myriads of

possibilities that cause uncertainty. Uncertain of what will happen. Que sera sera.

For him man has the capacity to leap forward the uncertain and face it knowing

that he is not lost.

36 Caputo, Heidegger and Aquinas: An Esssay of overcoming Metaphysics, 275-276.

37 Encyclopedia Americana, 1829 ed., S.v. “Kierkegaard.” by James D. Collins.

73

For Nietzsche and Heraclitus, existence is in a constant struggle. For

Heraclitus, everything is in constant flux.38 Strife as his concern is everywhere.

Like a fire that destroys and create, he attributed fire as the primordial staff.

Nietzsche on the other hand posits man in a struggle for his individuality. For him

every man has a superman.39 A superman is someone who had successfully

separated himself from the herd, but only a few did. The herd is the public world.

The world shackles man to follow its precepts. The culture that sets the rules binds

the superman in us. It makes man anxious because he knows that he is beyond all

this, and so because of this realization, the superman in man is put into the fore.

The consequence however is that separation from the herd means a total isolation.

He can no longer be with the herd.

Like the above mentioned philosophers, to live is to bear and be caught up

in a ceaseless tension or struggle that constitutes Heidegger’s Being-in-the-world.

For him man is in constant struggle for his authentic self who is to be free from the

influence of the herd, but unlike Nietzsche, man is always in touch with others.

Man’s suffering is his struggle to withdraw himself from the herd and assert his

being. He cannot absolutely separate himself from the world of ‘something’ with

others because he needs them to survive. So he is only on the level of struggling

for an authentic living. This realization makes him feel this angst. This angst is the

38 Encyclopedia Americana, 1829 ed., S.v. “Heraclitus” by Ricmond Y. Hathorn.

39 Ibid., S.v. “Nietzsche” by Walter Kaufmann

74

realization that Dasein is shackled by the ‘they’. So angst serves as the impetus for

Dasein to go out of the box and live authentically, but again he cannot fully be

authentic. He now anticipates the moment wherein he can no longer be of us to

others and that will be of his death.

To live in a world of uncertainty that makes possibilities possible is where

Dasein and the Das Man dwell. Dasein projects something out of nothing of a

thing and also projects the possibilities in the near future. It is being-ahead-of-

itself that Dasein have this angst. Angst in the first sense is anxiety brought by the

interpretation of the ‘they’ that someday death as a misfortune will befall Dasein.40

This is inauthentic in a way that it conceals the possibility of death. In the second

sense, angst is the way for Dasein to free itself from its entanglement with the

‘they’. Dasein is aware of his being something and will try to be authentic again.

This phenomenon is characterized of having this circular movement. A movement

from being authentic and inauthentic living is this movement known as

hermeneutic circle.

In dying there is now the thrill of anticipation. The thrill of having

possibilities to be something is the reality that makes Dasein go with the flow of

the ceaseless comportments. In the context of Christianity, Heidegger’s concept of

anticipation can be said of as the Christian calendar for advent. It is the preparation

40 Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time Prolegomena, 292.

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for the coming of Christ. In this light, Dasein anticipates death, and knows that

there will be a new beginning for him.

CHAPTER VI

SUMMARY, FINDINGS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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A. Summary

Everyone wants to be happy. In real life man is faced with different kinds

of suffering. Psychologically, suffering is brought by the pain caused by hunger,

bullying, rape… Politically speaking, man suffers because of bad governance,

corruption discrimination… The world is full of suffering. If there is a glimpse of

happiness man will chase after it and hold it in his hands; but happiness that is

experienced in this world is nothing but a temporal feeling of bliss.

Dasein as Being-there has been discussed and explicated in its basic

structure in the process. Dasein is in the world with others where he is thrown in.

Dasein has its subjective world apart from the world of ‘others’ and the world

itself. Dasein draws something from the world of others and the world itself to

create in him his own world. This makes Dasein “worlded”. It is the reality that

man sees through things as something for use; but Dasein’s being-worlded will

soon collapse. Dasein will realize that he is not something to be manipulated, but

rather is nothing. This will cause Dasein to have this angst that will serve as a rope

to pull him out of the world of others. This will make him authentic; but Dasein is

in the world of continuous comportments thus he cannot fully separate himself

from the world of use. Death as a phenomenon is seen by the ‘they’ as a mishap

that covers up the phenomenon itself. Death is where Dasein’s ‘there’ is removed

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except of his being that outstandingly persists. He is no longer there in a sense that

he is not aware that he is being use or manipulated by others. It is through being-

authentic-towards-death that Dasein will make him authentic.

Death is not the end but only the beginning of something. Human are

mortals that are subject to death. Mortality as the end paves way to a new

beginning that is Natality. Dasein anticipates its death and in the process finds

happiness because according to Achilles “the gods envies us, because we do not

know when our last is.”

B. Findings

After a long and thorough research, the researcher found out the following

as answers and supplements to his philosophical inquiries on the role of suffering

in Heidegger’s notion of happiness.

1. What notion of suffering can be discerned in Heidegger?

The struggle of Dasein to withdraw himself from the ‘they’ is Dasein’s

lifelong burden. If it were not because of the fact that the world that Dasein is

thrown in is a world of things ready-to-hand for use can Dasein be free of

manipulation of the Das Man or the “mass-itself”.

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2. What notion of happiness can be discerned in Heidegger?

To know that something has an end is a great relief. Dasein as something

for his being worlded will soon collapse because of the realization that he is

nothing. Creatio ex Nihilo is the latin terminology used to by theologians to

attribute the creativity of God that literary means “creation out of nothing.” The

word god can also be said of as the final cause in considering the philosophy of

Aristotle and Aquinas. So happiness is in this sense is the realization that death is

not the end but the beginning for new possibilities.

3. What is the role of Suffering in Heidegger’s concept of Happiness?

Suffering is the constant struggle of Dasein in withdrawing himself from

the ‘They’ (Das Man) that can be said of causing Dasein to have this anxiety

(angst). This anxiety is like a rope that can push us out of the ‘they’ and be

authentic, but again, Dasein is in strife. He cannot always separate himself from

the world of ‘something’, because he cannot persist without them; moreover,

authenticity is and can only be achieved by Dasein if he has the ‘freedom of

death’. This means being away from the inauthentic death pose by the ‘They’.

C. Recommendations

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Based on the findings that have been gathered, the researcher recommends

the following.

1. Consider the fact that the readings on Heidegger especially his Being

and Time is so hard to understand that divided its audience in giving

their different interpretations. Thus it needs to have a wide range

discussion and thorough reading in order to have a better grasp of

Heidegger’s original works.

2. As a complicated work, Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time takes many

interpretations regarding their own perspective. Some will agree and

some will have a strong disagreement to his works. So there should be a

caution in reading his works. Martin Heidegger himself had a hard time

understanding his own work how much more us?

3. An understanding of the radical hermeneutic of suffering have

contributed a lot on the discussion of the notion of suffering that is

discernible in Being and Time. The study of past philosophers that

greatly influenced Heidegger help builds up a better understanding of

this paper.

D. Trends and Prospects

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Heidegger’s ontological account of interrelation of happiness and suffering

can be related to the Passionist charism: preaching the cross. Heidegger is not a

prescriptive philosopher; he is a descriptive interrogator of suffering as inevitably

there whether in human being’s pursuit of happiness (authenticity) and being

enmeshed in publicness that makes him face suffering. Like Heidegger the Passionist

is dedicated in preaching the passion of Jesus in a descriptive manner. They do not

prescribe but describe the suffering that Jesus Christ had experienced being

persecuted in the public.

While Heidegger does not explicitly give an account of how this ontological

suffering could enlighten us about ontical suffering. He intimates that understanding

or coping with psychological, emotional, sociologically-rooted suffering are

implicated, hence the value of empathy. Empathy is only possible with an

understanding of ontological happiness and suffering because it is the basic

determination of all human beings while ontical suffering is not.

This research will illuminate readers that whatever happens to philosophy,

most of its questions answered and its methodologies successful, the human being

continues to find these answers and methods wanting because there are always these

challenges, strife that cannot be subverted by solutions and methodologies. This

makes philosophy ever a dynamic and open enterprise.

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E. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

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Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarie and Edward Robinson. Harper Perrenial Modern Thought, 1926.

____. History of the Concept of Time Prolegomena. Translated by Theodore Kisiel. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1985.

Secondary Sources

Agosta, Lou. "A Heideggerian Approach to Emphathy: Authentic Being With Others." International Journal Philosophy, Religion, Politics and the Arts, 2011.

Caputo, John D. Heidegger and Aquinas: An Esssay of overcoming Metaphysics. New York: Fordham University Press, 1982.

Gonzales, Francisco. Plato and Heidegger: A Question of Dialogue. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009.

Stumpf, Enoch Samuel and Fiesier, James. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond. Eight Ed. Ohio:McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Other Sources

"© Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. October 27, 2011.

American Heritage Dictionary.

Collins English Dictionary. 6th. HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 2003.

New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. viii. New York: McGraw-hill book company .

The Encyclopedia Americana. International Edition. Grolier International, Inc., 1829.

Electronic Sources

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/moksha

Sarah M. Whitman, MD. “Pain and Suffering as Viewed by the Hindu Religion”. The

Journal of Pain. Vol 8. No. 8 (August 2007)

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Giovanna Colombetti. “Appraising Valence.” Journal of Consciousness Studies.

(2005)

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/XP226.html

http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/aquinas.shtml

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/#OntEud

Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). “Can Happiness be Taught?” Daedalus journal. (Spring

2004)

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