MARTIN HEIDEGGER

From Essential Selections in 19th and 20th Century Philosophy, by James Fieser
Home: www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class
Copyright 2014, updated 5/1/2015

Key terms:
Inauthentic existence: the they-self; the fallen self of every day existence, lost in the world of others (the they)
Authentic existence: the mine-self; the life that is owned by me; its existence is not justified in comparison with others (in
contrast with inauthentic existence)
Dasein (being there): a human being; specifically first-person me as a human being; I have both an authentic and
inauthentic component
Care: worrying about the future; it is the main attribute of Dasein, which includes the three attributes of facticity (past),
fallenness (present), and existence (future)
Facticity (past): a factor in authentic existence concerning my past; I am thrown into the world without consultation and
abandoned to chance factors, which limits my human possibilities
Fallenness (present): a factor in my inauthentic existence concerning the present, where I live in the world of others; I
consider all human possibilities wide open; I fail to note my facticity (past) and existence (future); characterized
by gossip, curiosity, and ambiguity
Existence (future): a factor in authentic existence concerning my future; my lifes possibilities are narrowed by authentic
awareness of my impending death; I have the freedom and responsibility to transform
Being-in-the-world: I exist in the world by engaging in it, with no distinction between my inner consciousness and the
outer objects of the world that are around me
Ready-to-hand: an involved use of a thing, e.g., a hammer that we use without theorizing about it; this is our primordial
view of things
Present-at-hand: a theoretical observation of a thing, as a scientist might evaluate something
Question of Being: I investigate the notion of being by first understanding myself as a human being; get at the
phenomena of my own human being as they show themselves through my immediate experience

UNDERSTANDING DASEIN IS CENTRAL TO THE STUDY OF BEING (Being and Time, Sect. 1-8)

The Study of Being is Neglected and Ridiculed (Sect. 1)

This question [of the meaning of Being] has today been forgotten. Even though in our time we deem it progressive to give our
approval to 'metaphysics' again, it is held that we have been exempted from the exertions of a newly rekindled
[i.e., battle of giants about being]. Yet the question we are touching upon is not just any question. It is one which
provided a stimulus for the researches of Plato and 'Aristotle, only to subside from then on as a theme for actual investigation.
What these two men achieved was to persist through many alterations and 'retouchings' down to the 'logic' of Hegel. And what
they wrested with the utmost intellectual effort from the phenomena, fragmentary and incipient though it was, has long since
become trivialized.
Not only that. On the basis of the Greeks' initial contributions towards an Interpretation of Being, a dogma has been
developed which not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect.
It is said that 'Being' is the most universal and the emptiest of concepts. As such it resists every attempt at definition. Nor does this
most universal and hence indefinable concept require any definition, for everyone uses it constantly and already understands what
he means by it. In this way, that which the ancient philosophers found continually disturbing as something obscure and hidden has
taken on a clarity and self-evidence such that if anyone continues to ask about it he is charged with an error of method. . . .

Understand Being by Understanding Dasein, that is, ones own Human Being (Sect. 2, 4)
If the question about Being is to be explicitly formulated and carried through in such a manner as to be completely transparent to
itself, then any treatment of it in line with the elucidations we have given requires us to explain how Being is to be looked at, how
its meaning is to be understood and conceptually grasped; it requires us to prepare the way for choosing the right entity for our
example, and to work out the genuine way of access to it. Looking at something, understanding and conceiving it, choosing,
access to itall these ways of behaving are constitutive for our inquiry, and therefore are modes of Being for those particular
entities which we, the inquirers, are ourselves. Thus to work out the question of Being adequately, we must make an entitythe
inquirertransparent in his own Being. The very asking of this question is an entity's mode of Being; and as such it gets its
essential character from what is inquired aboutnamely, Being. This entity which each of us is himself and which includes
inquiring as one of the possibilities of its Being, we shall denote by the term "Dasein". If we are to formulate our question
explicitly and transparently, we must first give a proper explication of an entity (Dasein), with regard to its Being. . . .
Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its
very Being, that Being is an issue for it. But in that case, this is a constitutive state of Dasein's Being, and this implies that Dasein,
in its Being, has a relationship towards that Beinga relationship which itself is one of Being. And this means further that there is
some way in which Dasein understands itself in its Being, and that to some degree it does so explicitly. It is peculiar to this entity
that with and through its Being, this Being is disclosed to it.Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's
Being. Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological. . . .

Discover Daseins Primordial Experience by Destroying Traditional Metaphysics (Sect. 6)

We have shown at the outset (Section I) not only that the question of the meaning of Being is one that has not been attended to and
one that has been inadequately formulated, but that it has become quite forgotten in spite of all our interest in 'metaphysics'. Greek
ontology and its history . . . prove that when Dasein understands either itself or Being in general, it does so in terms of the 'world',
and that the ontology which has thus arisen has deteriorated to a tradition in which it gets reduced to something self-evident
merely material for reworking, as it was for Hegel. . . .
If the question of Being is to have its own history made transparent, then this hardened tradition must be loosened up, and
the concealments which it has brought about must be dissolved. We understand this task as one in which by taking the question of
Being as our clue, we are todestroy the traditional content of ancient ontology until we arrive at those primordial experiences in
which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Beingthe ways which have guided us ever since. . . . The
destruction of the history of ontology is essentially bound up with the way the question of Being is formulated, and it is possible
only within such a formulation. In the framework of our treatise, which aims at working out that question in principle, we can
carry out this destruction only with regard to stages of that history which are in principle decisive.

Design of the Heideggers Project (Sect. 8)

The question of the meaning of Being is the most universal and the emptiest of questions, but at the same time it is possible to
individualize it very precisely for any particular Dasein. If we are to arrive at the basic concept of 'Being' and to outline the
ontological conceptions which it requires and the variations which it necessarily undergoes, we need a clue which is concrete. We
shall proceed towards the concept of Being by way of an Interpretation of a certain special entity, Dasein, in which we shall arrive
at the horizon for the understanding of Being and for the possibility of interpreting it; the universality of the concept of Being is
not belied by the relatively 'special' character of our investigation. But this very entity, Dasein, is in itself 'historical', so that its
ownmost ontological elucidation necessarily becomes an 'historiological' Interpretation. Accordingly our treatment of the question
of Being branches out into two distinct tasks, and our treatise will thus have two parts:

Part One: the Interpretation of Dasein in terms of temporality, and the explication of time as the transcendental horizon for the
question of Being.
Part Two: basic features of a phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology, with the problematic of Temporality as our
clue.

Part One has three divisions

1. The preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein;
2. Dasein and temporality;
3. Time and Being. [This division never appeared]
Part Two likewise has three divisions: [This entire part never appeared]
1. Kant's doctrine of schematism and time, as a preliminary stage in a problematic of Temporality;
2. The ontological foundation of Descartes' 'cogito sum', and how the medieval ontology has been taken over into the
problematic of the 'res cogitans';
3. Aristotle's essay on time, as providing a way of discriminating the phenomenal basis and the limits of ancient
ontology.

FACTICITY AND THROWNNESS: PROJECTING LIFES POSSIBILITIES

Throwness: Dasein is inexplicably Cast into the World (Sect. 29)

This characteristic of Dasein's Beingthis 'that it is'is veiled in its "whence" and "whither", yet disclosed in itself all the more
unveiledly; we call it the "thrownness" of this entity into its "there"; indeed, it is thrown in such a way that, as Being-in-the-world,
it is the "there". The expression "thrownness" is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over. The 'that it is and has to
be' which is disclosed in Dasein's state-of-mind is not the same 'that-it-is' which expresses ontologico-categorially the factuality
belonging to presence-at-hand. This factuality becomes accessible only if we ascertain it by looking at it. The "that-it-is" which is
disclosed in Dasein's state-of-mind must rather be conceived as an existential attribute of the entity which has Being-in-the-world
as its way of Being. Facticity is not the factuality of the factum brutum [i.e., brute fact] of something present-at-hand, but a
characteristic of Dasein's Beingone which has been taken up into existence, even if proximally it has been thrust aside. The
"that-it-is" of facticity never becomes something that we can come across by beholding it.
An entity of the character of Dasein is its "there" in such a way that, whether explicitly or not, it finds itself in its
thrownness. In a state-of-mind Dasein is always brought before itself, and has always found itself, not in the sense of coming
across itself by perceiving itself, but in the sense of finding, itself in the mood that it has. As an entity which has been delivered
over to its Being, it remains also delivered over to the fact that it must always have found itselfbut found itself in a way of
finding which arises not so much from a direct seeking as rather from a fleeing. The way in which the mood discloses is not one in
which we look at thrownness, but one in which we turn towards or turn away. For the most part the mood does not turn towards
the burdensome character of Dasein which is manifest in it, and least of all does it do so in the mood of elation when this burden
has been alleviated. It is always by way of a state-of-mind that this turning-away is what it is. . . .

Thrownness and Projection: Dasein Understands itself in Terms of its Possibilities (Sect. 31)
Why does the understandingwhatever may be the essential dimensions of that which can be disclosed in italways press
forward into possibilities? It is because the understanding has in itself the existential structure which we call "projection". With
equal primordiality the understanding projects Dasein's Being both upon its "for-the-sake-of-which" and upon significance, as the
worldhood of its current world. The character of understanding as projection is constitutive for Being-in-the-world with regard to
the disclosedness of its existentially constitutive state-of-Being by which the factical potentiality-for-Being gets its leeway. And as
thrown, Dasein is thrown into the kind of Being which we call "projecting". Projecting has nothing to do with comporting oneself
towards a plan that has been thought out, and in accordance with which Dasein arranges its Being. On the contrary, any Dasein
has, as Dasein, already projected itself; and as long as it is, it is projecting. As long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself
and always will understand itself in terms of possibilities. Furthermore, the character of understanding as projection is such that
the understanding does not grasp thematically that upon which it projectsthat is' to say, possibilities. Grasping it in such a
manner would take away from what is projected its very character as a possibility, and would reduce it to the given contents which
we have in mind; whereas projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it be as such. As
projecting, understanding is the kind of Being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities.

FALLENNESS: INAUTHENTIC LIVING IN THE WORLD OF THE THEY (Sect. 38)

Fallenness Typified by Idle Talk, Curiosity and Ambiguity; not a Fall from a Higher State
Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity characterize the way in which, in an everyday manner, Dasein is its 'there'the disclosedness of
Being-in-the-world. As definite existential characteristics, these are not present-at-hand in Dasein, but help to make up its Being.
In these, and in the way they are interconnected in their Being, there is revealed a basic kind of Being which belongs to
everydayness; we call this the "falling" of Dasein.
This term does not express any negative evaluation, but is used to signify that Dasein is proximally and for the most
part alongside the 'world' of its concern. This "absorption in . . ." has mostly the character of Being-lost in the publicness of the
"they". Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into
the 'world'. "Fallenness" into the 'world' means an absorption in Being-with-one-another, in so far as the latter is guided by idle
talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Through the Interpretation of falling, what we have called the "inauthenticity" of Dasein may now
be defined more precisely. On no account, however, do the terms "inauthentic" and "non-authentic" signify 'really not', as if in this
mode of Being, Dasein were altogether to lose its Being. "Inauthenticity," does not mean anything like Being-no-longer-in-the-
world, but amounts rather to a quite distinctive kind of Being-in-the-worldthe kind which is completely, fascinated by the
'world' and by the Dasein-with of Others in the "they". Not-Being-its-self functions as a positive possibility of that entity which, in
its essential concern, is absorbed in a world. This kind of not-Being has to be conceived as that kind of Being which is closest to
Dasein and in which Dasein maintains itself for the most part.
So neither must we take the fallenness of Dasein as a 'fall' from a purer and higher 'primal status'. Not only do we lack any
experience of this ontically, but ontologically we lack any possibilities or clues for interpreting it. . . .
Idle talk discloses to Dasein a Being towards its world, towards Others, and towards itselfa Being in which these are
understood, but in a mode of groundless floating. Curiosity discloses everything and anything, yet in such a way that Being-in is
everywhere and nowhere. Ambiguity hides nothing from Dasein's understanding, but only in order that Being-in-the-world should
be suppressed in this uprooted "everywhere and nowhere".

Fallenness involves the Tempting Tranquilization that All Possibilities are Open
By elucidating ontologically the kind of Being belonging to everyday Being-in-the-world as it shows through in these phenomena,
we first arrive at an existentially adequate determination of Dasein's basic state. Which is the structure that shows us the
'movement' of falling?
Idle talk and the way things have been publicly interpreted (which idle talk includes) constitute themselves in Being-with-
one-another. Idle talk is not something present-at-hand for itself within the world, as a product detached from Being-with-one-
another. And it is just as far from letting itself be volatilized to something 'universal' which, because it belongs essentially to
nobody, is 'really' nothing and occurs as 'Real' only in the individual Dasein which speaks. Idle talk is the kind of Being that
belongs to Being-with-one-another itself; it does not first arise through certain circumstances which have effects upon Dasein
'from outside'. But if Dasein itself, in idle talk and in the way things have been publicly interpreted, presents to itself the
possibility of losing itself in the "they" and falling into groundlessness, this tells us that Dasein prepares for itself a constant
temptation towards falling. Being-in-the-world is in itself tempting.
Since the way in which things have been publicly interpreted has already become a temptation to itself in this manner, it
holds Dasein fast in its fallenness. Idle talk and ambiguity, having seen everything, having understood everything, develop the
supposition that Dasein's disclosedness, which is so available and so prevalent, can guarantee to Dasein that all the possibilities of
its Being will be secure, genuine, and full. Through the self-certainty and decidedness of the "they", it gets spread abroad
increasingly that there is no need of authentic understanding or the state-of-mind that goes with it. The supposition of the "they"
that one is leading and sustaining a full and genuine 'life', brings Dasein a tranquillity, for which everything is 'in the best of order'
and all doors are open. Falling Being-in-the-world, which tempts itself, is at the same timetranquillizing.

Tempting Tranquilization prevents Daseins Authenticity and creates Alienation and Entanglement
However, this tranquillity in inauthentic Being does not seduce one into stagnation and inactivity, but drives one into uninhibited
'hustle'. Being-fallen into the 'world' does not now somehow come to rest. The tempting tranquillization aggravates the falling.
With special regard to the interpretation of Dasein, the opinion may now arise that understanding the most alien cultures and
'synthesizing' them with one's own may lead to Dasein's becoming for the first time thoroughly and genuinely enlightened about
itself. Versatile curiosity and restlessly "knowing it all" masquerade as a universal understanding of Dasein. But at bottom it
remains indefinite what is really to be understood, and the question has not even been asked. Nor has it been understood that
understanding itself is a potentiality-for-Being which must be made free in one's ownmost Dasein alone. When Dasein,
tranquillized, and 'understanding' everything, thus compares itself with everything, it drifts along towards an alienation in which
its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is hidden from it. Falling Being-in-the-world is not only tempting and tranquillizing; it is at the
same timealienating.
Yet this alienation cannot mean that Dasein gets factically torn away from itself. On the contrary, this alienation drives it
into a kind of Being which borders on the most exaggerated 'self-dissection', tempting itself with all possibilities of explanation, so
that the very 'charactcrologies' and 'typologies' which it has brought about are themselves already becoming something that cannot
be ' surveyed at a glance. This alienation closes off from Dasein its authenticity and possibility, even if only the possibility of
genuinely foundering. It does not, however, surrender Dasein to an entity which Dasein itself is not, but forces it into its
inauthenticityinto a possible kind of Being of itself. The alienation of fallingat once tempting and tranquillizingleads by its
own movement, to Dasein's getting entangled in itself.
Fallenness is a Downward Plunge into Inauthentic Everyday life of the They
The phenomena we have pointed outtemptation, tranquillizing, alienation and self-entangling (entanglement)characterize the
specific kind of Being which belongs to falling. This 'movement' of Dasein in its own Being, we call its "downward plunge".
Dasein plunges out of itself into itself, into the groundlessness and nullity of inauthentic everydayness. But this plunge remains
hidden from Dasein by the way things have been publicly interpreted, so much so, indeed, that it gets interpreted as a way of
'ascending' and 'living concretely'.
This downward plunge into and within the groundlessness of the inauthentic Being of the "they", has a kind of motion
which constantly tears the understanding away from the projecting of authentic possibilities, and into the tranquillized supposition
that it possesses everything, or that everything is within its reach. Since the understanding is thus constantly torn away from
authenticity and into the "they" (though always with a sham of authenticity), the movement of falling is characterized
by turbulence.
Falling is not only existentially determinative for Being-in-the-world. At the same time turbulence makes manifest that the
thrownness which can obtrude itself upon Dasein in its state-of-mind, has the character of throwing and of movement.
Thrownness is neither a 'fact that is finished' nor a Fact that is settled. Dasein's facticity is such that as long as it is what it is,
Dasein remains in the throw, and is sucked into the turbulence of the "they's" inauthenticity. Thrownness, in which facticity lets
itself be seen phenomenally, belongs to Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is an issue. Dasein exists factically. . . .

Fallenness is Essential to Dasein, but Does not Presume Human Corruptness

The phenomenon of falling does not give us something like a 'night view' of Dasein, a property which occurs ontically and may
serve to round out the innocuous aspects of this entity. Falling reveals an essential ontological structure of Dasein itself. Far from
determining its nocturnal side, it constitutes all Dasein's days in their everydayness.
It follows that our existential-ontological Interpretation makes no ontical assertion about the 'corruption of human Nature',
not because the necessary evidence is lacking, but because the problematic of this Interpretation is prior to any assertion about
corruption or incorruption. Falling is conceived ontologically as a kind of motion. Ontically, we have not decided whether man is
'drunk with sin' and in the status corruptionis [corruption], whether he walks in the status integritatis [purity], or whether he finds
himself in an intermediate stage, the status gratiae [grace]. But in so far as any faith or 'world view', makes any such assertions,
and if it asserts anything about Dasein as Being-in-the-world, it must come back to the existential structures which we have set
forth, provided that its assertions are to make a claim to conceptual understanding.
The leading question of this chapter has been about the Being of the "there". Our theme has been the ontological
Constitution of the disclosedness which essentially belongs to Dasein. The Being of that disclosedness is constituted by states-of-
mind, understanding, and discourse. Its everyday kind of Being is characterized by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. These show
us the movement of falling, with temptation, tranquillizing, alienation, and entanglement as its essential characteristics.
But with this analysis, the whole existential constitution of Dasein has been laid bare in its principal features, and we have
obtained the phenomenal ground for a 'comprehensive' Interpretation of Dasein's Being as care.

DEATH: NOT AN EVENT, BUT A CONSTANT PART OF A HUMAN BEING (Being and Time, Sect. 46-52)

Death of Others is not the Same as Ones Own Death

The 'deceased' as distinct from the dead person, has been torn away from those who have 'remained behind', and is an object of
'concern' in the ways of funeral rites, interment, and the cult of 'graves. And that is so because the deceased, in his kind of Being,
is 'still more' than just an item of equipment, environmentally ready-to-hand, about which one can be concerned. In tarrying
alongside him in their mourning and commemoration, those who have remained behind are with him, in a mode of respectful
solicitude. Thus the relationship-of-Being which one has towards the dead is not to be taken as a concernful Being-alongside
something ready-to-hand . . . . Death does indeed reveal itself as a loss, but a loss such as is experienced by those who remain. In
suffering this loss, however, we have no way of access to the loss-of-Being as such which the dying man 'suffers'.The dying of
Others is not something which we experience in a genuine sense; at most we are always just 'there alongside'. . . .
Dying is something that every Dasein itself must take upon itself at the time. By its very essence, death is in every case
mine, in so far as it 'is' at all. And indeed death signifies a peculiar possibility-of-Being in which the very Being of one's own
Dasein is an issue. In dying, it is shown that mineness and existence are ontologically constitutive for death. Dying is not an event;
it is a phenomenon to be understood existentially; and it is to be understood in a distinctive sense which must be still more closely
delimited. . . .

Death as revealed in the Three Aspects of Care: Existence, Facticity, Falling

We have seen that care is the basic state of Dasein. The ontological signification of the expression "care" has been expressed in
the 'definition': "ahead-of-itself-Being already-in (the world) as Being-alongside entities which we encounter (within-the-world)".
In this are expressed the fundamental characteristics of Dasein's Being: existence, in the "ahead-of-itself"; facticity, in the "Being-
already-in"; falling, in the "Being-alongside". If indeed death belongs in a distinctive sense to the Being of Dasein, then death (or
Being-towards-the-end) must be defined in terms of these characteristics.
We must, in the first instance, make plain in a preliminary sketch how Dasein's existence, facticity, and falling reveal
themselves in the phenomenon of death.

My Impending Death is Mine Individually, Cannot be Shared, and is Inevitable

The Interpretation in which the "not-yet [i.e., a future event]and with it even the uttermost "not-yet", the end of Daseinwas
taken in the sense of something still outstanding, has been rejected as inappropriate in that it included the ontological perversion
of making Dasein something present-at-hand [i.e., disinterested bare facts for theorizing]. Being-at-an-end implies existentially
Being-towards-the-end. The uttermost "not-yet" has the character of something towards which Dasein comports itself. The end is
impending for Dasein. Death is not something not yet present-at-hand, nor is it that which is ultimately still outstanding but which
has been reduced to a minimum. Death is something that stands before ussomething impending. . . .
 Death is a possibility-of-Being which Dasein itself has to take over in every case. With death, Dasein stands before itself in
its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. This is a possibility in which the issue is nothing less than Dasein's Being-in-the-world. Its
death is the possibility of no-longer being-able-to-be-there. If Dasein stands before itself as this possibility, it has been fully
assigned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. When it stands before itself in this way, all its relations to any other Dasein have
been undone. This ownmost non-relational possibility is at the same time the uttermost one.
As potentiality-for-Being, Dasein cannot outstrip the possibility of death. Death is the possibility of the absolute
impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as that possibility which is one's ownmost [i.e., mine individually], which is non-
relational [i.e., cannot be shared], and which is not to be outstripped [i.e., it is inevitable]. As such, death is something
distinctively impending. Its existential possibility is based on the fact that Dasein is essentially disclosed to itself, and disclosed,
indeed, as ahead-of-itself. This item in the structure of care has its most primordial concretion in Being-towards-death. As a
phenomonon, Being-towards-the-end becomes plainer as Being towards that distinctive possibility of Dasein which we have
characterized.

Facticity (Past): Thrownness of Death revealed through Anxiety, not explicit Knowledge
This ownmost possibility, however, non-relational and not to be outstripped, is not one which Dasein procures for itself
subsequently and occasionally in the course of its Being. On the contrary, if Dasein exists, it has already been thrown into this
possibility [of death]. Dasein does not, proximally and for the most part, have any explicit or even any theoretical knowledge of
the fact that it has been delivered over to its death, and that death thus belongs to Being-in-the-world. Thrownness into death
reveals itself to Dasein in a more primordial and impressive manner in that state-of-mind which we have called "anxiety". Anxiety
in the face of death is anxiety 'in the face of that potentiality-for-Being which is one's ownmost, nonrelational, and not to be
outstripped. That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the-world itself. That about which one has this anxiety is simply
Dasein's potentiality-for-Being. Anxiety in the face of death must not be confused with fear in the face of one's demise. This
anxiety is not an accidental or random mood of 'weakness' in some individual; but, as a basic state-of-mind of Dasein, it amounts
to the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end. Thus the existential conception of "dying" is
made clear as thrown Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped.
Precision is gained by distinguishing this from pure disappearance, and also from merely perishing, and finally from the
'Experiencing' of a demise.

Fallenness (Present): Every-Day Inauthentic Evasion of Death

Being-towards-the-end does not first arise through some attitude which occasionally emerges, nor does it arise as such an attitude;
it belongs essentially to Dasein's thrownness, which reveals itself in a state-of-mind (mood) in one way or another. The factical
'knowledge' or 'ignorance' which prevails in any Dasein as to its ownmost Being-towards-the-end, is only the expression of the
existentiell possibility that there are different ways of maintaining oneself in this Being. Factically, there are many who,
proximally and for the most part, do not know about death; but this must not be passed off as a ground for proving that Being-
towards-death does not belong to Dasein 'universally'. It only proves that proximally and for the most part Dasein covers up its
ownmost Being-towards-death, fleeing in the face of it. Factically, Dasein is dying as long as it exists, but proximally and for the
most part, it does so by way of falling. For factical existing is not only generally and without further differentiation a thrown
potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world, but it has always likewise been absorbed in the 'world' of its concern. In this falling Being
alongside, fleeing from uncanniness announces itself; and this means now, a fleeing in the face of one's ownmost Being-towards-
death. Existence, facticity, and falling characterize Being-towards-the-end, and are therefore constitutive for the existential
conception of death. As regards its ontological possibility, dying is grounded in care.
But if Being-towards-death belongs primordially and essentially to Dasein's Being, then it must also be exhibitable in
everydayness, even if proximally in a way which is inauthentic. And if Being-towards-the-end should afford the existential
possibility of an existentiell Being-a-whole for Dasein, then this would give phenomenal confirmation for the thesis that "care" is
the ontological term for the totality of Dasein's structural whole. If, however, we are to provide a full phenomenal justification for
this principle, a preliminary sketch of the connection between Being-towards-death and care is not sufficient. We must be able to
see this connection above all in that concretion which lies closest to Daseinits everydayness. . . . .
The "they" [of everydayness] is constituted by the way things have been publicly interpreted, which expresses itself in idle
talk. . . . This evasive concealment in the face of death dominates everydayness so stubbornly that, in Being with one another, the
'neighbours' often still keep talking the 'dying person' into the belief that he will escape death and soon return to the tranquillized
everydayness of the world of his concern. Such 'solicitude' is meant to 'console' him. It insists upon bringing him back into Dasein,
while in addition it helps him to keep his ownmost non-relational possibility-of-Being completely concealed. In this manner the
"they" provides a constant tranquillizalion about death. At bottom, however, this is a tranquillization not only for him who is
'dying' but just as much for those who 'console' him. And even in the case of a demise, the public is still not to have its own
tranquillity upset by such an event, or be disturbed in the carefreeness with which it concerns itself. Indeed the dying of Others is
seen often enough as a social inconvenience, if not even a downright tactlessness, against which the public is to be guarded. . . .

Summary
Being-towards-death is grounded in care. Dasein, as thrown Being-in-the-world, has in every case already been delivered over to
its death. In being towards its death, Dasein is dying factically and indeed constantly, as long as it has not yet come to its demise.
When we say that Dasein is factically dying, we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-death Dasein has always
decided itself in one way or another. Our everyday falling evasion in the face of death is an inauthentic Being-towards-death. But
inauthenticity is based on the possibility of authenticity. Inauthenticity characterizes a kind of Being into which Dasein can divert
itself and has for the most part always diverted itself; but Dasein does not necessarily and constantly have to divert itself into this
kind of Being. Because Dasein exists, it determines its own character as the kind of entity it is, and it does so in every case in
terms of a possibility which it itself is and which it understands. . . .
 Being-towards-death is essentially anxiety. This is attested unmistakably, though 'only' indirectly, by Being-towards-death
as we have described it, when it [inauthentically] perverts anxiety into cowardly fear and, in surmounting this fear, only makes
known its own cowardliness in the face of anxiety. . . .

Existence (Future): Authentic Anticipation of Death Frees me by Narrowing my Possibilities

The ownmost, non-relational possibility is not to be outstripped. Being towards this possibility enables Dasein to understand that
giving itself up impends for it as the uttermost possibility of its existence. Anticipation, however, unlike inauthentic Being-
towards-death, does not evade the fact that death is not to be outstripped; instead, anticipation frees itself for accepting this. When,
by anticipation, one becomes free for one's own death, one is liberated from one's lostness in those possibilities which may
accidentally thrust themselves upon one; and one is liberated in such a way that for the first time one can authentically understand
and choose among the factical possibilities lying ahead of that possibility which is not to be outstripped. Anticipation discloses to
existence that its uttermost possibility lies in giving itself up, and thus it shatters all one's tenaciousness to whatever existence one
has reached. In anticipation, Dasein guards itself against falling back behind itself, or behind the potentiality-for-Being which it
has understood. It guards itself against 'becoming too old for its victories' (Nietzsche). . . .
We may now summarize our characterization of authentic Being-towards-death as we have projected it
existentially: [authentic] anticipation [of death] reveals to Dasein its lostness in the [every-day inauthentic] they-self, and brings
it face to face with the possibility of being itself, primarily unsupported by concernful solicitude, but of being itself, rather, in an
impassioned freedom towards death a freedom which has been released from the Illusions of the "they", and which is factical,
certain of itself, and anxious.

TECHNOLOGY (The Question Concerning Technology, 1953)

Technology Challenges Nature by Unlocking and Storing its Concealed Energy

What is modern technology? It too is a revealing. Only when we allow our attention to rest on this fundamental characteristic does
that which is new in modern technology show itself to us.
And yet the revealing that holds sway throughout modern technology does not unfold into a bringing-forth in the sense of
poiesis [i.e., poetry]. The revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging, which puts to nature the unreasonable
demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored as such. But does this not hold true for the old windmill as well? No.
Its sails do indeed turn in the wind; they are left entirely to the winds blowing. But the windmill does not unlock energy from the
air currents in order to store it. In contrast, a tract of land is challenged into the putting out of coal and ore. The earth now reveals
itself as a coal mining district, the soil as a mineral deposit. The field that the peasant formerly cultivated and set in order appears
differently than it did when to set in order still meant to take care of and to maintain. The work of the peasant does not challenge
the soil of the field. In the sowing of the grain it places the seed in the keeping of the forces of growth and watches over its
increase. But meanwhile even the cultivation of the field has come under the grip of another kind of setting-in-order, which sets
upon nature. It sets upon it in the sense of challenging it. Agriculture is now the mechanized food industry. Air is now set upon to
yield nitrogen, the earth to yield ore, ore to yield uranium, for example; uranium is set upon to yield atomic energy, which can be
released either for destruction or for peaceful use.
This setting-upon that challenges forth the energies of nature is an expediting, and in two ways. It expedites in that it
unlocks and exposes. Yet that expediting is always itself directed from the beginning toward furthering something else, i.e.,
toward driving on to the maximum yield at the minimum expense. The coal that has been hauled out in some mining district has
not been supplied in order that it may simply be present somewhere or other. It is stockpiled; that is, it is on call, ready to deliver
the suns warmth that is stored in it. The suns warmth is challenged forth for heat, which in turn is ordered to deliver steam whose
pressure turns the wheels that keep a factory running. The hydroelectric plant is set into the current of the Rhine. It sets the Rhine
to supplying its hydraulic pressure, which then sets the turbines turning. This turning sets those machines in motion whose thrust
sets going the electric current for which the long-distance power station and its network of cables are set up to dispatch electricity.
In the context of the interlocking processes pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical energy, even the Rhine itself appears
as something at our command. The hydroelectric plant is not built into the Rhine River as was the old wooden bridge that joined
bank with bank for hundreds of years. Rather the river is dammed up into the power plant. What the river is now, namely, a water
power supplier, derives from out of the essence of the power station. In order that we may even remotely consider the
monstrousness that reigns here, let us ponder for a moment the contrast that speaks out of the two titles, The Rhine as dammed
up into the power works, and The Rhine as uttered out of the art work, in Hlderlins hymn by that name. But, it will be replied,
the Rhine is still a river in the landscape, is it not? Perhaps. But how? In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a
tour group ordered there by the vacation industry.
The revealing that rules throughout modern technology has the character of a setting-upon, in the sense of a challenging-
forth. That challenging happens in that the energy concealed in nature is unlocked, what is unlocked is transformed, what is
transformed is stored up, what is stored up is, in turn, distributed, and what is distributed is switched about ever anew. Unlocking,
transforming, storing, distributing, and switching about are ways of revealing. But the revealing never simply comes to an end.
Neither does it run off into the indeterminate. The revealing reveals to itself its own manifoldly interlocking paths, through
regulating their course. This regulating itself is, for its part, everywhere secured. Regulating and securing even become the chief
characteristics of the challenging revealing.

Standing Reserve: Energy is put on Standby for Further use

What kind of unconcealment is it, then, that is peculiar to that which comes to stand forth through this setting-upon that
challenges? Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be
on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this way has its own standing. We call it the standing-reserve. The
word expresses here something more, and something more essential, than mere stock. The name standing-reserve assumes the
rank of an inclusive rubric. It designates nothing less than the way in which everything presences that is wrought upon by the
challenging revealing. Whatever stands by in the sense of standing-reserve no longer stands over against us as object.
 Yet an airliner that stands on the runway is surely an object. Certainly. We can represent the machine so. But then it
conceals itself as to what and how it is. Revealed, it stands on the taxi strip only as standing-reserve, inasmuch as it is ordered to
ensure the possibility of transportation. For this it must be in its whole structure and in every one of its constituent parts, on call
for duty, i.e., ready for takeoff. (Here it would be appropriate to discuss Hegels definition of the machine as an autonomous tool.
When applied to the tools of the craftsman, his characterization is correct. Characterized in this way, however, the machine is not
thought at all from out of the essence of technology within which it belongs. Seen in terms of the standing-reserve, the machine is
completely unautonomous, for it has its standing only from the ordering of the orderable.)
The fact that now, wherever we try to point to modern technology as the challenging revealing, the words setting-upon,
ordering, standing-reserve, obtrude and accumulate in a dry, monotonous, and therefore oppressive way, has its basis in what
is now coming to utterance.

Humans Drive Technology Forward, but we become Subordinate to Technologys Challenges

Who accomplishes the challenging setting-upon through which what we call the real is revealed as standing-reserve? Obviously,
man. To what extent is man capable of such a revealing? Man can indeed conceive, fashion, and carry through this or that in one
way or another. But man does not have control over un-concealment itself, in which at any given time the real shows itself or
withdraws. The fact that the real has been showing itself in the light of Ideas ever since the time of Plato, Plato did not bring
about. The thinker only responded to what addressed itself to him.
Only to the extent that man for his part is already challenged to exploit the energies of nature can this ordering revealing
happen. If man is challenged, ordered, to do this, then does not man himself belong even more originally than nature within the
standing-reserve? The current talk about human resources, about the supply of patients for a clinic, gives evidence of this. The
forester who, in the wood, measures the felled timber and to all appearances walks the same forest path in the same way as did his
grandfather is today commanded by profit-making in the lumber industry, whether he knows it or not. He is made subordinate to
the orderability of cellulose, which for its part is challenged forth by the need for paper, which is then delivered to newspapers and
illustrated magazines. The latter, in their turn, set public opinion to swallowing what is printed, so that a set configuration of
opinion becomes available on demand. Yet precisely because man is challenged more originally than are the energies of nature,
i.e., into the process of ordering, he never is transformed into mere standing-reserve. Since man drives technology forward, he
takes part in ordering as a way of revealing. But the unconcealment itself, within which ordering unfolds, is never a human
handiwork, any more than is the realm through which man is already passing every time he as a subject relates to an object.
Where and how does this revealing happen if it is no mere handiwork of man? We need not look far. We need only
apprehend in an unbiased way That which has already claimed man and has done so, so decisively that he can only be man at any
given time as the one so claimed. Wherever man opens his eyes and ears, unlocks his heart, and gives himself over to meditating
and striving, shaping and working, entreating and thanking, he finds himself everywhere already brought into the unconcealed.
The unconcealment of the unconcealed has already come to pass whenever it calls man forth into the modes of revealing allotted
to him. When man, in his way, from within unconcealment reveals that which presences, he merely responds to the call of
unconcealment even when he contradicts it. Thus when man, investigating, observing, ensnares nature as an area of his own
conceiving, he has already been claimed by a way of revealing that challenges him to approach nature as an object of research,
until even the object disappears into the objectlessness of standing-reserve.
Modern technology as an ordering revealing is, then, no merely human doing. Therefore we must take that challenging that
sets upon man to order the real as standing-reserve in accordance with the way in which it shows itself. That challenging gathers
man into ordering. This gathering concentrates man upon ordering the real as standing-reserve.

JEAN PAUL SARTRE

From Essential Selections in 19th and 20th Century Philosophy, by James Fieser
Home: www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class
Copyright 2014, updated 5/1/2015

Key Terms
Being-in-itself: non-consconscious objects in the world.
Being-for-itself: conscious beings.
Being-for-others: I attempt to recover my being by reducing others to objects.
Thetic Consciousness: asserts the existence of an object by focusing conscious attention to it.
Non-thetic Consciousness: awareness of something, but not paying attention to it.

BAD FAITH (SELF-DECEPTION) (Being and Nothingness, 1943)

Self-Deception distinguished from Consciously Lying (1.2.1)

We say indifferently of a person that he shows signs of bad faith or that he lies to himself. We shall willingly grant that bad faith
is a lie to oneself, on condition that we distinguish the lie to oneself from lying in general. Lying is a negative attitude, we will
agree to that. But this negation does not bear on consciousness itself; it aims only at the transcendent. The essence of the lie
implies in fact that the liar actually is in complete possession of the truth which he is hiding. A man does not lie about what he is
ignorant of; he does not lie when he spreads an error of which he himself is the dupe; he does not lie when he is mistaken. The
ideal description of the liar would be a cynical consciousness, affirming truth within himself, denying it in his words, and denying
that negation as such. . . .
The situation cannot be the same for bad faith if this, as we have said, is indeed a lie to oneself. To be sure, the one who
practices bad faith is hiding a displeasing truth or presenting as truth a pleasing untruth. Bad faith then has in appearance the
structure of falsehood. Only what changes everything is the fact that in bad faith it is from myself that I am hiding the truth. Thus
the duality of the deceiver and the deceived does not exist here. Bad faith on the contrary implies in essence the unity of a single
consciousness.

Self-Deception on a First Date (1.2.2)

Take the example of a woman who has consented to go out with a particular man for the first time. She knows very well the
intentions which the man who is speaking to her cherishes regarding her. She knows also that it will be necessary sooner or later
for her to make a decision. But she does not want to realize the urgency; she concerns herself only with what is respectful and
discreet in the attitude of her companion. She does not apprehend this conduct as an attempt to achieve what we call "the first
approach;" that is, she does not want to see possibilities of temporal development which his conduct presents. She restricts this
behavior to what is in the present; she does not wish to read in the phrases which he addresses to her anything other than their
explicit meaning. If he says to her, "I find you so attractive!" she disarms this phrase of its sexual background; she attaches to the
conversation and to the behavior of the speaker, the immediate meanings, which she imagines as objective qualities. The man who
is speaking to her appears to her sincere and respectful as the table is round or square, as the wall coloring is blue or gray. The
qualities thus attached to the person she is listening to are in this way fixed in a permanence like that of things, which is no other
than the projection of the strict present of the qualities into the temporal flux. This is because she does not quite know what she
wants. She is profoundly aware of the desire which she inspires, but the desire cruel and naked would humiliate and horrify her.
Yet she would find no charm in a respect which would be only respect. In order to satisfy her, there must be a feeling which is
addressed wholly to her personalityi.e., to her full freedomand which would be a recognition of her freedom. But at the same
time this feeling must be wholly desire; that is, it must address itself to her body as object. This time then she refuses to apprehend
the desire for what it is; she does not even give it a name; she recognizes it only to the extent that it transcends itself toward
admiration, esteem, respect and that it is wholly absorbed in the more refined forms which it produces, to the extent of no longer
figuring anymore as a sort of warmth and density. But then suppose he takes her hand. This act of her companion risks changing
the situation by calling for an immediate decision. To leave the hand there is to consent in herself to flirt, to engage herself. To
withdraw it is to break the troubled and unstable harmony which gives the hour its charm. The aim is to postpone the moment of
decision as long as possible. We know what happens next; the young woman leaves her hand there, but she does not notice that
she is leaving it. She does not notice because it happens by chance that she is at this moment all intellect. She draws her
companion up to the most lofty regions of sentimental speculation; she speaks of Life, of her life, she shows herself in her
essential aspect-a personality, a consciousness. And during this time the divorce of the body from the soul is accomplished; the
hand rests inert between the warm hands of her companion-neither consenting nor resisting-a thing.
We shall say that this woman is in bad faith. But we see immediately that she uses various procedures in order to maintain
herself in this bad faith. She has disarmed the actions of her companion by reducing them to being only what they are; that is, to
existing in the mode of the in-itself. But she permits herself to enjoy his desire, to the extent that she will apprehend it as not being
what it is, will recognize its transcendence. Finally while sensing profoundly the presence of her own bodyto the degree of
being disturbed perhapsshe realizes herself as not being her own body, and she contemplates it as though from above as a
passive object to which events can happen but which can neither provoke them nor avoid them because all its possibilities are
outside of it. What unity do we find in these various aspects of bad faith? It is a certain art of forming contradictory concepts
which unite in themselves both an idea and the negation of that idea. The basic concept which thus results, utilizes the double
property of the human being, who is at once a facticity and a transcendence. These two aspects of human reality are and ought to
be capable of a valid coordination. But bad faith does not wish either to coordinate them nor to surmount them in a synthesis. Bad
faith seeks to affirm their identity while preserving their differences. It must affirm facticity as being transcendence and
transcendence as being facticity, in such a way that at the instant when a person apprehends the one, he can find himself abruptly
faced with the other. . . .

Self-deception involves a Transcendence-Facticity Deceit (1.2.2)

We can see the use which bad faith can make of these judgments which all aim at establishing that I am not what I am. If I were
only what I am, I could, for example, seriously consider an adverse criticism which someone makes of me, question myself
scrupulously, and perhaps be compelled to recognize the truth in it. But thanks to transcendence, I am not subject to all that I am. I
do not even have to discuss the justice of the reproach. As Suzanne says to Figaro, "To prove that I am right would be to recognize
that I can be wrong." I am on a plane where no reproach can touch me since what I really am is my transcendence. I flee from
myself, I escape myself. I leave my tattered garment in the hands of the fault-finder. But the ambiguity necessary for bad faith
comes from the fact that I affirm here that I am my transcendence in the mode of being of a thing. It is only thus, in fact, that I can
feel that I escape all reproaches. It is in the sense that our young woman purifies the desire of anything humiliating by being
willing to consider it only as pure transcendence, which she avoids even naming. But inversely "I Am Too Great for Myself,"
while showing our transcendence changed into facticity, is the source of an infinity of excuses for our failures or our weaknesses.
Similarly the young coquette maintains transcendence to the extent that the respect, the esteem manifested by the actions of her
admirer are already on the plane of the transcendent. But she arrests this transcendence, she glues it down with all the facticity of
the present; respect is nothing other than respect, it is an arrested surpassing which no longer surpasses itself toward anything.

Self-Deception Flees from Ones Inner Being and Disintegrates it (1.2.3)

In bad faith there is no cynical lie nor knowing preparation for deceitful concepts. But the first act of bad faith is to flee what it
cannot flee, to flee what it is. The very project of flight reveals to bad faith an inner disintegration in the heart of being, and it is
this disintegration which bad faith wishes to be. In truth, the two immediate attitudes which we can take in the face of our being
are conditioned by the very nature of this being and its immediate relation with the in-itself. Good faith seeks to flee the inner
disintegration of my being in the direction of the in-itself which it should be and is not. Bad faith seeks to flee the in-itself by
means of the inner disintegration of my being. But it denies this very disintegration as it denies that it is itself bad faith. Bad faith
seeks by means of "not-being-what-one-is" to escape from the in-itself which I am not in the mode of being what one is not. It
denies itself as bad faith and aims at the in-itself which I am not in the mode of "not-being-what-one-is-not." If bad faith is
possible, it is because it is an immediate, permanent threat to every project of the human being; it is because consciousness
conceals in its being a permanent risk of bad faith. The origin of this risk is the fact that the nature of consciousness
simultaneously is to be what it is not and not to be what it is.

THE EXISTENCE OF OTHERS

Problem: Existence of the Other is Purely Conjectural and Subject to Doubt (3.1.2)
[I]if solipsism is to be rejected, this cannot be because it is impossible or, if you prefer, because nobody is truly solipsistic. The
Other's existence will always be subject to doubt, at least if one doubts the Other only in words and abstractly, in the same way
that without really being able to conceive of it, I can write, "I doubt my own existence." In short the Other's existence cannot be a
probability. Probability can concern only objects which appear in our experience and from which new effects can appear in our
experience. There is probability only if a validation or invalidation of it is at every moment possible. Thus since the Other on
principle and in its "For-itself" is outside my experience, the probability of his existence as Another Self can never be either
validated or invalidated; it can be neither believed nor disbelieved, it cannot even be measured; it loses therefore its very' being as
probability and becomes a pure fictional conjecture. In the same way M. Lalandea has effectively shown that an hypothesis
concerning the existence of living beings on the planet Mars will remain purely conjectural with no chance of being either true or
false so long as we do not have at our disposal instruments or scientific theories enabling us to produce facts validating or
invalidating this hypothesis. But the structure of the Other is on principle such that no new experiment will ever be able to be
conceived, that no new theory will come to validate or invalidate the hypothesis of his existence, that no instrument will come to
reveal new facts inspiring me to affirm or to reject this hypothesis. Therefore if the Other is not immediately present to me, and if
his existence is not as sure as my own, all conjecture concerning him is entirely lacking in meaning.

Solution: We have a Second Cogito about Other Peoples Existence (3.1.2)

But if I do not conjecture about the Other, then, precisely, I affirm him. A theory of the Other's existence must therefore simply
question me in my being, must make clear and precise the meaning of that affirmation; in particular, far from inventing a proof, it
must make explicit the very foundation of that certainty. In other words Descartes has not proved his existence. Actually I have
always known that I existed, I have never ceased to practice the cogito. Similarly my resistance to solipsismwhich is as lively as
any I should offer to an attempt to doubt the cogitoproves that I have always known that the Other existed, that I have always
had a total though implicit comprehension of his existence, that this "pre-ontological" comprehension comprises a surer and
deeper understanding of the nature of the Other and the relation of his being to my being than all the theories which have been
built around it. If the Other's existence is not a vain conjecture, a pure fiction, this is because there is a sort of cogito concerning it.

The Other Viewed as a Conjectural Object vs. as a Probable Presence in Person (3.1.4)
This woman whom I see coming toward me, this man who is passing by in the street, this beggar whom I hear calling before my
window, all are for me objectsof that there is no doubt. Thus it is true that at least one of the modalities of the Other's presence
to me is object-ness. But we have seen that if this relation of object-ness is the fundamental relation between the Other and myself,
then the Other's existence remains purely conjectural. Now it is not only conjectural but probable that this voice which I hear is
that of a man and not a song on a phonograph; it is infinitely probable that the passerby whom I see is a man and not a perfected
robot. This means that without going beyond the limits of probability and indeed because of this very probability, my
apprehension of the Other as an object essentially refers me to a fundamental apprehension of the Other in which he will not be
revealed to me as an object but as a "presence in person." In short, if the Other is to be a probable object and not a dream of an
object, then his object-ness must of necessity refer not to an original solitude beyond my reach, but to a fundamental connection in
which the Other is manifested in some way other than through the knowledge which I have of him.

The Others Look reduces me to an Object and Alienates me from my Possibilities

Let us imagine that moved by jealousy, curiosity, or vice I have just glued my ear to the door and looked through a keyhole. I am
alone and on the level of a non-thetic self-consciousness [i.e., not paying attention to myself]. . . . But all of a sudden I hear
footsteps in the hall. Someone is looking at me! What does this mean? It means that I am suddenly affected in my being. . . . [A]ll
of a sudden I am conscious of myself as escaping myself, not in that I am the foundation of my own nothingness but in that I have
my foundation outside myself. I am for myself only as I am a pure reference to the Other. . . . Now, shame, as we noted at the
beginning of this chapter, is shame of self; it is the recognition of the fact that I am indeed that object which the Other is looking
at and judging. I can be ashamed only as my freedom escapes me in order to become a given object. Thus originally the bond
between my unreflective consciousness and my Ego, which is being looked at, is a bond not of knowing but of being. Beyond any
knowledge which I can have, I am this self which another knows. And this self which I amthis I am in a world which the Other
has made alien to me, for the Other's look embraces my being and correlatively the walls, the door, the keyhole. All these
instrumental-things in the midst of which I am, now turn toward the Other a face which on principle escapes me. . . .
Shame reveals to me that I am this being, not in the mode of "was" or of "having to be" but in-itself. When I am alone, I
cannot realize my "being-seated;" at most it can be said that I simultaneously both am it and am not it. But in order for me to be
what I am, it suffices merely that the Other look at me. It is not for myself, to be sure; I myself shall never succeed at realizing this
being-seated which I grasp in the Other's look. I shall remain forever a consciousness. But it is for the Other. Once more the
nihilating escape of the for-itself is fixed, once more the in-itself [i.e., unconscious object] closes in upon the for-itself [i.e.
conscious object]. But once more this metamorphosis is effected at a distance. For the Other I am seated as this inkwell is on the
table; for the Other, I am leaning over the keyhole as this tree is bent by the wind. Thus for the Other I have stripped myself of my
transcendence. This is because my transcendence becomes for whoever makes himself a witness of it (i.e., determines himself as
not being my transcendence) a purely established transcendence, a given-transcendence; that is, it acquires a nature by the sole
fact that the Other confers on it an outside.
I grasp the Other's look at the very center of my act as the solidification and alienation of my own possibilities. In fear or
in anxious or prudent anticipation, I perceive that these possibilities which I am and which are the condition of my transcendence
are given also to another, given as about to be transcended in turn by his own possibilities. The Other as a look is only thatmy
transcendence transcended. Of course I still am my possibilities in the mode of non-thetic consciousness (of) these possibilities
[i.e., not paying attention to these possibilities]. But at the same time the look alienates them from me. Hitherto I grasped these
possibilities thetically [i.e., consciously aware] on the world and in the world in the form of the potentialities of instruments: the
dark comer in the hallway referred to me the possibility of hiding-as a simple potential quality of its shadow, as the invitation of
its darkness. This quality or instrumentality of the object belonged to it alone and was given as an objective, ideal property
marking its real belonging to that complex which we have called situation. But with the Other's look a new organization of
complexes comes to superimpose itself on the first. To apprehend myself as seen is, in fact, to apprehend myself as seen in the
world and from the standpoint of the world. The look does not carve me out in the universe; it comes to search for me at the heart
of my situation and grasps me only in irresolvable relations with instruments. If I am seen as seated, I must be seen as "seated-on-
a-chair," if I am grasped as bent over, it is as "bent-over-the-keyhole," etc. But suddenly the alienation of myself, which is the act
of being-looked-at, involves the alienation of the world which I organize. I am seen as seated on this chair with the result that I do
not see it at all, that it is impossible for me to see it, that it escapes me so as to organize itself into a new and differently oriented
complex-with other relations and other distances in the midst of other objects which similarly have for me a secret face.

RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS

Masochism: Allowing Myself to be Objectified by the Look of the Other (3.3.1)

Everything which may be said of me in my relations with the Other applies to him as well. While I attempt to free myself from the
hold of the Other, the Other is trying to free himself from mine; while I seek to enslave the Other, the Other seeks to enslave
me. We are by no means dealing with unilateral relations with an object-in-itself, but with reciprocal and moving relations. The
following descriptions of concrete behavior must therefore be envisaged within the perspective of conflict. Conflict is the original
meaning of being-for-others.
If we start with the first revelation of the Other as a look, we must recognize that we experience our inapprehensible being-
for-others in the form of a possession. I am possessed by the Other; the Other's look fashions my body in its nakedness, causes it
to be born, sculptures it, produces it as it is, sees it as I shall never see it. The Other holds a secretthe secret of what I am. He
makes me be and thereby he possess me, and this possession is nothing other than the consciousness of possessing me. I in the
recognition of my object-state have proof that he has this consciousness. By virtue of consciousness the Other is for me
simultaneously the one who has stolen my being from me and the one who causes "there to be" a being which is my being.
. . . This enterprise will be expressed concretely by the masochistic attitude. Since the Other is the foundation of my being-
for-others, if I relied on the Other to make me exist, I should no longer be anything more than a being-in-itself founded in its being
by a freedom. Here it is my own subjectivity which is considered as an obstacle to the primordial act by which the Other would
found me in my being. It is my own subjectivity which above all must be denied by my own freedom. I attempt therefore to
engage myself wholly in my being-as object. I refuse to be anything more than an object. I rest upon the Other, and as I
experience this being-as-object in shame, I win and I love my shame as the profound sign of my objectivity. As the Other
apprehends me as object by means of actual desire, I wish to be desired, I make myself in shame an object of desire.
. . . Masochism, like sadism, is the assumption of guilt. I am guilty due to the very fact that I am an object, I am guilty
toward myself since I consent to my absolute alienation. I am guilty toward the Other, for I furnish him with the occasion of being
guilty-that is, of radically missing my freedom as such. Masochism is an attempt not to fascinate the Other by means of my
objectivity but to cause myself to be fascinated by my objectivity-for-others; that is, to cause myself to be constituted as an object
by the Other in such a way that I non-thetically apprehend my subjectivity as a nothing in the presence of the in-itself which I
represent to the Other's eyes. Masochism is characterized as a species of vertigo, vertigo not before a precipice of rock and earth
but before the abyss of the Other's subjectivity.
But masochism is and must be itself a failure. In order to cause myself to be fascinated by my self-as-object, I should
necessarily have to be able to realize the intuitive apprehension of this object such as it is for the Other, a thing which is on
principle impossible. Thus I am far from being able to be fascinated by this alienated Me, which remains on principle
inapprehensible. It is useless for the masochist to get down on his knees, to show himself in ridiculous positions, to cause himself
to be used as a simple lifeless instrument. It is for the Other that he will be obscene or simply passive, for the Other that he will
undergo these postures; for himself he is forever condemned to give them to himself. It is in and through his transcendence that he
disposes of himself as a being to be transcended. The more he tries to taste his objectivity, the more he will be submerged by the
consciousness of his subjectivityhence his anguish. Even the masochist who pays a woman to whip him is treating her as an
instrument and by this very fact posits himself in transcendence in relation to her.

Sadism and the Manipulation of the Others Freedom (3.3.2)

What the sadist thus so tenaciously seeks, what he wants to knead with his hands and bend under his wrists is the Other's
freedom. The freedom is there in that flesh; it is freedom which is this flesh since there is a facticity of the Other. It is therefore
this freedom which the sadist tries to appropriate. . . .
The sadist discovers his error when his victim looks at him; that is, when the sadist experiences the absolute alienation of
his being in the Other's freedom; he realizes then not only that he has not recovered his being-outside but also that the activity by
which he seeks to recover it is itself transcended and fixed in "sadism" as an habitus and a property with its cortege of dead-
possibilities and that this transformation takes place through and for the Other whom he wishes to enslave. He discovers then that
he cannot act on the Other's freedom even by forcing the Other to humiliate himself and to beg for mercy, for it is precisely in and
through the Other's absolute freedom that there exists a world in which there are sadism and instruments of torture and a hundred
pretexts for being humiliated and for forswearing oneself. . . .
Thus this explosion of the Other's look in the world of the sadist causes the meaning and goal of sadism to collapse. The
sadist discovers that it was that freedom which he wished to enslave, and at the same time he realizes the futility of his efforts.
Here once more we are referred from the being-in-the-act-of-looking to the being-looked-at; we have not got out of the circle. . . .

Conflict with Others is Inevitable: A Community of We is not Foundational (3.3.3)

Doubtless someone will want to point out to us that our description is incomplete since it leaves no place for certain concrete
experiences in which we discover ourselves not in conflict with the Other but in community with him. And it is true that we
frequently use the word "we." . . . We shall only remark here that we had no intention of casting doubt on the experience of the
"we." We limited ourselves to showing that this experience could not be the foundation of our consciousness of the Other. . . . The
"we" is experienced by a particular consciousness; it is not necessary that all the patrons at the cafe should be conscious of being
"we" in order for me to experience myself as being engaged in a "we" with them. Everyone is familiar with this pattern of every-
day dialogue: "We are very dissatisfied." "But no, my dear, speak for yourself." This implies that there are aberrant
consciousnesses of the "we"which as such are nevertheless perfectly normal consciousnesses.

WHAT EXISTENTIALISM IS (Existentialism as a Humanism, 1946)

Existence Precedes Essence

There are two kinds of existentialists. There are, on the one hand, the Christians, amongst whom I shall name Jaspers and Gabriel
Marcel, both professed Catholics; and on the other the existential atheists, amongst whom we must place Heidegger as well as the
French existentialists and myself. What they have in common is simply the fact that they believe that existence comes
before essence or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective. What exactly do we mean by that?
If one considers an article of manufacture as, for example, a book or a paper-knife one sees that it has been made by an
artisan who had a conception of it; and he has paid attention, equally, to the conception of a paper-knife and to the pre-existent
technique of production which is a part of that conception and is, at bottom, a formula. Thus the paper-knife is at the same time an
article producible in a certain manner and one which, on the other hand, serves a definite purpose, for one cannot suppose that a
man would produce a paper-knife without knowing what it was for. Let us say, then, of the paperknife that its essence that is to
say the sum of the formulae and the qualities which made its production and its definition possible precedes its existence. The
presence of such-and-such a paper-knife or book is thus determined before my eyes. Here, then, we are viewing the world from a
technical standpoint, and we can say that production precedes existence. . . .
Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is
at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it.
That being is man or, as Heidegger has it, the human reality. What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We
mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world and defines himself afterwards. If man as the
existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he
will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply
is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already
existing as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.
That is the first principle of existentialism. And this is what people call its subjectivity, using the word as a reproach
against us. But what do we mean to say by this, but that man is of a greater dignity than a stone or a table? For we mean to say that
man primarily exists that man is, before all else, something which propels itself towards a future and is aware that it is doing so.
Man is, indeed, a project which possesses a subjective life, instead of being a kind of moss, or a fungus or a cauliflower.

Through my Choices I take Responsibility for All Humanity

Before that projection of the self nothing exists; not even in the heaven of intelligence: man will only attain existence when he is
what he purposes to be. Not, however, what he may wish to be. For what we usually understand by wishing or willing is a
conscious decision taken much more often than not after we have made ourselves what we are. I may wish to join a party, to
write a book or to marry but in such a case what is usually called my will is probably a manifestation of a prior and more
spontaneous decision. If, however, it is true that existence is prior to essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, the first
effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his
existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is
responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. . . . [T]o take a more personal case, I decide to
marry and to have children, even though this decision proceeds simply from my situation, from my passion or my desire, I am
thereby committing not only myself, but humanity as a whole, to the practice of monogamy. I am thus responsible for myself and
for all men, and I am creating a certain image of man as I would have him to be. In fashioning myself I fashion man.

Anguish: Anxiety from Assuming Responsibility

This may enable us to understand what is meant by such terms perhaps a little grandiloquent as anguish, abandonment and
despair. As you will soon see, it is very simple. First, what do we mean by anguish? The existentialist frankly states that man is
in anguish. His meaning is as follows: When a man commits himself to anything, fully realising that he is not only choosing what
he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind in such a moment a man cannot escape
from the sense of complete and profound responsibility. There are many, indeed, who show no such anxiety. But we affirm that
they are merely disguising their anguish or are in flight from it. Certainly, many people think that in what they are doing they
commit no one but themselves to anything: and if you ask them, What would happen if everyone did so? they shrug their
shoulders and reply, Everyone does not do so. But in truth, one ought always to ask oneself what would happen if everyone did
as one is doing; nor can one escape from that disturbing thought except by a kind of self-deception. The man who lies in self-
excuse, by saying Everyone will not do it must be ill at ease in his conscience, for the act of lying implies the universal value
which it denies. By its very disguise his anguish reveals itself. This is the anguish that Kierkegaard called the anguish of
Abraham. . . .

Abandonment: No God-Given Values and We are Condemned to be Free

And when we speak of abandonment a favorite word of Heidegger we only mean to say that God does not exist, and that it
is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. . . . . The existentialist . . . . finds it extremely embarrassing
that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no
longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it . It is nowhere written that the good
exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote
if God did not exist, everything would be permitted; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed
permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or
outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able
to explain ones action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism man is free,
man is freedom.Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize
our behavior. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse.
We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did
not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for
everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a
destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He
thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being
vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every
man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man.

Despair: Willfully Acting without Hope

As for despair, the meaning of this expression is extremely simple. It merely means that we limit ourselves to a reliance upon
that which is within our wills, or within the sum of the probabilities which render our action feasible. Whenever one wills
anything, there are always these elements of probability. If I am counting upon a visit from a friend, who may be coming by train
or by tram, I presuppose that the train will arrive at the appointed time, or that the tram will not be derailed. I remain in the realm
of possibilities; but one does not rely upon any possibilities beyond those that are strictly concerned in ones action. Beyond the
point at which the possibilities under consideration cease to affect my action, I ought to disinterest myself. For there is no God and
no prevenient design, which can adapt the world and all its possibilities to my will. When Descartes said, Conquer yourself rather
than the world, what he meant was, at bottom, the same that we should act without hope. . . .

Freedom: Choosing ones Essence and Commitment to a Type of Humanity

What is at the very heart and center of existentialism, is the absolute character of the free commitment, by which every man
realizes himself in realizing a type of humanity a commitment always understandable, to no matter whom in no matter what
epoch and its bearing upon the relativity of the cultural pattern which may result from such absolute commitment. One must
observe equally the relativity of Cartesianism and the absolute character of the Cartesian commitment. In this sense you may say,
if you like, that every one of us makes the absolute by breathing, by eating, by sleeping or by behaving in any fashion whatsoever.
There is no difference between free being being as self-committal, as existence choosing its essence and absolute being. And
there is no difference whatever between being as an absolute, temporarily localized that is, localized in history and universally
intelligible being.

FREEDOM IN THE FACE OF OPPRESSION (Critique of Dialectical Reason, 1960, 1.4.6)

It would be quite wrong to interpret me as saying that man is free in all situations, as the Stoics claimed. I mean the exact
opposite: all men are slaves in so far as their life unfolds in the practico-inert field and in so far as this field is always conditioned
by scarcity. In modern society, in effect, the alienation of the exploited and that of the exploiters are inseparable; in other
societies, the relation between master and slave -- though very different from what Hegel described -- also presupposes a
reciprocal conditioning in alienation. And the master of ancient times was alienated from his slaves not because they were his
truth (though they were that too), nor because of their labor (as free praxis expressing itself by operation on the material
environment), but above all because the cost of a slave tends constantly to increase whereas his productivity constantly tends to
decrease. The practico-inert field is the field of our servitude, which means not idea servitude, but real suservience to "natural"
forces, to "mechanical" forces and to "anti-social" apparatuses. This means that everyone struggles against an order which really
and materially crushes his body and which he sustains and strengthens by his individual struggle against it. Everything is born at
this line which simultaneously separates and unites huge physical forces in the world of inertia and exteriority (in so far as the
nature and orientation of the energy transformations which characterize them give a definite statute of improbability to life in
general and to human life in particular) and practical organisms (in so far as their praxis tends to confirm them within their
structure of inertia, that is to say, in their role as convertors of energy). This is where the change from unification as a process to
unity as an inert statue occurs; and where inertia, as a moment which has been transcended and preserved by life and practice,
turns back on them and so as to transcend them and preserve them in the name of their dilectical unity, precisely to the extent that,
in labor and through instrumentality, it identifies itself with the practical inertia of the tool.
These transformations are wholly material; or rather, everything really takes place in the physico-chemical universe and
the organism's power of assimilation and of strictly biological selection exists at the level of consumption. But one will never
understand anything of human history if one fails to recognize that these transformations take place in a practical field inhabited
by a multiplicity of agents, in so far as they are produced by the free actions of individuals.
 LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

From Essential Selections in 19th and 20th Century Philosophy, by James Fieser
Home: www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class
Copyright 2014, updated 5/1/2015

LOGICAL ATOMISM (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus)

Philosophical Problems rest on the Misunderstanding of Language (Preface)

This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it
or similar thoughts. It is therefore not a text book. Its object would be attained if it afforded pleasure to one who read it with
understanding.
The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems
rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language. Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What
can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.
The book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or rather not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts; for, in
order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to
think what cannot be thought).
The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense.
How far my efforts agree with those of other philosophers I will not decide. Indeed what I have here written makes no
claim to novelty in points of detail; and therefore I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has
already been thought before me by another.
I will only mention that to the great works of Frege and the writings of my friend Bertrand Russell I owe in large measure
the stimulation of my thoughts.
If this work has a value it consists in two things. First that in it thoughts are expressed, and this value will be the greater
the better the thoughts are expressed the more the nail has been hit on the head. Here I am conscious that I have fallen far
short of what is possible, simply because my powers are insufficient to cope with the task. May others come and do it better.
On the other hand the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me unassailable and definitive. I am, therefore, of
the opinion that the problems have in essentials been finally solved. And if I am not mistaken in this, then the value of this work
secondly consists in the fact that it shows how little has been done when these problems have been solved.

Principal Statements
1. The world is everything that is the case.
1.1. The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1. 11. The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts.
1. 12. For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.
1. 13. The facts in logical space are the world.
1.2. The world divides into facts.
1. 21 Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same.
2. What is the case, a fact, is the existence of atomic facts (states of affairs).
3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.
4. A thought is a proposition with sense.
4.003 Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless.
We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and
propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language. (They are of the
same kind as the question whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful.) And so it is not surprising that
the deepest problems are really no problems.
4.01. A proposition is a picture of reality.
4.014. A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the
same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world.
4.121. ...Propositions show the logical form of reality. They exhibit it.
4.1212. What can be shown, cannot be said.
4.21 The simplest proposition, the elementary proposition, asserts the existence of an atomic fact.
4.5. . . .The general form of a proposition is: such and such is the case.
5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
5.43 . . . It is no less wonderful that the infinite number of propositions of logic (of mathematics) should follow from
half a dozen primitive propositions. But all the propositions of logic say the same thing, that is, nothing.
5.4711. To give the essence of a proposition means to give the essence of all description, and thus the essence of the
world.
5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
6. The general form of a truth-function is: [p, E, N(E)]. This is the general form of propositions.

Ethics is Inexpressible
6.4. All propositions are of equal value.
6.41. The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it
there is no value and if there were, it would be of no value.
If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is
accidental.
 What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.
It must lie outside the world.
6.42. Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.
6.421. It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one.)
6.422. The first thought in setting up an ethical law of the form thou shalt . . . is: And what if I do not do it? But it is clear that
ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the ordinary sense. This question as to the consequences of an action must
therefore be irrelevant. At least these consequences will not be events. For there must be something right in that formulation of the
question. There must be some sort of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but this must lie in the action itself.
(And this is clear also that the reward must be something acceptable, and the punishment something unacceptable.)
6.423. Of the will as the subject of the ethical we cannot speak.
And the will as a phenomenon is only of interest to psychology.
6.43. If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be
expressed in language.
In brief, the world must thereby become quite another. It must so to speak wax or wane as a whole.
The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.

Death and God

6.431. As in death, too, the world does not change, but ceases.
6.4311. Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.
If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.
Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.
6.4312. The temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say, its eternal survival after death, is not only in no way
guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the
fact that I survive forever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and
time lies outside space and time.
(It is not problems of natural science which have to be solved.)
6.432. How the world is, is completely indifferent for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.
6.4321. The facts all belong only to the task and not to its performance.
6.44. Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.
6.45. The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni [i.e., from eternitys point of view] is its contemplation as a limited
whole.
The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling.

The Inexpressible
6.5. For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed.
The riddle does not exist.
If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.
6.51. Skepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would doubt where a question cannot be asked.
For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only where
something can be said.
6.52. We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of
course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
6.521. The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem.
(Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this
sense consisted?)
6.522. There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.
6.53. The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i,e., the propositions of natural
science, i,e., something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something
metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be
unsatisfying to the other he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy but it would be the only
strictly correct method.
6.54. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has
climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

ETHICAL JUDGMENTS ARE BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF LANGUAGE (Lecture on Ethics 1929)
Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the world dead or alive
and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big
book, then this book would contain the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book would contain
nothing that we would call an ethical judgment or anything that would logically imply such a judgment. It would of course contain
all relative judgments of value and all true scientific propositions and in fact all true propositions that can be made. But all the
facts described would, as it were, stand on the same level and in the same way all propositions stand on the same level. There are
no propositions which, in any absolute sense, are sublime, important, or trivial. . . .
If for instance in our world-book we read the description of a murder with all its details physical and psychological, the
mere description of these facts will contain nothing which we could call an ethical proposition. The murder will be on exactly the
same level as any other event, for instance the falling of a stone. Certainly the reading of description might cause us pain or rage
or any other emotion, or we might read about the pain or rage caused by this murder in other people when they have heard of it,
but there will simply be facts, facts, and facts but no Ethics. . . .
Thus in ethical and religious language we seem constantly to be using similes. But a simile must be the simile for
something. And if I can describe a fact by means of a simile I must also be able to drop the simile and to describe the facts without
it. Now in our case as soon as we try to drop the simile and simply to state the facts which stand behind it, we find that there are
no such facts. And so, what at first appeared to be simile now seems to be mere nonsense.
I see now that these nonsensical [religious and ethical] expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the
correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond
the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and, I believe, the tendency of all men who ever tried
to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language.
This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say
something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not
add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help
respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.

THE CRAVING FOR GENERALITY: FOUR ISSUES (Blue Book)

This craving for generality is the resultant of a number of tendencies connected with particular philosophical confusions. There is

(a) The tendency to look for something in common to all the entities which we commonly subsume under a general term. -
- We are inclined to think that there must be something in common to all games, say, and that this common property is the
justification for applying the general term "game" to the various games; whereas games form a family the members of which have
family likeness. Some of them have the same nose, others the same eyebrows and others again the same way of walking; and these
likeness overlap. The idea of a general concept being a common property of its particular instances connects up with other
primitive, too simple, ideas of the structure of language. It is comparable to the idea that properties are ingredients of the things
which have the properties; e.g. that beauty is an ingredient of all beautiful things as alcohol is of beer and wine, and that we
therefore could have pre beauty, unadulterated by anything that is beautiful.
(b) There is a tendency rooted in our usual forms of expression, to think that the man who has learnt to understand a
general term, say, the term "leaf", has thereby come to possess a kind of general picture of a leaf, as opposed to pictures of
particular leaves. He was shown different leaves when he learnt the meaning of the word "leaf"; and showing him the particular
leaves was only a means to the end of producing 'in him' an idea which we imagine to be some kind of general image. We say that
he sees what is in common to all these leaves; and this is true if we mean that he can on being asked tell us certain features or
properties which they have in common. But we are inclined to think that the general idea of a leaf is something like a visual
image, but one which only contains what is common to all leaves. (Galtonian composite photograph.) This again is connected with
the idea that the meaning of a word is an image, or a thing correlated to the word. (This roughly means, we are looking at words as
though they all were proper names, and we then confuse the bearer of name with the meaning of the name.)
(c) Again, the idea we have of what happens when we get hold of the general idea 'leaf', 'plant', etc. etc., is connected with
the confusion between a mental state, meaning a state of a hypothetical mental mechanism, and a mental state meaning a state of
consciousness (toothache, etc.).
(d) Our craving for generality has another main source; our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method
of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics,
of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before
their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics,
and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or
to explain anything. Philosophy really is 'purely descriptive'. (Think of such questions as "Are there sense data?" and ask: What
method is there of determining this? Introspection?)

HOW WE USE WORDS (Philosophical Investigations)

Against the View that Words Merely name Objects

1. When they [i.e., the elders of his infancy] named anything, and as they spoke turned towards it, I saw and remembered that
they called what they would point out by the name they uttered. That they meant this thing and no other was plain from the motion
of their body, the natural language, as it were, of all nations, expressed by the countenance, glances of the eye, gestures of the
limbs, and tones of the voice, indicating the affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses, rejects, or shuns. And thus by
constantly hearing words, as they occurred in various sentences, I gradually understood for what they stood. Having trained my
mouth to form these signs, I thereby gave expression to my desires. [Augustine, Confessions, 1.8]
These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the individual words
in language name objectssentences are combinations of such names.In this picture of language we find the roots of the
following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands.
2. . . . Let us imagine a language for which the description given by Augustine is right. The language is meant to serve for
communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building-stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and
beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of
the words "block", "pillar", "slab", "beam". A calls them out;B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a
call.Conceive this as a complete primitive language.
3. Augustine, we might say, does describe a system of communication; only not everything that we call language is this
system. And one has to say this in many cases where the question arises "Is this an appropriate description or not?" The answer is:
"Yes, it is appropriate, but only for this narrowly circumscribed region, not for the whole of what you were claiming to describe."
 It is as if someone were to say: "A game consists in moving objects about on a surface according to certain rules . . ."and
we replied: You seem to be thinking of board games, but there are others. You can make your definition correct by expressly
restricting it to those games.
4. Imagine a script in which the letters were used to stand for sounds, and also as signs of emphasis and punctuation. (A
script can be conceived as a language for describing sound-patterns.) Now imagine someone interpreting that script as if there
were simply a correspondence of letters to sounds and as if the letters had not also completely different functions. Augustine's
conception of language is like such an over-simple conception of the script. . . .
5. If we look at the example in 1, we may perhaps get an inkling how much this general notion of the meaning of a word
surrounds the working of language with a haze which makes clear vision impossible. It disperses the fog to study the phenomena
of language in primitive kinds of application in which one can command a clear view of the aim and functioning of the words. A
child uses such primitive forms of language when it learns to talk. Here the teaching of language is not explanation, but training.
6. . . . With different training the same ostensive teaching of these words would have effected a quite different
understanding. "I set the brake up by connecting up rod and lever."Yes, given the whole of the rest of the mechanism. Only in
conjunction with that is it a brake-lever, and separated from its support it is not even a lever; it may be anything, or nothing.

Language Games: Speaking is Part of an Activity

7. In the practice of the use of language [in Section] (2) one party calls out the words, the other acts on them. In instruction in the
language the following process will occur: the learner names the objects; that is, he utters the word when the teacher points to the
stone.And there will be this still simpler exercise: the pupil repeats the words after the teacherboth of these being processes
resembling language.
We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of those games by means of which children learn their
native language. I will call these games "language-games" and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game.
And the processes of naming the stones and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think
of much of the use of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses.
I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, the "language-game". . . .
21. Imagine a language-game in which A asks and B reports the number of slabs or blocks in a pile, or the colours and
shapes of the building-stones that are stacked in such-and-such a place.Such a report might run: "Five slabs". Now what is the
difference between the report or statement "Five slabs" and the order "Five slabs!"? Well, it is the part which uttering these
words plays in the language-game. No doubt the tone of voice and the look with which they are uttered, and much else besides,
will also be different. But we could also imagine the tone's being the samefor an order and a report can be spoken in a variety of
tones of voice and with various expressions of facethe difference being only in the application. (Of course, we might use the
words "statement" and "command" to stand for grammatical forms of sentence and intonations; we do in fact call "Isn't the
weather glorious to-day?" a question, although it is used as a statement.) We could imagine a language in which all statements had
the form and tone of rhetorical questions; or every command the form of the question "Would you like to . . .?". Perhaps it will
then be said: "What he says has the form of a question but is really a command", that is, has the function of a command in the
technique of using the language. (Similarly one says "You will do this" not as a prophecy but as a command. What makes it the
one or the other?). . . .
23. But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command?There are countless kinds:
countless different kinds of use of what we call "symbols", "words", "sentences". And this multiplicity is not something fixed,
given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become
obsolete and get forgotten. (We can get a rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.) Here the term "language-
game" is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.
Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others: Giving orders, and obeying them
Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements- Constructing an object from a description (a drawing)
Reporting an event Speculating about an event Forming and testing a hypothesis Presenting the results of an experiment in
tables and diagrams Making up a story; and reading it Play-acting Singing catches Guessing riddles Making a joke;
telling it Solving a problem in practical arithmetic Translating from one language into another Asking, thanking, cursing,
greeting, praying. It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used, the
multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language. (Including the author of
the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.)

Against Logical Atomism: The Question of Simple Parts is Nonsense

47. But what are the simple constituent parts of which reality is composed?What are the simple constituent parts of a chair?
The bits of wood of which it is made? Or the molecules, or the atoms? Simple means: not composite. And here the point is: in
what sense 'composite'? It makes no sense at all to speak absolutely of the 'simple parts of a chair'.
Again: Does my visual image of this tree, of this chair, consist of parts? And what are its simple component parts? Multi-
colouredness is one kind of complexity; another is, for example, that of a broken outline composed of straight bits. And a curve
can be said to be composed of an ascending and a descending segment.
If I tell someone without any further explanation: "What I see before me now is composite", he will have the right to ask:
"What do you mean by 'composite'? For there are all sorts of things that that can mean!"The question "Is what you see
composite?" makes good sense if it is already established what kind of complexitythat is, which particular use of the wordis
in question. If it had been laid down that the visual image of a tree was to be called "composite" if one saw not just a single trunk,
but also branches, then the question "Is the visual image of this tree simple or composite?", and the question "What are its simple
component parts?", would have a clear sensea clear use. . . .
To the philosophical question: "Is the visual image of this tree composite, and what are its component parts?" the correct
answer is: "That depends on what you understand by 'composite'." (And that is of course not an answer but a rejection of the
question.)
NO PRIVATE LANGUAGES (Philosophical Investigations)

Rule-Following requires Customs and cannot be done Privately

199. Is what we call "obeying a rule" something that it would be possible for only one man to do, and to do only once in his
life? This is of course a note on the grammar of the expression "to obey a rule"
It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on which someone obeyed a rule. It is not possible that
there should have been only one occasion on which a report was made, an order given or understood; and so on.To obey a rule,
to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions). To understand a sentence means to
understand a language. To understand a language means to be master of a technique. . . .
202. And hence also 'obeying a rule' is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not
possible to obey a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it.

The Idea of a Private Language Explained

243. . . . We also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experienceshis
feelings, moods, and the restfor his private use?Well, can't we do so in our ordinary language?But that is not what I
mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate
private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.
244. How do words refer to sensations?There doesn't seem to be any problem here; don't we talk about sensations every
day, and give them names? But how is the connexion between the name and the thing named set up? This question is the same
as: how does a human being learn the meaning of the names of sensations?of the word "pain" for example. Here is one
possibility: words are connected with the primitive, the natural, expressions of the sensation and used in their place. A child has
hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new
pain-behaviour. "So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?" On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain
replaces crying and does not describe it.
245. For how can I go so far as to try to use language to get between pain and its expression?
246. In what sense are my sensations private?Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can
only surmise it.In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used
(and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain. Yes, but all the same not with the
certainty with which I know it myself IIt can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it
supposed to meanexcept perhaps that I am in pain? Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my
behaviour,for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them. The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they
doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. . . .

No Private Language since Linguistic Rule Following Cannot be Confirmed

256. Now, what about the language which describes my inner experiences and which only I myself can understand? How do I use
words to stand for my sensations?As we ordinarily do? Then are my words for sensations tied up with my natural expressions
of sensation? In that case my language is not a 'private' one. Someone else might understand it as well as I.But suppose I didn't
have any natural expression for the sensation, but only had the sensation? And now I simply associate names with sensations and
use these names in descriptions.
257. "What would it be like if human beings showed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it
would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word 'tooth-ache'."Well, let's assume the child is a genius and itself invents a
name for the sensation! But then, of course, he couldn't make himself understood when he used the word.So does he
understand the name, without being able to explain its meaning to anyone?But what does it mean to say that he has 'named his
pain'?How has he done this naming of pain?! And whatever he did, what was its purpose?When one says "He gave a name to
his sensation" one forgets that a great deal of stage-setting in the language is presupposed if the mere act of naming is to make
sense. And when we speak of someone's having given a name to pain, what is presupposed is the existence of the grammar of the
word "pain"; it shews the post where the new word is stationed.
258. Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I
associate it with the sign "S" and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensation.I will remark first
of all that a definition of the sign cannot be formulated.But still I can give myself a kind of ostensive definition.How? Can I
point to the sensation? Not in the ordinary sense. But I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my
attention on the sensationand so, as it were, point to it inwardly.But what is this ceremony for? for that is all it seems to be! A
definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign.Well, that is done precisely by the concentrating of my attention; for
in this way I impress on myself the connexion between the sign and the sensation.But "I impress it on myself" can only mean:
this process brings it about that I remember the connexion right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of
correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can't talk
about 'right'.
259. Are the rules of the private language impressions of rules? The balance on which impressions are weighed is not
the impression of a balance.
260. "Well, I believe that this is the sensation S again."Perhaps you believe that you believe it! Then did the man who
made the entry in the calendar make a note of nothing whatever?Don't consider it a matter of course that a person is making a
note of something when he makes a marksay in a calendar. For a note has a function, and this "S" so far has none. (One can talk
to oneself.If a person speaks when no one else is present, does that mean he is speaking to himself?) . . .
261. What reason have we for calling "S" the sign for a sensation? For "sensation" is a word of our common language, not
of one intelligible to me alone. So the use of this word stands in need of a justification which everybody understands.And it
would not help either to say that it need not be a sensation; that when he writes "S", he has somethingand that is all that can be
said. "Has" and "something" also belong to our common language.So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the
point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.But such a sound is an expression only as it occurs in a particular
language-game, which should now be described.
262. It might be said: if you have given yourself a private definition of a word, then you must inwardly undertake to use
the word in such-and- such a way. And how do you undertake that? Is it to be assumed that you invent the technique of using the
word; or that you found it ready-made?
263. "But I can (inwardly) undertake to call THIS 'pain' in the future.""But is it certain that you have undertaken it? Are
you sure that it was enough for this purpose to concentrate your attention on your feeling?"A queer question. . . .

Private Experience Belongs only to You

272. The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody
knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possiblethough unverifiablethat
one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.
273. What am I to say about the word "red"?that it means something 'confronting us all' and that everyone should really
have another word, besides this one, to mean his own sensation of red? Or is it like this: the word "red" means something known
to everyone; and in addition, for each person, it means something known only to him? (Or perhaps rather: it refers to something
known only to him.)
274. Of course, saying that the word "red" "refers to" instead of "means" something private does not help us in the least to
grasp its function; but it is the more psychologically apt expression for a particular experience in doing philosophy. It is as if when
I uttered the word I cast a sidelong glance at the private sensation, as it were in order to say to myself: I know all right what I
mean by it.
275. Look at the blue of the sky and say to yourself "How blue the sky is!"When you do it spontaneouslywithout
philosophical intentionsthe idea never crosses your mind that this impression of colour belongs only to you. And you have no
hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else. And if you point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky. I am saying:
you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself, which often accompanies 'naming the sensation' when one is thinking about
'private language'. Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the colour with your hand, but with your attention.
(Consider what it means "to point to something with the attention".) . . .

ON MOORES HERE IS ONE HAND ARGUMENT (On Certainty, 1951)

Doubt about Existence only Works within a Language Game

1. If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest. When one says that such and such a proposition can't be
proved, of course that does not mean that it can't be derived from other propositions; any proposition can be derived from other
ones. But they may be no more certain than it is itself. (On this a curious remark by H.Newman.)
2. From its seeming to me - or to everyone - to be so, it doesn't follow that it is so. What we can ask is whether it can make
sense to doubt it.
3. If e.g. someone says "I don't know if there's a hand here" he might be told "Look closer". - This possibility of satisfying
oneself is part of the language-game. Is one of its essential features. . . .
24. The idealist's question would be something like: "What right have I not to doubt the existence of my hands?" (And to
that the answer can't be: I know that they exist.) But someone who asks such a question is overlooking the fact that a doubt about
existence only works in a language-game. Hence, that we should first have to ask: what would such a doubt be like?, and don't
understand this straight off. . . .

Hinge Propositions: Doubting some Propositions depends on other being Immune from Doubt
340. We know, with the same certainty with which we believe any mathematical proposition, how the letters A and B are
pronounced, what the colour of human blood is called, that other human beings have blood and call it "blood".
341. That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from
doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.
342. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are indeed not doubted.
343. But it isn't that the situation is like this: We just can't investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest
content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put.
344. My life consists in my being content to accept many things.
345. If I ask someone "what colour do you see at the moment?", in order, that is, to learn what colour is there at the
moment, I cannot at the same time question whether the person I ask understands English, whether he wants to take me in,
whether my own memory is not leaving me in the lurch as to the names of colours, and so on.
346. When I am trying to mate someone in chess, I cannot have doubts about the pieces perhaps changing places of
themselves and my memory simultaneously playing tricks on me so that I don't notice. . . .

Absence of Doubt is Part of a Language Game

370. . . . The fact that I use the word "hand" and all the other words in my sentence without a second thought, indeed that I
should stand before the abyss if I wanted so much as to try doubting their meanings - shows that absence of doubt belongs to the
essence of the language-game, that the question "How do I know..." drags out the language-game, or else does away with it.
371. Doesn't "I know that that's a hand", in Moore's sense, mean the same, or more or less the same, as: I can make
statements like "I have a pain in this hand" or this hand is weaker than the other" or "I once broke this hand", and countless
others, in language-games where a doubt as to the existence of this hand does not come in?
372. Only in certain cases is it possible to make an investigation "is that really a hand?" (or "my hand"). For "I doubt
whether that is really my (or a) hand" makes no sense without some more precise determination. One cannot tell from these words
alone whether any doubt at all is meant - nor what kind of doubt.