Skip to main content

Heidegger's "They" (Man) and St. Augustine's Homo Interior




Death is experienced in the everydayness of one’s existence (Dasein), just as the presence of God is experienced in the everydayness of one’s existence.

Experiencing, as Heidegger teaches us, is a relating to oneself (sich verhalten zu sich selbst).

But while for Heidegger this relating is constituted in idle talk, das Gerede. (Das Selbst der Alltäglichkeit aber ist das Man, das sich in der öffentlichen Ausgelegtheit konstituiert, die sich im Gerede ausspricht: The Self of everydayness is the THEY (MAN) which constitutes itself in public interpretation, which expresses itself in idle talk*), the experience of God is constituted in the search for an inner dialogue, which we will call HEART. 
To develop this dialogue, one needs a disposition to listen, that is, to have a particular emotional inclination to listen to the heart's voice; otherwise, one remains in the superficial structure of being-with-others, where everything is determined by idle talk. 
It is true that the word of God is everywhere, but only those who can discern ITS signs have that particular disposition. 

Indeed, those things of which we seek the signs are experienced because they are, in themselves, already capable of being experienced; that is, we understand them because they are already and always comprehensible: quae nota cogitamus, et habemus in notitia etiam si non cogitemus, which we think of as known, which are known to us even if we do not think of them. 
For Heidegger, death is experienced for itself in the death of the other; the word of God, instead, in those thoughts that are already, in themselves, known. There is found the word of God, because: in principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God). 
In fact similes Deo erimus, quoniam videbimus eum, non per speculum, sed sicuti est, we will be like God, for we will see Him, not through a mirror, but as He is.***

Heidegger deals with the existential structures of man; to grasp the word of God, the homo interior is required, which is certainly not Heidegger’s Dasein. Only in the practice of listening does one become capable of hearing that word. 

If one follows the horizontal path, that of Heidegger, one is closer to the animal side of man, i.e. that of the herd (Heidegger’s Man—the Dasein of Heidegger is, in fact, completely immersed in the Augustinian saeculum, in which idle talk becomes the fulfilment of the "Man"); the more one distances oneself from the horizontal and follows the vertical path, the closer one gets to listening to the word of God. 

-----------------------------------
*Sein und Zeit § 51
** Saint Augustine, De Trinitate, X, 17
*** Saint Augustine, De Trinitate, XI, 21

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fasting to reconnect your "Self" to your body

If there is a discrepancy between yourself and the body, between what you are and what you don't feel you are in your body, then fast, because there is excess to remove in the body. Through the stratifications of fat, the material that alienates you is deposited in the body. Removing decades of fat you remove the "Self" from its impediments to be reconnected with the body. Start thinking about fasting and wait for the right moment. Your body has its own indicators; it will signal when it is the right time to start fasting. Fasting is not a mere physical fact. It is changing the spirit of a time that has become stranger to us and that lives in us in order to alienate us to ourselves. Impossible to fast, without implying a change of the inner spirit. Those who fasted in the Old Testament did so to invoke great changes in life. Jesus himself fasted for forty nights and forty days and after fasting he was ready and strong enough to resist the devil and was ripe for his minist

The temple of youth

  The yearning for death is but a swift race seeking to curtail our tormented pace. There lies a sacredness in thy yearning toward the highest good wildly striving. Toss the gaze heavenward and grasp the truth! In death, we lie upon and cast the temple of youth.

Il filo invisibile

  In Jonas Memoriam Strana e triste è la vita lei sola nasceva e lui solo moriva migliaia di chilometri lontani per pochi soli mesi un anno li univa ma usi diversi li divideva - il nuovo e il vecchio quotidiani.