Being there and discourse

More from Heidegger: The fundamental existentialia which constitute the

Being of the "there", the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, are states-of-mind and understanding. In understanding, there lurks the possibility of interpretation - that is, of appropriating what is understood. In so far as a state-of-mind is equiprimordial with an act of understanding, it maintains itself in a certain understanding. (p. 203)

Does learning - when described with assertion and interpretation - feed directly back into freedom as an understanding which discloses playfulness? Possibly - a sense of freedom may engender learning and learning may enhance the understanding that is freedom. This is interesting cold learning be associated with freedom in addition to other understandings?

In clarifying the third signification of assertion as communication (speaking forth), we were led to the concepts of "saying" and "speaking", to which we had purposely given no attention up to that point. The fact that language now becomes our theme for the first time will indicate that this phenomenon has its roots in the existential constitution of Dasein's disclosedness. The existential-ontological foundation of language is discourse or talk. This phenomenon is one of which we have been making constant use already in our foregoing Interpretation of state-of-mind, understanding, interpretation, and assertion... (p. 203)

Discourse is existentially equiprimordial with state-of-mind and understanding. The intelligibility of something has always been articulated, even before there is any appropriative interpretation of it. Discourse is the Articulation of intelligibility. Therefore it underlies both interpretation and assertion. (pp. 203-4)

The way in which discourse gets expressed is language. (p. 204)

I would prefer not to limit discourse to language. Discourse with oneself and others seems to me to have many other forms - of which language is an important, shared and obvious one. I would like to think that intelligibility can be articulated in many ways.

Discoursing or talking is the way in which we articulate 'significantly' the intelligibility of being-in-the-world. Being-with belongs to Being-in-the-world, which in every case maintains itself in some definite way of concernful Being-with-one-another. (p. 204)

'Communication' in which one makes assertions - giving information, for instance - is a special case of that communication which is grasped in principle existentially. In the more general kind of communication, the Articulation of Being with one another understandingly is constituted. Through it a co-state-of-mind gets 'shared', and so does the understanding Being-with. Communication is never anything like a conveying of experiences, such as opinions or wishes, from the interior of ones subject into the interior of another. Dasein-with is already essentially manifest in a co-state-of-mind and a co-understanding. In discourse Being-with becomes 'explicitly' shared; that is to say, it is already, but it is unshared as something that has not been taken hold of and appropriated. (p. 205)

In talking, Dasein expresses itself not because it has, in the first instance, been encapsulated as something 'internal' over against something outside, but because as Being-in-the-world it is already 'outside' when it understands. What is expressed is precisely this Being-outside - that is to say, the way one currently has a state-of-mind (mood), which we have shown to pertain to the full disclosedness of Being-in. Being-in and its state-of-mind are known in discourse and indicated in language by intonation, modulation, the tempo of talk, 'the way of speaking'. In 'poetical' discourse, the communication of the existential possibilities of one's state-of-mind can become an aim in itself, and this amounts to a disclosing of existence. (p. 205)

Ah, a sigh of relief. For me, at least, this seems to mean we do not have to limit our discourse to language, although we cannot deny its importance in Being-with. These quotes make me smile too - I am really interested in the co-state-of-mind, in particular in playfulness as a co-state-of-mind and the freedoms subsequently disclosed.

Keeping silent authentically is possible only in genuine discoursing. To be able to be kept silent, Dasein, must have something to say - that is, it must have at its disposal an authentic and rich disclosedness in itself. (p. 208)

Intriguing...

Our Interpretation of language has been designed merely to point out the ontological 'locus' of this phenomenon in Desein's state of Being... (p. 210)