The Fragmentation of Being

from the metaphysician’s perspective, the better expression to employ because it is
the more metaphysically natural expression. The notion of metaphysical naturalness
employed here is hyperintensional. (For example, plausibly, every natural predicate is
intensionally equivalent to some gruesome disjunction of non-natural predicates.)
On the view under consideration,“E”is a fundamental mode of being, and this mode
of being is prior to whatever properties are articulated in the existential analytic of
Dasein. Second, the notion of strict essence is hyper-intensional as well. We cannot
assume that just because two properties F and G are necessarily coextensive, that
F will be among the strict essence of a thing if and only if G is.
But why then does the existential analytic yield the specific set of properties that it
does rather than any other any set of properties the conjunction of which would be
intensionally equivalent to the conjunction of the former? (In short, what makes a set
of predicates or properties“suitable”?) If modes of being were (for Heidegger)first-
order properties of individuals, and these properties were mereologically complex,
and there were facts about which sets of intensionally equivalent properties were its
parts, then the set of properties that are“suitable”would be just the set of properties
that are parts of the mode of being in question. The analytic of Dasein’s mode of
being really would beanalysis, that is, an articulation of the mode into its constituent
parts. A view along these lines is ably defended by Joshua Tepley (2014). But since
I take modes of being to be represented by quantifiers rather than (first-order)
predicates, I can’t take this straightforward route and must say something more
subtle. (Or perhaps“more desperate”is more apt.)
Here’s my attempt to do this. First, some assumptions that are not at all obvious.
Assumption one: for any fundamental mode of being, there are many conjunctions of
first-order properties such that each conjunction is intensionally equivalent to
enjoying that mode of being. Assumption two: among these conjunctive properties,
one of them is the most metaphysically natural. (It might also be as natural as the
mode of being, but it is definitely not more natural.) Assumption three: anarticula-
tionof a mode of being consists in giving an account of each of the conjuncts of this
most natural property. If we like, we can distinguish between thefundamental essence
of Dasein, which consists simply in havingExistenz, and thederived essenceof
Dasein, which consists in this conjunctive property. (The distinction between fun-
damental and derived essence is not the same as the distinction between constitutive
and consequential essence.) But as always, what is primary is the enjoying of the
mode of being.
Here is an interesting consequence of this way of understanding Heidegger’s claim
that the essence of Dasein lies in its existence. Suppose there is more than one Dasein,
but each Dasein enjoys the same mode of being. So each Dasein has exactly the same
strict essence. Say that a strict essence F is anindividual essenceofxjust in case,
necessarily, if anyyhas F theny=x. No Dasein has an individual essence. If what
it is to be anindividualin the metaphysical sense is to have an individual essence,
then Daseins are merely non-identical with one another but are not individuals.

 BEING AND ESSENCE