Heidegger (1962: 67) claimed that“The‘essence’of Dasein lies in its existence.”
Heidegger interpretation is always dangerous, but let us be brave once more.^78 My
inclination is to interpret this claim as saying that there is nothing more to the
essence of Daseins, which are what we are, i.e., roughly,finite embodied persons, than
the fundamental mode of being that we enjoy. Heidegger calls this mode of being
Existenz, and offers a painstaking account of the various aspects of this manner of
being. The attempt to give a painstaking account of the manner of being of Dasein is
called“the existential analytic of Dasein.”^79 So we should not think that the claim that
the essence of Dasein lies in its existence is one in which things like us have, in a
sense, a very thin essence.^80 But we should also be careful about how we state what is
involved in offering an existential analytic of Dasein or, for that matter, any account
of the manner of being of entity.
Among what we learn from Heidegger’s existential analytic is that things that
enjoyExistenzare necessarilyfinite, embodied, social individuals embedded in a
network of norms that govern them and the objects that they manipulate in their
environment. This suggests that we learn from an existential analytic that the strict
essence of Dasein contains a rich variety of properties. But then what sense does it
make to say that the strict essence of Dasein merely consists in its manner of being?
(Note that by“essence,”Heidegger cannot mean mere modal essence, since Dasein is
modally essentially such as to not be the number 2, and so on.)
Let“E”be the special quantifier that designates the mode of beingExistenz. (If we
wish to be cute, we can call it the“Existenzial quantifier.”)Eis a semantically
primitive restricted quantifier, and so is not to be understood as being defined in
terms of an unrestricted quantifier conjoined with restricting predicates. But any
sentence in which the Existenzial quantifier appears is intensionally equivalent to a
sentence in which it is systematically replaced by the unrestricted quantifier and
suitable restricting predicates. Let’s assume that the suitable predicates in this case are
F, G, and H. (What is suitability? More on this is in a minute.) Then“Ey(x=y)”is
intentionally equivalent to“Fx&Gx&Hx.”(Note that, we are looking forfirst-order
predicates intensionally equivalent toenjoyinga mode of being.) But don’t forget
that we are trafficking here in hyperintensional metaphysics twice over! First, two
expressions might be intensionally equivalent and yet one expression might be,
(^78) One reason the interpretation of Heidegger’s remarks here is dangerous is that he puts the German
equivalent of scare quotes around the word“essence,”which suggests that he might not be talking about
strict essence. My suspicion is that the scare quotes serve a different function. I am inclined to attribute to
Heidegger the following view: just as Dasein does not exist in the way in which other things exist, Dasein
does not have an essence in the way in which other things do, and accordingly just as there are modes of
being, there are modes of essence. Hence, when talking about the essence of Dasein, some way of marking
how Dasein’s mode of essence differs from that of, e.g., merely present-at-hand entities, is important. The
German equivalent of scare quotes might serve this purpose. 79
80 See Heidegger (1962: 67–77).
A converse view seems suggested by Philipse (1998: 17), according to which the essential structures of
Dasein—the facts about Dasein’s essence—constitute Dasein’s mode of being.