Dissertation Construction 03

Wilderness Matters: Understanding Interconstituent Wilderness Lifeworlds

03

I am due for an explication of the tool analysis, however, in keeping with this being more of a journal for my dissertation construction, I want to focus on what's shining most brightly for me today -- that is, attunement.

Attunement

In German, it is Befindlichheit. He calls it die Stimmung, das Gestimmtsein. We must catch the musical metaphor here and realize that Stimmung often denotes "mood", but it also means the tuning of a musical instrument. The M&R translation of BT uses "state-of-mind" for Befindlicheit and it is literally "the state in which one may be found". To me, this self founding is akin to one's standing. And as is the often refrain, "Dasein is the being that takes a stand on its own being." What might it mean to take a stand? To me, this means to stand for something. Herein is my connection to semiotics, the doctrine of signs. How? A sign is a thing that stands for something else.

Dasein is the being that takes a stand on its own being. Recall that Dasein is literally "there being" or, as I have it, Dasein is somebody. Heidegger connects Befindlichheit (the state in which one may be found) with Daseing in the assertion, "[i]n this 'how one is', having a mood brings being to its "there"". (BT p. 173). 

This has to do with being in a lifeworld. Heidegger offers three essential characteristics of Befindlicheit. First, the disclosing of thrownness is one and the disclosing of being-in-the-world as a whole is the second. For thrownnness we get that it signifies "the sense of finding itself [Dasein] in the mood that it has" (p. 174). "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" (p. 174). 

Signs

Eureka! Turning towards and turning away are the sign character of Dasein. Let's return to Heidegger's brief interlude on signs and reference. Heidegger seems to hold signs as literally pieces of equipment and he offers a turn signal on an automobile as his example of a sign. I'm going to freestyle my way through Section 17 of BT as it begins on page 107 of the Macquarrie and Robinson translation, so bear with me...

H is approaching the heart of his disclosure of worldhood. This is his third chapter of Division I and he has given us the tool analysis shed some light on the ontological nature of readiness-to-hand. He begins 17 by stating that the interpretation of ready-to-hand as it relates to "the phenomenon of reference or assignment became visible; but we merely gave an indication of it" (p. 107). H wants to really lay out what is going on with the phenomenon of reference or assignment. 

Alright, Heidegger and signs, here we go. "The word 'sign' designates many kinds of things: not only may it stand for different kinds of signs, but being-a-sign-for can itself be formalized as a universal kind of relation, so that the sign-structure itself provides an ontological clue for 'characterizing' any entity whatsoever" (pp. 107-108, italics his, bold is mine).

The next five paragraphs are crucial and challenging for me to comprehend. H seems to move back and forth between the structure of signs and the structure reference with pivots about indication and servicability. There is a difference between signs working in reference of servicability and in reference of indication. H then lays out what it may mean to have a sign as an indication before clearly giving his definition of 'sign'.

"A sign is not a Thing which stands to another Thing in the relationship of indicating; it is rather an item of equipment which explicitly raises a totality of equipment into our circumspection so that together with it the worldly character of the ready-to-hand announces itself" (p. 110). Signs can indicate, but the relationship, the character of passing the meaning from one to another (like passing the baton in a relay race), is not as indication. What do signs indicate? "Signs always indicate primarily 'wherein' one lives, where one's concern dwells, what sort of involvement there is with something" (p. 111).

That last sentence is the linchpin. However, the translation and connotation of Bewandtnis as involvement doesn't make it entirely clear. Remember, our launch point for signs was from Befindlicheit (let's come out with it, for me Befindlicheit means embodiment--Dasein is somebody taking a stand as they stand out (exist) and Befindlicheit is how one is found. Where somebody is found is how they stand. It is there standing). Okay so that is our launch point. But what of Bewandtnis? We need the translators footnote on p. 115 "The terms 'Bewenden' and 'Bewandtnis' .... [t]heir root meaning has to do with the way something is already 'turning' when one lets it 'go its own way', 'run its course', follow it 'bent' or 'tendency', or finish 'what it is about', or 'what it is up to' or 'what it is involved in'....(The reader must bear in mind that the kiind of 'involvement' with which we are here concerned is always an involvement of equipment in 'what it is up to' or what it is 'doing', not a person's involvement in circumstances in which he is 'caught' or 'entangled.'" Therefore, signs indicate "what sort of involvement there is with something" (p. 111). They indicate the turn that one is taking. So how does this relate to attunement (Befindlicheit as embodiment). The way in which embodiment as mood opens up a world is "one in which we turn towards or away". If we are turning towards or away, we as Dasein are also signs among the referential totality of equipmental signs as well.

Without going to much further, it suffices to offer Heidegger's last definition of sign given in Section 17. "A sign is something ontically ready-to-hand, which functions both as this definite equipment and as something indicative of the ontological structure of readiness-to-hand, of referential totalities, and of worldhood" (p. 114).