Contemporary Epistemology and the Tension Between Circularity and Incompleteness

As I prepare to study epistemology at the University of Edinburgh in January, I am reminded of the circular nature of contemporary epistemology. Epistemologists seek to define the term "knowledge" to understand precisely what humans can know and when they can know it. Traditionally, philosophers defined "knowledge" as "justified true belief." This definition held until the 20th Century when Edmund Gettier published a paper that called this definition into question. See "Is Justified True Belief Knoweldge," available at http://fitelson.org/proseminar/gettier.pdf.

Since that time, epistemologists have provided ever more sophisticated definitions of "knowledge." With each definition, however, a conscientious philosopher must ask "how do you know that this definition of knowledge is correct? Is it on the basis of the very conditions set forth in the definition (in which case your argument is circular) or is it on the basis of some other conditions that give rise to your knowledge? If the latter, your current definition of knowledge, whose accuracy you know on the basis of some other conditions for knowledge, does not actually define all instances of human knowledge as it purports." And for any putative definition of knowledge, the philosopher can repeat this identical line of questioning to show that any definition of knowledge is either circular or incomplete. This, it seems, leads inexorably to skepticism.

In the end, the philosophical landscape may not be this bleak. There are plenty of cogent responses to my line of reasoning above. However, I think it worth mentioning that all epistemology must confront this foundational tension between circularity and incompleteness. As Plato's Meno aptly argues (in what philosophers subsequently label the paradox of knowledge): "And how are you going to search for [the nature of virtue] when you don't know at all what it is, Socrates? Which of all the things you don't know will you set up as the target for your search? And even if you actually come across it, how will you know that it is that thing which you don't know?" (Meno 80d).

The God Who Calls, The Disciple Who Flees

Why do some individuals hear God's voice in response to sincere prayer, while others call after God only to hear silence? Recent discussions with friends and family has forced this question into my awareness. And in this brief post, I can only offer a personal insight that some may find offensive. The truth of my insight, however, will turn, in each instance, upon the private assessment of the reader. And the quality of the reader's assessment will turn, in each instance, upon his capacity for brutal self-honesty. From the outset, I emphasize that what I write here does not explain every unanswered prayer. Yet, for some individuals--myself included--it explains precisely why many individuals can hear God's call, flee from it, and forget that they had ever heard God's voice. To best explain this insight, I detour into a helpful, hypothetical story.

Imagine a newly wed husband and wife. They excitedly anticipate life together. They both love the other deeply. They clearly recognized this love, and commit to share their lives. Yet, after a brief period of marital bliss, their marriage takes a turn for the worse. From the wife's perspective, the husband suddenly detaches and becomes angry. He invests his time in activities that seem to purposefully exclude her. From the husband's perspective, his wife is no longer the woman with which he fell in love. His anger and detachment arise from this painful fact: he doesn't love her. When asked about his prior love for her, he responds that it wasn't love, but lust, since it didn't endure.

As it turns out, the husband is deeply mistaken about the situation. In fact, he has acted to undermine the marriage and fall out of love with his wife. Why? After the brief period of marital bliss, he realized the depth of commitment made. The marriage requires him to renounce selfishness and to surrender all on the alter of matrimony. His wife reinforced this expectation, asking for his free time, energy, and efforts in building the marriage. Confronted with this demanding obligation, the husband became overwhelmed. Instead of maturing to the challenge, he begins--albeit unconsciously--to behave in ways that undermine the marriage--the source of the onerous obligations.

Again, the husband does not act with full conscious deliberation. He experiences obligation and begins a systematic enterprise of self-deception in which he seeks to escape that obligation without admitting to himself that he is in fact undermining the marriage with this aim in mind. In other words, he deceives himself to preserve the ability to justify his behavior--after all, he doesn't love her anymore. Love begets obligation, and obligation terrifies the husband, causing him to flee. But the husband cannot merely flee from that obligation. His love for his wife will follow him, wherever he goes. The only escape is to erase that love. Only then will his marital obligations disappear.

This self-deceptive flight from marriage is, in fact, similar to what certain existentialists discuss (e.g. Sartre). For those thinkers, when an individual faces his own radical freedom, he also faces the profound obligations that freedom imposes: he must take responsibility for life choices. Most people, when faced with this awful specter, self-deceptively flee into the crowd, allowing a group to direct their life choices. Often, such individuals join groups that loudly trumpet their own individuality and freedom--when in reality they behave as puppets. In short, the self-deceptive flight from life's obligations is real. And if the reader will reflect on the matter, he will see multiple contexts in which this occurs.*

With this insight in hand--i.e. that individuals self-deceptively flee the call of obligation--we can see how it applies to God's call. In my view, many who claim to seek God in vain, are like the husband above. At one time, an individuals seems to enjoy union with God. He confidently declares God's existence, and allows that declaration to shape his life. Yet, after a brief period of discipleship, he begins to detach, doubting what he once seemed to know. He fills his day with activities that exclude prayer and thoughtful study. Eventually, he abandons his faith and proudly proclaims that God never answered his prayers. When asked about the prior religious confidence and apparent union with God--as one could ask the husband about his prior apparent love for his wife--he responds that his confidence and sacred experiences arose from a deep desire for the religion to be true. He, in fact, produced those experiences (or was brainwashed into those experiences) in an attempt to affirm God's existence. Just as the husband explains away his genuine love with recourse to lust, the former disciple explains away his genuine faith with recourse to mere emotion.**

The truth? As it turns out, the disciple acted to undermine his faith. Why? After a brief period of divine union, he realized the depth of the commitment. God demands the disciple to renounce selfishness and to surrender all upon the alter of sacrifice. When the disciple prayed, God did indeed answer. And in that answer--as in the experience of a person's own freedom--the disciple was simultaneously confronted with divine obligations. Confronted with this demand, the disciple became overwhelmed. Instead of maturing to the challenge, he begins--albeit unconsciously--to behave in ways that undermine his faith in and knowledge of God--the source of the onerous obligations.

Again, the disciple does not act with full conscious deliberation. He experiences God's demands and begins a systematic enterprise of self-deception in which he seeks to escape that obligation without admitting to himself that he is in fact undermining his knowledge and faith with this aim in mind. In other words, he deceives himself to preserve the ability to justify his flight from God--after all, he doesn't know whether God exists. Prayer begets knowledge, knowledge begets the terror of divine obligation, and divine obligation engenders the disciple to flee. But the disciple cannot merely flee from that obligation. God's presence surrounds him and the only escape is to erase his memory of God. With his knowledge of God erased, the force of divine obligation subsides.

Many will find what I've said offensive. The reader may say: "this is the typical response by members when asked why people leave the church, viz., 'so they can sin.'" If the reader has this reaction, he has deeply misunderstood my argument. When a husband leaves his wife because of onerous obligations, he leaves, not to sleep with other women, but to escape the demands of the marriage. Likewise, when a disciple flees from God, he flees, not to sin, but to escape God's demands. I can, with great confidence, argue this point. After all, I myself sought to flee from God's call at one time. In retrospect, I can say that I stepped away from God, not because I didn't know whether he existed, but because I did know that he existed, and that knowledge placed too much demand upon me. As Soren Kierkegaard's aptly titled book suggests, when we approach God, God demands sacrifice and that demand makes any individual, even the true disciple, experience "Fear and Trembling."


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*As an additional example, many confronted with the demands society imposes on adults, flee into childish behaviors, avoiding employment and escaping into virtual worlds that can, by their nature, impose no real demands upon them.

**Some may argue that the very idea of self-deception is suspect. How can we purposefully act, while concealing purposiveness of the act? For those who would make this claim, while at the same time affirming our ability to generate spiritual experiences, a more careful reflection on the powers of the human mind is in order.

The Grieving Mind; the Moral Agent

Our modern era abounds in remedies to nearly every form of human suffering. Technological advances, once unimaginable, provide genuine cures to diseased and damaged bodies. Unfortunately, our modern advances have met with less success in providing genuine cures to diseased and damaged minds. We reach for anything to alleviate depression, self-loathing, or the agony of losing a loved one. And as we reach out, our society reaches back with counterfeit remedies to cure our mental agony: these remedies include intoxicants, entertainment, consumerism, and even systems of belief, religious or otherwise, to name a few. Such remedies don't cure; they numb, removing us from an understanding of the source of our suffering and undermining our ability to heal. In short, a counterfeit remedy is anything we consume to numb us to the experience of mental agony. They prevent genuine healing and operate to remove us from true self-understanding.

As an additional side effect, counterfeit remedies not only preclude us from self-discovery, but also make us more susceptible to subsequent mental suffering. In numbing us, these remedies bypass, as it were, our mental immune system, preventing our minds from developing the antibodies to resist future traumatic events. So weakened, our minds become more dependent on counterfeit remedies and more susceptible to ever more pedestrian experiences of mental suffering. As an example from my own life, after my brother's death, I became dependent on my music. I would spend hours composing, channeling my inner agony onto an outer medium--usually my piano. Soon, the slightest reminder of my brother--a picture or a place we would spend time together--would produce immense depression and anger. I would rush to my instrument to stem the suffering. What should have been a welcomed reminder of my brother's life and our shared friendship became an unacceptable experience that needed suppression. In fact, I relied so heavily on music to suppress these reminders that to this day I have few memories of my brother left. In some strange way, I have forgotten so much of my brother's life. This forgetting was by design and was accomplished by employing a counterfeit remedy to suppress the emotions and the memories. My life continued in this course for quite some time. In the process, I hindered myself from those experiences that cultivate individual growth. In fact, in blinding myself to the experiences, I lost the ability to even grasp the experiences necessary for healing. Again, the very 'remedies' we employ to stem suffering actually enhance that suffering--ensuring that at some future point, when the suffering returns, we will become more reliant on the remedy to face it. And our awareness of our diminishing capacity to confront future experiences, forces us to employ our remedies around the clock to prohibit potentially upsetting experiences from presenting themselves. In all of this, one important truth comes to the fore: we cannot develop into fully formed moral agents unless we learn from the experiences of mental suffering in all its forms. The dangers in such pacifying remedies are that they prevent us from flowering into the moral agents that we otherwise could be.

One particularly important experience of suffering is grief. The importance of this experience lies in its commonality. It is common in two sense of the term: (1) everyone will experience grief, and (2) we experience grief every day and in the most mundane ways. This latter statement may appear less than credulous. However, its improbability results precisely from the fact that we all numb ourselves against grieving. As a result, we fail to recognize its more mundane manifestations. To better recognize such mundane grief, I want to divide our daily experiences of grief into two categories: grief over tangibles and grief over intangibles. Such mundane grief, importantly, excludes those monumental events--such as the death of a loved one--that alter one's life course. Mundane grief occurs daily and in subtle ways. Yet such pedestrian experiences bear this resemblance to more monumental events of grief: loss. Grief, after all, is quintessentially the experience of loss. Whenever we lose something we value or cherish, we experience grief.

As to tangible grief, we experience such events of loss daily. Broken computer, dead phone, lost car keys, burnt dinner, etc. Naming such experiences borders on the absurd. Such daily events cannot constitute a grief experience. And yet, all such events--and we could name a thousand more--include the experience of an expectation and the disappoint that attends the frustration of that expectation. It is a small experience, but one not wholly dissimilar from major grief experiences.

Another form of mundane grief results from the loss of intangibles: the goals, expectations, and hopes that structure our day-to-day lives. Such intangibles are not the lofty aims of which life dreams are made. They are the smaller events that constitute the aims of a given day. When those aims meet resistance, we experience a form of grief. For example, the failed hope that a spouse will notice your efforts around the house; the dashed expectation that a friend will appreciate a gesture of kindness; the frustrated goal that you will complete a project at work by day's end. We could name a thousand other examples.

The point remains that every day we experience numerous events of loss. We quietly and subtly morn such losses since we feel that we somehow deserved the lost tangibles or the unfulfilled goals, expectations, and hopes. Such things--both tangible and intangible--draw our hearts and minds to them like points of intense gravity. And when that point of gravity vanishes, we are left to drift, which is a state we strive to avoid. Though these experiences are small, they mount. And when we weary sufficiently of the experiences, we reach for a remedy to shortly alleviate our frayed nerves. We've already mentioned such remedies above (and I encourage you to think of your preferred remedies). The danger with such remedies quickly manifests itself, however.

Such remedies once instrumental--i.e. used to alleviate our frayed nerves--become an end in themselves. We shift our focus away from the most meaningful life experiences and towards those cheap thrills that we can easily obtain. As I've already noted, I turned to music. While fulfilling, music distracted me from the suffering of my family around me and from my deeply experiencing my own grief and obtaining the understanding that could have arisen therefrom. So instead of tending to loved ones around me or into my inner psyche, I looked to experiences--remedies--that stunted moral growth. Yet the greatest danger with remedies lies in their fungibility. Once we pursue a remedial experience as an end in itself, we eventually tire of it. When that happens, we simply take up a new remedy--in my case philosophical studies, as ironic as that is. And when we tire of that remedy, we move on to the next. Further, even if we don't tire of a remedy, but instead the currents of life somehow deprive us of it, we can always find another remedy. For example, if I lose the ability to hear, I can abandon music and take up philosophy. In short, remedies stand more firmly under our control, precisely because they are fungible. As such, they create the illusion of power and while under their experience we begin to believe that we are in control of our lives. Yet while under the illusion of our own power, we are actually becoming powerless. Every time we experience mundane loss, we must turn towards a greater application of our chosen remedy. The frustration of that remedy becomes an experience of loss we cannot bear and so we turn to something else. And all along the way we bleed ourselves of the vital energy we need to confront life's challenges.

It seems, therefore, that grief is a two-edged sword that hangs over us every day. One edge can strike at the core of what is weakest within us, providing the conditions for moral growth. The other edge can strike at the core of what is strongest within us, providing the conditions for moral degradation. My advice--and it is advice I give to myself--is to experience grief. Attend to the daily experiences that frustrate your expectations and aims. Drink deeply from those experiences. And when you do, you will begin to recognize that life doesn't owe you a thing. You will also experience your own powerlessness to shape and control the contours of your life. And in those experiences, grief, like a blade, will cut off that which is weakest from you, leaving a strong, humble, fully-formed moral agent. Seeking to avoid that blade, as we've seen, ensures that grief will cut away that which is best in you. When you avoid grief through remedies, you feed your experience of entitlement. You say, "I shouldn't have to experience this loss." And in avoiding grief you begin to feel your own power, which makes you anemic, dependant, and practically worthless when confronting future hardships.
That is the irony of this entire situation: confronting grief forces us to experience our powerlessness and in that experience we become morally powerful; avoiding grief, on the other hand, allows us to feel powerful and in that illusory feeling we become morally enfeebled. Regardless of what we choose, the sword of grief, daily experienced, will fall on us. We get to choose where it falls, so choose wisely.

Heidegger and the Supposed Incoherency of the Call of Conscience

Introduction

            The phenomenon known as the call of conscience occupies a place of centrality in Heidegger’s Being and Time. In his commentary of the text, Stephen Mulhall recognizes this central position and gives a heightened analysis of the phenomenon. Eventually, Mulhall is led to the conclusion that the call of conscience, as presented in Being and Time, is conceptually incoherent. This leads him to launch into a lengthy rescue effort of the concept. In order to fully understand Mulhall’s claim I will thoroughly unpack his interpretation of the phenomenon. In the end, I hope to demonstrate that a different interpretation of the phenomenon prevents the supposed incoherency from arising. I will demonstrate this through my own exegetical analysis of the text guided infrequent references to other scholars.

Mulhall on the Call of Conscience

            The centrality of the call of conscience is strongly highlighted from the fore of Mulhall’s analysis. Mulhall claims that the ontological possibility of death, as a potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, is given its ontic foundations within the phenomenal experience of the call of conscience. Specifically, Mulhall tells his readers that,

it is one thing to demonstrate that it is logically possible for Dasein to individualize itself in an impassioned freedom towards death, and quite another to show that, and how, this possibility can be brought to concrete fruition in the everyday life of a being whose individuality is always already lost in the ‘they’. Accordingly, Heidegger next [in the analysis of the Call of Conscience] attempts to locate the onti roots of this ontological possibility—to identify any existentielll testimony of the genuine realiability of Dasein’s theoretically posited authenticity. (138)

Without an account of a concrete phenomenological experience, Heidegger’s reliance on “death,” as Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, will remain foundationless. Without this foundation the entire project of capturing Dasein in its wholeness so that it can become the fore-having of an interpretation will be undermined. Therefore, conscience becomes the ontic possibilities upon which much of Heidegger’s project is situated.

            Due to the centrality of the call of conscience in Heidegger’s project, Mulhall’s concern over the conceptual coherency of the phenomenon is not without warrant. If the call of conscience fails in any manner, the remainder of Heidegger’s project in Division Two will fail with it. In the course of his analysis, Mulhall stumbles into a potential incoherency to the phenomenon which he sees the need to remedy through many sections of his commentary. What gives rise to that incoherency? A closer look at Mulhall’s interpretation of the call will provide a possible answer to that question.

            The character of the call of conscience is, according to Mulhall, “a mode of discourse—a form of communication.” This understanding provides us with a fitting starting point for Mulhall’s interpretation. Since the call of conscience is a mode of discourse we must answer four questions concerning it: (1) who does the calling—the addresser; (2) who is called—the addressee; (3) what is called about—the content; and (4) what is the addressee called to do. I will take up these questions in a somewhat backwards order, beginning with the last two. Mulhall’s answers on each of these will be telling.

            To begin, Mulhall is clear that the content of the call—what is called about—is nothing. The voice of the call remains silent. To fully understand why the caller imparts no positive content in the call, it is important to immediately answer the fourth question: what is the addressee called to do? As Mulhall sees it, the intended function of that communication is a disruption of “the idle talk of the they-self to which Dasein is ordinarily attuned, to elicit a responsiveness in Dasein that opposes every aspect of that inauthentic discourse” (138). In other words, Dasein is called to itself. Because of this function, Mulhall maintains that the call must oppose the essential aspects of the ‘they-self’, i.e. ambiguity, idle chatter, and curiosity (138). Since the call is in fundamental opposition to ‘they’ it cannot reflect any features of public discourse.

            This requirement of the call brings us back to the third question with an understanding of why the caller remains silent. The voice must remain silent in the call otherwise it could not perform its intended function from delivering Dasein away from the ‘they-self.’ In fact, any such positive dictation of content would put the voice in essentially the same position as the ‘they-self’—a proscriptive source of conduct in which Dasein’s responsibility for decision is disburdened. As Mulhall says, “any such dictation [of proscriptive content in the call] could only further repress Dasein’s capacity to take over its own life. In short, ‘conscience discourses solely and constantly in the mode of keeping silent’” (139 emphasis mine). In other words, Dasein, in being called to its ownmost potentiality for Being-a-whole, must be called via a dictation which is silent. Otherwise the burden of authentic decision would not be placed squarely upon Dasein itself.

            From the foregoing analysis it is already clear that the addressee of the call is Dasein itself. But who is giving the call? Mulhall’s answer to this question is telling and, consequently, it is important to cite him at length on the subject:

Who, then, addresses Dasein in this way? Whose is the voice of conscience? We cannot specify the caller’s concrete features, for it has no identity other than as the one who calls; the summoner exists only as that which summons Dasein to itself. But this voice is one that Dasein hears within itself, and is usually understood as an aspect of Dasein itself; so can we not conclude that, in the voice of conscience, Dasein calls to itself? For Heidegger, matters are more complex. He agrees that the voice of conscience is not the voice of someone other than the Dasein to whom the call is addressed, not the voice of a third party. But neither are Dasein-as-addressee and Dasein-as-addresser one and the same. For the Dasein to whom appeal is made is lost in the ‘they’, whereas the Dasein who makes the appeal is not (and could not be, if its silent voice is to disrupt the discourse of the they-self). (139, emphasis mine).

In other words, Dasein calls to itself, although the Dasein called to and the Dasein calling are not one and the same.

            Furthermore, the “passive aspect” of the call—i.e. the silence of it—points to something more about the addresser. In particular it reveals the addresser’s thrown condition (140). As such, the call “recalls” Dasein from the ‘they-self’ and into a confrontation with its own genuine possibilities. In the end, “the voice of conscience is that of Dasein in so far as it ‘finds itself in the very depths of its uncanniness’” (140). According to Mulhall this is why the call is marked by no content. It is Dasein in its bare throwness calling from its uncanniness to Dasein enthralled by the ‘they-self.’

            So, on Mulhall’s reading, the addressee is Dasein as lost in the ‘they-self.’ The addresser is Dasein in its authenticity, although this Dasein is not identical to the addressee. That which is called about is nothing—as this provides the opportunity for Dasein to decide authentically for itself. And that which the addressee is called to is an awareness of its ownmost authentic possibilities. This interpretation of the fourfold structure of the call as a form of discourse is what lays the groundwork for Mulhall’s incoherency. More specifically, the non-identity of the addressee and the addresser are solely responsible for this incoherency. As Mulhall claims “[t]he central difficulty is that Heidegger conceives of Dasein as inherently split or doubled” (144).

            What then, is this central difficulty created by the “split” Dasein? Mulhall sums up the difficulty as follows:

But, for Heidegger, the voice utters a call that Dasein makes from itself to itself; it is the voice of Dasein’s repressed but not extinguished capacity for genuine selfhood. And, yet, if that capacity is genuinely repressed, how can it possibly speak out? If it can, its repression must already have been lifted; but it is just that lifting, that transitions from inauthenticity to authenticity, which the call of conscience was supposedly invoked to explain. (144 emphasis mine)

In light of Mulhall’s analysis, this question is truly poignant. The transition which the call of conscience is being invoked to explain must be presupposed in order for the call to be heard. Upon this analysis there is no way around this difficulty. Mulhall’s solution to this difficulty is radical and seems go beyond what Being and Time will tolerate.

            Specifically, Mulhall claims that we must posit a third Other, which is already authentic, which can call Dasein to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being: “The intervention of such a person would constitute an existential disruption of the hermetic, self-reinforcing dispersal of Dasein in the they-self, a way of recalling the self to its own possibilities without requiring an incoherent process of internal bootstrapping” (145). Locating the addresser external to Dasein deflates the apparent incoherency of Heidegger’s account.

            Mulhall maintains that this analysis does not truly go beyond the text nor beyond the phenomenological evidence. As far as the text is concerned, Mulhall is resolute on the fact that “when Heidegger briefly refers to the voice of conscience in his discussion of language, he talks of ‘hearing the voice of the friend whom every Dasein carries with it’ (BT, 34:206)” (145). As to the phenomenal content of the call, Mulhall claims that it would come “from outside or beyond us” and that the addresser, if already authentic, “could not consistently wish to impose upon us a specific blueprint for living”—i.e. the silence of the call. Additionally, since the authentic other would be urging us towards authentic selfhood, the addresser would function as an external representative of an aspect of ourselves” his or her voice would be a “proxy for the call of our ownmost potentiality for authenticity” (145). In conclusion, Mulhall maintains that the call of an authentic third party “would be perceived by us as possessing just the phenomenal characteristics Heidegger uses to define the voice of conscience” (145).

            This proposal is not without objections. Perhaps the most significant objections are the following: how did the third party voice become authentic? and why does Heidegger explicity speak against the possibility of a third party? To the first question Mulhall gives a very interesting answer. After analyzing Dasein’s essential historicality, and locating historical others which serve as voices of authenticity (e.g. Heidegger is our voice of historical authenticity, and for Heidegger, Yorck is among the voices of historical authenticity), Mulhall takes up the question of who the first authentic individual was. Who was the ‘self-befriending friend’ who brought himself out of inauthenticity. Mulhall’s response is that such a “first or self-befriending friend would be required only in a world in which human inauthenticity was universal and absolute; and Hedeigger’s conception of human existence neither entails nor permits such a possibility.” In other words, on some level an awareness of our authenticity is always present. Even in complete repression of that awareness, there are vestiges of it in the voices of Others and it is through this voices that we are brought back to ourselves.

            To the second question Mulhall has very bold answer. He gives a type of psychoanalytic critique of Heidegger himself. Central to his analysis is the claim that Heidegger could not bring himself to admit that another had really delivered him into authenticity. Heidegger is maintaining that “the transformation from inauthenticy to authenticity can be brought about through the relevant  individual’s own resources” because that model “allows him [Heidegger] to present himself as having done so entirely out of his own resources, as having single-handedly created his fundamental ontology and his deconstruction of the philosophical tradition he inherited” (148). In the end Mulhall’s diagnosis is damning: “What this shows, I believe, is the frightening depth of Heidegger’s need to think of himself as self-originating” (148).

            But is Mulhall’s project truly necessary? Heidegger was emphatic that the identity of the call was not that of a third party. Yet, it seems that Mulhall’s critique is pointed: if we do not posit the awakening call of a third authentic party, then the incoherency of bifurcated Dasein calling to itself results. Or does it? It is clear that the central point of pressure, which gives rise to this incoherency, lies in the bifurcated self, half of which is repressed the other half of which is enthralled in the they. To see whether or not Heidegger truly viewed Dasein as dualistic, in the manner Mulhall makes manifest, will require a close reading of the relevant portions of the text, with the aid of other commentators.

The Bifurcated Call of Conscience?: A Closer Examination of the Text

            Before undertaking this phase of the analysis, it is important to be reminded of the four elements involved in the call as a mode of discourse: (1) who does the calling—the addresser; (2) who is called—the addressee; (3) what is called about—the content; and (4) what is the addressee called to do. Since it has become clear that the supposed incoherency arises with the positing of a barrier between the addresser and the addressee, the lion’s share of the analysis will focus on this portion. On the occasions that the last two elements will further aid in the explicating of the relationship between the first two, that information will be interjected.

            To begin, Heidegger gives a rather brief analysis concerning the identity of the addressee. He simply claims that “In the call of conscience, what is it that is talked about—in other words, to what is the appeal made? Manifestly Dasein itself. This answer is as incontestable as it is indefinite” (BT 272).  Furthermore, he claims that the characteristics belong to the addressee are Dasein “in this understanding of itself which it always has, and which is concernful in an everyday, average manner.” In other words, “The call reaches the they-self of concernful Being with Others” (BT 273). As to what the ‘they-self’ is called unto, Heidegger is clear that it is called to its “own Self” (BT 273). In addition, during the act of hearing and responding to the call, since it is the self of the they-self that gets appealed to “the “they” collapses” (ibid). The content of the call is empty, “The call asserts nothing, gives no information about world-events, has nothing to tell” (BT 273). This vacant aspect of the call demands that Dasein respond to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. The call does not replace the ‘they’ but calls Dasein to itself. This call can be painful as it brings Dasein out of the grips of the ‘they’ into lonely isolation. As Michael Gelven puts it, “This is surely a sensitive insight into the occasions of conscience, for there is often a feeling of loneliness and terrible isolation when we are forced to concern ourselves with “matters of conscience”” (Gelven 163)

            Interestingly, the phenomenal content present in the call, leaves the identity of the caller aloof; at least from the ‘worldly’ orientation. Heidegger says it best: “If the caller is asked about its name, status, origin, or repute, it not only refuses to answer, but does not even leave the slightest possibility of one’s making it into something with which one can be familiar when one’s understanding of Dasein has a ‘worldly’ orientation”  (BT 274). Heidegger also points out that the addresser is completely absorbed in the task of calling us to something. As such it does not allow to be interrogated as to its identity. However, Heidegger is emphatic that the addresser, “by no means disguises itself in the call” (BT 274). Its identity is not available to the ‘they-self’ but it can be disclosed via hermeneutical analysis.

            So, what additional phenomenal characteristics are at our disposal in determining the identity of the caller? The call comes apparently free of our volition, “‘It’ calls, against our expectations and even against our will.” However, the suddenness of the calling does not necessarily point to an outside source: “The call undoubtedly does not come from someone else who is with me in the world. The call comes from me and yet from beyond me and over me” (BT 275). Aside from this, the phenomenal information seems to have been exhausted. At this point Heidegger posits a thesis as to the identity of the addresser to determine whether or not it aligns with the existential analytic of Dasein previously given. Specifically Heidegger asks a question: “What if this Dasein which finds itself [sich befindet] in the very depths of its uncanniness, should be the caller of the call of conscience?” Heidegger answers this question positively, “Nothing speaks against this; but all those phenomena which we have hitherto set forth in characterizing the caller and its calling speak for it” (BT 276).

            Heidegger then begins to show how each of the aforementioned phenomena cohere with this proposal. Since the call comes to Dasein dispersed in the ‘they’ the call is “like an alien voice.” Furthermore, the identity of the caller, from the worldly perspective of the ‘they’ is not identifiable. Hence, the call seems to come from beyond the ‘they-self,’ although in an unfamiliar way from the self as well. Since the thesis posits the addresser as being Dasein in its uncanniness, the keeping silent of the call is significant. The content of the call is so unfamiliar to Dasein mired in the ‘they’ that it could not understand a call from uncanniness in terms of the categories given to it by the ‘they.’ Instead, the call remains silent and simply lights up Dasein’s awareness of its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. Heidegger’s final analysis is that the call of conscience (the entire phenomenon) exhibits itself as the call of care:

the caller is Dasein, which, in its throwness (in its Being-already-in), is anxious about its potentiality-for-Being. The one to whom the appeal is made is this very same Dasein, summoned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being (ahead of itself . . .). Dasein is falling into the “they” (in Being-already-alongside the world of its concern), and it is summoned out of this falling by the appeal. The call of conscience—that is, conscience itself—has its ontological possibility in the fact that Dasein, in its very basis of its Being, is care.

It seems clear enough that the two interlocutors (i.e. addressor and addressee) are at their ontological root one and the same.

            Clearly Heidegger seems to be maintaining that these two different aspects of Dasein have completely different characteristics yet are identical. So, the question becomes, how do we maintain an identity between these interlocutors when it is so clear that there is a type of bifurcation between the two? This tension seems to resist resolution and it is for this very reason that Mulhall posits a bifurcation between the two interlocutors. To be sure, he recognizes that they are really one and the same. Yet, their modes of operations and characteristics are so distinct that, at least according to Mulhall, there is a true bifurcation between these two aspects of ourselves: the ‘they’ self and the repressed authentic self. In this manner, Mulhall seems to cross breed a Heideggerian understanding of the self (Dasein) with a Freudian understanding of the self—i.e. a self which has repressed, subconscious content.

            Up to this point, my analysis of Heidegger’s text has closely paralleled Mulhall’s. We have both interpreted the content of the call and the identity of the callers in the same way. But in order to avoid the incoherency which Mulhall sees I wish to posit a distinction which is not foreign to Heidegger’s analysis. This distinction will, I believe, allow a resolution of the apparent conflict between the identities and differences of the interlocutors. Specifically, I will posit the distinction between the perspective of the ‘they-self’ and that of the ‘authentic-self.’

            I will begin with an analysis of the call of conscience from the perspective of the authentic-self. Heidegger is completely explicit that the two interlocutors are one and the same. He claims that a continued analysis of the “who” of the interlocutors is necessary in order to establish their identity at the ontological level. Specifically, Heidegger claims that:

we shall not obtain an ontologically adequate Interpretation of the conscience until it can be made plain not only who is called by the call but also who does the calling, how the one to whom the appeal is made is related to the one who calls, and how this ‘relationship’ must be taken ontologically as a way in which these are interconnected in their Being. (BT 274)

Further on, Heidegger asks the question, “is it all necessary to keep raising explicitly the question of who does the calling? Is this not answered for Dasein just as unequivocally as this question of to whom the call makes its appeal? In conscience Dasein calls itself” (BT 275). For Heidegger, the continued focus on the ‘who’ of the call is necessary in order to establish the identity of the two interlocutors at the deeper, existential-ontological level. Heidegger continues by saying, “This understanding of the caller is more or less awake in the factical hearing of the call. Ontologically, however, it is not enough to answer that Dasein is at the same time both the caller and the one to whom the appeal is made” (BT 275). What is required is analysis which demonstrates that hypothesis by linking the interlocutors up via care.

            So, from the perspective of a deeper, hermeneutical analysis, the identity at the fundamental, ontological level between the two interlocutors will become apparent. While Heidegger doesn’t explicitly claim that this awareness is only made available via the categories available to the authentic-self, such a proposal isn’t out of harmony with Heidegger’s wider project. The identity of the apparently distinct interlocutors comes into its clearest relief when the interpreting is done from an authentic perspective. For, it is only from this perspective that an accurate existential-ontological understanding of Dasein can be achieved; and it is specifically at this level, at the level of care, that the identity becomes explicitly clear.

            From the understanding and the categories of the ‘they-self’ the self-same identity of the caller with the called is in dispute. As already shown, Heidegger claimed that the identity of the addresser is unfamiliar when Dasein “has a worldly orientation” (BT 274). Consequently, the addresser’s identity is unknown when Dasein is mired in the categories of the ‘they.’ By extension, the call seems to come from beyond Dasein in its worldly orientation, although in a strange way it originates out of the self. Since the identity of the addresser is not known to the ‘they-self’ the call does not appear to come from the self. Although, there is a basic, unreflective awareness that the call does not come from an outside source either. The ambiguity of information does not cease here. The content of its call is empty for any positive dictation would be interpreted in the categories of the ‘they’. Instead, the call simply brings Dasein to an awareness of itself thereby ripping it from the grips of the ‘they’.

            From the categories and understanding granted by the ‘they-self’ the identity of the interlocutors is in serious doubt. After all, Dasein in its worldly orientation recognizes that the characteristics between itself and its caller are two dissimilar to constitute the same entity. This seems to be exactly what Heidegger was pointing out in his phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon. The call comes to Dasein lost in the ‘they.’ When interpreted from that perspective there is only an intimation of an identity which is covered over by the categories of the ‘they.’

            At this point my positive proposal can be made explicit. The seeming difference between the supposed interlocutors is a mere interpretive epiphenomenon created by the interplay between the categories of the ‘they-self’ and Dasein in its uncanniness. Now, it is important not to interpret the term “epiphenomenon” as referencing a present-at-hand type of substance. Instead, I use the term according to the literal meaning of the word, a phenomenon which comes “after” or is derivative upon another phenomenon. In this case the phenomenon is derivative from the implementation of categories, not suited to an authentic understanding/recognition of Dasein. When those categories come up against a forgotten aspect of Dasein, as it makes itself known phenomenally, Dasein does not fully recognize the phenomenon as an aspect of itself due to the categories from which it is taking its interpretational cue. It is for this reason that Heidegger talks about theological and biological understandings of the call of conscience as interpretations—interpretations according to the categories of the ‘they.’

            How does this solve the supposed incohereny? Because at no time is Dasein ever bifurcated. When Dasein is mired in the ‘they-self’ it disperses itself. Authenticity is the gathering in of this dispersal, bringing explicit awareness to Dasein itself. Since Dasein is dispersed, fragments of its self-awareness remain in everything. This can clearly be seen in the call of conscience. From the vantage point of the ‘they-self’ the call seems to come from beyond, although it clearly does not come from another, it seems to come from within. This awareness is an implicit awareness of the identity of the interlocutors. Dasein is not bifurcated, Dasein is dispersed and forgetful. No chasm needs to be overcome. Just a reawakening of what is already available, although in faint awareness. In the words of Michael Inwood:

If I am wholly in thrall to the ‘they’, how can I ever hear the call of Conscience? How can there be a call of Conscience? The call does not come from God, nor from any third party. This would not help to answer our question. We could still ask: Why do some hear God’s call and others not? Does he call louder to some and more softly to others? Or are some heavier sleepers than others? Then the call of Conscience would be like an alarm-clock ringing just loud enough to wake light sleepers. But the call does not come from outside. It comes from Dasein itself: Dasein calls to Dasein. It can come from Dasein itself, because Dasein is never wholly and irretrievably lost in the they. Dasein retreats into the security of the they owing to a ‘fleeing of Dasein in the face of itself—of itself as an authentic ability to be its Self’ (BT, 184). But Dasein must have a glimpse of that from which it flees. It is this residual awareness of its authentic self that enables Dasein both to call to itself and on occasion to respond to the call. (Inwood 80)

From the gaze of the ‘they-self’ caller and called are interpreted as separate. Yet, there is a kernel of awareness that there is a relationship between the two interlocutors. This relationship, as Heidegger shows via hermeneutical analysis, lies in their interconnection at the root of their Being. To be sure, the branches of that root (i.e. addressee and addresser) have apparently different characteristics from the vantage point of the ‘they-self’. Yet, these apparent differences are only apparent and consequently do not create a barrier. There is always a certain level of self awareness in every dispersed Dasein. That basic level of self awareness makes possible the calling and calls to the Dasein which has forgotten itself in the ‘they’.

Conclusion

            Stephen Mulhall’s interpretation of the call of conscience has led him to posit an inconsistency between the two interlocutors. This inconsistency is directly linked to the bifurcation he sees existing within Dasein. However, my alternative interpretation has shown that Dasein is not bifurcated in this way and as a result Mulhall’s perceived inconsistency doesn’t get a foothold. Consequently, his elaborate solution is unnecessary. Dasein is not ontologically split; it has simply lost an explicit awareness of itself and does not fully recognize itself when it comes into phenomenal awareness via the call of conscience. Since there is a kernel of awareness of the self, Dasein is able to call to itself and at times retrieve itself from the ‘they-self’.

Works Cited

Gelven, Michael. A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time: Revised Edition. Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1989. Print.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson trans. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1962. Print.

Inwood, Michael. Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.

Mulhall, Stephen. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time: 2^nd ed. New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, 2008. Print