The Conditions of Possibility for Plurality in Dasein’s Ontology

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to raise a question concerning the ontological condition of the possibility for plurality by taking the existential analytic of Dasein in Martin Heidegger’s philosophy.This investigation of fundamental ontology reveals that Dasein’s plurality is already within the Being-there, which is to say that Being-in-the-world and Being-with do not add to the understanding of self, but are primary conditions that make self-understanding possible. This is in line with the thought of Jean-Luc Nancy, who insists on thinking of the existence of Dasein as Being Singular Plural. However, the weight of Nancy’s explication rests heavily on Being-with, so much so that it overshadowed the simultaneous moment of self-determination of Dasein, which is equiprimordial with it.  By paying due attention to this equiprimordiality, it can prompt us to recognize that this process of self-determination, of identify and particularize itself amidst plurality, has a natural tendency to fold back to itself at the very moment when Understanding moves itself forward, and gather up everything under its own appropriation—a tendency that may hinder our further treatment of plurality. A better understanding of this equiprimordiality in the conditions of possibility for plurality can hearten our encounters with plurality in the concreteness of life.