Rectifying Language: Hegel’s Dasein

Written by Antonio Wolf

If you are only beginning to learn Hegelianism, the best translation is one simply to be accepted by the authority conferred by it’s general use by an institutionally recognized body of experts. When you become acquainted with the thought unbound by its immediate presentation in language, a peculiar new aspect of this question appears. Never in my prior life did I ever imagine that I should come to this level of expertise. Either I would learn German, in which case I wouldn’t care much for translation, or I would just follow along with the intelligibility of translations themselves unless they were inconsistent, after all, a word is a word, and so long as we are told what they mean, it doesn’t matter so long as the concept is clear.

Over at my Discord server (also named Empyrean Trail), we have taken this discussion on a few times over the last 3 years. My own musings on this, when it first came to mind, was the realization that the translators of Hegel into English were trying their best to keep to the spirit of Hegel’s own choice of term names, i.e. trying to use the same reasoning process for their choices. As the Concept has slowly seeped into the deep crevices of my mind, I have come in the last two years to realize just how nuanced these choices are, and why.

Here is a discussion I think worth reading. I cropped it down into the most pertinent contents. While there was a tangential discussion on consciousness, I cut it out because it wasn’t really pertinent to the problem. It concerns the reasons for choosing a word to translate dasein, here it is particularly between existence and presence. Existence is an ambiguous word in English; it is virtually synonymous with being not as indeterminate, but as specific in the way Hegel defines dasein, something that is by not being another, and so anything that can be said to be at all is existent, thus dreams and imagination may be said to exist as much as rocks and trees, yet it also has a general intuition of something that is outside me objectively. Later in the Logic, there is the concept of existenz, which in the Cambridge translation was named concrete existence, yet which in many translations is often simply existence as well. As explained in the blog on Hegel’s choice of term names as well as the article on rational linguistics, part of philosophical exercise is the determination of what term names for concepts do the least violence to common intuitions in order to maximize communicability and ease of reorientation from a learner.

  1. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:31 PM I’m inclined think the Miller translation is better. Giovanni really butchers some passages. In part due to his translation of Dasein as existence, which is not wrong but causes some problems.
  2. [12:31 PM]He also often translates ‘seiend’ as ‘existent’ which is, again not literally incorrect, but super confusing, and butchers Hegel’s careful distinctions
  3. [12:32 PM]He over-uses the English word ‘existence’ and thus erases many very important distinctions in the Doctrine of Being
  4. Avalonia — 01/01/2024 12:34 PMI don’t have a strong opinion about the translations, but I agree with the problems you identified
  5. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:41 PM how does Miller translate Dasein?
  6. Rat — 01/01/2024 12:41 PM Determinate being
  7. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:42 PM yeah, that’s definitely better
  8. [12:42 PM]I get back into German
  9. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:43 PM Definitive proof that the world is going backwards is that the Hegel translations are getting worse
  10. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:43 PM I wish “being there” were able to do the job
  11. Avalonia — 01/01/2024 12:44 PM Determinate being works, although I follow John Burbidge’s decision to translate it as Being-there or Presence
  12. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:44 PM The closest thing English has to it is in phrases like “there is”/”there are”
  13. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:44 PM Existence is literally the proper translation
  14. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:45 PMehh
  15. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:45 PM Dasein is finite being. The word ‘presence’ does not capture this finitude.
  16. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:45 PM There’s also existenz though
  17. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:46 PM Yes, the English word ‘existence’ is problematically vague because seiende (existent), daseiende (existent), and existierend (existent) are all distinct concepts in Hegel for which we do not have different words.(edited)
  18. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:47 PM It’s so dumb that “to be” doesn’t have an adjectival form👍1
  19. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:47 PM Yes this is the root issue. Seiend is immediate being. Daseiende is being with a negation in it. And existierend is being emerged from a ground.
  21. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:48 PM “Being” is the closest, problem is it’s identical to the gerund lol
  22. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:48 PM The best way to translate would be: seiend: immediate being, or in the form of simple being daseiend: determinate being, or in the form of determinate being existierend: existent being, or in the form of existent being
  23. Avalonia — 01/01/2024 12:54 PM I don’t think it should be called Existence since that concept is derived as the complete thought of the Ground and Grounded. A Ground only a Ground if there is something to be Grounded. Existence is conditioned by the activity of Ground and Grounded, as its Being-there or shining forth.👍1
  24. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:55 PM And the word ‘existence’ has this etymological ‘ex’ in it, meaning out. Which is most appropriate for the Doctrine of Essence. Hegel’s choice of words is very precise.
  25. Avalonia — 01/01/2024 12:55 PM yes
  26. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:56 PM Weird that there wasn’t a natively German word for him to use for that concept
  27. Das Zwielicht der Vernunft — 01/01/2024 12:58 PM Do you mean for Existenz? Did you read Hegels annotations on the choice of words and when he employs words from a foreign language?
  28. Josh Owl — 01/01/2024 12:58 PM No, what does he say?
  29. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 12:58 PM Because the Doctrine of Essence corresponds to Latin philosophy
  31. Rat — 01/01/2024 12:59 PM Reflection = foreign word
  32. @Josh Owlno, what does he say?
  33. Das Zwielicht der Vernunft — 01/01/2024 1:00 PM Rat is right. The reflected moment is always denominated by a word of foreign language, often latin, not German. E.g. Dasein -> Existenz.
  34. RightHegelian — 01/01/2024 1:02 PM “Der Schein ist dasselbe, was die Reflexion ist; aber er ist die Reflexion als unmittelbare; für den in sich gegangenen, hiermit seiner Unmittelbarkeit entfremdeten Schein haben wir das Wort der fremden Sprache, die Reflexion.”
  35. [1:04 PM] The Greek world is immediacy, being, shine. The Latin world is reflection, shine which is estranged from its immediacy in being. And Concept is of course the German world, wherein reflection is entered back into being. And that includes English as a degeneration of the Germanic
  36. @Avalonia I think you’re right that Dasein should be translated as presence.
  37. A.W. — Yesterday at 5:47 PM In English this is loaded with connections to consciousness. It’s very rare to speak of presence without it being the presence to consciousness. In having the etymological connection to ‘at hand’ and ‘be before‘, it seems to me this would be closer in intimation to what existenz (concrete existence) likely does. Not entirely sure since I’ve never read that myself.
  38. RightHegelian — Yesterday at 6:07 PM My argument for ‘presence’ is that it is the only English word which is etymologically proximate to ‘Dasein’. Presence is pre-esse, being-in-front, being-given. The ‘da’ in Dasein comes from a PIE root which means given, here. In Latin, the equivalent is ‘dare’, which means givenness. As in giving a present or gift.This is an important theological concept which surely for that reason belongs in the Logic
  39. A.W. — Yesterday at 6:13 PM Being in front and being given are relations of essence, not being. Besides the linguistic connotation with consciousness near universally in the West as far as I know, with the Latin languages also giving it the emphasis of being present to consciousness rather than presence as such in objective manner, those etymological relations fit way better with existenz.(edited)
  40. RightHegelian — Yesterday at 6:15 PM
    1. Why are they necessarily relations of essence?
    1. Dasein can’t be translated as ‘existence’ because the latter contains the prefix ‘ex’, which means ‘out’ which definitely belongs in sphere of essence, because that whole book turns on the relation of inner and outer, as Hegel emphasizes at the end of the appearance section.
  41. A.W. — Yesterday at 6:22 PM Being in front of what? Being and Nothing are not behind each other or in front of each other, they’re just supplanting and alternating. Essences are behind, appearances are in front. Being-given by what? Being-there is just better in that case. In English and Spanish, existence is literally just that in general. Most people think that existence is just the immediate being, not a result or mediated being. There just isn’t a good word for this distinction in English since existence plays too many roles in our language. Determinate being and being-there are both just cumbersome mouthfuls that sound too technical to use outside of technical discussions. I’ll never talk about the being-there of anything in a conversation with someone, but I’ll talk about existence.
  42. RightHegelian — Yesterday at 6:28 PM “Being in front of what?” “Being-given by what?” You could just as much ask this of existence: being out of what? Or of Dasein: being there? being where? There for whom? Hegel chose ‘existenz’ as his word for sphere of being, because it contains the ‘ex’, i.e. emergence from a ground. He chose ‘Dasein’ for the sphere of being, because givennes is immediacy.
  43. A.W. — Yesterday at 6:31 PM Those are related terms, they imply a reference to something that’s conditioning their determinacy. Being-there at least seems immediate. There is spatial, but it captures the intuition of a specified being that is in full focus without even acknowledging the mediation of a there not being another there.
  44. [6:32 PM]In English we don’t have any unique term in usage that even approaches dasein.
  45. RightHegelian — Yesterday at 6:32 PM You agree that there-ness connotes immediacy. But the English equivalent of this is presence.
  46. A.W. — Yesterday at 6:33 PM Presence does not connote immediacy. It’s virtually synonymous with present to consciousness, not present as such. Nobody speaks of the presence of asteroids to asteroids, but of the existence of their relation.
  47. RightHegelian — Today at 1:56 PM The ordinary sense of the word ‘presence’ actually does connote Dasein. Because presence means something ephemeral. For example, a ghost or wraith. Something which is grounded in nothing, lacks substantial being. That is precisely the difference that Hegel indicates between Dasein and Existenz. Existenz is grounded being, being which is the appearance of an essence, an enduring substance. But a presence, a phantom or specter, is mere apparition without ground. It is groundless apparition and thus falls in the sphere of being. If I say, “there is a presence in this house,” I mean there is some ephemeral being, a something, an Etwas I can’t what it is, what its essence and ground is. It’s just there
  48. A.W. — Today at 2:08 PM Now you finally make a good example where we do have the rare objective use of the word, except here it is not presence of or to me, but some conscious or living entity that is yet to be determined. It still has too much connection to consciousness imo.
  49. But hey, you guys are wearing me down on my resistance with existence. I’m not in the presence camp yet, but the same issues I have with presence, I acknowledge to be issues that existence also has. I’m personally more persuaded by Adein’s eksistenz for dasein and existence for existenz. It keeps an intuitive relation, and at least in written form maintains a clear distinction of what is meant, which as others have shown plenty of translations do not distinguish. It’s a neologism though… but just as with sublation, there just might not be another way.
  50. RightHegelian — Today at 2:56 PM Totally redundant and useless neologism.
  51. A.W. — Today at 2:57 PM Just like ideal and Ideal lol
  52. RightHegelian — Today at 2:57 PM It doesn’t solve the problem. The German ‘Dasein’ can indeed be translated both ways. ‘Existence’ is not totally wrong. It is a meaning of the word ‘Dasein’. The question is which meaning has priority.
  53. A.W. — Today at 2:57 PM German has a distinction that we don’t have in English, and it was a neologism that the German Idealists made up.
  54. RightHegelian — Today at 2:58 PM There are only three options:
    1. Being-there
    2. Presence
    3. Existence
  55. [2:58 PM]Option 1 is basically remaining neutral. Option 2 and 3 are alive. I think 3 would be something Hegel argues against, and probably associates with Scholastic metaphysics. Perhaps, I suggest, he wants to downplay that latter meaning of the word, because too scholastic, too latin. And wants to bring back the primitive meaning of Dasein as ‘presence’. Existenz is a very important term for Scholastic Metaphysics. God is the being who has his existence in his essence. That entire Scholastic discussion belongs in the sphere of essence. This is a point for presence, because then that whole discussion can be left to the sphere of essence where is truly belongs, and the sphere of being can enjoy full ownership of the more primitive meaning, ‘presence’.

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