Dasein

Among entities, only Dasein can ask what Being means, because its own existence matters to it. In Heidegger's words, it is "ontically distinctive in that it is ontological."

Put simply Heidegger: of all the things that exist, only we, his "Dasein", can ask what it means to be, because our own existence matters to us. Being able to ask about being is what sets us apart.

Where to read it Heidegger, Being and Time §4 (H. 12).

Heidegger drops the words subject, consciousness and human being in favor of Dasein, literally being-there. Whatever remains of the subject is an entity that is somewhere.

Put simply Heidegger stops saying "subject", "consciousness" or "human being". He says "Dasein", literally "being there". What is left of the self is something that is always somewhere.

Husserl's transcendental ego is wholly transparent to itself; Dasein never is. Forever up to something, evading something, tempted toward inauthenticity, it stays partly hidden from itself, closer to Freud.

Put simply Husserl's pure self can see all of itself clearly. Heidegger's human being never can. Always busy with something, dodging something, tempted to follow the crowd, it stays partly hidden from itself. In this Heidegger is closer to Freud.

Shore leaves open whether Dasein radically thickens the subject, darker than Descartes', Kant's or Husserl's, or ends it: if subject and object are no longer apart, is there a subject?

Put simply Shore leaves it open. Does Heidegger's "Dasein" make the self far richer and darker than in Descartes, Kant or Husserl? Or does it end the self? If mind and world are no longer apart, is there still a subject?

Where Heidegger's Dasein could be read as either radicalizing or dissolving the subject, Sartre opts for the radically subjectivist reading: for him Dasein is, if anything, more of a subject.

Put simply Shore: Heidegger's "Dasein" (human existence) can be read as making the self more central or as dissolving it. Sartre takes the first reading as far as it goes: for him Dasein is, if anything, more of a self.

A cow or a plant merely is; a human being also exists, meaning it has to make itself through its own choices. Its essence lies in that existing.

Put simply Sartre: a cow or a plant simply is. A human being also "exists": it has to make itself through its own choices, and what it is lies in that making.

Following Husserl, Sartre keeps the human subject at the center: all meaning has its source there.

Put simply Sartre, following Husserl: the human being, the one who experiences and thinks, stays at the center, as the source of all meaning.

On Shore's gloss, Heidegger's picture puts intersubjectivity, in some sense, ahead of subjectivity: there is never a Dasein that is not already among other people.

Put simply Shore's reading of Heidegger: in a sense, relating to others comes before having a self, since you are always already in a world shared with other people.

Descartes's cogito, Husserl's transcendental ego, Heidegger's Dasein, Sartre's radical freedom: each keeps an indubitable self at the center, and Foucault's early work revolts against that sovereign subject.

Put simply Foucault's early work rebels against the "sovereign subject": the self that philosophers from Descartes to Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre kept at the center as the one thing beyond doubt.

For Shore, Heidegger's account of a being already on its way toward its own death strikes a visceral chord about the human condition that Descartes, Kant and Husserl never managed.

Put simply Shore: Heidegger's picture of human life as always already heading toward its own death speaks to the human condition at a gut level, in a way Descartes, Kant and Husserl never did.

Heidegger raises guilt then handles it unimpressively, yet it is inseparable from the situation he describes: thrown into a world where one must choose how, and how authentically, to live.

Put simply Shore: Heidegger raises guilt but handles it unimpressively. Yet guilt is bound up with his picture of us: thrown into a world we did not choose, where we must choose how, and how authentically, to live.

To be in the world from the outset is to be responsible for it from the outset; that responsibility goes everywhere with Dasein, an ontological trait, not a contingent tie.

Put simply Patočka: because we find ourselves in the world from the start, we are responsible for it from the start. That responsibility goes everywhere with us; it is part of what a human being is, not a chance tie.