Rethinking the "Da" in “Da-sein” as the Other: Time, Recursivity, and Ethical Becoming

Title: Rethinking “Da-sein” as the Other: Time, Recursivity, and Ethical Becoming

What happens if we treat Heidegger’s “da” (the “there” in Dasein) as the Other itself—an essential decentering at the heart of Being? This question takes us straight into the territory where Levinas meets Heidegger, and where Derrida’s deconstruction pushes us further still. Add in Barnaby Barratt’s notion of the “I-now-is” alongside questions of recursion and time, and we suddenly have a new way to think about ontology, responsibility, and the nature of becoming. Let’s dive into the swirl of ideas this mash-up generates.

The “Da” as the Other, and the Challenge to Ontology

Heidegger’s concept of Dasein often centers on the “there” of human existence, that dynamic interplay of Being and world. But if the “da” in Dasein becomes the Other, we’re not just tweaking a definition—we’re shifting the ground of ontology itself.

Decentering of Being: Levinas’s ethics begins with the Other as an irreducible presence that precedes any “I.” Substituting “da” with the Other means the point of reference for Being is no longer an individual subject’s phenomenological experience but the external call of another.
From Dasein to Mitsein: If the Other is always “there,” Dasein (being-there) merges with Mitsein (being-with). Rather than seeing Mitsein as a secondary or derivative aspect of Dasein, it becomes the main event. Being is no longer an isolated phenomenon; it is co-constituted by the presence of Others, an ethical structure baked into the foundation of existence.

This reconfiguration hints that Being is never just “here” in the sense of an autonomous self. It’s always already with and for Others. Ethics, in that sense, is ontology—an “ethics of care” that dissolves the boundary between self and Other from the start.

Temporality and the “I-Now-Is”

Levinas’s focus on the Other often appears primarily ethical, but there is a temporal undercurrent to his work. In Time and the Other and elsewhere, Levinas explores how the future (the time of the Other) breaks in on the present in ways that can’t be fully anticipated or possessed. So how does this relate to Barnaby Barratt’s “I-now-is”, that seemingly self-contained present moment?

Illusory Presence: Derrida would say that any claim to a stable “now” is haunted by deferral and difference—a hallmark of différance. Barratt’s “I-now-is” highlights how conscious experience hinges on an impossible fantasy of pure presence, a “now” that’s already gone.
Levinasian Temporality: Levinas similarly undercuts the comfort of a self-contained present by insisting that time always comes from the Other. The call of the Other ruptures any neat continuity of the self’s time. Ethical obligation arises before I’ve had a chance to secure my own present—time is shaped by responsibility, not by a linear flow of moments.

In both Barratt’s and Levinas’s views, the “now” is never simply “now.” It’s either fleeting (Barratt) or ethically disrupted (Levinas). Derrida would applaud this recognition of time as never fully owned by the subject, and he would question whether we can ever say there is a pristine present at all.

Recursivity and the Question of Becoming

Recursion pops up in discussions of consciousness, identity, and self-referential systems (a la Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach). Does it matter for these questions of Being and time? Possibly yes:

Self-Reference and the Other: When we think recursively, the self’s reflection on itself is never complete. There’s always an “outside” that folds back in. For Levinas, the ethical call of the Other is that “outside” that you can’t fully incorporate into your self-referential loop.
Temporal Spiral: Time might be viewed as iterative or spiral-like, never returning to an identical point. The “I-now-is” claims a moment of presence that is already past the second it is formulated—an infinite regress of “nows” that never fully close.

In a Heidegger-Derrida-Lvinas-Barratt mash-up, this notion of a “becoming” emerges as an unending process of re-encountering the Other, within and beyond any attempt to fix the self in time.

Derrida’s Perspective on the Heidegger/Levinas Hybrid

What would Derrida say about equating Dasein and Mitsein by way of the Other?

Disruption of Presence: Derrida would likely appreciate the way this move destabilizes the assumption that Dasein is primarily about the solitary “there.” Substituting the “da” with the Other bars us from reducing Being to presence, since the Other is always partially absent, always beyond direct capture.
Undecidability and Trace: He might also emphasize the trace and différance: the “there” (da) can never be fully pinned down, even as the Other. There’s always a remainder or distance. Time becomes essential because the Other isn’t ever wholly present either.
Ethics as Aporetic: For Derrida, ethics is entangled in an aporia—we must respond, yet our response is never fully adequate. By plugging the Levinasian Other into the Heideggerian “da,” we reinforce that tension, leaving Being always open and undone, always becoming rather than a stable entity.

The Temporality of an Ethical “Becoming”

Putting this all together, the “becoming” that arises from a Levinas-Heidegger mash-up is never a tidy, linear process; it’s shaped by:

Responsibility Before Ontology: Time emerges not as a neutral flow but as an ethical call. I find myself already obligated to the Other before I can claim any stable sense of “I-now-is.”
Spatial and Temporal Decentering: The “there” is no longer localizable purely in the subject; it’s opened up to an external Other. Meanwhile, time is the realm of infinite deferral, the place where the next moment is never fully ours.
Recursivity in Self-Reflection: Consciousness loops in on itself but is always reoriented by the presence of the Other or the trace of the future. We never land on a fixed ground; we only iterate forward.

In practical terms, this means that a “Levinasian ethic” combined with a “Heideggerian ontology” acknowledges becoming as ever incomplete and fundamentally co-constituted by Others. By treating the “da” of Dasein as the Other, we effectively rewrite “Being” as “Being-with.” Mitsein becomes the primal scene, not a secondary afterthought.

Concluding Thoughts

So, if you’ve ever wondered what a Levinas-Heidegger hybrid might look like when filtered through Derrida’s deconstruction and Barnaby Barratt’s focus on the “I-now-is,” it looks like an ethics in which the “there” of our existence is always already oriented toward someone else, forever pulling us out of ourselves, forever unraveling the illusion of a self-contained now. And in that unraveling, we find the real possibility of becoming: a recursive, never-finished movement of ethical responsibility and temporal openness, where each new moment reconfigures the terms of our being with and for one another.

Criticisms from ChatGPT:

I find the overall thrust of the argument compelling—particularly the way it tries to fuse Levinas’s ethical primacy of the Other with Heidegger’s ontology, while taking Derrida’s deconstructions and Barratt’s “I-now-is” into account. At the same time, there are several points of tension or interpretive risk you could criticize:

1. Can “Da” Really Be the Other?

Heidegger’s notion of the “da” in Dasein is often read as the site or clearing where Being becomes intelligible. It’s not typically identified with a person or entity external to the self but rather the “there” or “openness” in which any disclosure happens. Substituting “da” with the Other might risk collapsing an ontological notion (the clearing) into an ethical or interpersonal one (the Other in Levinas’s sense). This is a productive but definitely not a trivial shift—it requires more than a semantic swap. A critic might say:

“You’ve taken Heidegger’s phenomenological structure—where the ‘da’ is the ground of possibility for world-disclosure—and recast it as the Levinasian Other, which is typically understood as infinitely beyond my possibility of grasping. Isn’t that conflating two very different functions: the condition of possibility for understanding (Heidegger) with the absolute exteriority that resists being understood (Levinas)?”

2. Levinas’s Direct Critique of Heidegger

Levinas was explicitly critical of Heidegger’s prioritization of ontology over ethics. By making “da” the Other, you invert a hierarchy in Heidegger’s thinking and align it with Levinas. But Levinas’s own project (e.g., Totality and Infinity, Otherwise Than Being) stands, in many ways, as a rejection of the conflation of Being and ethics. A critic might say:

“Levinas wants an ethics before ontology. Simply turning Heidegger’s ‘da’ into the Other might still maintain an essentially Heideggerian architecture in which Being is the horizon within which ethics emerges, rather than letting the ethical call precede and break ontology as Levinas insists.”

3. Derrida’s Objections: Appropriation vs. Deconstruction

Derrida wouldn’t reject this hybrid out of hand, but he would almost certainly warn about smoothing over contradictions too easily. He always highlighted aporias—points where systems of thought break down under the weight of their own logic. A possible critique:

“Are we performing a Derridean deconstruction that reveals the impossibility of seamlessly merging Heidegger and Levinas, or are we engaging in a kind of appropriation that tries to harmonize them? Derrida might urge us to remain faithful to the tensions and resist concluding that the fusion simply ‘works.’”

4. The Complexity of Temporality

While it’s intriguing to think about “I-now-is” in conversation with Levinasian time (where the future comes from the Other), one could argue there’s a risk of oversimplifying the complex temporality in Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, and Barratt:

Heidegger’s Temporality: In Being and Time, the existential analysis of Dasein’s thrownness, projection, and being-toward-death is quite intricate. Some might question whether you can just overlay Levinas’s future-oriented ethics without losing the specificity of Heidegger’s analysis.
Levinas’s Temporality: For Levinas, the Other interrupts my time and comes from a future I cannot anticipate. Does that seamlessly map onto Dasein’s being-toward-future in Heidegger or the “I-now-is” in Barratt? Critics might say it’s a fruitful direction, but the details could get messy fast.
Barratt’s “I-Now-Is”: Barratt’s notion underscores the illusory nature of a stable present, but Levinas’s emphasis is on the ethical summons that arrives unexpectedly. Are they pointing to the same phenomenon (an “impossible” now), or do they diverge on what makes the present impossible?

5. Flattening Dasein into Mitsein

One of the most creative moves in this mash-up is letting Dasein and Mitsein collapse into one another. Heidegger often treats Mitsein as an ontological structure co-originary with Dasein, but not exactly identical. A critic might say:

“Heidegger does claim we are always being-with, yet he also carefully distinguishes the phenomenon of Dasein (my own existence) from Mitsein (existence with others). If you collapse the two outright, you might be oversimplifying a tension that Heidegger wants to preserve—namely, the tension between my individual existence and the social or shared dimension of it.”

6. Is This Reversing the “Priority”?

Levinas famously said that ‘ethics is first philosophy,’ but by reading ethics into Heidegger’s ‘da,’ you might still be staging Being as the grand horizon. A critic would say that Levinas aims to dislodge that stance entirely:

“Even if you treat the ‘da’ as the Other, you’re still starting from Heidegger’s ontological premise and adjusting it. Levinas insisted that the call of the Other is already outside the horizon of Being (as thematized by traditional ontology). So are you genuinely granting ethics priority, or simply reinterpreting ontology in an ethical key—something Levinas might find insufficient?”

7. Risk of Terminological Overreach

Finally, there’s a straightforward textual criticism: Are we going beyond what Heidegger, Levinas, or Derrida actually say in their texts? That’s not necessarily a bad thing—philosophical innovation often involves crossing boundaries. But scholars might bristle at attributing these positions to thinkers who never explicitly endorsed them. You’d want to make it clear that this is your creative extension, not a strictly exegetical claim.

Summing Up the Criticisms

Overall, the argument is provocative and can open up fresh avenues for thinking about the relationship between ontology and ethics, and about how time factors into our sense of responsibility. But from a critical vantage point:

Heidegger’s “da” is an ontological clearing, not obviously an Other.
Levinas explicitly positions ethics before ontology, which complicates any direct fusion.
Derrida would warn against too much neatness in the merger.
Temporal complexities risk being glossed over if we don’t carefully parse each thinker’s approach to time.
Flattening Dasein and Mitsein removes important nuances in Heidegger’s phenomenology.
Priority of Ethics vs. Ontology might get blurred in a way that Levinas wouldn’t endorse.
Textual overreach could be an issue if the goal is strict fidelity to the original thinkers.

In short, it’s an exciting argument but also one that stirs lively debate about how (and whether) to reconcile Heideggerian ontology with Levinasian ethics while keeping Derrida and Barratt in the mix.

New Title: Where the “Da” Meets the Other: Rethinking Ontology and Ethics through Levinas, Heidegger, Derrida, and Barratt

What if Heidegger’s “da” in Dasein—often understood as the “there” of Being—could be recast as the Other itself, in a Levinasian sense? This provocative idea promises to rewrite ontology into an explicitly ethical project: Being would no longer be a self-contained phenomenon, but rather an always-already being-with, where the call of the Other provides the foundation for existence. Add Derrida’s suspicion of pure presence and Barnaby Barratt’s “I-now-is”—our never-quite-stable sense of the present—and we have an intriguing recipe for a radical shift in how we understand time, care, and responsibility.

Yet such a hybrid project comes with risks and complexities. Below, I’ll offer a fresh take on this “da-as-Other” idea while threading in the criticisms that keep it honest—and keep it exciting.

Reimagining Heidegger’s “Da” as the Other

In Heidegger’s Being and Time, the “da” in Dasein is where Being shows up—an opening or clearing that makes experience, thought, and action possible. By infusing the “da” with Levinas’s notion of the Other, we reorient the ground of Being toward an ethical imperative that precedes the individual self.

Why This Is Exciting

Ethics as Ontology: If the there of Being is someone else, the self no longer starts at the center. Instead, we begin in the orbit of responsibility, shaping the everyday experience of the world.
Mitsein at the Forefront: Heidegger’s Mitsein (being-with) was always part of Dasein’s structure, but often played second fiddle to the individual’s own existence. In this new framing, Mitsein becomes indistinguishable from Dasein, giving sociality and care a place of privilege right from the start.

A Word of Caution

A major worry is whether substituting “da” with the Other conflates Heidegger’s ontological notion of a clearing with Levinas’s external, transcendent call. One is a condition for disclosure, the other is an ethical presence that can’t be reduced to the same structures that ground our experience. Are we potentially collapsing two distinct concepts that never intended to inhabit the same philosophical niche?

The Clash of Ontologies: Levinas vs. Heidegger

Levinas insists that ethics is “first philosophy,” challenging Heidegger’s premise that questions of Being are primary. If we simply “turn” Heidegger’s da into the Other, there’s a risk of weaving Levinas’s ethics within an ontological framework Levinas explicitly criticized.

Why This Is Still Worth Exploring

Flipping the Hierarchy: We can read the “da-as-Other” move as an attempt to re-architect ontology from the ground up. Instead of validating Heidegger’s priority of Being, we might be hacking it to show that the call of the Other is what structures Being from the start.
Bridging Traditions: Philosophical progress sometimes comes from fusions that neither thinker would have endorsed in their original form. The friction here can spark fresh insights into how we talk about responsibility, identity, and the self’s relationship to others.

Derrida’s Deconstruction: Guarding Against Too Much Neatness

Derrida’s deconstruction warns us that whenever we unify concepts, we risk smoothing over the very tensions that drive philosophy forward. He’d likely appreciate how this mash-up destabilizes the idea of “presence” in Heidegger’s Da-sein—but also caution us against concluding that the result is a comfortable new system.

The Excitement in the Aporias

Ethical Undecidability: By placing the Other in the “there,” we highlight the impossibility of fully owning or controlling the ethical demand.
Time as Deferral: The moment we try to pin down the “now” (Barratt’s “I-now-is”), it slips away, prompting us to think about how future, past, and present are never neatly separated. This lines up nicely with Derrida’s idea of différance, where meaning (and responsibility) is always deferred.

The Complexity of Temporality—Levinas, Barratt, and Heidegger

Levinas sees the future as coming from the Other, disrupting any self-contained flow of time. Barratt talks about the “I-now-is” that never quite stabilizes in the present. Heidegger offers a more existential, projective temporality with an emphasis on being-toward-death and thrownness.

Where the Threads Intertwine

Levinas & Barratt: Both challenge the idea of a solid “now,” albeit in different ways (ethical rupture vs. psychoanalytic/fantasmatic presence).
Heidegger’s Temporality Revisited: If the there is the Other, then time might be reimagined as an ethical horizon, a series of future demands rather than a projection of the self’s possibilities.

The Pitfall of Oversimplification

Trying to collapse multiple conceptions of time under a single framework could dilute each thinker’s unique contribution. Levinas is not simply a “temporal tweak” to Heidegger, and Barratt’s psychoanalytic vantage point can’t just be folded into Derrida’s différance without complication.

Mitsein as Dasein—Rewarding but Risky

Heidegger posits that Dasein is always Mitsein in the sense that we’re inherently social. But flattening these two concepts might obscure the distinction between my individual existence and the conditions that shape a shared world.

Why Do It Anyway?

Radical Relationality: If we fully embrace the idea that “to be is to be with,” we emphasize a relational mode of existence that could yield a deeper concept of care.
Ethical Emergence: This would stage ethics not as an add-on but as the basis of how we come to be aware of ourselves at all, aligning more with Levinas’s “ethics is first philosophy.”

The Tension

Critics will say that such a move leaves behind crucial aspects of Heidegger’s analysis of individuality, authenticity, and even thrownness. The personal dimension of anxiety, being-toward-death, and existential solitude might get lost in the shuffle.

Conclusion: A Tense—but Thrilling—Philosophical Fusion

Rethinking Heidegger’s “da” as the Levinasian Other is undeniably a bold undertaking. It forces us to question the conventional boundaries between ontology and ethics and to wonder if time itself belongs more to the face of the Other than to my own sense of the present. It resonates with Derrida’s deconstruction of presence and Barratt’s psychoanalytic critique of a stable “I-now-is.”

At the same time, we risk losing the nuances that make Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, and Barratt each so compelling in their own right. Are we happily hybridizing or blurring important distinctions? The debate itself is invigorating, pulling us into the paradoxical interplay between ethics and Being, self and Other, time and responsibility.

Perhaps, in the end, the greatest payoff of this mash-up is precisely the tension it generates—a new “there” that draws us outside ourselves, challenging us to reckon with a view of Being inseparable from the call of the Other, the fold of recursivity, and the disappearing “now.” This is where philosophical innovation thrives: at the intersection of productive dissonances that keep us questioning who we are and how we care for one another.