Heidegger, Dreyfus, and the Intelligibility of Practical Comportment
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2-2019
Description
Most scholars agree that meaning and intelligibility are central to Heidegger’s account of Dasein and Being-in-the-world, but there is some confusion about the nature of this intelligibility. In his debate with McDowell, Dreyfus draws on phenomenologists like Heidegger to argue that there are two kinds of intelligibility: a basic, nonconceptual, practical intelligibility found in practical comportment and a conceptual, discursive intelligibility. I explore two possible ways that Dreyfus might ground this twofold account of intelligibility in Heidegger: first in the distinction between the hermeneutic and apophantic “as”, and second in the presence and absence of the as-structure. I argue that neither approach succeeds because practical intelligibility is always already discursive and discursive articulation is a condition of practical comportment.
Citation Information
MacAvoy, Leslie A.. 2019. Heidegger, Dreyfus, and the Intelligibility of Practical Comportment. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology. Vol.50(1). 68-86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2018.1507419 ISSN: 0007-1773