Fallenness

Definition

Fallenness (Verfallen) is heidegger-martin's term for Dasein's everyday absorption in the world of its concern and the publicness of the they. "Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the 'world'" (Being and Time, §38, H. 175). This is not a negative evaluation or a "fall" from a higher state, but an existential structure: "In no case is a Dasein, untouched and unseduced by this way in which things have been interpreted, set before the open country of a 'world-in-itself'." Fallenness is characterized by temptation (Being-in-the-world is tempting), tranquilization (the they assures Dasein that everything is in order), alienation (Dasein is alienated from its ownmost potentiality-for-Being), and entanglement (Dasein is entangled in the they's interpretations).

Key Thinkers

• heidegger-martin — developed the concept in Being and Time (1927) as the third element of care (with existentiality and facticity); fallenness is Dasein's everyday Being alongside the ready-to-hand and Being-with Others in the they.
• arendt-hannah — critiques fallenness as the rise of the social; the household's concerns becoming public, conformism replacing action.

Related Concepts

• das-man — the they is the "who" of fallenness.
• everyday-life — fallenness is the mode of average everydayness.
• care — fallenness is one of the three equiprimordial elements of care (with existentiality and facticity).
• angst — anxiety reveals fallenness and individualizes Dasein from the they.
• being-in-the-world — fallenness is a mode of Being-in-the-world.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss fallenness:

• heidegger-1927-being-and-time — the foundational analysis (§38, §62); temptation, tranquilization, alienation, entanglement.
• arendt-1958-the-human-condition — the social as conformism; the they's tranquilization vs. action's disclosure.

Open Questions

• Is fallenness inevitable, or can Dasein exist authentically without falling?
• How does fallenness relate to spectacle and consumerism? Is consumer culture a form of fallenness?
• Can architecture resist fallenness, or is it always already complicit? everyday-life absorption they Verfallen