Disclosedness

Disclosedness — Heidegger’s Erschlossenheit — occupies a structural apex in Being and Time and, through that text’s long shadow, exercises considerable influence over the depth-psychological corpus that draws on existential phenomenology. For Heidegger, disclosedness is not a cognitive achievement but the ontological condition that first makes possible any encounter with entities, any self-understanding, or any genuine encounter with others. It names the way Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, is always already ‘there’ — opened out toward its situation, its possibilities, and the world’s significance — through the equiprimordial existentialia of state-of-mind (Befindlichkeit), understanding (Verstehen), and discourse (Rede). The corpus establishes several constitutive tensions: disclosedness is always co-present with its privative counterpart, closedness; it is irreducibly factical (thrown) rather than voluntarily inaugurated; and it oscillates between authentic and inauthentic modes, the latter characterised by idle talk and the levelling anonymity of ‘the They.’ Crucially, disclosedness is not solipsistic — Being-with and co-disclosedness of world are equiprimordial with it. The term matters to depth psychology because it furnishes a non-representationalist, non-introspective language for how psychic openness or closure is constituted at the level of being itself, prior to any reflective psychology.

In the library 12 passages

only in so far as Dasein has been disclosed has it also been closed off; and only in so far as entities within-the-world have been uncovered along with Dasein, have such entities… been covered up (hidden) or disguised. Disclosedness is essentially factical.

This passage establishes the constitutive co-implication of disclosedness and closedness, grounds disclosedness in thrownness, and asserts its irreducibly factical character as a structural feature of Dasein’s Being.

Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, 1962thesis

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the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, are states-of-mind and understanding. In understanding, there lurks the possibility of interpretation — that is, of appropriating what is understood.

This passage identifies the fundamental existentialia — state-of-mind and understanding — as the twin constituents of disclosedness, grounding the term in the structural analysis of Being-in-the-world.

Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, 1962thesis

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The disclosedness of the ‘there’ in understanding is itself a way of Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being.

Disclosedness is here identified as not a passive receptivity but an active mode of Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being, linking it directly to projective understanding and the structure of existence.

Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, 1962thesis

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As an existential state in which Dasein is disclosed, discourse is constitutive for Dasein’s existence. Hearing and keeping silent are possibilities belonging to discursive speech.

Discourse is here installed as a third equiprimordial constituent of disclosedness alongside state-of-mind and understanding, and silence is shown to presuppose rather than negate disclosedness.

Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, 1962thesis

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disclosedness has been constituted beforehand; accordingly, this disclosedness also goes to make up significance — that is to say, worldhood.

Disclosedness is shown to be the condition of possibility for worldhood and significance, embedding the term in Heidegger’s account of why entities can matter and have meaning for Dasein.

Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, 1962thesis

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Though it is founded upon Dasein’s disclosedness, the existential phenomenon of uncoveredness becomes a property which is present-at-hand but in which there still lurks a relational character.

This passage traces how the originary disclosedness of Dasein is the foundation upon which derivative, ontic uncoveredness is built, showing how disclosedness can be ontologically deformed into a present-at-hand property.