Das Man (The They)

Heidegger's name for the Wer (who) of everyday Dasein — not a sociological aggregate or "the masses" but an Existenzial: a structural-existential feature of how Dasein is. "Jeder ist der Andere und Keiner er selbst. Das Man, mit dem sich die Frage nach dem Wer des alltäglichen Daseins beantwortet, ist das Niemand, dem alles Dasein im Untereinandersein sich je schon ausgeliefert hat" (Sein und Zeit § 27, H. 128). The das Man is everywhere and nowhere; it dictates what one thinks, feels, judges, and chooses — and in dictating, entlastet (disburdens) each Dasein of the weight of decision. "Das Man ist ein Existenzial und gehört als ursprüngliches Phänomen zur positiven Verfassung des Daseins" (§ 27, H. 129).

Key Points

  • An Existenzial, not a sociological category. Das Man is not the empirical "people," "the masses," or the statistical-typical individual. It is the existential structure that makes any sociological "one" possible. The traditional logic that takes the one as the species of which I would be a case "hat ihr Fundament in einer überdies noch rohen Ontologie des Vorhandenen" (SuZ § 27, H. 129) — a categorial confusion of Existenzialien with Kategorien.
  • The five structures. The das Man articulates into Abständigkeit (distantiality — the constant low-level care about how-one-stands-vis-à-vis-others), Durchschnittlichkeit (averageness — what one does, what one finds), Einebnung aller Seinsmöglichkeiten (leveling-down — every exceptional possibility silently held in check), Öffentlichkeit (publicness — the regulation of all Welt- and Daseinsauslegung by the one-stance), and Seinsentlastung (being-disburdening — the Man takes responsibility, and so each Dasein is relieved of it). These five together constitute the Diktatur des Man (§ 27, H. 126).
  • The Man-selbst. The everyday self is the Man-selbst (one-self), distinguished from the eigentliche (own) Self. "Als Man-selbst ist das jeweilige Dasein in das Man zerstreut und muß sich erst finden" (§ 27, H. 129). The Man-selbst is not "false consciousness"; it is the structural condition of any "finding-oneself." Eigentliches Selbstsein is "eine existenzielle Modifikation des Man als eines wesenhaften Existenzials" (§ 27, H. 130) — a modification of, not a flight from, the das-Man-structure.
  • Mitsein is equiprimordial with In-der-Welt-sein. Other Dasein is not encountered by inference from the inner self outward; Mitsein (being-with) is constitutive of Dasein's structure (SuZ § 26). One does not first have a self, then meet others; one is always already in a Mitwelt (with-world) with others. The das Man is the everyday Wer of this Mitsein.
  • The Diktatur des Man is unauffällig (unobtrusive). "In dieser Unauffälligkeit und Nichtfeststellbarkeit entfaltet das Man seine eigentliche Diktatur" (§ 27, H. 126). What dictates is what one cannot identify or contest. The das Man's invisibility is structural, not accidental. "Wir genießen und vergnügen uns, wie man genießt; wir lesen, sehen und urteilen über Literatur und Kunst, wie man sieht und urteilt; wir ziehen uns aber auch vom 'großen Haufen' zurück, wie man sich zurückzieht; wir finden 'empörend', was man empörend findet" (§ 27, H. 126–127). Even rebellion against the großer Haufen is in the mode of "how one rebels."
  • Das Man and death. The das Man's signature handling of death (SuZ § 51): "Man stirbt am Ende auch einmal, aber zunächst bleibt man selbst unbetroffen" — one dies eventually, but for now one remains untouched. This averaging-away converts the jemeinige possibility of sein-zum-tode into a public event befalling no one in particular, and is the most consequential mode of Verdeckung.

Details

Why an Existenzial, not a sociological structure

The traditional move — treating the "one" as the statistical-typical member of a population or as a hypostatized "general subject" — already projects Vorhandenheit onto a phenomenon whose Seinsart is not presence-at-hand. "Das Man ist auch nicht so etwas wie ein 'allgemeines Subjekt', das über mehreren schwebt" (§ 27, H. 129–130). What constitutes the das Man is not a feature shared by all individual Daseins (which would make it a Kategorial) but the structural way each Dasein is in being-with-others. The das Man names a mode of being, not a quantity of beings.

Abständigkeit, Durchschnittlichkeit, Einebnung

The three together constitute Öffentlichkeit:

  • Abständigkeit (distantiality): the constant low-level "Sorge um einen Unterschied gegen die Anderen" — the care about how I stand vis-à-vis others, even (and especially) in the form of trying to be like them. "Das Miteinandersein ist – ihm selbst verborgen – von der Sorge um diesen Abstand beunruhigt" (§ 27, H. 126).
  • Durchschnittlichkeit (averageness): the orientation toward "what one does," "what one finds significant," "what one accomplishes." Every exception is "geräuschlos niedergehalten" — silently held in check; "Alles Ursprüngliche ist über Nacht als längst bekannt geglättet" (§ 27, H. 127).
  • Einebnung aller Seinsmöglichkeiten (leveling-down of all possibilities of being): the operative effect of the previous two — every existential possibility that exceeds the average is leveled to what is already familiar.

Seinsentlastung as the structural attractor

Seinsentlastung (being-disburdening) is the positive feature that makes the das Man stable: it relieves each Dasein of the weight of decision and responsibility, and Dasein responds to the relief by entrenching the das Man further. "Das Man kann es sich gleichsam leisten, daß 'man' sich ständig auf es beruft. Es kann am leichtesten alles verantworten, weil keiner es ist, der für etwas einzustehen braucht" (§ 27, H. 127). The das Man's resilience is not coercive but seductive: it offers the structural advantage of unburdened existence.

The das Man and authentic existence

Eigentliches Selbstsein (authentic self-being) is not a state purified of the das Man. It is "eine existenzielle Modifikation des Man als eines wesenhaften Existenzials" (§ 27, H. 130). The das Man is the Existenzial whose existentiell modification is the authentic self. There is no Cartesian retreat to an inner kernel; the authentic self is how one inhabits the das-Man-structure in a particular existentiell mode. This is the most counter-intuitive feature of Heidegger's analysis: the authentic self is not the opposite of the das Man, not its abolition, not the retreat from public existence — it is a modal transformation of das-Man-existence.

Connection to Verfallen and Gerede

The das Man is the existential structure within which Verfallen (falling) operates. Verfallen is the constitutive tendency of Dasein to interpret itself out of "the world" and to flee from its own Unheimlichkeit (not-at-homeness, anxiety). Gerede (idle talk), Neugier (curiosity), and Zweideutigkeit (ambiguity) are the three structures of Verfallen (SuZ §§ 35–38), all operative within the das-Man-mode. The das Man is the medium, Verfallen is the movement, and Gerede/Neugier/Zweideutigkeit are the modes in which Dasein flees itself toward "the world."

Why MP would underline §§ 25–27 specifically

Per the supported claim claims#mp-heidegger-reception-archivally-thin, MP's personal copy of S&Z is underlined exactly at §§ 1–14 and §§ 25–27 — no annotations. The §§ 25–27 selection is striking: these are precisely the sections on Mitsein, Mitdasein, das Man — the existential structure of co-existence and the everyday self. MP's own concerns with intersubjectivity, the anonymous or general subject of perception, and the body's pre-personal opening are partially continuous with das-Man-territory while resisting the Heideggerian framing (das Man as a leveling-down). The shared underlining suggests that MP found Heidegger's question about the everyday Wer of being-with-others compelling, even as he developed another answer through the body.

Connections

  • is the everyday Wer of dasein — the existential structure of average everydayness.
  • is the medium within which sorge operates as Verfallen — the Sein-bei-moment of Sorge, in its everyday mode, is fallen-into-das-Man.
  • handles sein-zum-tode by averaging it away — "man stirbt" as the das-Man's existential-structural Verdeckung of jemeinige death (SuZ § 51).
  • is the existential ground of which MP's underlining of SuZ §§ 25–27 is the archival trace — MP marked exactly the das-Man-section, no annotations.
  • contrasts with (but is not equivalent to) the MP-corpus's anonymous subject of perception, prepersonal body, and generalité du corps — see anonymous-life and related pages. MP's anonymous structures are not leveling-down phenomena; they are pre-personal phenomenological strata. The das-Man / anonymous-body comparison is a cross-tradition resonance that needs explicit philological care; flagged as a false-friend candidate pending careful adjudication.
  • is the locus classicus developed in heidegger-1927-sein-und-zeit §§ 25–27, with related Verfallen-analyses at §§ 35–38.
  • has the Mitwelt / Mitsein / Mitdasein analysis as immediate antecedent — SuZ §§ 25–26.
  • is later partially modified by heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i and the post-Kehre essays — the das-Man-vocabulary fades after S&Z and is partially replaced by the Vermenschlichung / Machenschaft / Ge-stell register that addresses the epochal leveling rather than the everyday one. The continuity from das-Man to Ge-stell (via Vermenschlichung) is a candidate for the weave Pass 3 isomorphism scan.

Open Questions

  • Is the das-Man-analysis dependent on a particular sociological moment? The 1920s mass-society backdrop (newspapers, public transport, public lighting — all cited at SuZ § 15 H. 71 in the Zeug-analysis and at § 27) gives the das Man a sociological coloration that the existential frame disavows. Whether the das-Man-structure can survive radical changes in Öffentlichkeit (e.g., the digital public sphere) is a live interpretive question.
  • Is "das Man = inauthentic" a misreading? Heidegger insists that das Man is positively constitutive of Dasein and that authentic self is a modification of das Man (§ 27, H. 129–130). The standard "Heidegger on conformism" reading treats das Man as something to be overcome, but Heidegger's text resists this. The wiki should flag this as a perennial misreading rather than as the canonical interpretation.
  • What is the relation between Seinsentlastung and modern Ge-stell / cybernetic distribution of responsibility? The 1964 cybernetic-Vollendung specification (martin-heidegger §"The 1964 Cybernetic-Vollendung Specification") suggests that das-Man's Seinsentlastung finds its epochal-technological completion in the cybernetic dispersal of decision. This is a candidate genealogical-claim for audit Phase 8.

Sources

  • heidegger-1927-sein-und-zeit — §§ 25–27 are the locus classicus, with related analyses at §§ 35–38 (Gerede, Neugier, Zweideutigkeit, Verfallen) and § 51 (das Man and death). Key locations: § 26 (Mitdasein, H. 117–125), § 27 (definition: H. 126; Diktatur des Man: H. 126–127; Seinsentlastung: H. 127–128; Man-selbst: H. 129; das Man as Existenzial: H. 129; eigentliches Selbst as modification: H. 130).