Heidegger rejects consciousness-as-container or intentional-aboutness models of mind

Evidence

Heidegger does not use the word ‘consciousness’ here because — as with his earlier work — he is trying to make us think in a radically different way about ourselves. We are not to think of the mind as an empty cavern, or as a container filled with representations of things. We are not even supposed to think of it as firing off arrows of intentional ‘aboutness’, as in the earlier phenomenology of Brentano. Instead, Heidegger draws us into the depths of his Schwarzwald, and asks us to imagine a gap with sunlight filtering in. We remain in the forest, but we provide a relatively open spot where other beings can bask for a moment. If we did not do this, everything would remain in the thickets, hidden even to itself. To alter the metaphor, there would be no room for beings to emerge from their shell. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 592

Categorization

• XREF: Shows Heidegger’s break from Brentano’s intentionality, connecting to Husserl’s phenomenology covered earlier in the book. — connects to: Heidegger coined Dasein to avoid the assumptions carried by words like mind and consciousness. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 201; Heideggerian truth is unconcealment, not mere statement-world correspondence — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 590; Transcendental imagination holds being and non-being in co-implication as relative non-being — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 897
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does Heidegger’s clearing metaphor compare with the later Dasein-based stance of Being and Time, and does he ultimately re-admit something like consciousness?

Broader Connections

• Transcendental imagination holds being and non-being in co-implication as relative non-being #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 897