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Still, is there not one severe shortcoming in our characterization thus far of Dascin as Intentional Life of Man? Even though the texts we have cited thus far go beyond subject-object polarity and by that very fact require a non- subject-ist (and a-fortiori non-subjective) analysis, still, insofar as they make reference to the world of awareness, they do so by reference to concepts, elements of explicit awareness (albeit as pure media quo). Therefore, though they doubtless indicate a generally unthematized dimension in Thomism, they do so at the level of (what Heidegger would call) our "ontic comportment" with beings. To simply identify Dasein with the intentional life in these terms, at the level of explicit thought, is to destroy the very possibility of an authentic retrieve of Heidegger I: "Any attempt to re-think Being and Time is thwarted as long as one is satisfied with the observation that, in this study, the term Dasein is used in place of"consciousness";"¹ because "consciousness does not itself create the openness of Beings, nor is it consciousness that makes it possible for man to stand open for beings,"² whereas Dasein does. It is not a question of consciousness, but of the Being of consciousness.³

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-3025-0_7

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