Another Beginning: On Birth, Childhood, and the Existential State of Being Human

We begin in concealment and symbiosis. With birth, we depart into the loneliness of our body. Dasein begins with the farewell into difference. The moment of birth has been described psychologically, pedagogically, biologically, and even sociologically. However, what is missing is to understand birth and childhood as ex-istential states of being human in order to disclose the ambiguous qualities of embodiment. This paper starts by contemplating the beginning(s) of Dasein from a late Heideggerian point of view (Über den Anfang, [1941] 2005). Different from Heidegger’s concern with the past as the “history of ideas,” however, this paper uses his vocabulary to disclose the concrete beginning of Dasein as embodied. On this basis, the paper will bring Heidegger’s ideas on the beginning in dialogue with James Mensch’s account of embodiment. The goal is to unfold the underlying complexity that arises from embodiment “ex-sisting” space and time.