SEVEN PAPERS ON EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS ... - Wagner College

the first time. Evidently, this was the “something important” that had happened, the meaning of
which had been unfolding ever since. There was no need for me to comment.
As for other details, a year or so ago Will told me that he was found by a girlfriend and
had begun to dance—literally—for the first time in his life. Having been a spectator at social
gatherings, he had began to play with others in this way, dancing with them. He was no longer
interested in playing for others as a musician. I surmised that the play element of sex has also
become lively in his life, but there was reason to ask him about that.
6. In conclusion. I want to quote an observation by Heidegger in Being and Time that I
realize has played a large part in the development of my ideas about eros: “Höher als die
Wirklichkeit steht die Möglichkeit” (Heidegger, 1973, p. 63): “Higher than actuality stand
possibility” (Heidegger’s emphasis). I should append the sentence that follows and concludes
the powerful second “Introduction” to Heidegger’s work, since it is meaningful to those of us who
work phenomenologically in the human sciences. There he wrote: “Das Verständnis der
Phänmenologie liegt einzig im Ergreifen ihrer als Möglichkeit” (Heidegger, 1973, p. 489):
“Understanding phenomenology is possible only by seizing on it as a possibility.” In the footnote
to this sentence, by the way, Heidegger pays tribute to Husserl and their common undertaking,
“disclosing (Erschliessung) ‘the things themselves’.”
I, for my part, pay tribute to Will, who led me to see eros at play in existential analysis and,
in fact, everywhere in the world between human beings, for example as the source of deep
friendships, relationships that have very little currency in the postmodern world. Like anyone who
comes to meet with a psychotherapist, what was missing in “Billy’s” life was an occasion to
experience the genuine, passionate longing for and fascination with the prime indiscernible—
sheer possibility. As it happens and as will always be the case in existential analysis, which is a
venture of mutuality, he brought it—the prime indiscernible—to my life, too.
References
Bowlby, J. (1983) Attachment and loss (volume 1). New York: Basic Books.
Buber, M. (1970). I and thou. New York: Scribners.
Cantarella, E. (1988). Seconda Natura. Rome: Riuniti. Translated as Bisexuality in the ancient
world (1992). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Erikson, E. (1977). Toys and reasons: Stages in the ritualization of experience. New York: W.W.
Norton.
Foucault, M. (1977, 1984), The history of sexuality. 3 volumes. New York: Vintage.
Fromm, E. (1994). Escape from freedom. New York: Henry Holt.
Groos, K. (2005). The play of animals. Whitefish: Kessinger.
Groos, K. (2007). The play of man. Whitefish: Kessinger.
Halperin, D. (1990). Before sexuality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1973). Being and time. Oxford: Blackwell.