THE HEIDEGGERIAN CONCEPT OF DASEIN AND ITS ONTOLOGICAL MODALITY: DAS MAN

The paper presents a non-standard interpretation of the celebrated Heideggerian existential das Man in terms of its oft-underrated unity with Dasein—an entity of a special ontic-ontological prerogative. The present authors intend to highlight this essential theme in terms of the specific unity of Dasein being-in-the world, covering many subsequent and adjacent existentials in the analytics of the Heideggerian existential hermeneutics, especially Mitsein/Mitdasein. Dasein’s existence-essence is based on the structure of possibilities, and hence free, spontaneous choices, while Das Man is a concrete choice of a certain modus of existence rendering—as it were—all other modi invalid and non-operational. Although Heidegger is far from taking up an ethical or moral stance in its traditional understanding, he is quite adamant that the phenomenon of das Man invalidates a truly human project of existing one’s own possibilities—to wit—be oneself (Jemeines).

Capability Discovery for Automated Reasoning Systems

Automated reasoning systems such as theorem provers often employ interaction or cooperation with further reasoning software. Whereas in most cases the concrete choice of cooperating software is, to some extent, irrelevant, these systems are nevertheless often rigid in practice due to compatibility issues. In order to support more flexible cooperation schemes, a machine-readable description format for automated reasoning systems' capabilities is proposed. Additionally, a simple HTTP-based protocol for system and capability discovery is outlined. Both the format and the protocol are designed to be simple, extensible and easy to use with none to minor modifications for existing reasoning systems.