Abstract
This chapter contemplates how a university educator’s own living past is always in play, whether consciously or not. Who and how a person has already-been in the world continually reach them beyond the measurable time and space of historical experiences, influencing their everyday experiences and ways of being as an educator. This chapter also discusses how an educator’s ‘having-been’ and ‘not-having-been’ can sometimes be seen by others as a matter of concern. This chapter draws on Heidegger’s notion of ‘having-been-ness’ to illuminate variable ways that educators are always relating to their own having-been.
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Notes
- 1.
When considering this ontological dynamic, it is important to remember that our having-been cannot be isolated from the threefold horizon of lived time to which it belongs. Indeed, every moment of our existence is simultaneously orientated to a sense of who we are able to be, who we have-been and who we are (Blattner, 2006; Gibbs, 2011; Heidegger, 1962, 1995). In this chapter, as I contemplate how educators experience the play in relating to their own having-been, it is critical to bear in mind that this dimension is ontologically inseparable from the unified ‘threefold horizon of [lived] time’ (Heidegger, 1995, p. 145; van Manen, 1990).
- 2.
For example, when I go to watch my children perform in a school concert, my sense that I have been a cricketer is not likely to come up for me, or for others with whom I am involved in this occasion, as mattering (unless perhaps there happens to be a cricket-related song). And yet, this aspect of my having-been-ness is more in play, whether explicitly or not, when I go to join my friends for a game of cricket.
- 3.
For example, a new father who is thrown into the fresh situation of caring for his newborn might find his having been something else (e.g. a musician) temporarily withdrawing from him, whereas prior to the birth event of his child, his having been a musician was tacitly informing how he was pressing ahead into his future possibilities (Blattner, 2006; Dreyfus, 1991).
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Spier, J. (2018). Being as ‘Having-been’. In: Heidegger and the Lived Experience of Being a University Educator . Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71516-2_4
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