Augustine and Heidegger on Verticality and Everydayness

Abstract

The first part of the article examines how Augustine’s notion of the everyday is mediated by his mystical ascensions, which give him the sense of height against which everydayness appears as oriented downward or fallen. These are the coordinates that make up the fundamental verticality of Augustine’s view. Heidegger’s understanding of everydayness was influenced by Augustine, particularly its inherent tendency to fall. In the article’s second part, it is argued that Heidegger explicitly avoids all references to metaphysical or religious heights. For his reason, his notion of falling appears problematic as it both invokes and abandons verticality. Arguably, Heidegger’s turning from verticality to horizontality comes with a cost, as it must renounce the possibility of conceiving the radicality of the fall from a perspective from above. However, as the article’s final part shows, Heidegger and Augustine do not only provide a view of everydayness as falling, but they both share the conviction that there is more to it: Heidegger speaks of the enigmas rooted in everydayness itself, which, however, do not point above, but toward its overlooked sense of Being; Augustine invokes ordinary events as traces of wonder that point from the lowly up to the transcendence of God.