This chapter compares Heidegger’s transcendental approach to social ontology with that found in Husserl. I argue that Husserl and Heidegger are united by the idea that ’the world’ or ’transcendence’ constitutes the most basic form of intersubjectivity, but that their different understandings of the concept of the world lead to divergent conceptions of both subjectivity and intersubjectivity. In short, Husserl takes the world to involve irreducible references to others since perceptual objects can only appear as real or as transcendent if we assume that they possess an inexhaustive number of unperceived aspects that are, in principle, available to other (transcendental) subjects. Heidegger, on the contrary, rejects both Husserl’s interest in objectivity and his notion of the transcendental subject. Instead, he claims that Dasein’s relation to the world must be understood in terms of practical and affective engagement within a field of possibilities, that is, in terms of existential projections. Accordingly, the most basic form of intersubjectivity is found in the transcendental necessity that the same field of entities can be subjected to a multitude of existential projections.

This chapter discusses Heidegger’s concept of authenticity and the extent to which it entails an individualism incompatible with his social ontological holism. I argue that Heidegger’s notion of authenticity does not refer to a process of individualisation in which individuals come to rely mostly or solely on their own abilities. Rather, it amounts to what I call an emphatic individuation in which Dasein ontically comes to understand its own nature. Rather than prescribing a set of beliefs or actions, I argue that authenticity requires Dasein to adopt a set of ontologically transparent second-order attitudes on its own existence. This solves two problems inherent to Heidegger’s conception of the self, namely, its lack of constancy (the capacity of the self to remain itself in changing situations) and autonomy (the capacity to commit to some possibilities rather than others). These problems are solved by the analysis of being-towards-death and conscience, respectively. I then consider what the demand for authenticity entails for Heidegger’s conception of face-to-face relations and his conception of historical communities and how it differs from moral obligations.

Chapter 5 deals with (asymmetric) differential object marking (DOM), a phenomenon occurring in over 300 languages whereby the object of a verb can be either marked or unmarked for morphological case, depending on a number of factors. These factors have to do with the individuation/prominence of the object, often its definiteness, specificity and animacy value. The chapter begins with illustrations of the phenomenon in several languages, showing its sensitivity to different properties of the object. The reasoning behind DOM is then discussed. Two specific proposals are considered: one treats DOM as a signal of higher transitivity; the other views it as a disambiguation mechanism whereby a non-prototypical object is marked and, as a result, not confused with the subject. In addition to features of the object, properties of the verb have been argued to play a role in DOM; this relation is considered in a separate section. Further, several cross-linguistic analyses of the phenomenon are reviewed.

Chapter 8 is devoted to generalizations and conclusions based on the data and analyses discussed in the previous chapters. A (non-exhaustive) list of relations that hold between various cases and semantic concepts is provided. It is proposed that case can be related to at least three broad semantic areas: tense and aspect; individuation; thematic roles and related concepts. Each of these types is illustrated. Further, it is pointed out that the relation between case and meaning is often indirect; moreover, defining the nature of this relation is, in many instances, subject to theory-internal considerations. The meaning component intuitively associated with a particular case can be contributed by four types of source: a lexical head (e.g. V), a functional head (e.g. Appl(icative)), the object DP and the case-marker. Only in the last instance is the relation between case and meaning direct.