Fallenness

Fallenness (Verfallenheit), as theorized in the McCormick source, designates not a fixed ontological state but a Modus—a modal inflection or existential modification—of Dasein's being-in-the-world. Crucially, the passage insists that inauthenticity and authenticity are not binary opposites but counter-possibilities of one another, each capable of modulating into the other along a scalar continuum. Fallenness is the downward trajectory of that continuum, the existential movement by which Dasein loses itself in the anonymous publicness of das Man, expressed linguistically through the spectrum that descends from Gerede (idle talk) toward pure Geschwätz (babble). It is not a fall from a prior paradise of authentic being but the very structure of average everydayness—Dasein's default mode of existing with others through language.

The theoretical weight of the concept lies in the word Modus (modification). By naming fallenness a modification rather than a state, Heidegger preserves the possibility of existentiell counter-movement—the ascending trajectory toward silence and resolve. For Lacan, this Heideggerian frame resonates structurally with the theory of alienation: just as fallenness is the modal condition from which authentic existence is not escaped but modified, Lacanian alienation is not a problem to be solved but the structural ground from which the subject's singular, symptomatic truth can only be approached obliquely. Both frameworks refuse a naïve recovery narrative—there is no pre-lapsarian fullness to return to, only a modal transformation of what is already, irreducibly, one's condition.

Within samuel-mccormick-the-chattering-mind-a-conceptual-history-of-everyday-talk-unive, Fallenness sits at the hinge of a broader argument about the ontological status of everyday discourse. The concept triangulates with Gerede and Authenticity and Inauthenticity: Gerede is the linguistic medium through which fallenness is enacted, while authenticity/inauthenticity names the modal poles between which Fallenness moves. Rather than treating Gerede as a mere defect to be cured, the text shows that fallenness — as Modus — is the very condition that makes authentic modification intelligible. This positions Fallenness as a specification of Gerede's ontological function: Gerede is not merely a bad habit but the medium of a structural existential trajectory.

The concept also cross-references Alienation and Language in a revealing way. Lacanian alienation, as the canonical definition makes clear, is not a contingent misfortune but the irreducible structural condition of the speaking subject — a permanent loss built into entry into the signifying chain. Fallenness operates analogously on the Heideggerian register: it is not an accident that befalls Dasein but Dasein's default mode of existing-with-others through language. The parallel suggests that McCormick's project is partly one of cross-theoretical alignment — showing that Heidegger's modal ontology of discourse and Lacan's structural account of alienation converge on the same insight: that inauthenticity/alienation is the ground, not the opposite, of any possible authentic or non-alienated existence. The cross-references to Potentiality, Subject, Sublation, and Topology further imply that Fallenness connects to questions of how the subject's possibilities are structured (potentiality), how modification rather than dialectical negation (sublation) governs existential change, and how these trajectories might be charted spatially (topology).

The Chattering Mind: A Conceptual History of Everyday TalkSamuel McCormick · 2020 (p.220)

When he characterizes falling as a 'Modus' of inauthenticity, he does not mean to define it as a singular way of being or fixed state of existence.

The theoretically loaded term here is Modus: by insisting on this word rather than "state" or "condition," the quote forecloses any reading of fallenness as a stable, essentialized ontological position, and instead opens it onto the logic of modal modification — implying that the same Dasein can traverse inauthenticity without being determined by it, which is precisely the structural move that aligns Heidegger's account with Lacan's non-dialectical, non-recoverable conception of alienation.