Heidegger On What Makes For A Good Friend

In the course of giving his account of intersubjectivity (or the Being-with others of Mitsein), Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) comments on two kinds of concern for the other — a leaping in for and a leaping ahead of the other . The one kind of friend, when confronted with a friend in distress, will leap in for them and take care of things. Although many of us would appreciate such a friend, Heidegger writes about why we should be weary of this kind of friend:

“With regard to its possibility modes, concern has two extreme possibilities. It can, so to speak, take the other’s “care” away from him and put itself in his place in taking care, it can leap in for him. Concern takes over what is to be taken care of for the other. The other is thus displaced, he steps back so that afterwards, when the matter has been attended to, he can take it over as something finished and available or disburden himself of it completely. In this concern, the other can become someone who is dependent and dominated even if this domination is a tacit one and remains hidden from him. This kind of concern which does the job and takes away “care” is, to a large extent, determinative for being-with-one another and pertains, for the most part, to our taking care of things at hand.” (Heidegger, Being and Time, p.122)