idle talk

is a kind of inauthenticity (structured temporally by the past) consisting of hearing something without grasping the depth of the topic, and passing the word along, only to have it pass along still further.

In idle talk, Dasein hears something without grasping the depth of the topic, and passes the word along to other Daseins, who then pass it along still further.

is a form of inauthenticity (structured temporally by the past) which thinks that it understands everything it encounters while putting no work into seeing anything on its own.

Superficial writing (“scribbling”) and shallow reading (“skimming”) take the same form. It is impossible for the reader of any book to know how much of the material was grasped by the author with firsthand insight, and how much of it is just empty cliché heard from others and passed along as intellectual gossip. As a structure of the they, idle talk thinks that it understands everything, but puts no work into seeing anything on its own.

is roughly, conversing in a critically unexamined and unexamining way about facts and information while failing to use language to reveal their relevance.

“Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the world” (Being and Time 38: 220). Such fallen-ness into the world is manifested in idle talk (roughly, conversing in a critically unexamined and unexamining way about facts and information while failing to use language to reveal their relevance), curiosity (a search for novelty and endless stimulation rather than belonging or dwelling), and ambiguity (a loss of any sensitivity to the distinction between genuine understanding and superficial chatter).

idle talk, n.Definitions

idle talk