Graduate 104: BT 02: Sec. 01

Introduction, Chapter 1. The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being
Section 01. The Necessity for Explicitly Restating the Question of Being

In Being and Time, Heidegger sets out to revive and treat the question of the meaning of being, which, he says, has been simultaneously ignored and taken for granted in the history of philosophy. Now for those who are not practiced in philosophy (and even for me) the "question of the meaning of being" can strike as particularly obscure and difficult to grasp, even just as a question. What are we asking when we ask, "What is the meaning of being?" Unfortunately for my readers, my understanding is still too vague to give any very concretely helpful answer. Investigations of this sort go back to Plato and Aristotle and those in the Medieval era (including Thomas Aquinas) who commentated on and developed their work.

It will be part of Heidegger's task to clarify just what is being asked. That will be especially important for making clear how past investigations into the meaning of being have gone wrong. But for now, it will be enough to offer a few initial ideas as a way of sparking thinking along these lines: to begin with, being is that attribute or characteristic (where these words are treated very loosely) of existent things in virtue of which they "are" in the most fundamental way. (It is not erroneous to see a close connection between 'being' and the various forms of the verb 'to be', though that connection must be clarified.) Take an apple; it is possible to say many things about an apple: "The apple is red." "The apple is falling." "The apple is sweet." "The apple is next to the orange." But behind all these statements about the apple, lies a more basic and fundamental truth that can be expressed (albeit somewhat awkwardly) by the assertion, "The apple is." In this last usage, the verb "is" seems to be used in a manner different from all the other uses. For instance, we could deny all of the first four statements and still be speaking of an apple (a green, stationary, tart apple that is sitting next to a watermelon, for instance). But could we deny the fifth statement and still be speaking about "the apple"? It seems not, since to deny the fifth statement is to deny that there is any apple (within the particular context of discourse). This meaning of this most basic or fundamental "is"-ness is the subject of the current inquiry.

It is the very basicality of this concept that makes it so difficult to define and grasp. Heidegger says, "It is said that 'being' is the most universal and the emptiest of concepts. As such it resists every attempt at definition. Nor [so it would seem] does this most universal and hence indefinable concept require any definition, for everyone uses it constantly and already understands what he means by it." (BT 21/2) Heidegger's point, of course, is that people do not, in fact, understand the meaning of being; but what about the rest of what he says.

How should we understand being's universality? Well, being, presumably, belongs to every existent thing, but not as just another property. It doesn't make sense to say, "This apple is red and sweet and round and--oh, by the way--it exists." That last point is already presupposed. There is no "category" of existent things that can be held up alongside another "category" of non-existent things--not in the way that one can conceive of a category of red things and another category of non-red things. Being (which is closely related to existence) is universal and belongs to every thing that "is"; but for just that reason, it is difficult to define. Part of what makes possible defining something as "red" is the ability to contrast what is red with what is "not red". But no such contrast can be drawn in the case of "being" and "not being", so the universality of being does not, of itself, automatically, yield an understanding of the meaning of that being.

Next, Heidegger comments on being's purported indefinability. Again, being cannot be defined in terms of entities or existent things within the world. One can't, for instance, divide all the objects in the world into a set of categories: red things, blue things, round things, hot things, existent thing. That last category is simply not a category like the others. Being cannot be defined as just another object within the universe; nor is it a property that is instantiated in objects like other properties (redness, blueness, hotness, and roundness). But, Heidegger wants to make clear, it is not enough to say that being is undefinable and leave it at that. Rather, what we have seen is that being is not definable as an entity or as a property; it still remains to be seen whether there is some approach that will yield a definition of being grounded on some different basis.

Finally, Heidegger comments on the idea that the concept of being is taken to be self-evident, that is, that everybody already knows what it means. Certainly we do use the verb-form "to be" all the time and are able to communicate with it. Heidegger concedes that, "Whenever one cognizes anything or makes an assertion, whenever one comports oneself towards entities, even towards oneself, some use is made of 'Being'; and this expression is held to be intelligible 'without further ado', just as everyone understands 'The sky is blue', 'I am merry', and the like." (BT 23/4) But this is exactly what sparks the question for Heidegger. How is it that we possess such a mastery of this expression and yet are not able to define it or grasp its essential meaning. Heidegger will not be content until the meaning of being has been laid bare; but to do that, the question must be properly formulated and the inquiry grasped transparently. That is the topic of the next section.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.