Graduate 138: The Limits of Science

The following is an excerpt from a paper proposal that I've written. It is very rough but hints at how I see my current work on the nature and structure of explanations as related to broader issues about epistemology and philosophy of science. Please excuse any unduly polemical or pontifical tendencies or tones.

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My paper is concerned with trying to articulate the nature of scientific explanations. What is it that sets scientific explanations apart from ordinary or mundane explanations? I take it that this question is important for understanding and making transparent to what extent and in what ways science is authoritative and why it is so successful. If it is the case that scientific explanations are consistently the best, the truest, the most insightful, etc., then we will have good reason to privilege science or to defer to science or to grant scientific explanations significant weight in our deliberations.

In this paper, I am basically suggesting that there is nothing particularly special about scientific explanations. Following Van Fraassen, I want to say that scientific explanations have exactly the same basic form that all other kinds of explanations have. What sets them apart is the background theory that they presuppose and in terms of which they offer answers to requests for explanation. If asked, "Why did the ball drop to the floor?" it will be contextual features that determine whether (1) a Newtonian-physical explanation is called for or (2) it is enough to say, "Because she dropped it." One explanation is not truer than the other. One explanation is not more complete than the other.

Now to say that contextual features determine which response is appropriate is a bit of an oversimplification. It would be better to say that each of these answers responds to different questions. Even if these different questions are posed using the same interrogative utterance, they are still different questions. How we determine what question is being asked, and what kinds of responses are appropriate, and which particular response is the best, all depends on the background theory and interests of the individual's involved.

Now if the appropriateness of questions and answers alike is to be understood in terms of human interests and projects, that will raise doubts in some people's minds about the possibility of our investigations reaching 'true' conclusions and explanations. Tying scientific explanation (along with all other types of explanation) to human interests and projects seems to introduce an element of subjectivity into the scientific enterprise that would be inimical to its being a reliable source of knowledge about the world. Now some philosophers of science would be comfortable with this. They would be willing to accept that science does not necessarily lead to truth but only to empirical adequacy. (Or they would be willing to remain agnostic on that point.)

But it seems to me that we might be able to say something stronger than that. What if we really were to take seriously that science derives its significance from its relationship to the broader context of human interests and projects? What would "taking this seriously" entail? It might well entail altering our conceptions of truth and about the relationship between science and other disciplines.

For instance, in the experimental philosophy seminar, one of the questions that we consider is the relationship between science and philosophy. Now there are some who think that the final arbiter in matters of dispute between science and philosophy ought to be the former. Philosophical theories that do not meet empirical conditions of adequacy should be dismissed. In the seminar discussions, a great deal of attention has been given to the 'success' of science. Science has made incredible progress. In just the last few hundred years our understanding of the cosmos has undergone a radical transformation. We have acquired such a wealth of knowledge and understanding. By contrast, consider philosophy. Philosophers have been hung up on the same basic problems for the last three thousand years and it's not clear that there is any real hope for progress or resolution in the next three thousand years. Some will conclude that there is something fundamentally amiss about the philosophical project or its methods. Let the scientist try her hand at treating the deep philosophical questions and then we might get somewhere.

But is this the correct picture of the situation? I would suggest not. Kuhn is particularly helpful on this point, for he points out that the history of science is not straightforwardly unified or progressive. He points out that it's not so easy to straightforwardly assert that the best scientific explanations are the one's that have arisen in the last twenty-five years. Rather, the 'best' scientific explanations during the time of Aristotle or Ptolemy or Galileo or Newton or Lavoisier were exactly the explanations that they had. (I'm being imprecise here for the sake of brevity.) Where, then, do we get the idea that the best scientific explanations are the one's that we have now? That, Kuhn suggests, comes from a kind of indoctrination that contemporary scientists all receive as part of their initiation into the discipline. Now, one might read that as a very cynical interpretation of contemporary practice, but it's really not intended to be so. Kuhn points out that this kind of 'indoctrination' (which is non-pejorative) is a necessary and integral feature of successful science. If every scientist had to begin by reevaluating and reconsidering the principles and commitments that ground science, then no scientist would ever discover anything new. They would be stuck in exactly the same boat as the philosopher. So in order to make 'progress,' scientists simply take for granted a certain set of principles, ideas, background theories, and presuppositions and proceed to apply them to emerging problems and puzzles.

Notice, then, what is going on. The difference between science and philosophy is not just that the one is 'successful' and the other is not. Rather, they are engaged in different kinds of enterprises. Science (or ordinary science, rather) operates by taking certain basic assumptions for granted. Philosophy is just engaged in the business of reflecting upon and evaluating those kinds of basic assumptions. Now one might wonder whether it is a worthwhile project to reflect upon these kinds of basic assumptions. That is yet another philosophical question. But what we must not do, in considering the relationship between science and philosophy, is forget that--whether or not we choose to question them or not--there are always some set of assumptions or presuppositions or commitments that ground our various practices, including science.

The philosopher who wants to look to science or to empirical observation for authoritative determinations on philosophical questions because of its track record of success is in danger of forgetting that what counts as 'success' varies depending on context. 'Success' in science, too, is only definable within the context of science and within the context of commitments that form the foundation of science. To unreflectively accept the determinations of science as authoritative for fields other than science is to forget that science, as a discipline, also emerged out of a context of human interests and projects. For that reason, the authority of science must be limited and delimited by its relationship to those human projects--those same human projects that also give rise to philosophical reflection.

What does this mean for the possibility of scientific knowledge? Well, here's where things get even more dicey. Here's where I start trying to bring in Heidegger. Heidegger's conception of the world is of one that has its ground, to a large extent, in human beings (Dasein). For that reason, we can refer to his view as a version of idealism. He would reject that label, but it is useful for our purposes. He also focuses on human interests and projects as fundamental for understanding the world, other human beings, and one's self. He defines understanding primarily in terms of one's ability to interact effectively with objects and people in the world, and gives priority to practical knowledge over cognition. His view is one that I think would be very sympathetic to the one that I have described above (for he is surely the source of at least some of the thoughts I've expressed above). He would treat knowledge and truth as primarily having to do, not with some relationship that obtains between one's ideas and the external world, but with our ability to interact effectively with things and people in the world.

With this understanding as the backdrop, it would seem to be quite appropriate to say that science is a source of knowledge and of truth about the world. We would be able to say something stronger than that science 'just' yields empirically adequate theories. We would still be able to say that Einsteinian relativity theory is, in some sense, better than Newtonian mechanical theory, but our analysis of their relationship might be a bit more complicated. We might compare them based on some set of criteria that is confined to the domain of science, or we might compare them based on some set of criteria external to the domain of science. But our conclusions would likely be more nuanced and illuminating, after the pattern of Kuhn's analyses of these interrelationships. Also, we would be in a better position to understand just what the proper relationship is between science and philosophy. Exactly what kind of information about the world does science give to us? What are its explanatory limits?

Now I must confess that it's not altogether clear to me what it would mean to articulate clearly the presuppositions and commitments that ground the sciences. In particular, I wonder how one would articulate those commitments in way that actually does take seriously the success of science, while still pointing out its limits. That is one enormous promissory note embedded in an even larger and more daunting promissory note that basically encompasses all of the preceding five pages. That, at any rate, is a brief summary of the ideas that are running around in my head. I will now turn to try and articulate more carefully a summary of what I think my basic approach to this paper ought to be.

--

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.

Graduate 137: BT 11: Sec. 07, Part 3

Introduction. Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being
Chapter 2. The Twofold Task in Working Out the Question of Being. Method and Design of Our Investigation
Section 07. The Phenomenological Method of Investigation

B. The Concept of the Logos

Having concluded his preliminary treatment of the concept of PAINOMENON and 'phenomenon,' Heidegger now turn to consider LOGOS. But the situation, in this case, is particularly complicated by the fact that there are so many meanings and significations associated with the word LOGOS. Heidegger speaks of this as a semblance, "which will maintain itself as long as our Interpretation is unable to grasp the basic signification properly in its primary content." (BT 55/32)

Heidegger writes: "If we say that the basic signification of LOGOS is "discourse", then this word-for-word translation will not be validated until we have determined what is meant by "discourse" itself. The real signification of "discourse", which is obvious enough, gets constantly covered up by the later history of the word LOGOS, and especially by the numerous and arbitrary Interpretations which subsequent philosophy has provided." (BT 55/32) Though Heidegger seems to present it here in a much more tentative way, we should note that he is committed to "discourse" being the primary signification of LOGOS. But, having said that, it still remains for him to account for the multiplicity of uses that have covered over this signification. He points out that LOGOS gets translated and interpreted as 'reason,' 'judgment,' 'concept,' 'definition,' 'ground,' and 'relationship,' and it seems that no single meaning can adequately encompass all the others.

One popular view (or at least, I suspect it was popular since Heidegger addresses it directly) is that LOGOS means, fundamentally, "assertion," understood as a kind of "judgment." This might cover a lot of meanings, but particularly because of the danger of interpreting this meaning in light of some contemporary 'theory of judgment,' Heidegger also rejects it. "LOGOS does not mean "judgment", and it certainly does not mean this primarily--if one understands by "judgment" a way of 'binding' something with something else, or the 'taking of a stand' (whether by acceptance or by rejection)." (BT 55-56/32)

"LOGOS as "discourse" means rather the same as DELOUN: to make manifest what one is 'talking about' in one's discourse. Aristotle has explicated this function of discourse more precisely as APOPHAINESTHAI. The LOGOS lets something be seen (PHAINESTHAI), namely, what the discourse is about; and it does so either for the one who is doing the talking (the medium) or for persons who are talking with one another, as the case may be." (BT 56/33) As with so many other things, what Heidegger is interested in and referring to by way of the word "discourse," is not what we normally pick out by our use of that word. Heidegger is much more interested in that which makes (ordinary) discourse possible, and he refers to that thing (that enabling condition or ground), also, as "discourse." "Discourse," in this deeper sense, involves the making manifest what one is 'discoursing about' in one's (ordinary) discourse. (Ordinary) discourse then, is just one manifestation of this (deeper) discourse--the latter of which involves letting something be seen. That is why Heidegger refers to the one doing the talking as a medium. The speaker is the one that is doing the (ordinary) discoursing. But at a deeper level, he is the means by which (deeper) discourse--this showing--is effected.

"Discourse 'lets something be seen' APO...: that is, it lets us see something from the very thing which the discourse is about. In discourse (APOPHANSIS), so far as it is genuine, what is said [was geredet ist] is drawn from what the talk is about, so that discursive communication, in what it says [in ihrem Gesagten], makes manifest what it is talking about, and thus makes this accessible to the other party. This is the structure of LOGOS as APOPHANSIS." (BT 56/33) You might get the sense from passages like this that Heidegger thinks of discourse as something wholly independent of human beings--as something that can, in itself 'make things manifest' or 'make things accessible'. This is a highly nuanced issue; it is dangerous to head toward either extreme. But I think it would be right to say something like this: for Heidegger, when people engage in discourse with one another, they are participating in something that is larger than just their little exchange and are conducting their discourse in a context that, in important ways, shapes their discourse and is not completely under either of their control. Heidegger will treat discourse more thoroughly in later sections of Being and Time and language will take on an even more prominent role in Heidegger's thought in the later decades of his life and work. So I will not dwell too much on speculation at this point.

That Heidegger thinks of ordinary discourse as, somehow, derivative of this more fundamental kind of "discourse" is also brought out by the fact that he does not think of all (ordinary) discourse as manifesting the kind of "letting be seen" that he is interested in. For instance, he says, "requesting" makes manifest, but in a different way.

"When fully concrete, discoursing (letting something be seen) has the character of speaking [Sprechens]--vocal proclamation in words. The LOGOS is PHONE, and indeed, PHONE META PHANTASIAS--an utterance in which something is sighted in each case." (BT 56/32-33) I am hesitant to read this as straightforwardly as might be suggested by initial appearances. This seems to suggest that there is a sense in which LOGOS just is the spoken word--the vocalization, the sound. But we must keep in mind that this is only the case in the most fully concrete form of discoursing--and, by that, I take Heidegger to be referring to the most 'physical' as opposed to the most 'fundamental'. At the concrete, physical level, LOGOS is manifested in those utterances that bring something to sight. Hopefully this helps to make clear the very real but derivative relationship that ordinary vocal discourse has to "discourse."

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At this point, Heidegger begins to lay out how this fundamental signification of LOGOS is connected to its various other and derivative uses.

"And only because the function of the LOGOS as APOPHANSIS lies in letting something be seen by pointing it out, can the LOGOS have the structural form of SYNTHESIS. Here "synthesis" does not mean a binding and linking together of representations, a manipulation of psychical occurrences where the 'problem' arises of how these bindings, as something inside, agree with something physical outside. Here the SYN has a purely apophantical signification and means letting something be seen in its togetherness [Beisammen] with something--letting it be seen as something." (BT 56/33)

We pointed out earlier that one traditional interpretation of LOGOS is as judgment. Heidegger was not satisfied with such an interpretation "if one understands by "judgment" a way of 'binding' something with something else, or the 'taking of a stand' (whether by acceptance or by rejection)." Probably what Heidegger has in mind in this description is the judgment that we make when we bring together a word in our language and some phenomenon in the world and 'judge' the one to adequately represent another. Or when we make an assertion about the world and 'judge' whether it is correct by comparing the content of that assertion to the actual state of the world. In Heidegger's view, this process of binding presupposes some prior ability to engage with the parts in themselves--a presupposition that has not been adequately made clear in the past. Clarifying that point is what he wants to do here. So in the above quotation, LOGOS, understood as letting something be pointed out, is what makes possible the kind of binding or synthesis that is associated with LOGOS, understood as a kind of judgment. But even as he is giving some ground to the concept of LOGOS as judgment, it is not fully the familiar concept of judgment that we use in everyday discourse that he has in mind, for he says that he is not referring to the "binding and linking together of representations," or the mere "manipulation of psychical occurrences." This is the way that judgment has long been construed and it has always been accompanied by the problem of ensuring that our internal representations actually do correspond to something in the world. Viewed in this way, judgment and synthesis always carry with them some degree of uncertainty. But that is not what Heidegger has in mind. "Here the SYN has a purely apophantical signification and means letting something be seen in its togetherness... with something--letting it be seen as something." [1]

Heidegger then turns to consider the interpretation of LOGOS as "truth." Heidegger insists that our ordinary conception of truth as an 'agreement' between propositions or ideas about the world and the actual way the world is, is actually not fundamental but derivative of a deeper kind of truth. "Furthermore, because the LOGOS is a letting-something-be-seen, it can therefore be true or false." (BT 56/33) The conventional way of thinking about truth as agreement between propositions and reality, Heidegger connects to the Greek, ALETHEIA. But he says that this sense of truth depends upon the deeper meaning of LOGOS as discourse. Only at that level are entities in the world 'unhidden' or 'undisclosed' in such a way that it is possible to make any judgments at all about them in the first place. [2]

Heidegger says that to draw too close a connection between LOGOS and 'truth' (as it is conventionally understood, as related fundamentally and inextricably to 'judgment') leads to basic misunderstanding. Moreover, he insists that those who read this into Aristotle have erred fundamentally. Our concept of 'truth' is more closely connected to the Greek AISTHESIS--"the sheer sensory perception of something" (BT 57/33)--than it is to LOGOS as discourse. But even in the case of AISTHESIS, apparently, truth is not just one of two possible conditions (the other being falsehood) for a proposition. Rather, truth is connected fundamentally to AISTHESIS.

"Just as seeing aims at colours, any AISTHESIS aims at its IDIA (those entities which are genuinely accessible only through it and for it); and to that extent this perception is always true. This means that seeing always discovers colours, and hearing always discovers sounds. Pure NOEIN is the perception of the simplest determinate ways of Being which entities as such may possess, and it perceives them just by looking at them. This NOEIN is what is 'true' in the purest and most primordial sense; that is to say, it merely discovers, and it does so in such a way that it can never cover up. This NOEIN can never cover up; it can never be false; it can at worst remain a non-perceiving, AGNOEIN, not sufficing for straightforward and appropriate access." (BT 57/33)

For Heidegger, there is a fundamental relationship (I like to think of it as a relationship of appropriateness) between a sensory faculty and the entities that it is able to pick out. This is not just the case with physical sensory faculties but with all our ways of encountering and engaging the world. This is not a radically new suggestion, though we should be mindful to see where Heidegger goes with it. He seems to want to say that within the context of considering this relationship, there is no room for falsehood, strictly speaking. For to posit the possibility of falseness would just be to deny that a given faculty is capable of perceiving the things that we suppose it to be perceiving. It is not the case that our ears give false color reports or that our eyes give false auditory reports. Rather, our ears simply do not pick up on color and our eyes do not pick up on sounds. Thought of in this way, we can, perhaps, see how Heidegger would come to the conclusion that our eyes always give true reports and our ears also. Now this does seem to raise, again, the question of correspondence that Heidegger tried to dismiss earlier. When we say that our eyes always give true reports are we referring to the percepts themselves or to the entities in the world. Heidegger seems to be pointing to the former, though we should be careful about denying that he is also trying to say something about the latter. [3]

"When something no longer takes the form of just letting something be seen, but is always harking back to something else to which it points, so that it lets something be seen as something, it thus acquires a synthesis-structure, and with this it takes over the possibility of covering up. The 'truth of judgments', however, is merely the opposite of this covering-up, a secondary phenomenon of truth, with more than one kind of foundation." (BT 57/34)

There's a point that needs to be clarified here that has to do with the idea of letting "something be seen as something". Heidegger connects this idea with synthesis and judgment, but we need to keep in mind that these are not our ordinary concepts of synthesis and judgment to which he is appealing. To see something as something is not to see it in such a way that one might be mistaken about what that something is. I think Heidegger would insist that to see something as something is a basic and not a derived ability. Our most basic perceptions necessarily involve seeing something as something. How else could we possibly see it? It is in virtue of this basic ability that the kind of synthesis and judgment that may be evaluated in terms of truth or falsity becomes a possibility. But that, I take it, is supposed to be a secondary phenomenon.

"Both realism and idealism have--with equal thoroughness--missed the meaning of the Greek conception of truth, in terms of which only the possibility of something like a 'doctrine of ideas' can be understood as philosophical knowledge." (BT 58/34)

Heidegger concludes by gesturing at the way in which the grasp of LOGOS as "discourse" grounds the various other interpretations of LOGOS. "And because the function of LOGOS lies in merely letting something be seen, in letting entities be perceived [im Vernehmenlassen des Seienden], LOGOS can signify the reason [Vernunft]..., the ratio...[, and the] relation and relationship." (BT 58/34)

"This interpretation of 'apophantical discourse' may suffice to clarify the primary function of the LOGOS." (BT 58/34)

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Many of the points that have been touched on, only in passing, in this passage, will be developed much more extensively in later chapters. "Discourse," "Uncovering," "truth," "realism and idealism," and others. Also, in Heidegger's later work, he develops, in particular, points about the nature of discourse. One of my suggestions, earlier, was that Heidegger viewed discourse as a process into which people enter and exit by way of 'discourse,' but which is, itself, ongoing. We will not explore these points further here, but will now turn to consider Heidegger's preliminary conception of 'phenomenology'.

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Footnotes:

[1] I'm not sure what "apophantical" means. It doesn't seem illuminating to read it as a misspelling of "apophatical."

[2] "The Greek words for 'truth' (E ALETHEIA, TO ALETHES) are compounded of the privative prefix A- ('not') and the verbal stem -LATH- ('to escape notice', 'to be concealed'). The truth may thus be looked upon as that which is un-concealed, that which gets discovered or uncovered ('entdeckt')." (BT 57, footnote 1)
"Similarly, 'Being false' (PSEUDESTHAI) amounts to deceiving in the sense of covering up [verdecken] : putting something in front of something (in such a way as to let it be seen) and thereby passing it off as something which it is not." (BT 57/33)

[3] Here is a fascinating point that warrants further attention.


--

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.

Graduate 136: BT 10: Sec. 07, Part 2

Introduction. Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being
Chapter 2. The Twofold Task in Working Out the Question of Being. Method and Design of Our Investigation
Section 07. The Phenomenological Method of Investigation

A. The Concept of Phenomenon

Heidegger traces the etymology of the term 'phenomenon' to Greek roots that bear the following kinds of meanings: "to show itself," "to bring to the light of day, to put in the light," "the light, that which is bright--in other words, that wherein something can become manifest, visible in itself." (BT 51/28) He goes on to say, "Thus we must keep in mind that the expression 'phenomenon' signifies that which shows itself in itself, the manifest." (BT 51/28) He says that the Greeks sometimes identified these as, simply, 'entities.'

We must keep before us Heidegger's very particular definition of 'phenomenon' as that which shows itself in itself. No ordinary or familiar construal of 'phenomenon' will do for us. Heidegger seems to be reaching for something deeper--something that grounds our ordinary concept of 'phenomenon.' He goes on to point out that an entity can show itself from itself in a variety of ways depending on the kind of access we have to it. "Indeed it is even possible for an entity to show itself as something which in itself it is not." (BT 51/28) Heidegger refers to this kind of "showing-itself" as "seeming." This is an important second signification of the Greek PAINOMENON from which the word, 'phenomenon,' is derived. [1]

So PAINOMENON has two significations: one that is captured by Heidegger's definition of 'phenomenon' as that which shows itself in itself, and another that he tries to capture by terms like 'semblant' or 'semblance' and means "something good which looks like, but 'in actuality' is not, what it gives itself out to be." (BT 51/29) Both of these significations of 'phenomenon' must be kept in mind, as must their structural interconnectedness. "Only when the meaning of something is such that it makes a pretension of showing itself--that is, of being a phenomenon--can it show itself as something which it is not; only then can it 'merely look like so-and-so'." (BT 51/29) So the first signification of PAINOMENON ('phenomenon') is more primordial then and is already included in the second ('semblance').

One further and extremely important point: "But what both these terms express has proximally nothing at all to do with what is called an 'appearance', or still less a 'mere appearance'." (BT 51/29) Consider, for instance, that in connection with certain epistemological questions, some philosophers will speak of 'phenomenal experiences.' Examples of phenomenal experiences include, "Being appeared to redly," or "Feeling pain." Especially in the first case--imagine that you are looking at an apple on the table in front of you--there might be a question about whether there actually is a red object in front of you. You might suspect, for instance, that the apple is really just the product of an hallucination. You might doubt that there is a red object in front of you, however, it seems that you could not doubt that you are being appeared to redly. The 'phenomenal experience' is beyond doubt. Now this very familiar (in philosophical speak) use of the term 'phenomenal' is not what Heidegger has in mind. He explicitly rejects the interpretation of 'phenomenon' as 'appearance' or 'mere appearance.' Again, he is trying to get at something deeper. We will try to get clear about what the difference between 'phenomenon,' 'semblance,' and 'appearance,' is, but we shall first have to wade a bit deeper into Heidegger's understanding of 'appearance'.

The remainder of this passage is devoted to "clarifying" the differences between the concepts of 'phenomenon,' 'semblance,' 'appearance,' and 'mere appearance.' I say, "clarifying," because Heidegger's treatment is actually not that clear. Macquarrie and Robinson indicate in their footnote, "Though... the ensuing discussion presents relatively few difficulties... for the translator, the passage shows some signs of hasty construction..." (BT 51 Footnote 1) After going through this section several times, I think some sense can be made of it, and I will try to present that by looking at the remainder of this passage in three sections.

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"This [i.e. "appearance," or, perhaps, "mere appearance"] is what one is talking about when one speaks of the 'symptoms of disease'... . Here one has in mind certain occurrences in the body which show themselves and which, in showing themselves as thus showing themselves, 'indicate'... something which does not show itself." (BT 52/29. Brackets mine.)

Are you confused yet? So far Heidegger has defined 'phenomenon' as "that which shows itself in itself," and has defined 'semblance' as "something that looks like, but in actuality is not, what it gives itself out to be." Now he has chosen to treat 'symptoms of a disease' as 'appearances' that are connected to certain "occurrences in the body which show themselves"--i.e. phenomena--that 'indicate' something that does not show itself. Heidegger seems to be saying, at this point, that 'appearances' show-themselves and by doing so indicate the presence of some 'phenomenon' that does not show-itself. But this reading seems to be contradicted by the very next line:

"The emergence [Auftreten] of such occurrences, their showing-themselves, goes together with the Being-present-at-hand of disturbances which do not show themselves. Thus appearance, as the appearance 'of something', does not mean showing-itself; it means rather the announcing-itself by [von] something which does not show itself, but which announces itself through something which does show itself." (BT 52/29)

Heidegger just finished saying that when speaking of appearances, one has in mind "certain occurrences in the body which show themselves" (emphasis mine). He even goes on to refer to the emergence of these occurrences as "their showing-themselves." Then he turns completely around and says, "Thus appearance, as the appearance 'of something', does not mean showing-itself". What are we to make of this. Are appearances instances of showing-itself or not? The key lies in the qualification: "as the appearance 'of something'. The idea, here, is this: A phenomenon can show-itself or not-show-itself. An appearance can also show-itself or not-show-itself. In this sense, it is very similar to a phenomenon in the sense that Heidegger uses the term. The difference lies in that when the appearance is 'of something' else, it is not occupying the role, primarily, of showing-itself but is playing a derivative role. The phenomenon (i.e. the something else) is utilizing the appearance to announce-itself. And when a phenomenon announces-itself in this way, it is in the mode of not-showing-itself. Instead it announces itself through something which does show itself.

We must keep this in mind or we will be tripped up when Heidegger, yet again, says: "Appearing is a not-showing-itself." (BT 52/29) He will go on to draw some distinctions between appearing and semblance, but before getting to that, I want to make clear that in saying this, Heidegger is not denying that appearing is a showing-itself when (for lack of better locutions) considered in itself. Appearings are instances of showing-itself. But when they occupy a certain relationship to some other phenomena, they do not primarily occupy the role of showing-itself but rather that of announcing-itself.

Heidegger goes on to clarify a further sense in which "Appearing is a not-showing-itself. But the 'not' we find here is by no means to be confused with the privative "not" which we used in defining the structure of semblance. What appears does not show itself; and anything which thus fails to show itself, is also something which can never seem. All indications, presentations, symptoms, and symbols have this basic formal structure of appearing, even though they differ among themselves." (BT 52/29)

What Heidegger is doing here is drawing a distinction between 'not-showing-itself' and 'not showing-itself.' The latter is descriptive of semblances, which do not actually show themselves to be what they in fact are. The former is descriptive of the role that the appearance is occupying in virtue of announcing another phenomenon. It is because the appearance is, in this instance, not-showing-itself that it cannot be a semblance for it is not, again in this instance, showing-itself to begin with.

--

Heidegger writes, "In spite of the fact that 'appearing' is never a showing-itself in the sense of "phenomenon", appearing is possible only by reason of a showing-itself of something. But that showing-itself, which helps to make possible the appearing, is not the appearing itself. Appearing is an announcing-itself [das Sich-melden] through something that shows itself." (BT 53/29)

Here Heidegger is considering the nature of appearances as appearances, and, therefore, not as showing-thsemselves, but as means of a phenomenon's announcing-itself. Curiously, he writes, "appearing is possible only by reason of a showing-itself of something." Just what is this something? Does it refer to the appearance or to the phenomenon? Heidegger says that it is not the appearing itself, which means that it must be the phenomenon. But this is a strange thing to say because Heidegger has already indicated that it is just in virtue of the phenomenon's announcing-itself by way of the appearance that the phenomenon does not show-itself. Again, to resolve this dilemma, we must look more closely at what Heidegger says. "Appearing is an announcing-itself [das Sich-melden] through something that shows itself." That something is not the "appearing" or the "phenomenon" but that wherein the appearing is achieved. So the appearing must be distinguished from the 'phenomenon' and from that wherein the appearing is achieved.

"If one then says that with the word 'appearance' we allude to something wherein something appears without being itself an appearance, one has not thereby defined the concept of phenomenon: one has rather presupposed it." (BT 53/29-30) Heidegger, here, makes clear that that wherein something appears, even though it is not, itself, the appearance, is also not the phenomenon but, rather, presupposes some separate phenomenon. Note, I think that Heidegger would be comfortable saying that that wherein something appears is a phenomenon, but when it is occupying the role of appearing, it is not treated like a phenomenon--like a showing-itself--but is that whereby the phenomenon in question announces-itself. [2]

What makes the relationship between the appearing, that wherein the appearing is achieved, and the phenomenon that is being announced difficult to understand is the tendency to use 'appears' in many different ways. So Heidegger says that in the phrase, "...that wherein something 'appears' without being itself an "appearance," the two instances need to be distinguished. With qualifications, the entire statement would read something like this: "If one then says that with the word 'appearance' we allude to something wherein something announces itself, and therefore does not show itself, without being itself a showing-itself, it is "perfectly clear" that we are not defining the concept of phenomenon." Heidegger nonetheless maintains that, "this showing-itself belongs essentially to the 'wherein' in which something announces itself. According to this, phenomena are never appearances, though on the other hand every appearance is dependent on phenomena." Appearances are not just dependent on the phenomena that they are announcing but also dependent on the phenomena wherein the appearance is actualized, although in that role the phenomenon-wherein does not show-itself.

This then is our rough taxonomy: first, there is the phenomenon, which can either show-itself or not-show-itself-and-announce-itself-by-means-of-an-appearing. Second, there is the appearing, which is never a showing-itself but is also never not showing-itself. Appearing is not-showing-itself. It is that whereby the phenomenon announces-itself. Finally, there is that wherein something announces itself. This is, I think, also a phenomenon but does not show-itself in the way that we normally think of phenomena showing themselves because it is occupying the role of grounding the appearance. It is that wherein the appearance is actualized or that wherein something (the phenomenon in question) announces itself by way of the appearing.

"So again the expression 'appearance' itself can have a double signification: first, appearing, in the sense of announcing-itself, as not-showing-itself; and next, that which does the announcing [das Meldende selbst]--that which in its showing-itself indicates something which does not show itself. And finally one can use "appearing" as a term for the genuine sense of "phenomenon" as showing-itself. If one designates these three different things as 'appearance', bewilderment is unavoidable." (BT 53/30) I heartily concur (and humbly suggest that Heidegger's treatment is not much better).

The three senses are these: (1) "announcing-itself, as not-showing-itself"; this is what the phenomenon does. It appears or makes itself known by way of an appearance or appearing. (2) that which does the announcing--that is, the appearance or the appearing. It may be that this second sense is supposed to refer to that wherein the announcing and appearing are effected. If this is right then it matches my three-fold distinction above. (3) The third sense refers to the phenomenon itself when it is occupying the role of showing-itself.

At this point, Heidegger introduces a forth possible signification of 'appearance': "That which does the announcing--that which, in its showing-itself, indicates something non-manifest--may be taken as that which emerges in what is itself non-manifest, and which emanates [ausstrahlt] from it in such a way indeed that the non-manifest gets thought of as something that is essentially never manifest." (BT 53/30) Here, then, is a kind of announcing-itself that is achieved by a "bringing forth" or "something brought forth" while the phenomenon in question is kept hidden or non-manifest. This is what Heidegger refers to as a 'mere appearance' and it is to be distinguished from a 'semblance.' "That which does the announcing and is brought forth does, of course, show itself, and in such a way that, as an emanation of what it announces, it keeps this very thing constantly veiled in itself." (BT 53/30)

What Heidegger seems to have in mind here is the relationship between what Kant referred to as phenomena and noumena. "Kant uses the term "appearance" in this twofold way. According to him "appearances" are, in the first place the 'objects of empirical intuition': they are what show itself in such intuitions. But what thus shows itself (the "phenomenon" in the genuine primordial sense) is at the same time an 'appearance' as an emanation of something which hides itself in that appearance--an emanation which announces." (BT 53-54/30) When Heidegger here speaks of "the "phenomenon" in the genuine primordial sense" he is referring to what Kant would label noumena. For Kant, the realm of noumena is unintelligible in and of itself by human agents but it is nonetheless the ground of all the appearances that human beings encounter at the phenomenal level. The derivative relationship, then, between phenomena and noumena is different from the derivative relationship between a symptom and a disease. In the former case, Heidegger wants to speak of 'mere appearances' and 'phenomena,' respectively. In the latter case, he wants to speak of 'appearances' and 'phenomena.' Now one might wonder whether there is not an important disanalogy between Heideggerian 'phenomena'-as-Kantian-noumena and Heideggerian 'phenomena'-as-disease. After all, diseases belong to the Kantian realm of the phenomenal and not the noumenal. Even diseases are (Kantian) phenomena so how can Heidegger use 'phenomenon' to refer to what Kant would speak of as a phenomenon on the one hand and as a noumenon on the other? Perhaps the disease case is supposed to be just a rough analogy. This issue will not be explored here. [3]

At this point, our taxonomy is basically complete. There are (1) phenomena, (2) appearings, (3) that wherein something appears, (4) mere appearances, (5) semblances of phenomena, and (6) semblances of appearances. (We should keep in mind that there can be a semblance of an appearance only insofar as an appearance is a showing-itself. To the extent that it is not-showing-itself it cannot be a semblance because semblances are parasitic on showings.) Heidegger gives this analogy: "In a certain kind of lighting someone can look as if his cheeks were flushed with red; and the redness which shows itself can be taken as an announcement of the Being-present-at-hand of a fever, which in turn indicates some disturbance in the organism." (BT 54/30-31) [4]

Working through this analogy the disease itself is the phenomenon. The presence of a disease or fever (or micro-organisms or infection) is not directly detectable but is rather announced by certain appearances, such as of flushed cheeks or unusual warmth to the touch. The flushing or the warmth may be understood as that wherein the appearing/announcing is made. (I'm not quite sure about this, but it seems roughly right.) These symptoms might be treated as phenomena in their own right, but in this context, they are most notable for the role that they play in announcing the presence of fever or disease that would otherwise be undetectable. I'm not sure whether anything in this scenario qualifies specifically as a 'mere appearance'; it might actually be the case that everything in this scenario is a 'mere appearance' in that it all belongs to what Kant would refer to as the phenomenal realm. I'm not sure about that point either. Now it is possible to be 'deceived' or to encounter a mere semblance at various levels. It is possible that something besides an actual fever causes the flushing and warmth that a doctor misinterprets as indicating the presence of fever. This would be a semblance of the phenomenon. It is also possible that something like a red light might lead one to think that a person is flushed and prompt one to conclude that she has fever. This would be a semblance of the appearance.

--

" "Phenomenon", the showing-itself-in-itself, signifies a distinctive way in which something can be encountered. "Appearance", on the other hand, means a reference-relationship which is in an entity itself, and which is such that what does the referring (or the announcing) can fulfil its possible function only if it shows itself in itself and is thus a 'phenomenon'." (BT 54/31) It is nice to be able to read these later passages as actually confirming the interpretation that I came to earlier but was unsure about because of apparent contradictions in what Heidegger said. Here Heidegger is highlighting just this point about the way in which for something to be an 'appearance' does not preclude it from being a 'phenomenon,' but that in that situation, that thing is playing a particular role as 'appearing'. Heidegger continues to affirm that the understanding of phenomenon as "that which shows itself in itself," is absolutely crucial for keeping distinct all these various concepts.

The sense in which both "phenomena" (strictly speaking) and "appearances" (some characteristic which an entity may have in its Being--I take Heidegger to be referring to appearance by this description) are both phenomena is what Heidegger refers to as the formal conception of "phenomenon." All this captures is that these are accessible through empirical "intuition" in the Kantian sense. This is the ordinary conception of phenomenon and is distinct, says Heidegger, from the phenomenological conception. Now it is possible to give an account of the phenomenological conception of phenomena that is derived from the Kantian (ordinary) conception. Heidegger says it would look something like this: "for we may then say that that which already shows itself in the appearance as prior to the "phenomenon" as ordinarily understood and as accompanying it in every case, can, even though it thus shows itself unthematically, be brought thematically to show itself; and what thus shows itself in itself (the 'forms of the intuition') will be the "phenomena" of phenomenology. For manifestly space and time must be able to show themselves in this way--they must be able to become phenomena--if Kant is claiming to make a transcendental assertion grounded in the facts when he says that space is the a priori "inside-which" of an ordering." (BT 54-55/31) The two illustrations that Heidegger gives here of (phenomenological) phenomena are space and time, which are the ground of and always announced in the appearing of (ordinary) phenomena. Clearly (I think Heidegger thinks) Kant had some idea of (phenomenological) phenomena as evidenced by his style of argumentation. But he goes on to say:

"If, however, the phenomenological conception of phenomenon is to be understood at all, regardless of how much closer we may come to determining the nature of that which shows itself, this presupposes inevitably that we must have an insight into the meaning of the formal conception of phenomenon and its legitimate employment in an ordinary signification." (BT 55/31) Heidegger is here taking up, again, an oft-repeated theme: that a full understanding of the primordial phenomenon should enable us to grasp fully the ordinary conception of that phenomenon. The one should follow from the other. But before we can set up our preliminary conception of phenomenology and what is phenomenological, "we must define the signification of LOGOS so as to make clear in what sense phenomenology can be a 'science of' phenomena at all." (BT 55/31)

--
--

The remainder of this blog is devoted to my notes and sketches. When I was trying to work out what Heidegger is saying in this section, I took many wrong turns. Below are the records of my wrong turns. I suggest not reading them.


[What follows is my attempt to wade through exegeting this passage. I will try to lay out how I come to my interpretation, but some may wish to just bypass this and skip to the summary that comes after the next break.]

"This [i.e. "appearance," or, perhaps, "mere appearance"] is what one is talking about when one speaks of the 'symptoms of disease'... . Here one has in mind certain occurrences in the body which show themselves and which, in showing themselves as thus showing themselves, 'indicate'... something which does not show itself." (BT 52/29. Brackets mine.)

Are you confused yet? So far Heidegger has defined 'phenomenon' as "that which shows itself in itself," and has defined 'semblance' as "something that looks like, but in actuality is not, what it gives itself out to be." Now he has chosen to treat 'symptoms of a disease' as 'appearances' that are connected to certain "occurrences in the body which show themselves"--i.e. phenomena--that 'indicate' something that does not show itself. These occurrences that show themselves go together with the disturbances that do not show themselves. [We will discuss them more in a moment.]

Now 'appearance' does not mean "showing-itself," but is rather defined as "the announcing-itself by [von] something which does not show itself." (BT 52/29) Now we must be careful here because the grammar is liable to get confusing. The appearance, in this case, is not announcing itself; i.e. it is not announcing the appearance. Rather, the appearance is that by which the phenomenon (that which does not show itself) announces itself; i.e. announces the phenomenon. Here, Heidegger is treating 'showing-itself' and 'announcing-itself' as to very different kinds of actions or states.

Along these same lines, when Heidegger says, "Appearing is a not-showing-itself," he is not making the point that appearing is different from phenomenon, and that showing-itself belongs only to phenomenon, and that, therefore, appearing is not showing-itself. For Heidegger, saying that "Appearing is a not-showing-itself," is very different from saying, "Appearing is not showing-itself." The characteristic of not being showing-itself already belongs to "semblance." For Heidegger, both showing-itself and not-showing-itself (where each of these is a unified notion) are both involved in the idea of a phenomenon. And appearance is connected a phenomenon's not-showing-itself.

"What appears does not show itself; and anything which thus fails to show itself, is also something which can never seem. All indications, presentations, symptoms, and symbols have this basic formal structure of appearing, even though they differ among themselves." (BT 52/29) So on this understanding, 'symptoms' are the appearances that announce the presence of a particular phenomenon--a disease--that is not-showing-itself and announces-itself by way of the symptoms (i.e. appearances).

To reiterate: "'appearing' is never a showing-itself in the sense of "phenomenon"," but, "appearing is possible only by reason of a showing-itself of something." (BT 53/29) Showing-itself belongs to phenomena and makes possible the appearing without being, itself, the appearing. Appearing is an announcing-itself. To say that a phenomenon 'appears,' without being, itself, an appearance, one has not defined 'phenomenon' but rather presupposed it. This may not be immediately clear for there is a tendency to use 'appear' in two ways. " "That wherein something 'appears' " means that wherein something announces itself, and therefore does not show itself; and in the words [Rede] 'without being itself an "appearance"', "appearance" signifies the showing-itself." (BT 53/30) So, on this construal, a phenomenon 'appears' (i.e., is announced, by way of some appearance) without being itself an "appearance" (i.e. without showing-itself). Phenomena are never appearances but every appearance is dependent on phenomena. This order must be kept in mind. [5]

Heidegger adds to this account a fourth signification of 'appearance'. "That which does the announcing--that which, in its showing-itself, indicates something non-manifest--may be taken as that which emerges in what is itself non-manifest, and which emanates [ausstrahlt] from it in such a way indeed that the non-manifest gets thought of as something that is essentially never manifest. When that which does the announcing is taken this way, "appearance" is tantamount to a "bringing forth" or "something brought forth", but something which does not make up the real Being of what brings it forth: here we have an appearance in the sense of 'mere appearance'." (BT 53/30) This kind of announcing actually conceals and veils what does the announcing behind an "emanation" that is the "mere appearance."

"He goes on to say, "In so far as a phenomenon is constitutive for 'appearance' in the signification of announcing itself through something which shows itself, though such a phenomenon can privatively take the variant form of semblance, appearance too can become mere semblance. In a certain kind of lighting someone can look as if his cheeks were flushed with red; and the redness which shows itself can be taken as an announcement of the Being-present-at-hand of a fever, which in turn indicates some disturbance in the organism." (BT 54/30-31) EXEGETE.

""Phenomenon", the showing-itself-in-itself, signifies a distinctive way in which something can be encountered. "Appearance", on the other hand, means a reference-relationship which is in an entity itself, and which is such that what does the referring (or the announcing) can fulfil its possible function only if it shows itself in itself and is thus a 'phenomenon'." (BT 54/31) This helps to clarify still further the relationship between 'phenomenon' and 'appearance,' both may have the characteristic of showing-itself, but only 'appearances' have the additional reference-relationship that serves to announce some further phenomenon that is not immediately showing-itself but is rather announcing-itself by way of the appearance.

"[F]or we may then say that that which already shows itself in the appearance as prior to the "phenomenon" as ordinarily understood and as accompanying it in every case, can, even though it thus shows itself unthematically, be brought thematically to show itself; and what thus shows itself in itself (the 'forms of the intuition') will be the "phenomena" of phenomenology." (BT 54-55/31)

Phenomenon : Semblance

Appearance: Mere semblance

A phenomenon can show itself as something which in itself it is.
A phenomenon can show itself as something which in itself it is not. (Seeming/semblance - something good which looks like, but 'in actuality' is not, what it gives itself out to be.)

Only when the meaning of something is such that it makes a pretension of showing itself--that is, of being a phenomenon--can it show itself as something which it is not; only then can it 'merely look like so-and-so'.

Phenomenon: positive and primordial signification of PAINOMENON
Semblance: privative modification of 'phenomenon'
These meanings are proximally unconnected to 'appearance' and 'mere appearance.'

Appearance: occurrences... which show themselves and which, in showing themselves as thus showing themselves, 'indicate' something which does not show itself.

Appearance: as the appearance 'of something', does not mean showing-itself; it means rather the annoucning-itself by something which does not show itself, but which announces itself through something which does show itself. Appearing is a not-showing-itself.

Such appearances cannot seem to be anything other than they are because they do not purport to show anything to begin with but are rather announcing.

--

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Though it would make sense, when speaking ordinarily, to speak of the two senses of PAINOMENON, I have opted to avoid using in a nontechnical way this word that Heidegger imbues with very particular meaning. In this passage, Heidegger does speak of the two significations of PAINOMENON and so, though this term may be a bit more clunky, I have opted to use it.

[2] Here is a substantial interpretive claim that might be disputed by some.

[3] Here is a substantial interpretive claim that might be worth exploring if it is found to have far-reaching implications for Heidegger's view.

[4] Here is the way that Macquarrie and Robinson break down the various classes of 'phenomena.' I believe my treatment above basically matches theirs.

"We are told several times that 'appearance' and 'phenomenon' are to be sharply distinguished; yet we are also reminded that there is a sense in which they coincide, and even this sense seems to be twofold, though it is not clear that Heidegger is fully aware of this. The whole discussion is based upon two further distinctions: the distinction between 'showing' ('zeigen') and 'announcing' ('melden') and 'bringing forth' ('hervorbringen'), and the distinction between ('x') that which 'shows itself' ('das Sichzeigende') or which 'does the announcing' ('das Meldende') orwhich 'gets brought forth' ('das Hervorgebrachte'), and ('y') that which 'announces itself' (das Sichmeldende') or which does the bringing-forth. Heidegger is thus able to introduce the following senses of 'Erscheinung' or 'appearance':
1a. an observable event y, such as a symptom which announces a disease x by showing itself, and in or through which x announces itself without showing itself;
1b. y's showing-itself;
2. x's announcing-itself in or through y;
3a. the 'mere appearance' y which x may bring forth when x is of such a kind that its real nature can never be made manifest;
3b. the 'mere appearance' which is the bringing-forth of a 'mere appearance' in sense 3a.
Heidegger makes abundantly clear that sense 2 is the proper sense of 'appearance' and that senses 3a and 3b are the proper senses of 'mere appearance'. On H. 30 and 31 he concedes that sense 1b corresponds to the primordial sense of 'phenomenon'; but his discussion on H. 28 suggests that 1a corresponds to this more accurately, and he reverts to this position towards the end of H. 30" (BT 51, 1)

[5] "So again the expression 'appearance' itself can have a double signification: first, appearing, in the sense of announcing-itself, as now-showing-itself; and next, that which does the announcing [das Meldende selbst]--that which in its showing-itself indicates something which does not show itself. And finally one can use "appearing" as a term for the genuine sense of "phenomenon" as showing-itself. If one designates these three different things as 'appearance', bewilderment is unavoidable." (BT 53/30)

--

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.

Graduate 135: BT 09: Sec. 07, Part 1

Introduction. Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being
Chapter 2. The Twofold Task in Working Out the Question of Being. Method and Design of Our Investigation
Section 07. The Phenomenological Method of Investigation

[Introduction]

In this section, Heidegger turns to consider the proper method for conducting this investigation into "the Being of entities, or the meaning [sense] of Being in general". He writes, "The task of ontology is to explain Being itself and to make the Being of entities stand out in full relief." (BT 49/27. Brackets mine.) What has already been said about the history of ontology should indicate to us that our method should not necessarily mimic that of past ontologies. He also says that we cannot get a clue to the proper method by thinking of ontology as one area within the broader category of philosophical fields of study. "[O]n the contrary, only in terms of the objective necessities of definite questions and the kind of treatment which the 'things themselves' require, can one develop such a discipline." (BT 49/27) [1]

Heidegger says that the question of the meaning [sense] of being leads us to confront the fundamental question of philosophy. [2] He also adopts as his method phenomenology. In these summaries, we will focus on trying to understand what Heidegger means by 'phenomenology.' This term plays a big part in the work of Edmund Husserl and has been used in a number of different ways since. These uses may or may not be helpful for understanding what Heidegger has in mind, so we will just focus, here, on what Heidegger has to say. For Heidegger, 'phenomenology,' identifies a method of doing philosophy; it does not specify a domain of inquiry. Another way of putting this is to say that phenomenology does not dictate what is to be studied but only how one goes about studying something. One advantage of this approach (and I'm pretty sure that Heidegger takes it to be an advantage) is that it is supposed to free the investigator from the 'technical devices' that commonly characterize various theoretical disciplines and can actually get in the way of getting at the entity-in-question, itself. [3]

Indeed, one of the main guiding principles, in Heidegger's investigation, is the desire to actually get at the "things themselves." So he writes, "Thus the term 'phenomenology' expresses a maxim which can be formulated as 'To the things themselves!'" He goes on, "It is opposed to all free-floating constructions and accidental findings; it is opposed to taking over any conceptions which only seem to have been demonstrated...". (BT 50/28) Now this might seem an obvious point, even self-evident. Of course, when we conduct an investigation, we want to get at the thing itself. But part of Heidegger's concern just is that this principle is so obvious that it has been utterly neglected, particularly in scientific and philosophical fields that presuppose certain notions unreflectively and freely construct systems and models and theories that don't have any truly solid connection to the phenomena they are supposed to describe. His goal, in this section then, is to offer a preliminary conception of phenomenology.

Heidegger points out that the term 'phenomenology' has two components: "phenomenon" (Gk. PAINOMENON) and "logos," (Gk. LOGOS). We might be tempted to translate it, "science of phenomena," after the pattern of 'bio-logy,' 'socio-logy,' and 'theo-logy'. But Heidegger will follow a different strategy that involves establishing the meanings of the two parts separately and then together. So this section is divided into three sub-parts:

A. The Concept of Phenomenon
B. The Concept of Logos
C. The Preliminary Conception of Phenomenology

--

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This strikes me as a very interesting line, given questions that I am currently considering about the nature of explanation in general. How Heidegger understands these "objective necessities of definite questions" and how sensitivity to the 'things themselves' contributes to the development of any discipline or field of inquiry is an extremely interesting topic.

[2] It's not completely clear, here, whether Heidegger considers the question of the meaning of being to be identical to the fundamental question of philosophy or not.

[3] "The more genuinely a methodological concept is worked out and the more comprehensively it determines the principles on which a science is to be conducted, all the more primordially is it rooted in the way we come to terms with the things themselves, and the farther is it removed from what we call "technical devices", though there are many such devices even in the theoretical disciplines." (BT 50/27)

--

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.

Graduate 134: BT 08: Sec. 06

Introduction. Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being
Chapter 2. The Twofold Task in Working Out the Question of Being. Method and Design of Our Investigation
Section 06. The Task of Destroying the History of Ontology

In the last section, mention was made of the question of being occupying a distinctive place as the foundation of all other kinds of questioning.

In order to address himself to the task of "destroying" the history of ontology, it is necessary for Heidegger to first make some clarifying remarks about how he is approaching history. His goal is not just to show how prior interpretations of the meaning of being are inadequate. He also wants to understand why those interpretations arose and what those interpretations reveal about the understandings of being that gave rise to them and how those understandings of being form part of the unfolding history of being. Even this idea of the "unfolding history of being" must be clarified. As we shall see, later in this section, Heidegger is keen to point out how the various claims, that have been made throughout history, to having found an ultimate ground or self-evident principle have actually been grounded on still deeper assumptions--particularly about the meaning of being. If his own investigation is not to fall prey to the same error, than he must endeavor to look thoroughly into its grounds.

--

"Dasein's Being finds its meaning in temporality. But temporality is also the condition which makes historicality possible as a temporal kind of Being which Dasein itself possesses, regardless of whether or how Dasein is an entity 'in time'. Historicality, as a determinate character, is prior to what is called "history" (world-historical historizing)." (BT 41/19)

In order to address himself to the task of "destroying" the history of ontology, it is necessary for Heidegger to first make some clarifying remarks about how he is approaching history. He begins by defining "historicality" as (1) a kind of Being that Dasein possesses and (2) that which makes possible "history" or "world-historical historizing." Recall that Heidegger is concerned to investigate the conditions that make possible Dasein's various ways of being. Now he is considering what it is that enables Dasein to exist as an historical entity--that is, as an entity with a history. This is just a first pass at the topic. (As I said in the last post, Heidegger's approach involves reviewing the same issues over and over at progressively deeper levels.) Heidegger refers to that condition that makes possible "history" and "historizing" as "historicality."

"Historicality" makes "historizing" possible, and "historizing" is what makes "world-history" possible. Now we need to be clear that "historizing" is not something that only historians do. And "world-history," as it is used here, does not refer just to that particular academic discipline. To say, "Dasein historizes," is to say something like, "Dasein exists in an historical way." What is that historical way? Heidegger goes on to characterize it.

"In its factical Being, any Dasein is as it already was, and it is 'what' it already was. It is its past, whether explicitly or not. And this is so not only in that its past is, as it were, pushing itself along 'behind' it, and that Dasein possesses what is past as a property which is still present-at-hand and which sometimes has after-effects upon it: Dasein 'is' its past in the way of its own Being, which, to put it roughly, 'historizes' out of its future on each occasion." (BT 41/20)

We can get a rudimentary understanding of what Heidegger is saying with the paraphrase: Dasein is shaped by its history. [1] The past, for Heidegger, is not just something that follows behind Dasein. Rather, the past affects and influences Dasein's self-understanding and its ways of interpreting itself and, consequently, the possibilities that are available to it. He writes, "Dasein has grown up both into and in a traditional way of interpreting itself: in terms of this it understands itself proximally and, within a certain range, constantly." (BT 41/20) In an important sense, for Heidegger, the past 'generates' or gives rise to Dasein in the present.

Heidegger acknowledges that Dasein may be, ordinarily, unaware of this 'elemental historicality' that belongs to it--of the way in which it is 'generated' (or shaped). But Dasein can become aware of its historicality by encountering and engaging with tradition.

"In this way Dasein brings itself into the kind of Being which consists in historiological inquiry and research. But historiology--or more precisely historicity--is possible as a kind of Being which the inquiring Dasein may possess, only because historicality is a determining characteristic for Dasein in the very basis of its Being." (BT 41/20)

The vocabulary is dense and must be treated carefully. 'Historiology' seems to refer to the academic discipline of history and the ontical study of tradition. 'Historicity' seems to refer to some attribute belonging to the entities that are the objects of the academic discipline of history. So what Heidegger is doing in the second sentence of the above quotation is reminding the reader that this ontical activity--this scientific investigation of historical beings--is made possible by this ontological feature of Dasein, namely 'historicality.' These connections explain how the study of 'tradition' can bring about an encounter with Dasein's fundamental historicality.

Heidegger goes on to acknowledge the possibility that Dasein fail to engage in historiology but insists that that is not evidence of Dasein's non-historicality. Rather, it is a "deficient mode" of the state of being of historicality. What enables an age to be historiological or unhistoriological is the fact that Dasein is historical. [2]

Now if you thought things were tough up to this point, hang in there. They get just a bit hairier here.

"On the other hand, if Dasein has seized upon its latent possibility not only of making its own existence transparent to itself but also of inquiring into the meaning of existentiality itself (that is to say, of previously inquiring into the meaning of Being in general), and if by such inquiry its eyes have been opened to its own essential historicality, then one cannot fail to see that the inquiry into Being (the ontico-ontological necessity of which we have already indicated) is itself characterized by historicality. The ownmost meaning of Being which belongs to the inquiry into Being as an historical inquiry, gives us the assignment [Anweisung] of inquiring into the history of that inquiry itself, that is, of becoming historiological." (BT 42/20-21)

Heidegger has already called our attention to the essential historicality of Dasein. But if Dasein is essentially historical, that means that every investigation that Dasein engages in is also historical--that is, every investigation is a function of Dasein's historicality. But that means that even its investigation into the meaning of being must also be an historical investigation. For that reason, our investigation into the meaning of being must involve an investigation into the history of that very investigation and the various conclusions that have been reached about the meaning of being throughout history. [3] Our investigation into the meaning of being, then, is historiological.

--

Having established that the investigation of the meaning of being involves an historiological investigation, Heidegger goes on to clarify what that will involve. He says that our "preparatory Interpretation of the fundamental structures of Dasein with regard to the average kind of Being which is closest to it" will reveal that Dasein has a tendency to interpret itself in terms of the world in which it finds itself and in terms of the tradition of which it has taken hold. He writes, "This tradition keeps it from providing its own guidance, whether in inquiring or in choosing" and this is the case for all of Dasein's understanding ("which is rooted in Dasein's ownmost Being") including ontological understanding. (BT 42-43/21)

In other words, what we receive from tradition has a certain inaccessible or hidden or concealed character to it, because tradition tends to confer on it a status of unquestionability or self-evidence. "Tradition takes what has come down to us and delivers it over to self-evidence; it blocks our access to those primordial 'sources' from which the categories and concepts handed down to us have been in part quite genuinely drawn." (BT 43/21) Heidegger pointed out this phenomenon back in section 01 when looking at the conventional ways of thinking about being--as a 'universal,' 'indefinable,' and 'self-evident' concept. These ways of thinking about being actually undermine any serious investigation of it. Even though there is such widespread interest in 'metaphysics,' the conditions that make metaphysics possible have been concealed.

In this section, Heidegger points to the way in which Dasein's sense of its own historicality has been uprooted by its commitment to tradition. So even when it attempts to engage in historiology, Dasein is not able to do so because it does not grasp the most elementary conditions that enable and shape historiology. [4]

In further describing how the history of metaphysics has developed, Heidegger points to Greek ontology as the beginning. "Greek ontology and its history... prove that when Dasein understands either itself or Being in general, it does so in terms of the 'world'". (BT 43/21-22) But he goes on to say that ontology since the Greeks has deteriorated, been uprooted from its foundation and reduced to something self-evident. During the Middle Ages, he says, the uprooted Greek ontology was treated as a fixed body of doctrine and has even continued to exert influence in Hegel's investigations. "In the course of this history certain distinctive domains of Being have come into view and have served as the primary guides for subsequent problematics: the ego cogito of Descartes, the subject, the "I", reason, spirit, person." (BT 44/22) The problem with these interpretations of being is that they are not adequately grounded and have arisen through a neglect of the question of being. They are the product of mere formalization and negative restrictions and dialectic and not a full engagement with the question of being.

In order to get at the question of being and to understand the relationship of the history of ontology to the deeper history of being, it is necessary to loosen up this hardened tradition. [5] Our goal is to arrive at those "primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being--the ways which have guided us ever since." (BT 44/22) [6]

--

Heidegger says that the way in which we go about the destruction of the history of ontology depends upon how we have formulated the question of the meaning of Being. Since Heidegger's investigation will culminate in connecting the "Interpretation of Being" and the "phenomenon of time," his destruction of the history of ontology will look at those "decisive" moments in the history of ontology when philosophers tried to bring together being and time thematically. Heidegger says that the first and only person to ever attempt this was Kant. He believes that his investigation will illuminate both the difficulties that confronted Kant's treatment of the subject and why it ultimately fell short. Kant recognized that he was delving into areas of profound obscurity. Heidegger says of them, "In the end, those very phenomena which will be exhibited under the heading of 'Temporality' in our analysis, are precisely those most covert judgments of the 'common reason' for which Kant says it is the 'business of philosophers' to provide an analytic." (BT 45/23)

Now Heidegger never actually completed this analysis of Kant's project--at any rate, not in Being and Time. But he does give, in this section, an outline of what he had in mind at the time for his destructive investigation. According to Heidegger, Kant's inquiry into the nature of being fell short in two key ways: first, it neglected the problem of being, and second, it failed to provide an ontology with Dasein as its theme or "(to put this in Kantian language) to give a preliminary ontological analytic of the subjectivity of the subject." (BT 45/24) Instead, says Heidegger, Kant just adopted Descartes' view of the self. His conception of time, also, failed to go anywhere beyond the ordinary (and inadequate) conception of time. "Because of this double effect of tradition the decisive connection between time and the 'I think' was shrouded in utter darkness; it did not even become a problem." (BT 45/24)

Heidegger criticizes Descartes for mistakenly thinking that his 'cogito sum' placed philosophy on a new and firm footing. (And he thinks that Kant followed Descartes in this mistake.) "But what he left undetermined when he began in this 'radical' way, was the kind of Being which belongs to the res cogitans, or--more precisely--the meaning of the Being of the 'sum'." (BT 46/24) Descartes is famous for positing what he took to be the one most basic and indubitable truth: "I am thinking." [7] He thought that this one truth was beyond the reach or possibility of doubt and could, therefore, form the foundation for absolutely certain knowledge. The problem that Heidegger is pointing to, here, is that the statement, "I am thinking," is not basic but is actually built on more basic concepts that may or may not be well-grounded. The key concept that concerns Heidegger is the word, "am," (sum) which is the first-person, singular, present conjugation of the verb, "to be." So when Descartes says, "I am thinking," in order to make that claim he is actually presupposing something about the nature of being. Descartes thought he was grounding philosophical knowledge on a basic and indubitable foundation, but he was actually building that foundation on still more basic concepts that he ended up neglecting. "Our Interpretation will not only prove that Descartes had to neglect the question of Being altogether; it will also show why he came to suppose that the absolute 'Being-certain' ["Gewisssein"] of the cogito exempted him from raising the question of the meaning of the Being which this entity possesses." (BT 46/24)

Heidegger's critique of Descartes forms (or would have formed) the second step in Heidegger's destruction of the history of ontology. He says that Descartes just appropriated the medieval ontology in interpreting the res cogitans (thinking thing) as an ens and, more specifically, as an ens creatum. Such a view, in turn, presupposed the existence of God (ens infinitum and ens increatum), so that Descartes, we can now see, was not getting at anything basic at all but was importing all sorts of concepts without question. [8]

In following this dissemination of tradition to its source, one will move from medieval scholasticism and ontology to the ancient ontology that informed it. "[T]he meaning and the limitations of the ancient ontology" must be "exhibited in terms of an orientation directed towards the question of Being. In other words, in our process of destruction we find ourselves faced with the task of Interpreting the basis of the ancient ontology in the light of the problematic of Temporality. When this is done, it will be manifest that the ancient way of interpreting the Being of entities is oriented towards the 'world' or 'Nature' in the widest sense, and that it is indeed in terms of 'time' that its understanding of Being is obtained. The outward evidence for this (though of course it is merely outward evidence) is the treatment of the meaning of Being as PAROUSIA or OUSIA, which signifies, in ontologico-Temporal terms, 'presence' ["Anwesenheit"]. Entities are grasped in their Being as 'presence'; this means that they are understood with regard to a definite mode of time--the 'Present' [sic]". (BT 47/25. Greek transliteration mine) [9]

It will be important for what follows to understand, at least in a preliminary way, what Heidegger is saying here. According to Heidegger, ancient ontology derived its understanding of being from its orientation toward the 'world' and toward 'time'. This led to an interpretation of the meaning (or sense) of being as "presence"--i.e. as that which is present. We will see later how being, understood as 'presence,' is connected to the temporal notion of the 'present'. [10]

Heidegger goes on to describe how Greek ontology derived its orientation from Dasein itself. Defining Dasein as the 'rational animal' it considered the capacity or potentiality for discourse to be fundamental. We see this in the work of Plato which focuses on 'dialectic.' But, "As the ontological clue gets progressively worked out--namely, in the 'hermeneutic' of the LOGOS--it becomes increasinly possible to grasp the problem of Being in a more radical fashion." (BT 47/25) With Aristotle, dialectic was abandoned in favor of something still more radical. "LEGEIN itself--or rather NOEIN, that simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer presence-at-hand, which Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being--has the Temporal structure of a pure 'making-present' of something. Those entities which show themselves in this and for it, and which are understood as entities in the most authentic sense, thus get interpreted with regard to the Present; that is, they are conceived as presence (OUSIA)." (BT 48/25-26. Greek transliteration mine) [11]

It is from here that the understanding of being as 'presence' had its origin, according to Heidegger. But this understanding developed without clear consideration of its foundation or origin. Though their understanding of being as 'presence' bore such a tight connection to time, they did not perceive this connection or take seriously that time formed the ground of their ontology or ask how this was possible. They just thought of time as "one entity among other entities." (BT 48/26)

Heidegger's plan (at this stage) is to not present a detailed Temporal Interpretation of the foundation of ancient ontology but just to treat and interpret Aristotle's essay on time, "which may be chosen as providing a way of discriminating the basis and the limitations of the ancient science of Being." (BT 48/26) That essay has continued to exert influence, to such an extent that even Kant's basic ontological orientation remains fundamentally in line with that of the Greeks. Heidegger plan is to demonstrate the urgency and necessity of raising, afresh, the question of being, by showing how all the various ontologies that have been offered through the course of history have neglected this question and, thereby, been seriously compromised. At this point, Heidegger cannot even be sure that his own investigation will not disclose some still deeper, "even more primordial and more universal horizon from which we may draw the answer to the question, "What is 'Being'?"" (BT 49/26) It will require reawakening the basic question to find out whether this is the case or not.

--

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The use of the expression "shaped" is my own and does not come from Heidegger. At least he does not use that expression at this point in the work. I say this in order to alert the reader to the fact that I am importing a non-Heideggerian expression, which is always a risky move.

[2] For Heidegger, if Dasein were not historical than statements about the possibility of historiology would be rendered void of content. Lack of historicality (or non-historicality) does not correspond to non-historicity. Rather, lack of historicality renders impossible any assessments, positive or negative or bottom-line-contentful about historiology. Historicality is what makes historicity possible. Historicality is also what makes non-historicity possible.

By the way, I hope that I am correct in my use of 'historicity' and 'non-historicity' here. I used them instead of 'historiological-ness' and 'non-historiological-ness' because I believe that the senses are supposed to be corresponding.

[3] Here arises a worrisome question that may already have struck some. Will an investigation into the history of the investigation of the meaning of being really yield insight into the meaning of being itself? Or will it just prompt us to a further investigation into the history of the investigation of the history of the investigation of the meaning of being? Can we actually hope to get to a ground by this method? Will it come full circle somehow in the end? These are questions we should keep in mind.

Heidegger seems to give a tentative answer when he says: "In working out the question of Being, we must heed this assignment, so that by positively making the past our own, we may bring ourselves into full possession of the ownmost possibilities of such inquiry. The question of the meaning of Being must be carried through by explicating Dasein before hand in its temporality and historicality; the question thus brings itself to the point where it understands itself as historiological." (BT 42/21, Boldface added.)

[4] "Consequently, despite all its historiological interests and all its zeal for an Interpretation which is philologically 'objective' ["sachliche"], Dasein no longer understands the most elementary conditions which would alone enable it to go back to the past in a positive manner and make it productively its own." (BT 43/21)

[5] Again, keep in mind that though Heidegger is very critical of the traditional history of ontology, he nevertheless sees it as the product of a certain way of being and as part of the larger (deeper) history of the unfolding of being. He believes that a thorough understanding of being will reveal the explanation for why these various inadequate understandings of being have (and, perhaps, must have) arisen. Heidegger goes on to make this point in the next paragraph.

[6] "We must, on the contrary, stake out the positive possibilities of that tradition, and this always means keeping it within its limits; these in turn are given factically in the way the question is formulated at the time, and in the way the possible field for investigation is thus bounded off. ... But to bury the past in nullity [Nichtigkeit] is not the purpose of this destruction; its aim is positive; its negative function remains unexpressed and indirect." (BT 44/22-23)

[7] The Latin, "cogito sum" can be translated either as the present indicative, "I think," or as the present progressive, "I am thinking." I am employing the latter formulation, though the former is probably more familiar, because it employs the copula, "am," which is at the center of what Heidegger is concerned about.

[8] "The seemingly new beginning which Descartes proposed for philosophizing has revealed itself as the implanation of baleful prejudice, which has kept later generations from making any thematic ontological analytic of the 'mind' ["Gemutes"] such as would take the question of Being as a clue and would at the same time come to grips critically with the traditional ancient ontology." (BT 46/25)

[9] See Macquarrie-and-Robinson footnotes for this passage: (1) and (2).

[10] I believe PAROUSIA translates, roughly, "being present," and OUSIA is related to the Greek ONTOS, from which the word 'ontology' is derived--having to do with 'being.'

[11] NOEIN has to do with perception or perceiving.

--

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.

Graduate 133: BT 07: Sec. 05

Introduction, Chapter 2. The Twofold Task in Working Out the Question of Being. Method and Design of Our Investigation
Section 05. The Ontological Analytic of Dasein as Laying Bare the Horizon for an Interpretation of the Meaning of Being in General

In this section, Heidegger offers some general points about the overall shape of the investigation that will follow. The metaphor that comes to mind in attempting to describe its character is that of a gradual and progressive removing of layers and layers. Heidegger will be reviewing many of the same points over and over, but each time at a deeper level. The final level will involve revealing being as tied fundamentally to time and temporality.

--

We have already established that Dasein is to occupy the "principle role within the question of Being. But," Heidegger asks at the beginning of this section, "how are we, as it were, to set our sights toward this entity, Dasein, both as something accessible to us and as something to be understood and interpreted?" (BT 36/15)

We must be careful in how we approach Dasein so as not to take anything for granted or overlook any crucially important distinction. To clarify this point, Heidegger describes how Dasein is ontically closest to us and ontologically farthest from us. It may be helpful, at this point, to (try to) make clear the distinction between the ontical and the ontological. Speaking broadly, the "ontological" has to do with being and the "ontical" has to do with beings (that is, particular beings or entities). "Being" is that in virtue of which "beings" are revealed--that they are and as they are. Heidegger will continue to stress the importance of this distinction--that being is not some-thing among other things; it is not an entity. "Being" is not a being.

What, then, does it mean to say that Dasein is ontically closest to us and ontologically farthest from us. Well, we are concerned to understand the kind and way of being that is distinctive of Dasein. Now when we say that this particular kind of being that we are concerned to explicate belongs to Dasein, that suggests that it is something with which Dasein is very familiar; and, in a sense, this is right because Dasein is that kind of being. But just because we are Dasein, the nature of the being of Dasein is not immediately evident to us. That being is reflected in what Dasein does and how it acts and lives and behaves and conducts and comports itself, but it does not follow from all that that Dasein has a theoretical grasp and understanding of its being.

Our relationship to our own way of being may be compared to our relationship to our own face. In one sense, my relationship to my own face--to my eyes and nose and mouth and ears--is the closest and most intimate that could possibly be had with that face: It is my face. Not only am I related spatially to it (i.e. it is attached to my body) but I also use it to see and smell and taste and speak and hear. My face is closest to me. On the other hand, there is a sense in which my relationship to my own face is very much estranged. For instance, I'm not able to see my own face. I've never actually seen what my face looks like. (Mirrors present inverted images and photographs don't capture its three-dimensionality.) I also have no idea how my various sensory faculties work. I don't know how my eyes see or how my nose smells or how my mouth tastes or how my ears hear. Even though my relationship to my own face is the most intimate that could possibly be had to it, there is also a sense in which it is more mysterious to me then it is, for instance, to an optometrist or an audiologist or even to someone who's standing three feet in front of me.

It is this kind of mixed relationship that we have to our own being that warrants caution in our investigation. We must not take for granted that our pre-theoretical understanding of being (like our pre-theoretical grasp of vision or hearing) provides reliable clues for developing a theoretical understanding of being. Here, Heidegger makes a crucial observation:

"The kind of Being which belongs to Dasein is rather such that, in understanding its own Being, it has a tendency to do so in terms of that entity towards which it comports itself proximally and in a way which is essentially constant--in terms of the 'world'. In Dasein itself, and therefore in its own understanding of Being, the way the world is understood is, as we shall show, reflected back ontologically upon the way in which Dasein itself gets interpreted." (BT 36-37, 15-16)

The relationship of Dasein to the world and its primordial connection with it will continue to be important for understanding the being of Dasein. But we want to take seriously, at this point, the peculiar difficulties posed to our investigation by the very character of Dasein.

--

Heidegger also points out that we have, in the background of this investigation, over two thousand years of speculation about human beings under various aspects and disciplines. Again, it is not clear whether these investigations will be illuminating or will rather obstruct our present investigation. "[T]he question remains whether these interpretations of Dasein have been carried through with a primordial existentiality comparable to whatever existentiell primordiality they may have possessed." (BT 37/16)

At this point, some further clarification of "existential" and "existentiell" is called for. We defined "existentiell" as the understanding of oneself that leads along the way to answering the question of existence and existing itself. (Section 04) Heidegger says, "The question of existence is one of Dasein's ontical 'affairs'." (BT 33/12) So existentiell has to do with Dasein's understanding of its being as an entity. But Heidegger also wants to make clear that the exploration of the question of being, conducted by Dasein as an entity, takes place within a larger context and structure. The exploration of this larger context and structure of existential. It is appropriate to see a parallel in the formulation of the ontical-ontological distinction and the existentiell-existential distinction. The first terms in each pairing has to do with entities and particular beings. The second term has to do with being in general or the conditions for the possibility of differentiating and investigating particular entities or existentiells.

The point that Heidegger is making in the above quotation, then, is that the various investigations into the nature of humanity that have been conducted throughout history (anthropologically, scientifically, biologically, theologically, politically, ethically, psychologically, etc.) belong to the existentiell level. They may be helpful or not in our existential investigation, but ultimately they must be grounded in some existential ground. "Only when the basic structures of Dasein have been adequately worked out with explicit orientation towards the problem of Being itself, will what we have hitherto gained in interpreting Dasein [i.e. in existentiell terms] get its existential justification." (BT 37/16. Bracketed insert mine) [1]

--

All these warnings against possible misdirection in our investigation make the need to determine a proper orientation even more urgent. "To put it negatively, we have no right to resort to dogmatic constructions and to apply just any idea of Being and actuality to this entity, no matter how 'self-evident' that idea may be; nor may any of the 'categories' which such an idea prescribes be forced upon Dasein without proper ontological consideration. We must rather choose such a way of access and such a kind of interpretation that this entity can show itself in itself and from itself [an ihm selbst von ihm selbst her]." (BT 37/16. Boldface mine.)

Under what aspect does Dasein show itself most clearly in itself and from itself? Heidegger answers: in its everydayness. So to begin with, Heidegger will want to determine the structures that enable Dasein to conduct itself in the way that it does in its everyday existence. He is not interested in describing how Dasein would conduct itself under certain idealized circumstances because, he thinks, that would be unilluminating for understanding how Dasein actually is. So he wants to begin by considering Dasein in its everydayness. [2]

Heidegger makes clear that this first round of investigations into the meaning of being--in terms of everydayness--will only be provisional. "It merely brings out the Being of this entity, without Interpreting its meaning. It is rather a preparatory procedure by which the horizon for the most primordial way of interpreting Being may be laid bare. Once we have arrived at this horizon, this preparatory analytic of Dasein will have to be repeated on a higher and authentically ontological basis." (BT 38/17)

--

That higher and authentically ontological basis is temporality "as the meaning of the Being of that entity which we call "Dasein"." (BT 38/17) Interpreting the being of Dasein in terms of temporality will involve reinterpreting what will be provisionally exhibited in terms of everydayness. And even when we have explicated the being of Dasein in terms of temporality, we will only have prepared the way for obtaining the answer to the question of the meaning of being in general.

Having shown that Dasein has a pre-theoretical understanding of being and a "pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state," we will go on to show how Dasein "tacitly understands and interprets something like Being... with time as its standpoint." (BT 39/17)

"Time must be brought to light--and genuinely conceived--as the horizon for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of Dasein, which understands Being." (BT 39/17) Heidegger emphasizes that our ordinary conception of time, though ultimately arising from temporality, is inadequate. Part of the explication of authentic temporality will involve explaining how it leads to our ordinary concept of time and how that ordinary concept is inadequate.

Heidegger points out that 'time' has long functioned as a criterion for discriminating various realms of entities. For instance, "A distinction has been made between 'temporal' entities (natural processes and historical happenings) and 'non-temporal' entities (spatial and numerical relationships)." (BT 39/18) The distinctions between propositional utterances and propositional contents is another illustrative example of this. "Hitherto no one has asked or troubled to investigate how time has come to have this distinctive ontological function, or with what right anything like time functions as such a criterion; nor has anyone asked whether the authentic ontological relevance which is possible for it, gets expressed when "time" is used in so naively ontological a manner." (BT 39/18)

"In contrast to all this, our treatment of the question of the meaning of Being must enable us to show that the central problematic of all ontology is rooted in the phenomenon of time, if rightly seen and rightly explained, and we must show how this is the case." (BT 40/18) A full understanding of authentic temporality will show that both temporal and non-temporal or supra-temporal entities (as we ordinarily use these expressions) are temporal with regard to their Being. "In both pre-philosophical and philosophical usage the expression 'temporal' has been pre-empted by the signification we have cited; in the following investigations, however, we shall employ it for another signification." (BT 40/19)

"Thus the fundamental ontological task of Interpreting Being as such includes working out the Temporality of Being. In the exposition of the problematic of Temporality the question of the meaning of Being will first be concretely answered." (BT 40/19)

In closing, Heidegger again emphasizes that it will not be adequate to answer this question if the answer is simply different from those that have come before it. A genuine answer is one that will take into account and explain all the answers that have come before. He says, at one point, that the answer must be ancient--in other words, able to account for the possibilities of being that were conceived by even the ancients. "If, then, the answer to the question of Being is to provide the clues for our research, it cannot be adequate until it brings us the insight that the specific kind of Being of ontology hitherto, and the vicissitudes of its inquiries, its findings, and its failures, have been necessitated in the very character of Dasein." (BT 40/19)

--

[1] Later Heidegger will comment, along similar lines, to the effect that a complete ontology of Dasein must be constructed "if anything like a 'philosophical' anthropology is to have a philosophically adequate basis." (BT 38/17)

[2] "In this everydayness there are certain structures which we shall exhibit--not just any accidental structures, but essential ones which, in every kind of Being that factical Dasein may possess, persist as determinative for the character of its Being. Thus by having regard for the basic state of Dasein's everydayness, we shall bring out the Being of this entity in a preparatory fashion." (38/16-17)

--

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.