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.
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.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 10:54 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home