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