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

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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)

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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.