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On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
General IntroductionI am studying for a PhD on the subject of mediated environments, which touches on the wider theme of the relationship between human beings and technology. I am reading Heidegger because he is a major player when it comes to theories about technology. For example see - Ihde, Don (1979), Technology and Praxis. It is my habit to make extensive notes and comments on the texts that I am studying. There are two aspects to this: explication and commentary. To identify which is which, explicatory passages will be written in Times font like this and commentary will be written in courier font, i.e. the font I am using now. In addition to the pages on Being and Time which will appear, there is also an online glossary of terms which I am compiling as I proceed through the book. If you have any comments you are welcome to make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
Online discussionsI have decided to share these thoughts online. I hope they might provoke some interesting discussions/debates... more
Creative commons issuesI will be referring extensively to Heidegger's Being and Time (very much a copyrighted text)... more
My position on HeideggerI think I should try to explain my own position on Heidegger... more
Citations and linksUnfortunately I don't speak German, so the text I will be working from is the 1962 translation of Being and Time by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson... more
MAIN INDEX
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 1"
INTRODUCTION
The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being
I. The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being
1. The Necessity for Explicitly Re-stating the Question of Being
2. The Formal Structure of the Question of Being
3. The Ontological Priority of the Question of Being
4. The Ontical Priority of the Question of Being
Links to content found in document:"Explication and Commentary 2"
II. The Double Task in Working Out the Question of Being: The Method of the Investigation and Its Outline
5. The Ontological Analysis of Dasein as laying bare the Horizon for an Interpretation of the Meaning of Being in General
6. The Task of a Destroying the History of Ontology
7. The Phenomenological Method of Investigation
a. The Concept of Phenomenon
b. The Concept of Logos
c. The Preliminary Conception of Phenomenology
8. The Design of the Treatise
Links to content found in document:"Explication and Commentary 3"
PART ONE
The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
Horizon of the Question of Being
DIVISION ONE: The Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein
I. The Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein
9. The Theme of the Analytic of Dasein
10. How the Analytic of Dasein is to be Distinguished from Anthropology, Psychology, and Biology
11. The Existential Analytic and the Interpretation of Primitive Dasein: The Difficulties in Securing a "Natural Concept of the World"
Links to content found in document:"Explication and Commentary 4"
PART ONE
DIVISION TWO:The Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein
I. The Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein
12. A Preliminary Sketch of Being-in-the-World in Terms of the
Orientation toward Being-in as Such
13. The Exemplification of Being-in in a Founded Mode: Knowing the World
Links to content found in document:"Explication and Commentary 5"
PART ONE
DIVISION THREE:The Worldhood of the World
14. The Idea of the Worldhood of the World' in General
15. The Being of the Entities Encountered in the Environment
Links to content found in document:"Explication and Commentary 6"
16. How the Worldly Character of the Environment Announces Itself in Entities Within-the-World
17. Reference and Signs
Links to content found in document:"Explication and Commentary 7"
18. Involvement and Significance; the Worldhood of the World
Links to content found in document:"Explication and Commentary 8"
19. The Definition of the 'World' as res extensa
20. Foundations of the Ontological Definition of the World
21. Hermeneutical Discussion of the Cartesian Ontology of the World
This project was started in September 2005 but work has been suspended for the time being because my PhD sort of took over - If you have attempted one, you'll know the feeling! But I hope to pick it up and finish it sometime. :)
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments are welcome, please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
August 5 — September 11, 2005
(page 19)
INTRODUCTION 1
EXPOSITION OF THE QUESTION OF THE MEANING OF BEING
I
THE NECESSITY, STRUCTURE, AND PRIORITY
OF THE QUESTION OF BEING
¶ 1. The Necessity of Explicitly Restating the Question of Being
For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression "being". We, however, who used to thing we understood it have now become perplexed.
The above quotation from Plato summarises a key point from Heidegger's opening argument of Being and Time. Namely that today we are incapable of answering the question "What is being?" even to the extent of articulating a rudimentary understanding.
However, our inability to define Being is not the source of anxiety to us. The very problem of being has been successfully buried over the years, so that in the modern world, the question, 'what is Being?' does not seem to be one that demands our attention. Heidegger places the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of philosophy, which he says has been responsible for pulling the wool over our eyes in regards to being. It's actions: "not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect"... Being, according to this dogmatic philosophical view, "is the most universal and yet emptiest of concepts... one that resists all attempts at definition."
So in order to proceed in our enquiry, we must first discover what is vital and urgent about the question of Being that needs to be answered, in Heidegger's words, we must re-awaken it.
(page 21)
The Paradox of Being
The paradox of Being is that it is the most enigmatic and mysterious and yet the most banal and everyday of concepts. Being is the "is" of a sentence (in logic it is called the copula) that links the subject to its predicate, and as such is an integral part of the most basic form human language. Very young children have no problem understanding, for instance, that the cat is on the mat. But what is this is, the isness of the cat? Everyone refers to the concept of Being without stopping to examining it further.
(page 22)
At this early stage of the inquiry it is not possible to elaborate on such a disturbing lacuna in our collective understanding, nor on the prejudices that informed it, nor indeed the reasons for those prejudices. Such a detailed critique must wait until the foundations of Being have been properly laid, in other words until the question has itself been clarified.
However there are three preliminary remarks that we can extract from the history of dogmatic assumptions about Being, that will help us initially to clarify the question:
1/ "Being is not a genus".
It has been maintained that Being is the most universal of concepts, thus an understanding of Being is presupposed in our conceiving of anything as an entity. Being transcends any categorical distinction we care to make in our apprehension of the world. It does this by existing above and beyond any notion of a category that we can form in our understanding.
(page 23)
2/ Being is indefinable.
The term entity cannot be applied to Being because it cannot be defined using traditional logic, i.e. a technique for understanding which derives its terms either from higher general concepts, or by recourse to ones of lower generality. In other words, it is because Being is neither a thing nor a genus, it follows that it cannot be defined according to logic, whose job it is to set out the rules that govern the categorisation of things.
3/ Being is self-evident
Whenever one thinks about anything, or makes an assertion, or even asks a question; some use is made of Being. But the intelligibility of Being, in this sense, is only an average sort of intelligibility. This average intelligibility, true to the 'paradox of Being' elaborated earlier, is also indicative of its unintelligibility.
What does Heidegger mean by this? Well, Heidegger wants us to be aware that there are two sides to this question. On the positive side, we are all equipped with a common sense understanding of Being: we all seem to know what it is, even though we cannot articulate that knowledge. On the negative side, we are also very ignorant of Being and this ignorance is what Heidegger is seeking to expose, before he can even
address the question of Being. We are ignorant because in positioning ourselves to regard any given entity (that is, focussing our conscious attention of own being onto the being of something else), we miss that this process is somewhat reflexive in character. What we are in fact doing is comporting 'the being of our being' towards the being of the entity. And therein lies an enigma, because according to traditional logic, what we are apparently seeing when we do this is a reflection. A reflection that is reflected off other reflections, which although clearly visible, seem to lack any original source. Hence when you penetrate the average intelligibility of Being (using the methods of traditional logical analysis) it seems in fact to be unintelligible — a blind alley; a circular argument; a hall of mirrors. This implies either, a) that the investigation of being is a non starter, or, b) that the method that we are using to interrogate Being is at fault. As Heidegger goes on to state…
(page 24)
What has been ascertained by examining these prejudices is that the question of being lacks an answer. And the main reason for this is that the question itself has been formulated in a way that lacks direction. Therefore the task now s to reformulaed the question.
So, what Heidegger is doing here is making it clear that the normal method of philosophical analysis. I.e. the one which relies upon naming things, placing them into categories and analysing them using logical subject/predicate oppositions is inadequate for the task of investigating the question of Being. For this reason, any analysis that based fundamentally on logic is here-on-in abandoned. Readers will notice that, as a consequence, the terminology from this point becomes more unfamiliar. As Heidegger feels compelled to invent new words and analytical techniques to articulate the question of Being anew. In effect this terminology functions to defamiliarise the reader, by abandoning conventional conceptions of existence. It seems for Heidegger that only when this has been achieved, can the examination of Being proper commence in earnest.
Heidegger's analysis of Being can be seen (partially) as an attempt to describe the world of immediate existence of course that comes before linguistic and rational understandings. This would cannot be adequately captured in
representational terms, because words place a different kind of reality over our immediate understanding of the world
We must try to resist the inevitable temptation of trying to make Heidegger speak more clearly to us in representational terms. I say inevitable because that is of course what we must do initially to understand Heidegger. Although such simplification can be helpful at first, we must resist the temptation hold onto these linguistic crutches for too long, because then we are liable to fall into the trap of finding that Heidegger's argument collapses into something banal and easily dismissable. If we were to do this, I think we would be the poorer, because we would miss a lot of what Heidegger is trying to uncover.
¶ 2. The Formal Structure of the Question of Being
Heidegger reminds us that the 'question of Being' is not just any question, it is the question, in the sense that it belongs to every other question. So to understand it we must uncover the commonalties in every question, so that what is peculiar about questioning can be made transparent.
Every inquiry is seeking and the journey of seeking is guided beforehand by what is sought.
Heidegger defines questioning as "a cognisant seeking for an entity both with regard to the fact that it is and with regard to its Being as it is." (Note here that in Heidegger's view, Being become central to the investigation of everything else. This should be a cause of anxiety for us, the readers, because arguably Heidegger is claiming here that, because we do not understand the question of Being, we do not really understand anything at all)
Questioning can take the form of both investigating and interrogating.
Investigating is a mode of questioning which is concerned with obtaining a goal, that of laying bare the nature of the question to ascertain its character. This is a type of questioning Heidegger calls "expressly theoretical".
Interrogating is a mode of questioning where the goal is not so much obtained as constantly deferred or reflected back onto the questioner. All inquiries are inquiries about something, which is also a questioning of that something. So, in addition to what is asked
about, there is also a sense of that which is interrogated. In this case, inquiry itself is also about the behaviour of a questioner, and the reciprocal relationship that gets established between the questioner and the questioned. Both has their own character of being. Consequently both must be examined. When one makes an inquiry one may do so casually…
(page 25)
…or formulate the question explicitly. The latter case is the more peculiar in that the answer itself is not clarified until all the elements of the question are themselves made transparent
We must be mindful then of the structural considerations of questioning itself, if we are to formulate the question: What is Being?
Because inquiry is always guided beforehand by what is sought; the meaning of Being must already be available to us in some way . After all, as Heidegger has already pointed out, we go about our day to day activities with a common-sense understanding of Being. Which he refers to as an 'average sort of intelligibility' [ref. page 23]. If we ask, 'what is "Being" ?', we already have an understanding of what the is in this sentence signifies, what we do no know as yet is the horizon in which its meaning is to be grasped and fixed. However it is important to realise that even a vague common-sensical understanding is still an understanding. In other words, the question that is to be asked of Being is one of clarification, not of seeking a totally novel, or surprising explanation. The problem for Heidegger's inquiry then is to reveal the horizon of Being. He proposes to set about doing this by shedding light on those aspects of Being have hitherto existed in a pool of darkness. (A darkness Heidegger adds made more opaque by the hooves of traditional philosophical dogma, muddying the waters).
The first real assertion we can make is this:
"Being is that which determines entities as entities before they are actually understood as entities."
For instance, when a child points at something and says, 'what's that?' The 'that' is already understood as 'a something' before the question is even asked. All the child is seeking is to name the being of the given entity.
(page 26)
This Being (the Being of entities) is something which can be extracted from them, as Being per se, yet this Being is not itself an entity. Consequently, if we want to understand what Being is, we should not treat it as a 'something.' For then the trajectory that our inquiry will take will be a search for origins–a 'Holy Grail' type of seeking–which is the
stuff of myth, not of philosophical inquiry. So the meaning of Being needs to be conceived of in a way that is unique to this 'non-entity' quality of Being,
…And this is where traditional language fails us, because the nature of language is to always objectify what it is talking about. language talks in words, which represent concepts, which either represent things or a reified into things. Language can be said to be totally concerned with the 'thingness of things'. Linguistically it seems impossible for there to exist a 'named thing' like Being, which is not at the same time an existent object. For this reason we tend to judge the assertion, 'being is not a thing' as sounding illogical. It is natural to assume that Being is some impossible object and to dismiss it, rather than to suspect that the fault lies with they way that language represents existence. Perhaps then we should consider the possibility that logic and language are indeed fallible. But if we deny this possibility, we need to ask ourselves, how is it that we cannot account for the existence of being using language and logic?
The question, 'what is Being?' needs to be formulated with these problems in mind.
As we have said, Being is that which determines entities as entities, in other words, Being can be said to mean the 'Being of entities.' It follows therefore that the entities themselves must be questioned to find out the nature of their being.
This is a neat reversal of the Child's question 'what's that?' In asking the question, the child is seeking to fix the name of something in language, for example, to understand that the four legged animal that barks is called a 'dog'. But this fixing of a name also tends to be the termination of the child's inquiry; she knows what a 'dog' is, and so her attention moves onto to other unnamed entities for the next, 'what's that?'. Heidegger proposes that for our inquiry, we point at a dog and ask 'what's that?', not in the sense of seeking a new name for the dog, but in the sense of uncoupling the entity from its name, i.e. freeing ourselves from our dependence on a purely linguistic understanding and examining existence afresh in terms of it Being, or to put this another way, in terms of that which makes some things stand out from the manifold of existence as a thing, capable of arresting our curiosity in the first place.
But there are many things which we designate as Being. So the question is not 'what entities?', but which? And this prompts a further question. Are all entities equally equipped for answering this question, or do some reveal more about their Being than others?
So our inquiry must explain how being is looked at, how its meaning is to be understood, and should also prepare the way for choosing the right entity to examine, by sorting out genuine ways to access it. Looking at something, understanding and conceiving it, choosing, access to it–all of these ways of behaving are constitutive for our inquiry, and therefore are modes of Being for those particular entities, as our we, the inquirers, a mode of Being ourselves...
(page 27)
Dasein
To work out the question adequately, we must make an entity–the inquirer–transparent in his own Being. Thus the entity in this case is the 'human being' (or a consciousness that is aware of itself as a consciousness–i.e. as opposed to an animal that operates solely by instinct), and in the mode of inquiring. As Heidegger puts it, "The very asking of this question is an entity's mode of Being; and as such it gets its essential character from what is inquired about–namely, Being." This 'inquiring consciousness' then becomes the 'subject' of Heidegger's entire inquiry into Being and he denotes this henceforth by the term "Dasein."
But doesn't the study of our own being become a viscous circle, like staring into the multifaceted reflections in a hall or mirrors? Heidegger answers no. This is one of the problems of logic again, that it cannot penetrate the question sufficiently. Once one is embarked on the journey of inquiry, with all the practical considerations that entails, then one will see that these chimeras of theoretical abstraction will fall away.
"Factically", (a Heideggerian term for which we can usually substitute "in fact") there is no viscous circle at all, because one can determine the nature of entities in their being, without necessarily having to have an explicit concept of the meaning of Being per se. For if things were otherwise, Heidegger argues, there would be no ontological knowledge at all.
But, as Heidegger has already stated, Being is not a concept. But something that can already be presupposed by to our common-sense understanding of Being. Heidegger calls this 'taking a look beforehand', so that certain entities get provisionally articulated in their Being…
(page 28)
What Heidegger means by this 'taking a look beforehand' can be defined as essentially guesswork, and it derives its legitimacy from our common-sense understanding of being . In other words, we already know what Being is, even though we cannot articulate it properly yet. This makes examining these guesses a good starting point for the inquiry - especially given the fact that our common sense understanding of Being belongs already to the essential constitution of Dasein itself).
You will notice that such presupposing has nothing to do with logic, which is always concerned with laying down an axiom from which a series of propositions can be deductively derived . It is not a question of grounding something, but rather of laying bare the grounds for it. For those who know Peirce, this is very similar to his concept of abduction, which itself can be defined as taking a guess.
This 'laying bare the grounds' entails not a circular argument, but an interrogation, i.e. a lot of relating backwards and forwards. This manifests as a constant stepping out of the mode of inquiring directed towards something, to ask ourselves how our questioning is related to the mode of Being that we are inhabiting whilst we are in the process of inquiring. This self-monitoring aspect becomes an essential technique to learn, as it is particularly pertinent to the inquiry itself. Interrogating then is a way–perhaps a very special way–in which entities with the character of Dasein are related to the question of Being itself. Heidegger designates this latter relation as Dasein's ownmost meaning (this is a term which we will hear more of later) .
Heidegger asks at this point whether we have not already demonstrated that some entities are more important than others with regard to the question, 'what is being?'? His answer is "not entirely". For in truth we have not demonstrated this yet, but in keeping with the provisional nature of our inquiry, we can say that we have a hunch that the priority of Dasien has already announced itself.
¶ 3. The Ontological Priority of the Question of Being
(page 29)
This question of Being requires some fundamental considerations to be addressed before it can be solved. But such considerations will only become apparent once we have delineated the aim, motives and function of the question. For example, what purpose is the question supposed to serve? Is it merely the most speculative of all generalities, or the most basic and concrete question of all?
Being Scientific (or the systematic study of phenomena)
Being is always the being of an entity. The totality of entities can be a field for determining certain areas of subject matter. These areas–space, history, nature, etc–can serves as objects for inquiry which corresponding scientific investigations take as their themes. (Heidegger uses the term "Scientific" here to designate, not just what we would call 'the sciences', but any systematic interrogation that is concerned with making conscious its aims and objectives as well as answering the question). For example, astronomers and architects study different aspects of space, historians study past time, biologists study nature, etc.
Scientific research itself establishes, albeit naively, the initial fixing of the areas of its subject matter. But the basic structuring of the territory has already been worked out in advance in our pre-scientific ways of experiencing the domain of Being; in the particular areas where a 'subject' point of view has emerged and to which it is confined. These basic concepts of subject territories or domains (derived from common-sense assumptions) serve as the first clues when any the scientific investigation seeks to uncover a particular territory.
This is the reason Heidegger says that the real progress of researching comes not from the physical data collated, but from the very act of inquiring into the ways each area is basically constituted. We are driven to this desire for precision and specialization of our knowledge, in a sense, by reacting against information overload, where an ever increasing flux of information becomes unwieldy in time and threatens to overwhelm us. For example a subject like 'Nature' becomes loaded with more an more information, so that the very notion of nature itself becomes fuzzy and inevitably an enquiry into nature them spawns sub-branches of inquiry, such as biology, which in turn get divided up into zoology and botany etc., etc.
Actually, real movement in the sciences only takes place when their basic concepts consciously undergo a radical revision, or become transparent in Heidegger's terminology. The level to which a science has reached (its maturity as a subject) paradoxically can be determined by how far it is capable of undergoing a crisis in its basic concepts…
(page 30)
Heidegger is arguing that, from our common-sense understanding of things, we develop a set of basic concepts that determine the way in which we get an understanding beforehand of any given subject. It is only after the area itself has been explored beforehand in a in interrogating our guesses that these concepts become genuinely demonstrated and 'grounded'. But since this data is obtained from entities; this preliminary research signifies nothing else but an interpretation of those entities with regard to their basic structure of Being. Such research must run ahead of the
investigations of the positive sciences, and in fact this proves to be the case. This laying the foundations is something Heidegger calls "a productive logic", which is different in principle from what it traditionally thought of as logic, "which "limps along after investigating the status of some science… in order to discover its 'method'" (31). Productive logic leaps ahead of the problem, as it were, disclosing novel areas of Being for the first time in the constitution of its Being, and after arriving at this structure, it makes it available to the positive sciences as conscious directions for their inquiry to take. For example Kant's Critique of Pure Reason contributes towards the working out of what belongs to any Nature, because his transcendent logic is an a priori logic for the subject matter of that area of Being called "Nature".
In fact ontology in its broadest possible sense, can be defined as inquiry; that is an inquiry that does not favour any particular ontological directions or tendencies. This broad and free-ranging inquiry can be compared with the more narrowly delineated and focussed inquiry of the sciences–Heidegger uses the term ontic to designate the latter type and Ontological is reserved from here-on-in to designate only for the former, free ranging inquiry. Ontological inquiry is an inquiry of Being and is more primordial than ontic inquiries. The term "Primordial" is meant here in the sense of being closer to Being itself, which according to Heidegger's epistemology, comes before ontic knowledge.
Ontic and Ontological
It is worth underscoring the distinction between the terms Ontic and Ontological because Heidegger makes frequent use of them in the text. The translators–John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson– advance this helpful definition: Ontic is concerned with knowledge about entities (facts about things in other words), whilst ontological in concerned primarily with Being. A good example of how this distinction between ontic and ontological works in practice is provided in the next section (¶4) Heidegger says of Dasein that it is "ontically distinctive because it is ontological." Thus equipped with these definitions, you should at least be able to understand semantically what is meant by this sentence. However, a fuller explanation must wait until the next section comes under examination.
Summary of Section
The section concludes that, the question of Being aims to ascertaining the a priori conditions which create the possibilities for a science that is capable of examining entities as entities. However, in case we start to forget our priorities...
"All ontology no matter what categories it uses to slice into the world remains blind and perverted from its truest and most authentic aim, which is to discover the meaning of Being, whose clarification is its most fundamental task."
In answer the question posed in the title of this section, this is why ontological research gives absolute priority to the question of Being.
(page 32)
¶ 4. The Ontical Priority of the Question of Being
Science in general (that is science abstracted from any particular content) may be provisionally defined as "the totally established through an interconnection of true propositions." Although this definition does not really approach the true meaning of science. As ways in which man behaves, sciences have the meaning of Being which this entity–Man himself–possesses.
This is an important point. It other words what Heidegger is saying is that our understanding of existence reflects ourselves, in the sense that the world is ultimately part of us and that there can be no "objective" - in the sense of detachment - understanding. The world isn't something totally outside and divorced from us, it is in the most literal sense our world, so the particular questions that a given science takes up are in the final analysis going to concern us.
This, 'meaning of Being which man himself–possesses', we denote by the term "Dasein". As we stated earlier, Dasein can be defined as a human being in the mode of investigating the question of its own Being. Scientific research is not the only manner of Being which this entity (Dasein) can have, nor is it the one which lies closest to Dasein. It is Dasein alone that has a special distinctiveness as compared with other entities. Provisionally this can be expressed as Dasein's concern with its own being. The fact that Being is at issue, implies that Dasein's relationship to its own being is constitutive for the definition of Being per se. And furthermore, this also implies that Dasein understands itself in its being, and moreover, it does this explicitly to some degree. Therefore: "Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's Being
Existence
Here, "being ontological" is not the same thing as "developing an ontology". So we should reserve the term "ontology" only for that theoretical inquiry which is explicitly devoted to the meaning of entities (i.e. not Dasein or Being per se). What we have in mind when we speak of Dasein's "Being ontological" is actually to be designated as something "pre-ontological". This is because it signifies being in such as way that one already has an understanding of Being. The kind of being towards which Dasein comports itself we call "existence".
We have chosen to designate Dasein, because we cannot define its essence in terms of "what it is", but in terms of "what it is to be", (i.e., in terms of its potential), and this potential is at the same time something which belongs to Dasein and is all its own. Dasein is purely an expression of its own Being. ("own" is used in the sense here of belonging to Dasien, should not be taken to mean "as a property of" but rather as something that fundamentally constitutes it).
(page 33)
Dasien always understands itself in terms of its existence–in terms of a possibility of itself. Dasein has either chosen this possibility for itself or has got into it. Only the particular Dasein (the individual) decides its existence: either by "taking hold" (i.e. making the decision consciously) or neglecting (being carried along with the flow).
"Existentiell" and "Extential"
The question of existence never gets clarified except through existing. The understanding of oneself that we acquire along the way Heidegger calls "Existentiell". The question of existence is close to Dasein, but this does not mean that Dasein is necessarily conscious of the question of existence (the question doesn't have to be theoretically transparent). But this structuring of the question points the way for the analysis of what constitutes existence. The context of such structuring we call "Existentality". But its analytic has the character of an understanding which is not extentiell, i.e. structure plus content. But extential: structure minus content. So to distinguish these two very similar sounding terms we can say that whereas "Existentiell" refers to an individual particular existence, "Extential" is a more formal and more general understanding of existence per se.
"Extential" refers to the task of an existential analytic of Being that is delineated in advance in both its possibility and its necessity and Dasein's ontical constitution.
"Existentiality"
So far as existence is the determining character of Dasein, the ontological analytic of this entity always requires that existentiality be considered beforehand. By "existentiality" we understand the state of Being that is constitutive for those entities that exist. But the idea of such a constitutive state of Being already includes Being as its core component. And this is the reason why we are prevented in working out the general answer to the question, 'What is Being?' before the question itself has been answered.
The sciences are ways of Being in which Dasien comports itself towards entities which are not necessarily part of it. But to Dasien, "Being in a world" is something that is absolutely a part of it and belongs to it essentially. Thus Dasien's understanding of Being is very much bound up in its understanding of the 'world', so much so that Heidegger says that it is an equally 'primordial' understanding (i.e. one that gets right to the heart of the question of Being) and in addition this, Dasein's understanding of the Being of other entities within the world is equally primordial.
So, we have three aspects of Being which are primordial to the understanding of Being.
1/ Dasein's Being
2/ The Being of the world
3/ The Being of things in the world
Whenever an ontology takes for its theme entities whose character of Being is outside of Dasein, it has its foundation and motivation for doing so in Dasein's own ontical structure, in which, as has already been indicated [ref. Page 32], a pre-ontological understanding of Being is comprised as a definite characteristic.
(page 34)
Therefore the Fundamental ontology must be sought in the existential analytic of Dasein, because it is the source of all other ontologies.
Dasein takes priority over other entities in three ways:
1/ An ontic priority because Dasein's being has the determining characteristic of existence.
2/ An ontological priority, because existence is also determinative for Dasein. (plus Dasein understands the being of all other entities, and this understanding is actually constitutive of Dasein's own being)
3/ Dasein provides the onto-ontological condition for the possibility of any ontologies. (without Dasein the notion of Being would not exist)
But the roots of our enquiry although it is into the general nature of existence (existential) are actually found in particular examples (extentiell), it is therefore to the being of individuals (each existing Dasein) that we must look, if we are to discern the existentiality of existence in general.
Thus now that the onto-ontological priority has been grasped we realise that in fact it was grasped long ago. For example it was grasped when Aristotle said, "Man's soul is, in a certain way, in entities." The soul that makes up the being of human–the 'human being'–has sensations and thinking among its ways of Being, and in these discovers the world and all the entities within it, 1/ in the fact that they are, and 2/ in the fact of their Being as they are — but these last two statements are not actually distinct, as they collapse into the "they are", or just Being. Aristotle's thoughts were later taken up by Thomas Aquinas, who discussed the notion of Transcendia, that is aspects of the Being of an entity whose characteristics lay beyond any possible classification, and thus can said to be that part of Being that belong mutatis mutandis to any entity. Thomas's task was to demonstrate the validity of transcendia by evoking an entity, which in its very manner of Being is suited 'to come together' with all other entities. This entity he called 'the soul'.
In these examples the priority of Dasein emerges over other entities, although it was not ontologically clarified before.
Summary
By provisionally indicating Dasein's onto-ontological priority…
(page 35)
…we have grounded the notion that they question of Being is onto-ontologically distinctive. But when we analysed the formal structure of the question in section two [ref. Page 24 - 28], we became aware of the distinctive way in which this entity functions in the very formation of the question of Being. Dasein revealed itself to be the first entity that must be worked out in order to answer the question of Being. But now it has been shown that the ontological analytic of Dasein taken generally, is actually what constitutes our notion of ontology per se. Thus Dasein itself functions as that entity which must be interrogated beforehand as to its Being. This means that Dasein is not only the primary entity to be interrogated, it is also the entity which recognises the being of everything else, and comports its Being, towards what we are in fact asking about when we ask the question, 'what is Being?'. The implication is that the question of Being itself is nothing more than radicalisation of an essential tendency of Being which belongs to Dasein itself–namely the pre-ontological understanding of Being.
Concluding Thoughts On This Section, Or, The Meaning Of "Is"
Heidegger states that "the question of Being itself is nothing more than radicalisation of an essential tendency of Being which belongs to Dasein itself." In other words, Being is, if you'll excuse the crude analogy, part of our core programming. It is for this reason that human beings see everything else in terms of this 'thing' called Being. In a way we can help it, this is simply the way that human beings are made… In other words, let me pose the question of Being very much in the interrogative case:
You know the meaning of "is" don't you?
Now the difficulty regarding the question of being becomes, therefore, not a search for some lost thing, but a task of separating the wood from the trees. Marshall McLuhan once said that the creature least qualified to tell you anything about the nature of water is the fish. In other words, we as human beings are terrible at recognising that which is right in front of our noses, so to speak. The best way to start recognising Being for what it is, is to follow our hunches. In Heidegger's language to this is listening to our "pre-ontological understanding of Being". His point is, since we are so much a part of our Being, these hunches are liable to turn out to be the best point of departure for our inquiry.
- End of Section 1 -
On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
INTRODUCTION 2
II
THE TWOFOLD TASK IN WORKING OUT THE
OF THE QUESTION OF BEING. METHOD AND DESIGN OF
OUR INVESTIGATION
CONTENTS
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 2"
II. The Double Task in Working Out the Question of Being: The Method of the Investigation and Its Outline
5. The Ontological Analysis of Dasein as laying bare the Horizon for an Interpretation of the Meaning of Being in General
6. The Task of a Destroying the History of Ontology
7. The Phenomenological Method of Investigation
a. The Concept of Phenomenon
b. The Concept of Logos
c. The Preliminary Conception of Phenomenology
8. The Design of the Treatise
For the contents of other sections see the main index
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments on this document are welcome. Please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
September 14 - October 9, 2005
(page 36)
INTRODUCTION 2
II
THE TWOFOLD TASK IN WORKING OUT THE
OF THE QUESTION OF BEING. METHOD AND DESIGN OF
OUR INVESTIGATION
¶ 5. The Ontological Analytic of Dasein as Laying Bare the Horizon for Interpretation of the Meaning of Being in General
In the last chapter Heidegger established that Dasein was to be his primary object of investigation. Now his task now to place Dasein on a more secure 'scientific' footing. So the question is, how is our everyday understanding of our Being to be understood and interpreted?
Heidegger confesses he may have misled the reader, in demonstrating that Dasein is onto-ontologically prior, into thinking that Dasein is also onto-ontologically primary. In this case, the reason Dasein can only be grasped immediately, is that it is only actually manifest in the immediate present.
This would imply that Dasein could not be subject to interpretation, for if it was something that could only be grasped immediately, we would be unable to formulate any ideas about it at all, since to interpret something always involves some kind of mediation. However, the aim of this part of the introduction to show how Dasein can be interpreted.
Dasein is of course close to us, (our "being" and "us" cannot be separated, so in this sense Dasein is the closest thing of all) but the paradox is that Dasein is simultaneously also farthest away. Closeness does not necessarily equal clarity, in the sense that the lack of objectivity incurred by closeness can blind one's self to the obvious. In his novel Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie likens this paradox to being pressed up against a cinema screen on which the events of your life are projected, and consequently seeing them as nothing but an indistinct blur.
While it is true that Dasein's ownmost Being (the inner-consciousness that constitutes the 'usness of us') has an understanding of our Being, and indeed maintains itself with the sense that this Being has in some way been interpreted. It is not true to say that this interpretation is the best clue for answering the question, 'What is Being?' This is because Being is not revealed in the most primordial way when Dasein is indulging in introspection, but rather when its thinking is extroverted out towards the world. This implies that the way we understand things in the word, also reveals most profoundly something about the way we understand ourselves. And indeed Heidegger asserts that, with Dasein, the way the world is understood...
(page 37)
...reflects back ontologically upon the way in which Dasein itself gets interpreted.
Now the fact that Dasein is onto-ontologically prior (to its own thoughts about itself)means that Dasein's own structure of being is effectively concealed from it. This is why Heidegger says that Dasein is closest to itself, and at the same time also farthest away. But, when we speak of it in terms of a pre-ontological understanding - Dasein is hardly a stranger to us.
The above paragraph indicates that the interpretation of Being has peculiar difficulties, which can basically be put down to the fact that we are the object of our own inquiry. When we consider ourselves as entities under examination, our behaviour changes, and thus the nature of the object we are looking at also changes. Heidegger points out that these difficulties do not arise because we are mentally incapable of comprehending ourselves, but because an understanding of Being only truly belongs to Dasein, and therefore when that understanding is effectively trained on itself, it develops or decays along with whatever Being Dasein possesses at the time.
Dasein's capacities possibilities and vicissitudes have all been studied in the sciences of philosophy, biology, psychology anthropology, ethics, political science, history, poetry etc., etc. But existentially speaking, these approaches can only be said to yield a partial understanding of Being.
For example, if you take a subject like psychology, the major area of study is the human mind. Therefore looking at psychology existentially, it is hard to say whether the question of Being is genuinely illuminated or not. For any light that appears to shine in that direction, might just be over-spill from psychology's main area of concern.
This is of course another reason why the onto-ontological structure of Dasein must be adequately worked out beforehand. Only when this is achieved can we be certain that the knowledge we have hitherto gained in interpreting Dasein through these human sciences is existentially justified.
But in case the conclusions of the last chapter lead us into thinking that what we should do is fortify our guesses about Dasein into some edifice of a philosophical doctrine. Heidegger warns us that we have no right to apply just any idea to Dasein, no matter how self-evident it seems. Nor indeed do we have the right to construct categories based on this idea and try to squeeze Dasein into them. For then we would just be spouting dogma. Rather we need to make sure that we give proper ontological consideration to the question, which means choosing a way to access it and an interpretation which allows Dasein, in Heidegger's words, "to show itself in itself and from itself"...
(page 38)
...What Heidegger is saying here is that Dasein must be examined in its average everydayness, because this is the state where certain primordial structures will begin to show themselves.
Thus Heidegger's inquiry will be orientated to uncovering the genuine meaning of Being by concentrating on Dasein in its everydayness, and in doing this, the limits of that inquiry will also be discerned.
Temporality
Heidegger asserts that temporality is an important key to interpreting the meaning of Dasein, for Dasein's structures are in fact modes of temporality.
(Page 39)
As Heidegger has already indicated, Dasein has a pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state. In other words, Dasein is something that understands something like Being. Keeping this thought in mind, we shall now show that whenever Dasein interprets something like Being, it does so from the standpoint of time. This is because time is the horizon for all understanding of Being and the key for all ways of interpreting it. Therefore the task now is to illuminate this aspect of time.
Time
Time is primordially the horizon of the understanding of Being. Time exists as the Being of Dasein, which understands itself through temporality.
The above italicised conception of time must be differentiated from the way time is understood, both ordinarily and philosophically, (in actual fact the latter merely restates the tenants of the former). Here we must make it clear that the problem with this 'ordinary understanding of time' is that it has emerged out of temporality itself, and moreover it is blind to this fact. Therefore Heidegger's task in his analysis is to give his conception of time a sense of autonomy.
Time has long functioned as an ontical criterion for naively discriminating various realms of entities. For example, in the distinction made between temporal entities (historical happening and the like), and non temporal ones (spatial and numerical relations and the like). We are also accustomed to comparing the timeless meaning of propositions with the temporality of their application in situ. Heidegger points out what is interesting about these observations is that the concept of time functions in these inquiries as a self-evident fact. Indeed time becomes a self-evident fact even within the horizon of the way that time is ordinarily understood.
(page 40)
In contrast to this somewhat naive understanding, Heidegger proposes to treat the question of the meaning of time in a way that enables us to see how the central problematic of all ontology is rooted in the phenomenon of time.
Temporal Determinateness
If Being is to be conceived in its temporality, then it is not adequate merely to reveal the Being of entities in time, for Being itself needs to be made visible in its temporal character. But temporality does not just mean 'Being in time' for even the non-temporal and the supra-temporal still have a temporal aspect with regard to their Being. Non-temporality in this sense should not be seen in terms of being a privation--and absence of time--but in a positive sense
If we have been following Heidegger's argument that time is inexorably linked with being, it follows that a negation of time would also be a negation of being. There can be no absence of time, since time is constitutive for the existence of existence itself. However an example of positive sense of 'timelessness' is that some moments are said to possess a 'timeless' quality, which is neither a negation of time nor a negative judgement, for often these moments are often the ones which Dasein savours most of all.
The encapsulation of this wider sense of temporality calls for a fresh conception which we shall call "temporal determinateness".
Temporal determinateness can be defined as that state in which Being and its modes and characteristics have their meaning determined primordially.
Thus, a fundamental task of interpreting being, is working out first the temporality of Being. This is for the reason that it is only through temporality that the meaning of Being can hope to be concretely articulated. Being therefore can never be considered 'out of time' that is as an abstract free-floating thing separate from temporality.
The above meaning of temporality as primordially the horizon of the understanding of Being is not new as such. It is rather as a re-awakening of something ancient, something that enables us to consider possibilities that the ancients have made ready for us.
(page 41)
¶ 6. The Task of Destroying the History of Ontology
All research is an ontical possibility of Dasein. This judgement cannot just be restricted to research that aims at answering the central question of Being. Temporality is fundamental to the understanding of Being, because it makes historically possible the kind of Being that Dasein itself possesses, regardless of whether Dasein is considered an entity within time or not. "Historically" is meant here in the sense of a kind of sensibility towards history - one that projects an image of the human being in time from a perspective that stands outside of time. Heidegger has already indicated that such a perspective is impossible, since there is no position that can be said to be outside of time. This historical sensibility, however, is one that functions as a prior determinate to the "world-historical historising," or the subject of history as it is normally thought of and practised).
Historicality
Historicality stands for that kind of Being that is constitutive for Dasein's 'historising' and only on this basis is anything like a 'world history' possible. In the fact of its Being, Dasein is as it already was. In other words, Dasein is constituted by its past experience in the world, whether this is made explicit by Dasein or not...
For example someone who is fighting depression because of abuses in their childhood might not reveal that aspect of their past to others, but it is the part of their history is actually constitutive of the present state of their Being in the sense that we are all feel that we are marked by our experiences in the past.
Heidegger's use of the term "past" is not in meant in the sense of a past which is carried along behind Dasein, or is a property of it. For Heidegger, Dasein is its past, in the same way that a tree is its roots. This is because of the way Dasein on every occasion, historises out of its future. Its own past is not something which follows along after it, but something which always goes ahead of it - setting the conditions for the possibilities of future existence.
In other words Dasein views its future possibilities and potentialities as being a territory which is delineated in terms of Dasein's past experience, and this is actually where the notion of "past" comes from is from and also where Dasein itself, as the sum of its experiences and hopes, is constituted in its ownmost Being.
The 'to be', which as Heidegger explained before, is the constitutive state of Dasein itself in its possibility [ref. page 32] is actually delineated by what has happened in Dasein's past. Thus the mediate states of the "past" and "future" inform the immediacy of its Being. The paradox here is that while Dasein may exist in the now, it is constituted by its orientation towards the 'to be' and the 'was'
This elementary historicality of Dasein may remain hidden from it. But it can be discovered if Dasein becomes aware of tradition, of the need to preserve the past, and the past can start to be studied explicitly by Dasein. To uncover Dasein's Historicity is to reveal the kind of Being which Dasein possesses...
(page 42)
...only because historicality is a determining characteristic for Dasein in the very basis of its Being. But if historicity is wanting, this does not mean that it does not exist, just that a particular Dasein is not conscious of it. For example Heidegger argues that an era can never be unhistorical, in fact it can only be called 'unhistorical' because it is in fact 'historical' - in other words one can be oblivious to history or
actively deny it, but history itself has a presence in the very constitution of Dasein itself which is why it can never be negated.
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 existence for itself, and if its eyes have been opened by such an inquiry to its essential historicity then it could not fail to overlook that this inquiry has in fact been constituted by that historicity.
To reiterate the point I made in regards to Dasein's Historicity [ref. Page 41] Dasein's being, although it exists in the immediacy of the present is constituted by mediation, that is by the 'past' and the 'future' which Heidegger is arguing are far more fundamental to Dasein than if they were merely notions of the past and future. In fact Dasein's consciousness is shaped by what it has done, or what has happened to it, but also by what it hopes, intends, or feels compelled to do. The point to bare in mind here is Dasein's motivation in its 'to be' is limited by its a sense of past, or historicity as Heidegger calls it - "In the fact of its Being, Dasein is as it already was."
In its most primal sense a particular Dasein's inquiry into the meaning its ownmost Being ultimately becomes histrological, and therefore Dasein's understanding of itself must also be characterised as histrological in nature.
Tradition
Dasein in its average everydayness tends to fall back on upon the world that it is in, and interprets this world in terms of a reflected light, which means that it simultaneously falls prey to a tradition .
Here I think tradition can be interpreted in both the personal and the sociological sense, in the case of the latter it is taken to mean the dominant philosophical paradigms and social norms which constitute a given culture. For instance tradition, when it pertains to an individual, can be thought of, for example, as a pattern of past abuses having a detrimental effect a particular Dasein's Being. But this conception of tradition can also be applied equally well in a socio-cultural context to the examination of a repressed group within a society for example.
The point Heidegger wants to emphasise here is that when tradition is seen as an immutable edifice, opportunities for self guidance are blocked...
(page 43)
...in the fundamental senses of Dasein's inquiring and choosing. This is also true in respect of the way Dasein understanding itself--its ownmost Being--and for the possibilities of developing that understanding, or making it transparent ontologically. In other words there is always the possibility that Heidegger's own inquiry into Being may be blocked by the tradition of ontological thought that exists in philosophy. This is the reason for his generally negative and hostile opinion of 'philosophical dogma', with regards to ontology.
When tradition becomes master, what it transmits seems to become distant so that it cannot be grasped proximally, it is in effect concealed. Tradition takes what has come down to us and treats it as self-evident. This self-evident aspect blocks our access to the primordial sources from which the categories and concepts of tradition have themselves emerged.
Dasein has had its historicity so thoroughly uprooted by tradition that it clings to its axioms of received wisdom, if only to veil the fact that it has no grounds of its own to stand on.
I remind you that Heidegger's major complaint against philosophy at the start of Being and Time is we don't even care that we are ignorant of Being. And in this sense our 'not caring' perhaps veils a deep rooted epistemological anxiety; a terror which speaks of the need to believe in something, anything, even if it is wrong, because believing in nothing is too terrifying to contemplate. Tradition then can be likened to a fortress that protects us from this nothing.
(page 44)
If the question of being is to have its own history made transparent, the grip this hardened tradition of philosophy has on the human imagination must be worked loose and all the concealments shaken out. Heidegger sets himself the task of destroying the traditional content of ancient ontology, until he arrives at the primordial sources discovered in the ancient world and which he asserts have guided humanity ever since.
But this working loose of ontology should not be seen in the negative sense of a viscous relativising that denies all axioms and all absolutes. For the positive possibilities of the
tradition are also shaken out along with the negative. In this task, Heidegger cautions that we must always keep within the limits of Dasein in its average everydayness, for this is what will determine the boundaries of the inquiry. As for the negative possibilities, we must bear in mind that the destruction is not aimed at the past per se, but rather at the way the past is viewed retrospectively as a dominant orthodoxy which cannot be challenged.
(Page 45)
Heidegger's critique of Kant
Our first task is to work out whether the interpretation of Being and the phenomenon of time have been brought together thematically before. The only person who has explored this territory, according to Heidegger is Kant, particularly in his work on the 'transcendental schema' of time in the Critique of Pure Reason. In that work Kant argues that there are two fundamental concepts, space and time, that human beings use to order the otherwise chaotic manifold of existence into a manageable form they can comprehend. In other words space and time are the schema that we use to frame our existence. The implication of this ordering is that the idea of space and time have to be present before human being can perceive anything else. Thus Kant calls them ideas which exist a priori, which literally means before, in the context of ideas that the brain needs to order reality which are employed even before we open our senses to perceiving that reality. Heidegger argues contra Kant that only when we have established the problematic of temporality with regards to Being, can we successfully "illuminate the obscurity of Kant's doctrine of 'Schematicism'."
___________________________________________________________________
Kant's doctrine of 'Schematicism' from The Critique of Pure Reason, pages 142 - 144
The schematicism of the pure understanding denotes the sensuous condition under which pure conceptions of the understanding can be employed in all conceptions of phenomenal objects. Kant asserts that the conception must contain that which is represented in the phenomenon. For example the empirical conception of a particular china plate on one's dining table is in a sense homogeneous with the pure geometrical conception of a circle, inasmuch as the idea of roundness in the former is intuited in the latter.
But strictly speaking pure conceptions of the understanding are just ideas, which are according to Kant's philosophy quite separate from empirical things, and thus can never be discovered in any intuition. This raises the question how is it possible to have ideas about phenomena in the form of categories, where the former can be used to analyse the latter?
To answer this question Kant postulates the existence of a third thing, which can mediate between the pure idea and the empirical phenomenon, to make the application of the former to the latter possible. This third thing must be pure (i.e., without any empirical content) and yet must on the one side be intellectual, on the other sensuous. Such a representation Kant calls the transcendental schema.
Kant did not have to cast around for long to find his transcendental schema. The concept of time is universal in that it rests upon a rule a priori and yet time is something which is contained in our conceptions of everyday reality as well. Thus the idea of time can be both a pure and a sensuous idea. Therefore an application of the category to phenomena becomes possible, by means of the transcendental determination of time, which, as the schema of the conceptions of the understanding, mediates between pure ideas and empirical objects.
Reference:Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, London: Everyman, 1993
___________________________________________________________________
Heidegger asserts that an ontological analysis of Kant's schematicism of the pure understanding will show why the area of temporality that he (Heidegger) has been outlining remained closed off to Kant in its central ontological function. In other words Kant analysis is flawed because although he pays attention to time, he does not pay attention to Being.
Heidegger argues that, in his ignorance of the fact that time cannot be considered without Being, Kant adopts Descartes' position on Being quite dogmatically. (Descartes position according to Heidegger was that he treated Being as the ego cogito, the subject or the "I" of reason, spirit, person). Despite the fact that Kant as part of his "Copernican revolution in philosophy" famously brought the phenomenon of time back into the domain of the subject, in the long run it was his conception of the subject itself, as Descartes' "I", that kept him from working out the 'transcendental determination' of time in its own structure and function. Kant's investigation was stymied because of the double effect of the ontological tradition started by Descartes, that meant that the decisive connection between time and the 'I think' became shrouded in darkness, so much so that it did not even become a problem.
___________________________________________________________________
Descartes Cogito Ergo Sum explained in Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy p. 547
Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am) is known as Descartes Cogito, and the process by which it is reached is called 'Cartesian doubt'.
In order to have a firm basis for his philosophy, (Descartes) resolves to make himself doubt everything he can. He begins with scepticism in regard to the senses. For example Descartes asked himself can he doubt that he is sitting by the fire in his dressing gown? He answered yes, for sometimes he has dreamt such a thing, when in fact he was lying naked in bed. Moreover Descartes reasoned that madmen sometimes have hallucinations, so it is possible that his perception of reality may likewise be deluded. Drawing on another dubious tradition in philosophy, that of mimesis, Descartes reasoned that Dreams were like paintings, in that they presented us with copies of real things. Therefore corporeal nature in general, which involves such matters as extension, magnitude and number, is less easy to question than beliefs about particular things. Arithmetic and geometry, which are not concerned with particular things, are therefore more certain than physics and astronomy. Even in regard to arithmetic and geometry however, doubt is possible. There maybe an evil demon, employing all his industry into misleading humankind. If there be such a demon, Descartes reasoned that everything he sees and think maybe only illusions. However, there remained something that could not be doubted. No demon, hover cunning, could deceive him that he did not exist - "I may have no body, this might be an illusion, but thought is different. While I wanted to think everything false, it must necessarily be true that it is I who is doing the thinking." ThusDescartes formulated his famous Cogito - "I think therefore I am." This seemed to him an assertion so solid and so certain that even the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of upsetting it. Descartes therefore made cogito ergo sum the first principle of his philosophy.
Reference:Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, London, Routledge, 1993
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(page 46)
Heidegger's critique of Descartes
In taking over Descartes ontological position Kant made and essential omission: he failed to provide an ontology of Dasein. This omission was a decisive one. With the " cogito ergo sum", Descartes claimed he was putting philosophy on a firm footing. But what he left undetermined was the kind of being that belongs to the 'res cogitans' ('thinking entity'), or--more precisely--the meaning of the being of the 'sum' ('I am'). Heidegger declares that by working out the unexpressed function of the 'cogito sum' ('thinking I am', or the thinking Being), he shall complete the second stage of his journey in the destruction of traditional ontology. This will show, not only that Descartes not only neglected the question of Being altogether, but also why he came to suppose that the
absolute-Being-certain of the cogito prevented him from raising the question of the meaning of Being that the "I" possesses. For a more detailed critique of Descartes, see Part, Div III, ¶ 19 - 21
(page 47)
The ancients, as we will discover, interpreted Being orientated out towards the world: towards "Nature", and this interpretation was obtained in terms of time. The outward evidence for this (although merely outward) is the treatment of the meaning of presence in ancient Greek philosophy. Presence has an ontologico-temporal meaning which can be expresses as entities, grasped in their Being, as 'presence,' therefore they can be said to be grasped in the 'present'.
Hence Heidegger's apology for leading the reader into thinking that Dasein was solely concerned with 'the immediacy of Being' at the start of this section [ref. Page 36]. The reasons for this apology can now be explained more fully. It is because Dasein can only truly be grasped in its immediacy - or in the present. Once we attempt to re-present the immediacy of Being in the mediacy of language, or in other words when we try to say what Dasein is, the 'present' of Dasein's immediacy becomes 'presence' in language. However this conception of representation verses reality does not imply the usual critique of representation found in modern epistemologies, such as semiotics for example. The semiotic paradigm criticises as naive, the traditional conception of representation as 'mimesis', or as a straight copy of reality. But Heidegger does not seek to alert us to the epistemological problems of 'presence' being a copy or otherwise of the 'present', instead he merely emphasises that the two differ in terms of their Being. This difference does not necessarily cast doubt on the fidelity of language to represent reality. Heidegger now elaborates the reasons for this.
Discourse
In ancient Greek ontology, man's being is defined by its potentiality for discourse (or talk). Talk is in fact the clue for arriving at those structures of Being which belong to those entities which we encounter in addressing ourselves to anything or speaking about it.
(page 48)
Recognising an associative link between things (or more properly grasping something), is the simple awareness that something present-at-hand has the temporal structure of a pure 'making present' of something. In the grasping, those entities that show themselves present-at-hand are understood as entities in the most authentic sense. Presence then is literally an interpretation of something with regard to the present (immediacy of perception).
The Greeks arrived at this interpretation without any of the clues that we have uncovered thus far regarding temporality and the like. Rather they took time itself as one entity among many and tried to interpret it in the structures of its Being (rather that seeing it as self-evident fact as modern thinkers do). Therefore they were able, albeit naively, to hit upon the right methodology for revealing the horizon of Being - that is, time.
This is also a concrete illustration of the way that Heidegger conceived of a naive understanding of Being (what I called earlier 'a common-sense understanding') as more primordial, or getting closer to the essential nature of Being, than the ontological tradition in philosophy.
(Page 49)
The question of Being does not achieve its true concreteness until we have carried through the process of destroying the ontological tradition in philosophy. Once this has been done we can prove that the question of the meaning of Being is one that we cannot avoid, and we can demonstrate what it means to talk about 'restating' this question.
However, in any investigation where the 'thing investigated is deeply veiled', one must take pains not to overestimate the results. For in embarking on such an inquiry, one is constantly compelled to face the possibility of disclosing even more primordially the universal horizon from which we may draw the answer to the question, "What is Being?" We can discuss such possibilities seriously and with positive results, but only if the question of Being has first been reawakened. For only then will we have arrived at a field where we can come to terms with this question and talk about it in a scientific way, that is in ways that can be delineated and controlled.
¶ 7. The Phenomenological Method of Investigation
In characterising the object of inquiry (Being) it seems we have also delineated the method to be employed--albeit partially and in a negative sense--in that we can discount traditional ontologies as inadequate to this task.
Instead of using traditional philosophical methods (logic) our investigation needs to be treated phenomenologically...
(page 50)
...The expression phenomenology signifies primarily a methodological conception, not of the 'what' an object is, but of the 'how' of the research - i.e., how do we form an understanding which constitutes the 'what' of an object?
The term phenomenology expresses a maxim: 'to the things themselves.' The maxim invokes a principle which should be the mainstay of any science, namely that nothing is self evident. And the converse of this is that everything needs to be questioned. In fact phenomenology seeks to question self-evidential qualities, also implies that it is prepared to cast light upon the its own processes of investigation.
The term Phenomenology is a compound made up of the Greek words for phenomenon (thing) and logos (word). Taken superficially it is formed in the same way as all the 'ologies'--biology, psychology and the like--which can be translated as "science of...". Thus, biology equals "science of life," psychology equals "science of mind" etc.: this would then make phenomenology the "science of phenomena."
(page 51)
A. The Concept of Phenomenon
The Greek expression phenomenon is derived from the verb "to show itself". "To show itself" in Greek also connoted "bringing something to the light", in other words bringing it to a place where it can be manifestly visible in itself. We must keep in mind here that phenomenon signifies, "that which shows itself in itself." This is because an entity can show itself for itself in many ways, depending on the kind of access we have to it. Indeed it is even possible for an entity to show itself as something it is not. This is the kind of showing is called 'seeming'. Thus "showing itself" is part of the understanding of a phenomenon, in that it indicates that everything depends on our seeing how, 1/ what is designated in the first signification (phenomena as showing itself), and 2/ how the second (phenomena as seeming, or rather semblance) is structurally interconnected with "showing".
Only when something makes a pretension of showing itself, can it actually show itself as something which it is not. For only then can it be what it looks like and not what it is.
Phenomenon and Semblance
The primordial phenomenological signification, of "to show itself for itself" is still included in semblance. In when we consider the claims of the italicised sentences above,
it can be seen as resting upon it. This makes the term phenomenon potentially ambiguous. Therefore, we shall here-on-in restrict phenomenon to stand for only the primordial and positive sense of showing, while semblance stands for the secondary and negative sense of seeming.
It is worth noting here that both these terms have nothing to do with 'appearance' nor indeed with 'mere appearance'...
(page 52)
...for example as in the things one talks about when describing the symptoms of an illness. An illness appears through its symptoms as something that exists (is present-at-hand), but it does not show itself directly.
Appearance and Announcing
Appearance, as the appearance of something, does not mean something that shows itself, but rather something that announces itself. Announcing can be defined as a 'showing itself by not showing itself,' for example the illness referred to above that announces itself in the symptoms, which is so to speak its calling card, but not the thing itself. So in a sense appearance is a not showing itself. (here the term "Not" is not meant as a negation, but merely as a device to indicate the presence of something unseen). Anything that never shows itself is also something that can never seem. This is why appearance is different from showing or seeming. All indications, presentations, symptoms and symbols have this basic formal structure of appearing, even though they differ among themselves.
(page 53)
The multiple meanings of Appearance
In spite of the fact that appearing is never showing-itself in the sense of a phenomenon, appearing is possible only by reason of the 'showing itself' of something. Appearance announces itself through the something which shows itself. A phenomenon is not something that merely appears. The Being of a phenomenon always shows itself. Therefore, if we define an appearance to be the appearance of a given phenomenon, we have not in fact defined that phenomenon we have only presupposed it. However this fact is usually concealed from us because of the multiple meanings of appearance.
1/ Appearance = "announcing itself without showing itself," i.e. symptoms.
2/ Appearance = "something that signifies showing itself, and therefore implies the appearance of phenomena," for example, a phantom trace on a radar screen being mistaken for a plane
3/ Appearance = "used albeit imprecisely in the sense of genuinely describing the showing-itself of a phenomenon."
4/ Appearance = "as the positive emissary of that which does not appear in any manifest form." In this sense appearance is the thing that indicates the existence of that which does not appear and never will appear. For instance, causal changes due to the passage of time announces itself in the greying of someone's hair for example, or the changes in a landscape, or the decaying of fruit, left in a bowl to rot. All these things appear to point to the existence of a thing called time, which otherwise does not exist as a phenomenon.
The point here is that if one defines phenomenon with the aid of a conception of appearance that does not differentiate between these multiple meaning, then confusion is bound to reign!
Mere appearance (and mere semblance)
The fourth sense of Appearance can be defines as being tantamount to the "bringing forth" of something which does not in fact constitute the real being of an entity. This then is appearance in the sense of "mere appearance". In the case of mere appearance, that which announces itself can be likened to an emanation of what it announces, but in all cases the thing which is being announced is kept constantly veiled by the announcement.
(page 54)
Phenomenon announces itself through appearance which shows itself, but such appearance can also take the variant form of 'mere semblance (deception) . A person can fake an illness, for example by coughing and sniffing. The appearance of these symptoms announces the existence (the Being present-at-hand) of that which isn't really there.
Summary Definitions of Phenomena and Appearance
Phenomenon is the-showing-itself-in-itself, it signifies a distinctive way in which something may be encountered.
Appearance is a relationship between phenomena, which is always based on a referral of some kind or another. The phenomenon of appearance also shows itself, but its Being is always a reference masking some other kind of Being.
The Formal Conception of Phenomena
An implication of this conception of phenomena is that it is actually rather indefinite what things we can consider as phenomena. And it is left open whether an entity shows itself as an entity, or merely as some characteristic which the entity may have in its Being. Thus we have arrived at the formal conception of phenomenon. In the Kantian sense we can literally call phenomena, entities which are accessible through formal intuition (for example space and time). But this conception of phenomena is not the phenomenological conception, which can be defined as "that which already shows itself in the appearance as prior to the phenomenon," i.e., Kant's a priori) as it is ordinarily understood.
(Page 55)
In every case the phenomenological conception of phenomena can be brought to show itself in itself. The thematic of phenomenological method is therefore that the forms like space and time can also be made to show themselves.
However, if the phenomenological conception of phenomenon is to be understood at all, it presupposes that we already have an insight into the meaning of the formal conception of phenomena, and therefore that we can discern its legitimate employment in an ordinary signification. But before we set upon demonstrating this, we must define the signification of logos (word or language) so as to make clear in what sense phenomenology can be a 'science' of phenomena.
B. The Concept of the Logos
Logos as Discourse
Plato and Aristotle's conception of logos (language) had many competing significations, none of which were assumed to have especial dominance over any of the others. Whereas in Heidegger's analysis, the basic signification of logos is discourse (talk).
Heidegger claims that the true meaning of discourse has been constantly covered up by the later history of the logos, particularly by the interpretations of the philosophers who came after Plato and Aristotle (like Descarte and Kant presumably). Some of the many interpretations to which logos has been subjected include: "reason", "judgement", "concept", "definition", "ground" or "relationship". So the question that
needs to be examined is how discourse, as constituting the basic state of language, can be so susceptible to interpretation that logos can mean all these things?
(56)
Logos as discourse means to make manifest, in the sense of actually revealing what one is talking about in the discourse. Logos in ancient Greece meant 'showing', or 'letting something be seen', (Aristotle called it uncovering), which is essentially the same thing as the 'making manifest' of discourse. In the discourse, the 'that,' which is made manifest is discourse itself.
Discourse is never a fiat, (and the Lord said "let there be light" and there was light). In discourse the things which are talked about do not actually appear before us, so in terms of the being of discourse, talk is 'just talk.' However, when announced in the talk, things which do not exist can appear to be existent, for example we can talk of 'pink elephants' or 'pigs that fly' and in this sense discourse makes these things manifest and real. I want to raise an implications of this that I feel is important. Namely that meaning is only realised when thoughts and ideas are extroverted as talk. For example, a person who has a problem is advised to get it out into the open by talking about it: "a problem shared is a problem halved." But the reasoning behind such advice is predicated on a notion that Heidegger is trying to articulate here. Namely that discourse objectifies thoughts and presents them as things which show themselves and can therefore be dealt with as things rather than chimerical abstractions. Hence the social sciences theoretical emphasis on discourse and discursive processes as the source of cultural meaning. When people talk about the profound influence of Being and Time on contemporary thought, this is one of the areas where it is definitely felt.
As Heidegger puts it like this, "discursive communication in what it says, makes manifest what it is talking about." And this process also describes the structure of logos as 'uncovering'.
Synthesis
Discoursing has the character of speaking, but in a vocal proclamation--or utterance--something is sighted. It is only because the structure of the logos is uncovering, of letting something be seen or pointing it out, that the logos can have the structure of synthesis.
Here synthesis does not mean in the logical sense of a combining of representations (i.e. thesis, antithesis, synthesis); it has a purely apophantic signification.
"Apophantic" is a term coined by Aristotle to designate a certain kind of judgment which he claimed could ascertain what is false and what is true in phenomena. An apophantic judgement does not arrive at its verdict by comparing true entities with false ones, for the phenomenon being evaluated is examined in itself. So apophantic judgements can be seen in the emphatic sense of a (judicial) sentence: attributing a predicate to a subject insofar as it pertains to the subject as a property of it; or denying a predicate to a subject insofar as it does not pertain to it. From this ontological basis, Aristotelian claimed that philosophy can establish the "pure forms" of all possible true (and false) predications.
[Ref. This explanation of apophantic was adapted from a definition found at www.marcuse.org].
But here everything depends on steering clear of any conception of truth which is construed in the sense of 'agreement'. The Being true of the logos as truth means that in saying as uncovering, the entities of which one is talking must be taken out of their hiddenness, which has nothing to do with their being related to something else. Agreement is predicated on this sense of relating, which is why agreements should be avoided, rather truths should be uncovered for and in themselves, so that they can be seen as something unhidden...
(Page 57)
...That is to say, they must be discovered. Being false amounts to an attempt to cover up the truth by putting something in front of something and thereby obscuring it, or passing it off as something which it is not.
Perception
But because truth has this meaning and because the logos is a definite mode of letting something be seen, logos (language) is not the kind of thing that can be considered as the primary 'locus' of truth. It has become customary nowadays to define truth as 'something pertaining to judgement' (i.e. comparing and relating one thing to another), but as the above argument has demonstrated, this is unjustified and misunderstands the Greek conception of truth.
Perception and Grasping
For the Greeks truth (alethéia) meant perceiving- i.e., the sheer sensory perception of something as true. This sense of truth is even more primordial than logos. Perception aims at the idea of entities. Those entities which are genuinely accessible through it and for it are considered to be true, and consequently perception itself is also true, and necessarily so. Pure grasping is the perception of the simplest determinate ways of a given entity's Being, and one perceives the Being of entities simply by looking at them. This grasping is what is true in the most primordial sense, that is to say truth merely dis-covers. Just as seeing always discovers colours and hearing always discovers sounds, grasping can never cover up and it cannot be false, at worst entities can remain ungrasped and non perceiving.
Exhibiting
When something no longer takes the form of just letting something be seen, but is always harking back to something else, it thus acquires a synthesis-structure, and with this is born the possibility of covering up...
(page 58)
for instance, because the function of the logos is simply letting something be seen, logos can itself signify reason. And because moreover logos is used not only with the signification of grasping (perception) but also that which is exhibited (showing). Exhibiting is nothing else that the Being already at hand. This showing of existence lies at the bottom of any procedure of addressing oneself to it, or discussing it. Additionally in the context of apophantic judgements the logos in the mode of exhibiting can also become visible in itself as a relation to something. The logos in this instance can signify that which, as something to which one addresses oneself becomes visible in itself. Logos thus acquires the signification of relation and relationship. Thus the primary function of the logos is in exhibiting the kind of relationships present in apophantic discourse.
C. The Preliminary Conception of Phenomenology
When we consider these interpretations of both 'phenomenon' and 'logos', it should be apparent that there is an inner relationship between the things meant by these terms. The expression. Phenomenology may be formulated in Greek as, 'saying' as the being of bringing 'something to light', when 'saying' is synonymous with unhiddenness.
Thus the formal meaning of phenomenology can be stated as - "to let that which shows itself been seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself."
Note, the apparent cumbersome use of language here is Heidegger's way of exorcising from phenomenology the concept of the subject (subjective) as a mediator of existence. The (immediate) perception of reality is what allows phenomena to 'unhide itself'. Heidegger fights with the grammatical conventions of language to articulate this concept.
And thus phenomenology expresses exactly the same thing as the maxim to the things themselves [ref page 50]
(Page 59)
A Summary Definition of Phenomenology
Phenomenology designates neither the 'object matter' or the 'subject matter' of its study. The signification of phenomenon, is such that any exhibiting of an entity may be called phenomenology. This means that phenomenology (as a science of entities as entities) is intrinsically different from a normal science that designate its object of study according to its subject-matter. The latter can be conceived of as a science of an entity; defined as a 'thing,' which then becomes the frame through which other 'things' are examined and evaluated. For example in theology, theos (or religion) is the subject of the science, and also the frame through which other phenomena are examined. This is hard to grasp--in the sense that it seems to suggest that there is no phenomenological framing to phenomenology. Of course there is, but the difference between phenomenology and other sciences is the reflexiveness with which this phenomenological frame is handled. The researcher in an phenomenological investigation considers the 'subject' and the 'object' to be so intimately bound up with one another than the distinction between them disappears (this is Heidegger's point about doing away with them as meaningful cateories when examining Being). Instead of being self evident, and not thought about, a phenomenological frame is always interrogated alongside the phenomena of investigation. So that the investigation becomes not just about the entities in question, but also about the access granted to those entities by the phenomenological method.
Logic Reasons; Phenomenology Shows (Demonstrates)
Phenomenology merely informs us of the how with which the what is to be treated. To have a science of phenomena means to grasp its objects in such a way that everything about them, which is up for discussion, must be treated by exhibiting it directly and demonstrating it directly. The term descriptive phenomenology underscores this by emphasising the intended aim of the science, i.e. to attempt to describe phenomena in and for itself, which is challenging because it deemphasising all the judgemental aspect of the analsys. So the aim is to defamiliarize, to strip the entitly of all of the associations bound up in its name, to free the 'what's that?' of the object. This also has this meaning of demonstrating, showing the essential qualities of the object. Here description signifies a kind of prohibition against the temptation to flesh-out a perception through reasoning, in the sense that descriptive phenomenology does not characterising anything without first demonstrating it. It is through the character of this kind of description, that the specific meaning of the logos can be established in terms of its thinghood. It is this constant referral to the entity in the description that gives phenomenology its evidential base and scientific definiteness.
What must be taken account of, if the formal conception of Phenomenology is to be 'deformalised' into the phenomenological one
What is it in phenomenology that lets us see phenomena in this distinctive sense? What is it that by its very essence is necessarily the theme whenever we exhibit something explicitly? Here are a few pointers for answering this question:
1/ Manifestly it is something that proximately and for the most part remains hidden, (in contrast to that which does show itself).
2/ It is something that belongs to whatever shows itself and belongs to it so essentially that it constitutes its meaning and its ground.
The answer is of course that it is Being. I refer you back to the first claim Heidegger made for Being [ref. Page 25] "Being is that which determines entities as entities before they are actually understood as entities."
Being is not the Being of this or that entity, but the Being of all entities, as Heidegger has previously asserted [ref. Page 26]. However, we know now that this Being can be covered up so that it becomes forgotten. When Being of entities is treated phenomenologically however, its ownmost content is revealed once more. It is in fact what phenomenology has taken into its grasp thematically as its object.
Being must become a phenomenon
(Page 60)
Only as phenomenology is ontology possible
Therefore phenomenology is our way of access to what is to be the theme of ontology, and it is our way of giving it demonstrative precision. Only as phenomenology is ontology possible. In the phenomenological conception of phenomenon (that which shows itself for itself) the Being of entities--its meaning , its modifications and its derivatives--are revealed. The Being of entities is not anything which lies behind phenomena, or stands for something else which does not appear
In Peircean language: firstness does not refer to anything else, nor does it lie behind anything. The "first" is simply that which is of itself (Peirce, Complete Works, vol 1, §356). Similarly in relation to Heidegger's Being, the Being of an entity when grasped in its immediacy cannot be anything which it is not, for then it would be simply the Being of something else.
Thus there is nothing behind the phenomena of phenomenology, but problems emerge because what is to become a phenomenon can remain hidden. This is precisely why our investigation requires the phenomenological method, in order to uncover that which proximally and for the most part remains hidden. Covering up is therefore the counter-concept to phenomenology.
There are many sense in which a phenomenon can be covered up.
1/ HiddennessIn the sense that a phenomenon has not been discovered (in which case it is neither known nor unknown).
2/ BuryingIn the sense that a phenomenon can be buried over, i.e. it was once discovered by has now lapsed back into obscurity. However, in this case, the burial is hardly ever total. Something may still be visible if only as a semblance. Nevertheless this semblance is still a semblance of the phenomenon's Being, for the reasons outlined above.
3/ DisguiseIn the sense that a phenomenon can be disguised as something else, with the attendant possibilities of lies and deception which makes the discovery of the true being of that phenomenon especially difficult.
Furthermore covering up, whether in terms of hiddenness, burying or disguise has in turn two possibilities.
1/ Covering up which is accidental
(Page 61)
2/ Covering up which with the best of intentions gets lost in translation when immediate experience is represented in language.
In the latter case the Being of the entity gets understood in an empty way, and it ownmost Being (its indigenous character) gets lost.
For example, the concept of the immediate present itself can never be represented in language or in any other form. Thus the indigenous character of "the present" can never be shown after the fact. As the following will illustrate.
READ THESE INSTRUCTION CAREFULLY BEFORE CARRYING THEM OUT
1/ STOP READING
2/ TAKE YOUR EYES AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER SCREEN AND LOOK AROUND YOU.
3/ AS YOU DO THIS DO NOT THINK ABOUT ANYTHING, CONCENTRATE INSTEAD ON YOUR BREATING (IT WILL HELP YOU NOT TO THINK) CONCENTRATE ON BREATHING IN, HOLDING THE BREATH AND BREATHING OUT. BUT ALL THE WHILE YOU ARE DOING THIS KEEP LOOKING AROUND YOU.
Were you even for a second in the immediate present? If you felt that you were, perhaps you realise now why you cannot lie about it. You cannot lie because you need to think about something on order to be able tell a lie about it. Lies are complex, reality is simple. The closest we can ever get to reality is by Being in the immediate present. However when we try to communicate this experience to others we are already outside of this simple reality and we find ourselves already in a more complex territory of representation, i.e, a place where lies can operate. Thus, unless we are very careful, we will find ourselves in a situation where, no matter how earnestly we are trying to tell the essential truth of what we feel, that this very truth gets lost in the telling. In a nutshell, this is the problem addressed by the phenomenological - with its constant referral back to the entity in question, and its reflexive examination of its own operations method
Even using the phenomenological method it is possible that entities which are primordially within our grasp may become hardened into concepts that mask the presence of the entity. Consequently the entity is no longer grasped in and for itself, but becomes
an appearance of that entity. Heidegger points out that this is the difficulty with this type of research. There is always a need to realise the possibility that language may cover up the Being of phenomena, and thus phenomenology must always be self critical.
So although the investigation of being has a set goal, it needs also to be true to the definition of interrogation [ref. page 24] "where the goal is not so much obtained as constantly deferred or reflected back onto the questioner." One must always step out of the inquiry, and ask ourselves if the entities under examination have remained vital and have not ossified through representation into something else.
The way in which Being and its structures are encountered in the mode of phenomenon is one which must first of all be wrested from the objects of phenomenology. This is actually the point of departure for this inquiry. This places the phenomenological method in direct opposition to a naive sense of immediately and unreflectively beholding.
Thus Heidegger has articulated a method of examining our average intelligibility of Being and developing a 'scientific' method for investigating Being. Here we are not merely taking a guess [re. Page 28], nor are we elevating our guess work into some edifice of philosophical dogma [ref. Page 37]. But rather we must proceed in our investigation mindful of the difficulty of the task, considering it in full self-consciousness of the pitfalls into which out investigation can potentially fall. However on the positive side, if this sense of showing phenomena 'in and for themselves' can be held onto, we will be able to delineate the limits of our investigation. In other words, in orientating ourselves in our inquiring to demonstrating and exhibiting the things themselves, (rather than reasoning about them) we have uncovered the very frame of reference in which the entire territory of the inquiry into the meaning of Being in general will be revealed.
Phenomenal and Phenomenological
Now that we have determined our preliminary conception of phenomenology, the terms phenomenal and phenomenological can be given their proper signification.
Phenomenal = that which is given and is explicable in the way a particular phenomenon is encountered. (In other words a phenomenon is defined only in terms of what it shows)
Phenomenological = everything which belongs to the species of exhibiting and explicating and which goes to make up the way of conceiving demanded by our research. (in other words a general description of the phenomenological method expressed by the maxim, to the things themselves)
Phenomena when understood phenomenologically are nothing but the component parts, so to speak, that go to make up the phenomenon of Being in general. We can flip this insight around and thus make the converse generalisation that Being in general is always the Being of some entity or another. Therefore, in our investigation of the meaning of Being in general, we should first bring forward entities in themselves and discover their Being.
There are two reasons for doing this:
Firstly because there is nothing behind phenomena
and secondly because phenomena cannot lie.
All entities must show themselves phenomenologically in themselves and for themselves with the kind of access that genuinely belongs to them.
Phenomenology, as we have characterised it, is actually the same thing as ontology, in that it reveals the Being of entities. In explaining the task of ontology we have found it necessary to focus on a fundamental entity--Dasein--which is in itself onto-ontologically distinctive. Dasein is onto-ontologically distinctive because Dasein is a Being which is concerned with its own being. Therefore, it is through investigating the Being of the entity Dasein, that we will confront the cardinal problem of answering the question, "What is the meaning of Being in general?"
Hermeneutics
Our investigation will show that the meaning of phenomenological description as a method lies in interpretation.
(page 62)
Language in the form of words (logos) which represents the phenomenology of Dasein has the character of hermeneutics.
Dasein is an intity that interprets itself.
All the basic structures that characterize Dasein are made known to Dasen through interpretation.
Because the logos is a representation of the immediate reality discovered by the phenomenological method--i.e., the perceiving the things themselves for themselves. The Logos, as a re-presentation of this perception, it can not be an exact re-creation of immediate reality (in Heidegger's terminology it is presence not present [ref. Page 47]). Therefore we can say of language that it always 'interprets' the phenomenology of Dasein, and this is why the phenomenological method places such emphasis on opening up its own processes to scrutiny, so as to avoid mis-interpreting.
It is through hermeneutics, as a systematising approach to interpreting, that the authentic meaning of Being is articulated (and also of those basic structure of Being which Dasein itself possesses).
There are three points about this to bear in mind.
1/ The phenomenology of Dasein is a hermeneutic in the primordial signification of the word. That is, in the sense that hermeneutics can be defined simply and most primordially as the business of interpreting.
2/ Because of the priority of Dasein over other entities for working out the question of Being, it follows that the horizon for any further ontological study will be revealed , through the hermeneutics of Dasein.
3/ As far as a hermeneutic works out Dasein's historicity ontologically, as the ontical condition for the possibility of historiology, it contains the roots of what can be called 'hermeneutic' only in a derivative sense of the methodology of those human sciences which are historiological in character.
This reiterates the point that Hermeneutics when applied to Dasein does not mean interpretation, in the sense that the two terms are synonymous, rather that Hermeneutics is a "science of interpretation" in that it systematises the interpretive method.
A Summary of Heidegger's Thoughts on Being as Compared with Thomas Aquinas's Concept of The Transcendens (The Soul)
Being, as the basic theme of philosophy as such, is not a class or genus of entities and yet it pertains to every entity. Its 'universality' is therefore to be sought higher up. Being and
the structure of Being lies beyond every entity and every possible character which any entity may possess. Being is therefore the transcendens pure and simple [ref. Thomas Aquinas, page 34]. And the transcendence of Dasein's Being is distinctive in that it implies the possibility and the necessity of the most radical individuation. Every disclosure of Being as the transcendens is literally transcendental knowledge. In this sense phenomenological truth (the disclosedness of Being) is veritas transcendentalis.
What is Philosophy?
Ontology and phenomenology are not two distinct philosophical disciplines among others. These terms in fact characterise philosophy itself with regards to its object and its way of treating that object. Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, and takes its departure from the hermeneutic of Dasein, which, as an analytic of existence, defines the trajectory of all philosophical inquiry, both at the point where it arises and the point to which it returns.
The phenomenological method shows that "Our commitment to the preliminary conception of phenomenology has shown that what is essential...
(page 63)
...does not lie in actuality as a philosophical movement. Higher than actuality stands possibility."
Finally in this introduction Heidegger apologises for "the awkwardness and inelegance of the expression in the analysis to come". This is because of the treacherous nature of speaking about the reality of being. It is one thing to give a report about entities, but quite another to grasp entities in their Being. For the latter task we lack not only most of the words, but above all the 'grammar.' Unfortunately "the harshness of our expression will be enhanced, and so will the minuteness of detail with which our concepts are formed."
In other words, if you thought the introduction was obscure and difficult, you ain't seen nothing yet! However, this is not quite true, for the introduction of any philosophical treatise has perhaps the most difficult job to do of all, in that it has to orientate the reader into the work's peculiar paradigm. Thus the possibility of alienating the reader at this early stage is always a very real danger.
My aim in attempting this explication and commentary has been to add a level of extra guidance, both for myself and for others. I hope, as we pick our way through this difficult terrain together that the difficulties do not become unassailable. An important point to raise here is that any explication of a bone fide philosophical work (and
certainly Being and Time more than falls into that category) is going to be challenging. I hope therefore that in my explication of Being and Time, I have made the challenge a little easier, in that my aim has been to clarify some of Heidegger's more obscure language, but without robbing his thoughts of their essential vitality. However, the task of making philosophy easier to digest should never be interpreted as talking away the challenge it offers for its readers. For I think it is only by rising to that challenge, that a reader can actually enter into the world of the philosopher, and moreover really understand for themselves the positive value (or otherwise) of being there. Without that challenge then, any explication would merely be a dumbing down.
¶8. The Design of the Treatise
Summary
The question of the meaning of Being is the most universal and emptiest of questions, but at the same time it is possible to individualise it very precisely for any particular Dasein. If we are to arrive at the basic concept of Being and to outline the ontological conceptions which is requires and the variations which it necessarily undergoes, we need a clue which is concrete. We shall proceed towards the concept of Being by way of and interpretation of a certain special entity, Dasein, in which we shall arrive at the horizon for the understanding of Being and for the possibility of interpreting it: the universality of the concept of Being is not belied by the special' character of our investigation. But the very entity, Dasein, is in itself 'historical' so that its ownmost ontological elucidation necessarily becomes an historiological interpretation.
Heidegger then sets out the design of his treatise, two books each consisting of three parts. However this grand scheme was never realised. All that has been published is the first two parts of book one which are:
1/ The preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein
2/ Dasein and temporality
__________________________________________________________________
Heidegger's critique of semiotics (and a semiotic critique of Heidegger)
What is semiotics? Peirce defines it as follows "{Sémeiösis} in Greek of the Roman period, as early as Cicero's time... meant the action of almost any kind of sign..." [Peirce: CP 5.484] A sign is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity." [Peirce: CP 2.228]
Now compare this to the following:
"Being false amounts to an attempt to cover up the truth by putting something in front of something and thereby obscuring it, or passing it off as something which it is not." [Heidegger: BT, 57]
Therefore, for Heidegger semiotics amounts to lying. (interestingly this was also the definition of semiotics advanced by Umberto Eco in his Theory of Semiotics [Eco, 1973, p58])
These quotations from Peirce and Heidegger reveal the fundamental differences in their beliefs over how the world is apprehended by human consciousness. For Heidegger it is all about uncovering the essential truth of phenomena through the immediacy of perception (for as long as phenomena are perceived in their immediacy they cannot lie, and moreover language, although it is a representational system, can also uncover the essential truth of phenomena, so as long as language is subjected to the right interpretational method - hermeneutics). For Peirce there can be no such reassurances, for everything even the immediacy of firstness is subject to processes of inference, and inference always incurs the relation of one thing to another, in other words, everything is semiosis. As this quotation from Peirce illustrates"
"It might be objected that to say that the purpose of thought is to bring the truth to expression is to say that the production of propositions, rather than that of inferences, is the primary object. But the production of propositions is of the general nature of inference, so that inference is the essential function of the cognitive mind" [Peirce: CP 2.444 Fn P1 Para 2/2]
Heidegger asserts that it is possible to grasp the immediacy of Being through looking, "For the Greeks truth (alethéia) meant perceiving- i.e., the sheer sensory perception of something as true [ref. Page 57]. Peirce would casts doubt
on that assertion, not from the vantage point of the logic of thirdness, (the tradition of philosophy that Heidegger so despises) but by referring to a different interpretation of the very same immediacy that Heidegger evokes as the prime locus for the discovering of phenomenological truth (firstness). The following long quotation from Peirce should hopefully illustrate this point.
"Here I sit at my table with my inkstand and paper before me, my pen in my hand, my lamp at my side. It may be that all this is a dream. But if so, that such dream there is, is knowledge. But hold: what I have written down is only an imperfect description of the percept that is forced upon me. I have endeavoured to state it in words. In this there has been an endeavour, purpose--something not forced upon me but rather the product of reflection. I was not forced to this reflection. I could not hope to describe what I see, feel, and hear, just as I see, feel, and hear it. Not only could I not set it down on paper, but I could have no kind of thought adequate to it or any way like
Hundreds of percepts have succeeded one another while I have been setting down these sentences. I recognize that there is a percept or flow of percepts very different from anything I can describe or think. What precisely that is I cannot even tell myself. It would be gone, long before I could tell myself many items; and those items would be quite unlike the percepts themselves. In this thought there would always be effort or endeavour. Whatever is the product of effort might be suppressed by effort, and therefore is subject to possible error. I am forced to content myself not with the fleeting percepts, but with the crude and possibly erroneous thoughts, or self-informations, of what the percepts were. The science of psychology assures me that the very percepts were mental constructions, not the first impressions of sense. But what the first impressions of sense may have been, I do not know except inferentially and most imperfectly. Practically, the knowledge with which I have to content myself, and have to call "the evidence of my senses," instead of being in truth the evidence of the senses, is only a sort of stenographic report of that evidence, possibly erroneous. In place of the percept, which, although not the first impression of sense, is a construction with which my will has had nothing to do, and may, therefore, properly be called the "evidence of my senses," the only thing I carry away with me is the perceptual facts, or the intellect's description of the
evidence of the senses, made by my endeavour. These perceptual facts are wholly unlike the percept, at best; and they may be downright untrue to the percept. But I have no means whatever of criticizing, correcting or re-comparing them, except that I can collect new perceptual facts relating to new percepts, and on that basis may infer that there must have been some error in the former reports, or on the other hand I may in this way persuade myself that the former reports were true. The perceptual facts are a very imperfect report of the percepts; but I cannot go behind that record. As for going back to the first impressions of sense, as some logicians recommend me to do, that would be the most chimerical of undertakings" [Peirce: CP 2.140 & 141].
In a way this quotation can be seen just as much of a justification of the Hermeneutical method as the phenomenological method. The essential difference is the trust each philosopher puts in our ability to perceive the truth of things themselves. Indeed this trust/distrust gets to the very heart of debates about the nature of truth in its absolute sense. About the nature of the latter, Peirce's remarks are salutary:
"Whether or not there is, at all, any such thing as Reality, the logician need not decide. He cannot hide from himself, any more than another man can, that objects very nearly like real things there are; and he cannot pretend to doubt it. But he sees, perhaps more clearly than other men, that approximation to reality and absolute reality itself are two different things... All that it is incumbent upon the logician to learn is what inferential habits are conducive to knowledge, and to positive knowledge, in case there be any reality of which it is possible to have positive knowledge, and are conducive to such semblance of positive knowledge as we can have, in case there is no perfect reality or in case otherwise true positive knowledge is impossible" [Peirce: CP 2.64]
Reference:Peirce, Charles Sanders (1931-1935), The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vols. I-VI, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (editors), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press".
On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
PART 1
The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
Horizon of the Question of Being
DIVISION 1:
The Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein
CONTENTS
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 3"
I. The Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein
9. The Theme of the Analytic of Dasein
10. How the Analytic of Dasein is to be Distinguished from Anthropology, Psychology, and Biology
11. The Existential Analytic and the Interpretation of Primitive Dasein: The Difficulties in Securing a "Natural Concept of the World"
This is an ongoing project, more content will appear here over the next few months.
For the contents of other sections see the main index
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments on this document are welcome. Please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
November 4 - December 9, 2005
(page 65)
PART 1
THE INTERPRETATION OF DASEIN IN TERMS
OF TEMPORALITY, AND THE EXPLICATION
OF TIME AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL
HORIZON FOR THE QUESTION OF BEING
DIVISION 1
PREPARATORY FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS
OF DASEIN
Introductory remarks
To ascertain the meaning of Being, we must interrogate Dasein. This preparatory analysis of Dasein will be unusual because, to put it simply, Dasein is the object of its own inquiry. When we consider ourselves as entities under examination, our behaviour changes--i.e., we become self-conscious--and therefore the nature of the object we are studying also changes [ref. ¶5, page 37]. Therefore inquiring about Dasein incurs specific problems that must be addressed before, during and at the concluding stages of the
investigation. This section presents an analysis of Dasein in outline, which also touches on the Being of other entities running alongside it.
It is very important that the reader does not get mislead by Heidegger use of language in this section. In order to articulate his conception of Being, Heidegger often constructs his sentences in a way that either de-emphasises the subject term, or does away with it altogether. E.g. "Being is that which is an issue for any such entity." instead of 'Being is an issue for Dasein'. Another strategy he employs is to deliberately break the rules of agreement between noun and pronoun. For example, when he is articulating the fundamental interconnectedness of Being and Dasein he switches (seemingly) from the third person to the first person: "Dasein has in each case mineness." This is meant to signify that the kind of Being that belongs to Dasein is the same Being which can belong to any one of us. I think the problem with these strategy is that it is confusing. I imagine that you, as my hypothetical ideal reader (whether you are conscious of it or not), will always try to make sense of a text by analysing it according to the rules of grammar,i.e., separating the subject from its predicate to discover how the understanding of one is illuminated by the other and vice versa. Throughout this explication and commentary, my strategy has been to attempt to explain Heidegger's philosophy by employing these normal conventions of language (grammar as it is ordinarily understood) and then problematising them in a subsequent manoeuvre. Heidegger's method, on the other hand, is to 'cut to the chase' and collapse the subject into the predicate, leaving the reader to work out what is going on (or not as the case may be). The disadvantage of my approach, is that it appears to be misinterpreting the text, in that I seem to be forcing Heidegger into the very grammatical boxes from which he is earnestly trying to escape. However, in my opinion, this disadvantage is far outweighed by the advantage of the reader the opportunity to take in the argument and then, from this position of basic understanding, see the problems Heidegger is faced with as regards to his argument with logic and philosophy. And moreover hopefully, be in a position where you also appreciate how he overcomes these problems, without yourself feeling ensnared by them.
Dasein has a pre-ontological understanding of Being [ref. ¶4, page 35]. We must therefore lay bare the structure of this understanding in Dasein, which Heidegger terms Being-in-the-world. This structure of Being-in-the-world is pre-ontological and thus it
can be likened to the a priori in Kantian terminology, i.e., this understanding comes before we are able to form any ideas about things like "Being" and "the world", and consequently it also comes before we can articulate that understanding back to ourselves as thoughts [ref. ¶6, Page 45]. Unlike other kinds of analysis which are premised on cutting up objects up and piecing them together again in new configurations, the structure of Dasein's understanding is primordially (and constantly) a whole and will remain so. However we are afforded various ways of looking at 'wholeness' by highlighting certain items which are constitutive of it. In other words, while we should continually emphasise a) that the structure of Being in the world is wholeness and b) that it comes before the appreciation of discreet phenomena, we will find by using the phenomenological method of investigation that we can show how certain items can be made to stand out.
(page 66 is a blank page)
(page 67)
I
EXPOSITION OF THE TASK OF A PREPARITORY
ANALYSIS OF DASEIN
¶ 9. The Theme of the Analytic of Dasein
Dasein is us; that is Dasein is you, me, him, her, or if we are speaking generally, the human Being. This means that we ourselves are the entities to be analysed. The ontological characteristics which distinguish us from other entities are:
a) We are conscious of our own existence, and
b) Our existence is an issue for us.
The Being of Dasein is the Being of each human individual. Thus for the individual 'Dasein' we can say that the Being under investigation is in each case mine.
As the translators of Being and Time note the reader must not get the impression that there is anything solipsistic about this statement. Heidegger is merely point out that the kind of Being which belongs to Dasein is the kind that each and every one of us relates to in terms of our own Being.
This means that Dasein in its Being is delivered over to its Being. In other words when we talk of Dasein: your Being, his Being, her Being, their Being is fundamentally understood in terms of my Being.
This way of characterising Dasein has two consequences:
1/ The essence of the entity Dasein lies in its "to be."
2/ The Being which is an issue for Dasein (in its very Being) is in each case mine.
We will now discuss these consequences in more detail.
1/ The essence of the entity Dasein lies in its "to be."
Heidegger asserts in so far as we can talk about Dasein’s 'Essence' (i.e. what Dasein is), we must do so in terms of the Being of Dasein. But Heidegger does not want to discuss Being in terms of essences for the reason that it is far too vague and states rather that the Being of Dasein should be discussed only in terms of its 'Existence.' The term 'existence' designates Dasein's essence and the term should only be applied to a Being who has an ontological understanding of its own existence. And in this sense our analysis becomes an ontological one as opposed to one that is merely ontical (see the glossary if you are confused about the difference between ontological and ontical).
Previously [ref. ¶ 4, page 33] Heidegger has also used the term 'existentia.' But do not confuse 'existentia' with 'existence' because although the former term stands for a general understanding of Being, Heidegger uses it only when he is talking about the Being of entities that are not Dasein, i.e., entities that are present-at-hand.
Therefore, at the risk of belabouring the point, but to avoid confusion...
i/ Existentia = Entities whose Being is only present-at-hand and which are understood ontically
ii/ Existence = Entities whose Being is an issue for them (Dasein) and who are understood ontologically
iii/ Essentia = synonymous with 'essence,’ a vague and potentially misleading term which Heidegger seeks to supplant it with 'existentia' when he is talking about things that are not Dasein and ‘existence’ when he is talking about Dasein.
Existence over Essence
Heidegger expresses the differences between essentia, existentia and existence in the following way. He says that "the essence of Dasein lies in its existence." In other words Dasein's Being can only be understood ontologically as opposed to ontically. When one asks, "what is an entity's essence?" the question forces us to consider the given entity as if it were a 'thing'. But the essence of Dasein lies in its "to be", that is in its potential and not in its "thinghood". So when we talk about Dasein's Being we talk about it in terms of possibility rather than actuality. This means that the analysis will be looking at Being as existing within the totality of a field of potentials, rather than as something static. This for the simple reason that Dasein's "to be" is all that Dasein "is".
But of course describing something in terms of all of the potential ways that it can be, is far more complex than describing it in terms of what it "is". So when Heidegger says that Dasein's "to be" is all that Dasein "is", he is actually saying quite a bit.
We need to bear the distinction between 'existence' and 'essence' in mind when we talk about Dasein's Being, because we simply cannot express this idea as if it were a "what", as we do when we are talking about a table or a tree.
It is worth noting that this phrase 'existentia over essentia,' was transmuted by the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre into the maxim 'existence over essence' and has since acquired an iconic status in existential philosophy. However, as I emphasised at the start of this section, Heidegger's argues against talking about Being in terms of 'essentia', because it has a potential to mislead us into thinking that Dasein's Being is the same as the Being of other entities, in other words something that can be pointed out and remarked upon as a "what". This misunderstanding is certainly born out in the case of Sartre misappropriation of the phrase ‘existence over essence.’ For in Sartre's book Being and Nothingness--at least in the way I understand it (?)--essentia is understood as being synonymous with the soul, and so "existentia over essentia" becomes an atheist maxim: a statement which asserts the primacy of existence over notions of the essential, pre-ordained and divinely given qualities possessed of each individual human Being. Whereas in fact all Heidegger is saying with "existentia over essentia," is that the Being of Dasein is not a "what," but a "to be".
2/ The Being which is an issue for this entity Dasein in its very Being is in each case mine.
To designate Dasein the personal pronouns "I" and "you" will always be used and when Dasein is addressed, Heidegger will say, "I am" or "you are." Dasein is never to be taken as...
(page 68)
...an instance or special case of some entity (or genus of entities) which is present-at-hand because this would violate the principle that Being is wholeness. In our preontological understanding of our ownmost Being this fact is grasped before any other precepts can be inferred and for this reason it cannot be violated retrospectively and cut up into categorical distinctions as part of our analysis. On the other hand a kind of categorisation might be applicable to the Being of entities that are not Dasein, because (if you will excuse the implied anthropomorphism) their Being is a matter of indifference to them.
'My to be'
In addition to the use of the personal pronoun when addressing Dasein we also need to be aware that when a particular Dasein talks about Being it is in each case "my Being." And because the essence of Dasein lies in its 'to be' it is therefore 'my to be' that we will be talking about.
Heidegger seems to be implying that Being is a property of Dasein in the sense of designating one's ownership over one's being. However as he has already pointed out [ref. ¶ 4, page 32] this is not the case. Being is not a property of Dasein; But rather that from which Dasein is itself constituted, which happens long before Dasein can even think about formulating notions of ownership. Therefore Being cannot be owned by Dasein, and the expression ‘Dasein’s Being’, although used by Heidegger in the text of Being and Time (for instance on page 74, paragraph 1) is a mere linguistic convenience used to distinguish existence from existentia.
Authenticity
The decision as to which way the Being of Dasein is 'my to be,' is something that a particular Dasein will have decided beforehand, based on the constraints imposed upon it by experience (see historicality [ref. ¶ 6, page 41]). That entity Dasein which in its Being has "this very Being" as an issue for it comports itself towards its Being as its ownmost possibility. In each case Dasein is its possibility and for that reason it can chose itself and
win itself, or conversely lose itself and never win itself, or perhaps only seem to do so. But this choosing and loosing is defined only in the sense that it can be essentially viewed by Dasein as Being authentic - that is as something which has a reality value that is not relative to or measured by comparisons with anything else. Authenticity stands alone: it is the way things are.
As modes of Being both authenticity and inauthenticity are grounded in the fact that any Dasein is characterised by mineness. But the inauthenticity of Dasein does not designate a low level in the hierarchy of Being as might be supposed. Dasein's Being can be characterised as inauthentic when it is at its most concrete, for instance when Dasein is excited, or interested, when ready for enjoyment, etc., as we shall see later.
Both the authentic and inauthentic characteristics of Dasein illustrate :
1/ The priority of 'existentia' over 'essentia.'
2/ The fact that Dasein is in each case mine.
Dasein does not have the kind of Being which belongs to it as something present-at-hand, this as we have already pointed out at length. But we emphasise this because it goes to the heart of what is unusual about Dasein. And consequently means that...
(page 69)
...the right way of presenting Dasein as a phenomenon is far from self evident. And of course to determine what form this presentation shall eventually take is itself an essential part of the analysis. One thing is certain: it is only by presenting Dasein in the right way that will we have any meaningful understanding of ‘my Being’. Therefore, no matter how provisional our analysis might be, it must carry the assurance that we have started in the right way.
The Right Way
In terms of determining itself as an entity, Dasein always does so in the light of a possibility of mineness, which it is itself and which in its very existence it somehow understands. This sentence designates the formal meaning of Dasein's essential construction, albeit in a roughly-hewn form. But what it tells us is that the problematic of its Being must be developed from the existentiality of its existence, i.e., from existential, (the formal understanding of Being in general). This needs to happen if we are to describe the state of 'pre-ontological' Being, which is the kind of Being towards which Dasein comports itself and is the very thing that Heidegger terms 'existence'.
If we are to begin in the right way, this cannot mean that "Dasein" is to be construed in terms of some concrete idea of existence, no matter how provisionally that idea may be
cast. At the outset it is particularly important that Dasein should not be Interpreted with the differentiated character of something which has some definite way of existing, but that it should be uncovered in its undifferentiated character. This statement underscores the fact that Being is fundamentally wholeness and also emphasises Heidegger’s insistence that it is abject folly to follow a line of reasoning that tries to pick that wholeness apart in any kind of logical analysis[ref. ¶8, page 65].
Averageness
This undifferentiated character of Dasein is not nothing, but is actually a positive phenomenological characteristic of this entity. What Heidegger calls Dasein's "averageness."
"Out of this kind of Being--and back into it again--is all existing, such as it is."
In this sense averageness reminds me of Edmund Burke's 'state of indifference'. Burke remarked that whereas most people thought that pain emerged out of a state of pleasure and vice versa, in fact there was an inter-mediate state of indifference out of which extremities of emotion emerged and after a time fall back into again. (Burke 1998, 30-32)
The averageness of Dasein makes up what is ontically proximal for this entity which is Everydayness. No doubt the reason that the averageness of Dasein has been passed over again and again in philosophical explications of the human condition is because it is so unremarkable. But this almost tautologically sounding statement in fact underscores the truth in Heidegger's maxim, "what is closest to us ontologically is at the same time the furthest away" [ref. ¶5, page 36]. The averageness of Dasein's existence introduces a thematic as well as a problematic for the task ahead - namely, that in order to understand that which, phenomenologically speaking, is the closest thing of all, such an understanding has to be articulated in a way that means 'the closest thing' is not overlooked, but seen rather in its positive characterisation.
Average Everydayness
Dasein's average everydayness is not to be taken as an aspect of it. Dasein comports itself towards its Being in the mode of average everydayness, and the understanding of this is felt by Dasein even before it can be articulated. In this sense, for some people no doubt conceiving of Being as being an issue for Dasein seems rather at odds with conceiving it in terms of average everydayness. For average everydayness does not seem to imply concern for one Being. There are two elements to
address in answering this criticism: partly I think this discrepancy can be explained as an example of how the average everydayness of Being is continually overlooked, and partly I think these remarks can be taken as a kind of criticism of a tendency in Dasein towards inauthenticity which Heidegger will now elaborate upon.
Inauthenticity
Heidegger calls Dasein’s mode of average everydayness an inauthentic mode of Being. But the interesting thing about this inauthenticity is that it comes before the conscious realisation of one's Being, where ideas of authenticity and inauthenticity might have been thought to originate. But this is not the case. In Heidegger’s analysis authenticity is not a judgement one can make of oneself retrospectively for it comes even before thinking. In this case the inauthentic mode of being is conceived of a kind of mould into which Dasein gets poured. Heidegger’s analysis of the inauthentic still carries with it a judgmental aspect, but in this case the judgement designates a mode of Being characterised by Heidegger evocatively as Dasein fleeing in the face of its Being "and forgetting thereof."
(page 70)
The other thing to mention about the term 'average everydayness' is that it does not carry the usual hazy indefinite connotations that these words have in ordinary speech. In the explication of Dasein anything that is understood ontically can be thought of as existing in an average way and this mode may be grasped in patterns of existence. These are Patterns which Heidegger terms 'pregnant structures', which may be indistinguishable from an authentic Being of Dasein (in other words Dasein choosing and winning itself by comporting itself towards its Being as its ownmost possibility).
This implies that one's ownmost search for one's possibilities of Being can be easily distorted by a mode of inauthenticity. In this sense, one's potentialities can be likened to liquid metal which has been poured into a mould and cast into something solid. This connotes a vision of the authentic Being of Dasein as liquefied, unpredictable and possessing potential energy whilst inauthentic Being is concretised, restricted and possessing kinetic energy. Inauthentic being limits one's own view of the possibility of one's Being, like a mask whose eye-slits are too narrow limits the field of vision of the wearer. Heidegger's argument with inauthenticity is that for a particular Dasein trapped in an inauthentic mode of Being it is as if the mask itself is forgotten and the restrictive view from out of its slits becomes the dominant frame from which everything else is perceived thought about and judged. Perhaps this analogy
imposes too much of Plato’s cave onto Heidegger’s conception of authenticity/inauthenticity? We shall have to see.
Existentalia and Category
If an explanation of Dasein is going to be obtained existentially, we have to consider not the being of Dasein itself, because in relation to Dasein Being should not be understood as an object but rather as the sum total of Dasein's potential ways to be. This is what will be the object of study in the analysis Heidegger calls it Dasein's 'existence-structure' . On the way to arriving at a definition of this existence structure, Heidegger will speak about certain characteristics of Dasein. These he gives the name 'Existentalia' in order to underscore the fact that the existence structure of Dasein must be defined existentially. Heidegger wants his 'existentalia' to be sharply distinguished from the concept of 'category,' as it is ordinarily understood in philosophy.
For want of a better analogy, categories can be likened to abstractly constructed boxes into which people sort various phenomena into groups based on some shared characteristics of that phenomena. For example the characteristics of ‘being alive’ designates the category of living things (animals and plants) from the category of things not alive (e.g., rocks, water, gasses, etc.) and these categories can be further sorted into other more specific sub categories. For example things which are alive that are warm blooded and give birth to live young can be placed in a box marked 'mammals,' whereas things which are alive that are cold blooded and lay eggs can be placed in the box marked reptiles.
For Heidegger 'categories' can only be used to distinguish ontical characteristics of the Being of entities which are not Dasein, and this is he says how we should understand the term 'category' in its primal ontological sense. And what is more we should strictly abide by that definition. This means that we should never be tempted to sort Dasein into the same categorical boxes into which we place entities who are not Dasein.
An interesting consequence of this latest prohibition is that it elevates the importance of humankind over every other entity on the planet in Heidegger's theory. (A negative and perhaps disingenuous(?) implication of this might be to surmise that we are back with Adam and Eve and their stewardship over the Garden of Eden.)
The Ancients and The Logos
In the ontology of the ancients existent entities, the kinds of things that one simply comes across in the world such as rocks plants and animals are taken as basic examples for the interpretation of Being (note that my use of present tense when talking about the ancients will follow Heidegger's lead). The ancients grasp this Being of entities in the form of words. And this is considered the acceptable way to grasp entities. But the Being of those entities must be grasped in a certain way, that is to say in a certain type of speech that lets something be seen. This is so that the Being of a given entity can become intelligible to us when we speak of it at a later time. The sighting of the object in words also means that it can have a kind of presence which can be recalled by language to stand for the object in circumstances where the object itself is no longer present. This presence can also be talked about, say, when we wish to interpret the object by elaborating upon some aspect of it that was not apparent in the initial sighting. We can do this because the original sighting in language has a fidelity to its object which can be elaborated upon, so that aspects that were intitally not remarked upon can be legitimately discussed, even without the object being directly present. In other words Heidegger claims that language allows us to grasp reality with a fidelity that permits future interpretations, for although in the grasping of entities in language the language user may not be able to see the uses to which their sighting may be put, this grasping does not necessarily prohibit those uses, and this is because it does not present the object as an appearance.
The Ontological Definition of Category
In any discussion of entities, Heidegger argues that we always already address ourselves to the question of their Being. This is meant in the sense of when a child points at something and asking "what's that?" the gesture and the question already implies that she is aware that there is a 'Being' there in need of a name. Moreover, this gesture also points to the fact that there is 'something' which is already distinguishable from the manifold of the world in its wholeness as an entity which stands our in terms of its Being. According to Heidegger, the action of addressing oneself to an entity's Being in this way is what the ancients understood by the term 'category'. Their use of category signifies making a public accusation, in the sense of asking someone to account for their actions in front of witnesses. When used ontologically the term category has a similar meaning, but in this case what is made to account for itself, so to speak, is the entity itself. In other words, the particular kind of language we use to determine a category lets everyone else see the object in terms of its Being. When we use Language in this way it allows us to uncover the "what's that?" of an object's Being that exists before it is named. The Categories are therefore what are 'sighted' in words (the logos), which implies the articulation of an explicit description of the Being of a given entity, rather than the covering over of that Being of that entity with a name. This is how the ancient understanding of category differs from the modern understanding of category. For
Heidegger, categorisation includes the various ways in which the nature of entities can be addressed and discussed. But this is only as a potential (something which later will be interpreted in a hermeneutic perhaps? [ref. ¶7, page 61 - 62]) because what is important to realise is that the discussion (i.e., the elaboration of the category) always comes afterwards; after the sighting and after the grasping of the entities presence in language. The important thing to understand about categories therefore is their fidelity to the entity, in the sense that they the call it to account in front of witnesses, and this is why Heidegger argues that a category is the most sincere guarantor of truth a person can offer...This connotation of category survives today in the judicial system, where witnesses swear on the Bible and are subject to punishment if they perjure themselves. However we can use this modern analogy of the court to critique Heidegger's notion of category, albeit from the very logical paradigm that he is trying to escape from. For who would argue that the court system is infallible? The truth cannot be guaranteed simply because it is predicated on calling people to public account. What if they are lying? Or mistaken? And even if they are not lying or do not think themselves mistaken, how do we know their sincere grasping of entities is accurate? The point is that they may be sincere, but sincerity alone can never make us sure.
On the other hand, it seems like sophistry to suggest that language therefore has no fidelity to objects in the real world. There must be some correspondences for if it were otherwise we would not be able to tell anything about the world at all, which would mean that there could be no knowledge apart from that obtained by direct experience. But in case we judge Heidegger’s argument to be overtly mimetic and want to dismiss it for that reason, it must be born in mind that his claim that language 'grasps' reality does not presuppose that it therefore necessarily grasps reality absolutely, or that objects somehow tell us what they are (although it does not exactly disavow this interpretation either!). We should perhaps bear in mind that all Heidegger is saying in discussing the ancient conception of 'category' is that language has a truth-value. In other words language is something that works in that it can re-presenting its object with some degree of accuracy (although Heidegger would never use the term 'representation of course because it sound too much like covering up). What is important here to take on board is that the understanding of the term 'category' allows an entity to stand out from the manifold of existence and thus it can become the discursive ground upon which other discourses can be elaborated. And indeed
this is implicit in Heidegger's discussion the science of hermeneutics itself [ref. ¶7, page 61 - 62].
(page 71)
Existentalia and categories are the two basic possibilities for characters of Being. The entities that correspond to them are these...
Existentialia = Dasein
Categories = Entities that present at hand, i.e., not Dasein
...and these two terms require different kinds of primary interrogation. In other words, any entity that is either a 'who' (existence) or a 'what' (present-at-hand) is treated differently. However there can be no more elaboration of this because the connection between the essential characters of these two modes of Being cannot be clarified until the horizon for the question of Being has itself been clarified.
The problems of answering the question, "What man is?"
The task of laying bare the a priori basis of the investigation must be visible before the question of "what man is?" can be discussed philosophically. In saying this Heidegger is claiming that the human sciences have their priorities the wrong way round. The reason for this is that in trying to determine man as the object of their inquiries, the human sciences have looked at the human Being from the outside in rather from the inside out and consequently have missed what is essential to the understanding of what it is to be human. Heidegger’s argues that the way to discover "what man is" is not to categorise 'his' surface attributes but to grasp the essential being in its wholeness. Hence he says "the existential analytic of Dasein comes before any psychology or anthropology and certainly before any biology". While Heidegger concedes that these human sciences are also ways in which Dasein can be legitimately investigated," he means this only in the sense of a negative judgement, and claims that we will be better able define the theme of the analytic of Dasein (i.e., what it is to be human) and with more precision, if we distinguish our inquiry from the mistakes of the tradition of the human sciences.
¶ 10. How the analytic of Dasein is to be Distinguished for Anthropology, Psychology and Biology
Now that we have outlined the theme of the analytic of Dasein in positive terms, it is important also to show what is to be left out. But in order for this to be a fruitful exercise and not just a purely negative one, we must show what the previous scientific investigations of Dasein have overlooked. And Thus identify the real philosophical
problem that leads to this overlooking. For as long as the human sciences persist in missing the problem, they have no right to lay claim any success in achieving the understanding for which they are striving for.
In distinguishing the existential analytic from both the theoretical assumptions and methodologies of anthropology psychology and biology, we shall confine ourselves to what in principle is the ontological question. However this manoeuvre will obviously be found wanting from point of view of anthropologists, psychologists and biologists, whose devotedness to the scientific method blinds them to any criticism of its philosophical failings. But who cares? Heidegger intention is to attack these methods and assumptions from the root and branch, precisely because they have their source in the same ontological probematics that have antagonised him throughout this investigation, namely the flawed ontological tradition of philosophy. It is not surprising that the investigation here touches again in criticisms of Descartes cogito ergo sum as the example par excellence of a conspicuous early offender in the spread of the collective philosophical myopia regarding the problem of Being.
Descartes’ "Cogito"
Histrologically, the aim of the existential analysis of Dasein can be clarified by comparing it to Descartes, "cogito sum" [ref. ¶6, page 45]. Whilst Heidegger credits Descartes with investigating the cogitate (the "think") of the ego ("I"), at least within certain limits. He criticises him for leaving the sum (the "am", or Being) completely undiscussed, even though Descartes regarded it as being no less primordial than the cogito.
(page 72)
In contrast, we may judge that the main claim Heidegger could make for his analytic is that it raises the ontological question of the am (the "sum") above all other questions. Indeed the dominant claim in Being and Time makes this explicit--it is not until the nature of Being in general has been determined can we even begin to grasp the kind of Being which belongs to this thinking being we call "I".
Now Heidegger warns us that it is misleading to use Descartes 'Cogito' (even in the critical sense) as an example of how to go about analysing Dasein. For the reasons that this approach is too histriological and has the effect of ossifying the notion of Being into something far too concrete and therefore inauthentic. Our first task is rather to prove that if we posit the concept of the subject (or Descartes' "I") as something that is proximally given, i.e. graspable in the immediacy of perception, that we shall completely miss the phenomenal content of Dasein--that is the Being of Dasein's--which stands above notions
of the binary conception of subject and object and therefore is given over to us even before the "I" of the subject can be articulated.
A Plea For Your Indulgence!
In the following passage, Heidegger makes a plea for our indulgence concerning his obtuse use of language. He pleads that he is not being "terminologically arbitrary" when he avoids using traditional grammatical forms to explain his philosophy. For example using 'existential' and 'Dasein' instead of ordinary expressions like 'life' and 'man' to designate the entities which we are ourselves. The reason for this is he wants to get away from conceptions of 'subject' and 'object', but unfortunately these conceptions are already inscribed in language and become the schemata to a kind of thinking that is evoked as soon as one opens one's mouth or puts pen to paper. Ontologically every idea of a 'subject'--unless refined by a previous logical determination of its basic character--still posits what maybe called in Scholastic language the subjectum (which Heidegger translates as Being-already-at-hand). The subject possesses this no matter how many vigorous ontical protestations an advocate of this doctrine cares to make against the 'soul substance' or the 'reification of consciousness' etc., etc. The point is that such reification always going to happen in the arena of language where every Being becomes a "thing" and every thing becomes a name. In this paradigm Dasein becomes simply "I" and the world is a collection of predicates which lie always outside of the "I". Only by using the phenomenological method can the ontological origin of these terms be demonstrated and we can go about the task of dismantling these assumptions in earnest. However such knowledge is certainly not available to any logical proof (since logic is predicated on grammar of language and this grammar has already cut Being out of the equation!) So if we are to manoeuvre ourselves into a position from where we can ask the question, "What do we understand positively when with think of this unreified Being that we have hitherto considered to be the subject, soul, consciousness, spirit, person, etc?" we must do two things:
1/ Appreciate how all these "subjectum" terms in fact refer to definite phenomenological domains which can be 'given form', using the phenomenological method.
2/ Be aware that this method cannot be employed unless we first take on board the idea that the Being of theses entities is what is being designated and not the 'thingness' of them.
On the other hand any serious and scientifically-minded 'philosophy of life' (although this expression tells us as much as "the botany of plants"!) always expresses an unexpressed tendency towards an understanding of Dasein's Being. Now what is conspicuous in that tendency (and this is why the human sciences are defective in principle) is that 'life' itself, as an ontology, is something that never become a problem precisely because of the a
priori burying of the problem of Being. And it is upon this error that the 'philosophies of life' are always founded. I think the philosophers who in Heidegger view ignore being can be likened to gravediggers who one stood at the opening of a grave and shovelled their dirt into the hole so fast that they did not notice that there was something very much alive down there struggling to get out. Like the good gravedigger that they were these philosophers levelled off the dirt and tramped it down hard with their boots so that when the human sciences came along looking for a good place to build their citadels of knowledge, they found the ground on this particular spot to be firm and conducive to the task. Fast forward to the present situation where we inhabit these citadels and walk their streets completely oblivious that below our feet there is a restless spirit howling to be let out.
(page 73)
Flaws in the Phenomenological Tradition
Certainly in Heidegger's judgement all movements that try to outline a philosophical anthropology utilising the ontological tradition in philosophy are bound to fail. In contrast, the phenomenological interpretation of personality (the tradition into which Heidegger himself was indoctrinated into as a student of Edmund Hussurl) is sometimes more radical and transparent at least in principle. But it too must fail because here also Dasein has a dimension which is precluded by their analysis.
Take the claims of the phenomenologist Max Scheler for example, Scheler maintains quite correctly that the person is neither a thing, nor a substance, nor still an object [ref. Scheler Jahrbuch Vol. II, 1916, p 242]. Here he echoes Hussurl's insistence that the unity of a person must have a constitution essentially different from the unity of a thing of nature [ref. Hussurl, Logos I, 1910, p 319]. Scheler applies the same assumptions qua personhood to his analysis of acts. An act for Scheler is never an object either. It is essential to the Being of acts that they are experienced only in their performance which is given over to consciousness afterwards in the form of a retrospective reflection. In other words the notion of the phenomenon as an 'act' is in fact only actuated when we think about it afterwards and thus our thoughts where the act becomes known also necessarily have the status of being 'retroactive'. This means that acts are purely experiential in a way that psychical events are not. Scheler follows this line of reasoning to its logical end and concludes a person essentially only exists in the performances of these acts, and for that reason a person cannot be considered in any rational way to be an object, since the objectification of personhood is only an idea applied after the (f)act. Conversely any psychical objectification of acts in retrospective thought is equivalent to the 'de-
personalisation' of the person. Scheler's theory in effect places a prohibition on any kind of talk about defining acts or personhood claiming that such talk always leads to a reification. A person in Scheler's sense can only therefore be defined as "a performer of intentional acts which are bound together by the unity of meaning." Thus a sharp differentiation has been drawn between the 'personal' and the 'psychical' Being. But Heidegger is obviously not happy with this distinction given his twin contentions that Being is first and foremost "wholeness" and that as a phenomenon, it can be grasped in language. Thus he makes a critical intervention at this point by asking what he calls two crucial questions of Scheler, "What constitutes the ontological meaning of performance?" and "How is the kind of Being that belongs to a person going to be ascertained in a positive way?" In asking the first question Heidegger wants to draw our attention to the fact that we must face the Being of the whole person, so to speak, who is customarily taken as the unity of the body...
(page 74)
...soul and spirit and by asking the second Heidegger contends that the hitherto considered nebulous notions of "body" "soul" and "spirit" may also be grasped in a positive sense using the phenomenological method, and consequently can be made to stand out as phenomena which can be investigated. Thus a challenge has been issued to Sheler's prohibition of talking about the person as a phenomenon. While Heidegger does not actually elaborate on these questions, he promises that he will do so once the question of Being has been properly outlined. He adds almost as an afterthought that within certain limits the ontological indefiniteness of the body soul and spirit may not even prove to be important.
There are two things that we should be aware of because they have the potential to stand in the way of an analytic of Dasein's Being and therefore could pull the investigation off track.
1/ The ancient world, whose inadequate ontological foundations have been overlooked by both the philosophy of life and by personalism.
2/ The ‘anthropology of Christianity’
I will now elaborate on both of these in turn:
1/ The inadequate ontological foundations of the ancient world
Man is defined as an 'animal having speech' which has been interpreted to mean 'rational animal.' But the kind of Being that belongs to this animal is thought of as something present-at-hand which is also occurring. This ‘also occurring’ is illustrated in English by the very term we use to designate ourselves--The 'human being'--the also occurring is
inscribed in the word by the fact that 'human being' is written in the continuous tense. The logos (speech of reason) which figures in the endowment of "animal having speech" is the reason why human beings are considered to be superior to the animal’s. However in Heidegger's opinion the Being which belongs the logos in this particular conception is rendered as obscure as the phrase 'rational animal' itself. In other words the very expression under which the entire entity human being has been defined has actually overlooked the uniqueness of its Being because 'animal having speech' emphasises the meaning of the logos as "speech" rather than its phenomenological meaning of the logos as "letting something be seen" [ref. ¶ 7, page 58].
2/ The ‘anthropology of Christianity’
The second clue for determining man's 'essence' is a theological one, epitomised by the phrase from the Bible, "And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness" [Genesis, I, 26.] This phrase is the axiom on which the Christian interpretation of man can be said to be based. But just as the Being of God gets interpreted ontologically, so does the being of the ens finitum (mortal being). In modern times the Christian definition has been deprived of its theological character, but the idea of transcendence, i.e., that man is something that reaches beyond himself, is fundamentally rooted in Christian dogmatics.
(page 75)
The Problems with Anthropology
In the attempt to determine man as an entity Heidegger asserts that…
a) his Being has been forgotten.
b) the uniqueness of this being has been perceived either as something self-evident, or as something merely 'present at hand',
and consequently Being of man has been overlooked. This is not just the case with Dasein, the Being of all "created Things" has been overlooked also. These two remarks a) and b) are said by Heidegger to be two clues which have become intertwined in the anthropology of modern times, where both human consciousness and the interconnectedness of experiences served as the points of departure for methodological study. But since in the theoretical assumptions which determined the methodology of the cogitans were either left undetermined or seen as something so self evident and that it did not need to be explained further, it meant that the very foundations of anthropological problematics remained undetermined also.
The Problems with Psychology and Biology
The same is true of psychology, whose anthropological tendencies are, according to Heidegger, unmistakable. And the problems of neither discipline can be solved by combining both into a biological science. While biology is the 'science of life,' it must be born in mind that this 'life' is founded on the life of Dasein and whilst Heidegger does concede that life itself does have a kind of Being that is accessible on its own, this does not imply that it is a) ever detached from Dasein, nor b) that it can ever be totally detached from Dasein. In other words 'life' does not and cannot exist in its own right. And if this is accepted as being true it becomes clear that the philosophical assumptions on which the science of Biology are based start to crumble. Thus biology, as the ontology of life becomes, in Heidegger's opinion, merely a privative Interpretation: "a science of mere aliveness".
Summary of Heidegger's Criticisms of Anthropology, Psychology and Biology
In suggesting that anthropology, psychology and biology fail to give an adequate answer to the question of Being, Heidegger does not mean to pour scorn on the positive work done in each of these disciplines. However he does wants to make it clear that the ontological foundations of man can never be disclosed by them in the form of a retrospective hypotheses derived from empirical material. Heidegger maintains the foundations of Being are always 'there' as an a priori even at the stage when empirical material simply gets collected. The ontological primacy of Being is in fact more radical and more problematical than any of the problems these sciences can identify, ponder, debate, prove, or disprove.
(page 76)
¶ 11. The Existential Analytic and the Interpretation of Primitive Dasein. The Difficulties of Achieving a 'Natural Conception of the World'
The interpretation of Dasein in its everydayness is not the same as describing some primitive stage of Dasein (for which read tribal peoples!*) that we can become acquainted with empirically through anthropology. Everydayness is not the same thing as primitiveness. Everydayness is a mode of Dasein's Being, even when Dasein lives in a highly active and differentiated culture, in fact precisely then. Moreover, even primitive Dasein has the possibility of Being which is not of the everyday kind. So primitive culture is not the place to discover Dasein's everydayness, although primitive Dasein often speaks to us of more directly of a primordial absorption in phenomena in the sense of it being pre-phenomenological. But as a way of conceiving an ontology of entities, any approach based on looking ‘through the eyes’ of primitive peoples seems to
be too clumsy and crude, but on the other hand it can be positively helpful in bringing out the ontological structures of phenomena.
*MD in the comments pointed out that I was a little too quick to equate the word "primitive," as in "primitive peoples," with "tribal peoples." Here's what he has to say:
I wouldn't be so quick. Heidegger was a philosophical and ontological elitist, who believed several things that we might find peculiar, such as that the German and Greek languages were simpatico in a way other European languages were not, that German Dasien was peculiarly situated to do philosophy, that the combination of German-ness and the German language favored the philosophic tradition and efforts of German philosophers, etc. I don't think Heidegger thought the English were even capable of doing philosophy, as he conceived of the discipline. When Heidegger refers to "primitive peoples," he may as well be referring to the French or the Italians as to any image we may hold of "tribal peoples." We may find that fantastic, but a lot about Heidegger is fantastic.
However, I think these remarks bear out my criticisms of Heidegger's advocacy of language as something that can truly represent phenomena [ref. ¶8, Page 63]. The point of this criticism can be expressed simply by asking a question, "How can language grasp the essential nature of the phenomenon in any real sense without also grasping the prejudices of the speaker?" In other words, what guarantees are there in language that ensures that we can grasp anything of the entities in themselves, when the very perceptions of those entities are always framed by some sort of judgement the observer brings to her or his perceiving, which, as Kant noted and Heidegger quoted [ref. ¶6, Page 45], comes even before any apprehension of can be thought about, let alone articulated?
Ethnology
Up to now our information about primitives has been provided by ethnology, which is a science that operates with very definite preliminary conceptions of what it means to be human. Whether ethnology has genuine phenomenological access to its object of study is a matter of debate. In Heidegger's analysis ethnology is build on similar misconceptions as anthropology, psychology and biology, in that it presupposes an analytic of Being which is clearly inadequate. But since the positive sciences cannot and should not wait
for philosophy to come up with a foundational doctrine that is impervious to error, they have to push on with their own research using with whatever philosophical resources are available to them at the time, no matter how inadequate they are. Therefore ethnology like the other human science tends to recapitulate the dogmatic assumptions of philosophy qua Being, but in a way that purifies them and makes them more ontologically transparent. I interpret this remark as somewhat ironic, in a way that is akin to Judith very quotable remark "what does transparency keep obscure?" (Butler 1999, xix)
A Natural Conception of the World
Heidegger has shown in some detail how ontological problematics differs from merely ontic research, but he concedes that having such knowledge does not make our task of starting an existential analytic any easier. This task requires that something which has both been long desired is considered necessary, that is - a natural conception of the world. This is an idea that philosophy has long felt to be disturbing, and has continually refused to achieve. However, the rich store of information now available on the most exotic...
(page 77)
...cultures and forms of Dasein (for which read tribal societies). It therefore seems a potentially fruitful first step to consider this avenue. But just in case you are alarmed that Heidegger is about to tread a Rousseauian path, he interjects that this information is merely a semblance, (i.e. an appearance which is deceptive) of the right path. The shear amount of information can seduce us into misrecognising the essential problem. That is, there can be no genuine knowledge of essences obtained simply by the syncretistic activity--a term meaning the unconvincing synthesis of essentially disparate phenomena--which Heidegger argues go to make up the modern idea of category. Subjecting the manifold of existence to taxonomies and tabulations does not equate with an actual understanding of what lies before our eyes when we grasp the world. In fact it often makes us overlook the kind of ordering that existence already falls quite naturally into. Consider this; if an ordering principle is genuine it must already have a content, in and of itself, this constitutes a natural ordering which can never be revealed if one imposes an arbitrary order on top of it. For example, if one is set the task of ordering various pictures of the world it is important to realise that it already presupposes an idea of the world that is subject to an ordering, otherwise how could such an ordering even be possible let alone take place? And furthermore, if the world is constitutive for Dasein as Heidegger asserts it is with his "Being-in-the-world", it presupposes that one already has an insight into the basic structures of Dasein as well as those of the world, for if this were not the case, Heidegger argues that we would not be able to form any conceptions of the world-phenomenon at all.
Summary
In this chapter Heidegger has characterised some things positively and some things negatively. In both cases the goal was the same; to outline the correct understanding of ontology. This then constitutes starting the inquiry in the "right way". That ontology can only contribute indirectly to the advancement of the positive sciences, does not imply a criticism of the former, but merely alludes to the fact that the goals of ontology are different to those of the human sciences. However, we should not be tempted to marginalise the latter on that account and not think about what these sciences claim, for even if we go beyond the mere collecting of information about entities, we will find that the question of Being is the spur for all scientific thinking.
Additional References
Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry Into The Origin of Our Ideas of The Sublime and Beautiful, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Butler, Judith (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and The Subversion of Identity, (10th Anniversary Edition), London: Routledge
On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
PART 1
The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
Horizon of the Question of Being
DIVISION II:
Being-in-the-World in General as the Fundamental Constitution of Dasein
CONTENTS
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 4"
I. The Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein
12. A Preliminary Sketch of Being-in-the-World in Terms of the Orientation toward Being-in as Such
13. The Exemplification of Being-in in a Founded Mode: Knowing the World
This is an ongoing project, more content will appear here over the next few months.
For the contents of other sections see the main index
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments on this document are welcome. Please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
February 14 - March 14, 2006
(page 78)
DIVISION II
BEING-IN-THE-WORLD IN GENERAL AS THE
BASIC STATE OF DASEIN
¶ 12. A preliminary sketch of Being-in-the-World, in terms of an Orientation towards Being-in as such
Heidegger's analysis of Being has so far extracted five characteristics of Being. These characteristics (listed below) will continue to shape the path that this investigation will take, but what we will discover is that these characteristics will become more structurally concrete as we progress.
The Five characteristics of Being
1/ Dasein is a Being who understands that it exists, and furthermore more the Being of Dasein is shaped by that understanding.
2/ The above statement can be seen to serves as a working definition of the formal conception of existence,
3/ Dasein exists and moreover Dasein and existence are one. For example, if Dasein is 'the human Being' and existence is 'the world,' then Dasein and the world are one. The consequence of this is that Dasein and existence cannot be separated - even analytically separated.
4/ Dasein is also an entity which I myself am. In other words each one of us (as human Beings) defines existence in terms of our own existence - a concept that Heidegger terms 'Mineness.' Therefore the only way that Being can be understood is as 'My Being.' The concept of Mineness applies even when Being and Dasein are considered generally.
5/ Mineness belongs to any existent Dasein; how I regard 'my Being', creates the conditions that make authenticity and inauthenticity possible.
__________________________________________
These are the fundamental concepts of Being. We will now discuss some implications of them. We begin with authenticity and inauthenticity.
Authenticity and Inauthenticity
Authenticity and inauthenticity are what gives Dasein its definite character. Dasein is either Authentic, which, in the sense of my Being, means that I can chose and win myself, or conversely lose and never win myself [ref.¶ 9, Page 68], or Dasein is Inauthentic, which means fleeing in the face of my Being and forgetting that I can chose and win myself [ref.¶ 9, Page 69-70]. Authenticity and inauthenticity do not derive their meaning or value by comparison with anything else: in this sense that they simply are what they are. This means that we cannot speak of them as being determined by any prior considerations or influences, but rather we should think of them as determining these things, since authenticity and inauthenticity are the grounds on which a particular Dasein determines its own possibilies. A person's possibility is how Heidegger actually defines their Being — a particular Dasein is not defined as something that is, but as the sum total of it 'ways to be.' That one can only define a person's Being by taking into account all of her potentials and possibilities over the time-period of a lifetime [ref.¶ 9, Page 67].
Dasein exists, either in the mode of authenticity, or inauthenticity. In fact, in saying this Heidegger is claiming that Dasein cannot properly be described as existing in any other state, although he does concedes that Dasein can be said to be modally undifferentiated.
However in considering this last remark, I want to point out that this 'undifferentiated Dasein' cannot be said to constitute a description of any positive characteristics, since undifferentiated
Dasein would not possess any characteristics at all. The key word in Heidegger's above statement is describe. You cannot describe Dasein itself, since Dasein is not a thing that can be pointed at or talked about in the way we can talk about entities which are not Dasein [ref. ¶ 9, page 67]. In order to talk about being at all, we have to talk about structures of Being. For example, you cannot talk about the Being of a particular Dasein, because it is the sum total of all its possibilities, but you can say of Dasein generally, that it is the sum total of its possibilities and potentials (whatever they may be). This statement is structural, because it describes the structures in which Dasein inhabits not Dasein itself. These structures are what we are looking at when we analyse Being.
However, the Authenticity and inauthenticity of Dasein must be seen and understood in this analysis as being a priori (that is as coming before) Dasein's understanding of itself and thus of its understanding of its own existence.
Being-in-the-world
Authenticity and inauthenticity although not determined by anything prior, are themselves grounded upon a state of being Heidegger calls Being-in-the-world. Being-in-the-world is a compound expression, but it names a unitary phenomenon. It underscores the fact that in Heidegger's philosophy 'Being' and 'the world' are not separate entities. In this sense, there is no subject and object , nor is there any division between internal and external. Being-in-the-world must be seen as whole. However , structurally speaking, this does not prevent us from talking about 'Being' and 'the world' separately, since the structure of Being-in-the-world consists of items which actually may be looked at in three distinct ways.
1/ In-the-world = which is defining the notion of "Worldhood ". To examine this part requires us to look into the ontological structure of the world.
(page 79)
2/ Who = that which is inquired into when one asks the question, 'Who?' As Heidegger says of Dasein. The entity which in every case has Being-in-the-world as the way in which it exists is a "who," (This is also in the mode of Dasein's average everydayness [ref. ¶ 9, page 69]).
3/ Finally there is Being-in = This conception looks at the ontological constitution of the "Inhood" of Being-in.
Although we will be structurally examining Being in the world as a triad, and therefore the inquiry will emphasise individual parts of the of the triad in turn, this does not mean that the other parts will be neglected. For the whole phenomenon must never be allowed to drop out of sight at any point.
Being-in-the-world is a state of Dasein which is necessarily a priori, this has been indicated at the start of this section with the claim that, "authenticity and inauthenticity, although not determined by anything prior, are themselves grounded upon the state of Being-in-the-world." However, it should nevertheless be understood that Being-in-the-world is not by itself a sufficient determinate of Dasein's Being. Therefore Being-in-the-world should not be thought of as a defining aspect of Being per se.
In our analysis the three aspects of Being in the world, we will look at the third factor first. That is Being in.
Being-in as inness
From the perspective of our common sense understanding, "Being-in" is a term we usually associate with our involvement in a situation or a context. Thus, "Being in" is not thought about solely in isolation, but in terms of "Being in something or other". For example the sentence "X Being-in the room" uses prepositional sense of the word "in" to convey a sense of context in terms of place. In doing this we are effectively saying that two entities ('X' and 'the room') are existing in space, at a specific location, and both in the same way. Thus we can say that: the water is in the glass, the glass is in the kitchen, the kitchen is in the house, the house is in the village, the village is in the county and so on and so forth until we realise that the glass (and everything else described)
are actually located in worldspace. The implication of this is that all the entities whose Being-in is actually the 'Being-in-one-another,' can be thought of as having the same kind of inness. That is the inness of "Being-in-the-world" or to put it more precisely, this inness can be defined as, "the-Being-present-at-hand-as-things-within-the-world".
Categories of Being-in
This present-at-hand type of 'Being-in' can be further isolated into "Being-present-at-hand-along-with". This sense here is that the Being-present-at-hand describes a definite relationship of location, where something exists with something else; both having the same kind of Being. This sense of 'Being-in' thus can be used as a way to describe patterns of existence and is therefore an example of a characteristic in our way of looking at things that we have previously named "categorical" [ref.¶ 9, page 70].
A Category is not an Existentiale
Note here that because of Heidegger's use of category, only applies to entities in the world it is ontical, however if we were to apply this understanding to Dasein our inquiry would be ontological, so we would have to use existentiale instead of categories [ref. ¶ 9, page 70]). This underscores the point that we cannot conceive of Dasein's "Being-present-at-hand" as some corporeal thing (in the way that we normally conceive, say, a human body as being in the room for example). Nor does the term "Being-in' suggest…
(page 80)
…a spatial relationship of the "in-one-anotherness" of things present at hand, anymore than Heidegger's use of the word "primordially" signifies a spatial relationship. As a reminder, Primordial signifies a closeness to the essential nature of Being [ref. ¶ 3, page 30], but this closeness does not designate nearness, in the sense of connoting distance, this case the word 'close' is used to signify a grasping which is essential to the understanding.
Distinguishing Existentiale from Category
According to Heidegger's research into linguistics, notably his
consultation of Jacob Grimm's Kleine Schriften (Small writings) [LINK http://www.lg.fukuoka-u.ac.jp/~ynagata/jg_kleinereschriften1.html]. The word "in" derives its meaning from the English word "inn" which means 'to dwell'. Grimm discusses both the word "in" and the phrase "in und bei" and goes on to compare a number of archaic German words that take their meaning from domus (the Latin root of the English word 'domicile', or 'dwelling'). Heidegger notes that all these words are similar in form to the old English word "Inn" and claim that "in" therefore derived its primordial signification not from a preposition, but from a verb. The verb in question is "innan," which in old German meant 'to reside', and whose meaning is therefore also similar to the Latin habitare which means "to dwell". In English we still retain this sense of "inn" to mean "a place of rest", for example, the Holiday Inn chain of hotels. Heidegger now examines the meaning of the word "An". This word is derived from the German "ann" (again discussed in Grimm). Ann is from the Latin colo, which also means habitare - in other words "an" has a similar meaning to "inn". Ontologically speaking, habitare stands for "being accustomed" in the sense of "I am familiarity with" and "I look after.... something'. An thus "in" has the same meaning.
The Meaning of Being-in as an Existentiale
This mini detour into etymology is important because Heidegger uses it as evidential support for this claims that the verbal form of in, meaning to reside is the form to which "Being-in" also belongs. The first person conjugation of the very "to be" is "am" as in "I am", in terms of Heidegger's ontology "am" means "dwell alongside," or "I reside," when expressed as and existentiale. In the context of 'Being-in,' the way that this 'alongside' is meant is in the sense of, "I reside alongside the world." The "world" here connotes both 'familiarity with' and 'concern for' the things that I reside alongside with. The "I" in these significations has the characteristic of "I myself am". Thus "Being-in" stands for those things which are familiar to me.
Therefore "Being", as the infinitive of "I am", signifies "to reside alongside".
The Formal Understanding of Being
Let us not miss the significance of this
statement for we have just answered the question "What is Being?" in its general signification, in other words its structural sense - don't forget that Heidegger has already said that Being-in-the-world is not by itself a sufficient determinate of Dasein's Being. However, the fact that the general answer to the question "What is Being?" has been given. Being is an "I reside alongside", perhaps strikes us as rather strange since I reside alongside seems like a very particular expression, and the temptation is to cut the "I" completely out of the formulation and talk in terms of Being as a general residing alongsideness. However in Heidegger's formulation of Being the "I" represents the wholeness of Being and therefore 'I' is a general term. This is a paradox of Heidegger's philosophy (in the literally sense of the Greek word paradox as meaning against opinion). The paradox is that the pronoun "I" is not to be thought of as designating a singular or particular entity. This is because everything is grounded on the wholeness of Being and general, and therefore general ontological structures are described in the seemingly particular terms of mineness. In order to grasp this we must set aside all associations between the "I" of 'minenss' and the "I" of Cartesian subjectivity.
The infinitive of "I am" signifies "to reside alongside" and in this sense Heidegger conceives of Being as standing for "to be familiar with." Therefore the formal expression for the Being of Dasein is "I reside alongside myself" or "I myself am." This formal understanding has Being-in—the-world as its essential state. Although we must again remind ourselves that looking at the structure of Being is not the same thing as looking at Being itself.
What does this mean in terms of implications?
1/ That the wholeness of Being is manifestly to be found in Being-in-the-world. This is why Being cannot be discussed in terms of
subject and object, for if Being is fundamentally in the world, it can only be understood in terms of highlighting how being and the world not only work in concert, but are in fact the same thing. I = "I myself am" Being = "I reside alongside".
2/ Notice when we apply this understanding as a critique of traditional philosophy how it undermines traditional techniques of philosophical analysis, which exile Being (as subject) from the world (as predicate). Based on that understanding, it seems natural for the subject to cut up the world into categories, transforming us all into the unwitting coroners in a kind of post mortem procedure, where existence itself is the corpse under examination. How inadequate then this technique must seem to Heidegger, whose concern has all along been with preserving the living Being!
3/ What may have been seen as Heidegger's dogmatic obscurantism in respect of eschewing the traditional techniques of philosophical analysis (and also his idiosyncratic use of grammar), can now be seen as a kind of detox programme: the necessary breaking of the bad habits of philosophical orthodoxy. Heidegger deliberately challenges us to think differently about ourselves and the world. He does this at first by disorientating us. So that instead of learning this new language of thought through a process of translation, Heidegger he shoves us right in there and it is a case of sink or swim.
The Formal Understanding of Being (Continued)
Being-alongside-the-world can be understood in the sense of "Being absorbed in the world" (which describes the sensation of a person's consciousness being focussed on worldly things)…
(page 81)
…This Being-alongside-the-world is actually an existentiale founded upon "Being-in". (Although this sense of Being in still calls for closer interpretation ). The main point to get across at this juncture that of the importance of our uncovering of the primordial structure of Dasein's Being, that is the I reside alongside, For this is the structure we will be using from now on to articulate the concepts of Being; and it is also the existentiale with which we can hopefully answer the question, "What is Being?"
Using the existentiale we may discern some notable patterns in the manifold impressions of Being. These patterns can be articulated into principles with which we can define (broadly) the phenomenological manifestations of Being. This is systematising and in this sense the existentiale is a conceptual tool which allows us to form of certain hypotheses which also have a legislative function qua Being. In other words, these hypotheses concerning the structure of Being in general can be used to make predictions.
Thus, the functions of the existentiale (both systematising and legislative) are similar to the functions of the traditional category in philosophy. Where they differ however is in the philosophical assumptions one has to take on board before one applies them. The use of categories is predicated on the assumption that reality is made up of discreet objects that can be studied. Moreover these objects can be further dismantled or cut up into their component parts. This cutting up is not seen as a bad thing to do (except in the romantic traditions). This is because in the traditional philosophical paradigm, the 'wholeness of reality', is regarded as a mystery that needs to be taken apart and analysed in order to be unlock its secrets. In addition one also has to bear in mind that the violence of cutting up objects for study in this way in no way effects the person who is studying them. Since this person, as a subject, is detached from the
objects of study. This attitude of self-detachment is actually what is meant by 'objectivity'.
However in Heidegger's ontological paradigm, such dichotomous distinctions collapse and therefore the assumptions upon which they are based also collapse. This is why the term category cannot be applied to the analysis of the Being of Dasein. Even if it seems superficially that existentiale and category do much the same thing, the point to be made here, and it is also why Heidegger uses the term existentiale instead of category, is that the patterns uncovered in the analysis of Being are only distinct in the sense that they can be made to stand out from the wholeness of Being itself. The radicalness of this approach can now be stated:
The existentiale of Dasein implies that multiple entities are understood particularly, whilst a singular Being is understood generally.
This conception of singular and multiple is the converse of the way these things are understood in logic, where singular = particular and multiple = general. This reversal is exemplified when Heidegger described the general applicability of the very particular sounding "I reside alongside" as standing for a structural understanding of Being per se.
How one looks at things
If this still seems confusing, perhaps it is because we are too wedded to a certain way of looking at things. In other words we habitually understand the map as being the territory. What is needed therefore is a different way of looking at things: perhaps a different metaphor with which we can to
explain Heidegger's way of looking.
An 'Epistemology Engine'
This is where the work of the philosopher of technology, Don Ihde may be helpful. Ihde is interested in uncovering the link between embodiment in situated knowledges, and how the body is hidden in epistemologies that attempted to present a disembodied subject. His claim is that certain technological devices help to create our models of looking at the world — the paradigmatic metaphors for understanding. He called these devices epistemology engines.
The first epistemology engine, Ihde identifies is the "Camera Obscura." He claims that this device played a paradigmatic role in the epistemology of early modernity. The camera obscura is "dark room" with a tiny hole drilled into one wall and a white piece of cloth on the opposite wall. The hole acts to restrict the amount of light rays which can enter the room, so that in appropriate lighting conditions an inverted image of the scene outside is cast upon the white cloth. The camera obscura was used by Descartes who described it in La Dioptrique (The Optics):
The [camera obscura] room represents the eye; the hole the pupil; the lens, the crystalline humour-or rather, all the refracting parts of the eye; and the cloth, the lining membrane, composed of the optic nerve-endings.'
But Idhe claims that Descartes also adds another analogue, that of the mind or 'mental substance', through which the modern subject is conceived of as Being inside the camera. Ihde quotes Lee Bailey who pointed out that the camera obscura offered a way of picturing the Cartesian inside as cogito and outside as extensio. Ihde argues that the
images from the the camera obscura shifted from a suggestive experimental analogy in Cartesian thinking to a concealed methodological paradigm, Bailey termed this — the skull's dark room.' In short, Ihde concludes that the modern subject is the homunculus inside the camera obscura. (Ihde 2002, 70 — 72)
A Heideggerain Epistemology Engine
So is there an epistemology engine that can help us picture Heidegger's conception of Being? I suggest that the answer comes from a very unlikely place. It is one of those computer generated "Magic Eye" images. Magic Eye images, also called auto-stereograms, allowed people to see 3D images by focusing on 2D patterns which at first glance appeared to be a meaningless confusion of colour (Wikipedia, URL = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Eye). However if you look at these images in a certain way, that is by allowing your eyes to defocus slightly, you can make out a three dimensional image within the swirling patterns - for example the shape of a sunken treasure boat, or a ying and yang symbol, or jumping dolphins, etc. The novelty of Magic Eye images is that these hidden objects actually appear to be three dimensional, in the sense that when you move your head from side to side, there is an effect of motion parallax in the image. However if you try to focus harder on these shapes, you are liable to find that they disappear completely and your eyes snap back to attend to the two dimension meaningless shapes of the picture again.
I think the usefulness of the Magic Eye comparison is that is shows that there is nothing mystical in developing a technique of allowing certain aspects of a whole to stand out without disrupting the wholeness. This is why they can serve as an
epistemology engine with regards to Heidegger's philosophy. This does not mean that I think Heidegger himself would have approved of the analogy. I fact he is probably spinning in his grave right now. But the usefulness of magic eye images is that they show you how to look, how the surface phenomenon does not necessarily become clearer your scrutinise it. Therefore you have to de-program yourself in order to see these images in the same way you have to deprogram yourself to appreciate Heidegger's ontological paradigm. The comparison with Magic Eye images is therefore offered as a very concrete analogy of the analytical techniques of Being that Heidegger is trying to describe.
The Formal Understanding of Being (Continued)
The Being-alongside must now be examined more closely. We shall again look at this structurally, using the existentiale in much the same way as we would a category, but of course standing for something quite different ontologically speaking. A necessary step in our ontological education involves discussing that which, conventionally speaking, seems to be self evident. The danger of overlooking the self evident - even if we run the risk of tedium - is that if we don't discuss the obvious we might overlook what is most important to the analysis. And indeed that is what always tends to happen. Here Heidegger is warning us that we still have much to do before we really understand Being. For as yet not even the structure of Being is solidly enough rendered in our minds to be a useful ontological tool.
As an existentiale, Being-alongside-the-world does not mean the same thing as the-Being-present-at-hand-together-of-things-that-occur. "There is no such thing as the side-by-sideness of an entity called 'Dasein' with another entity called 'World,' for that would imply that they were separate "things". Of course when speaking ontically about two things, a kind of side-by-sidedness applies; we can say for instance that "the table touches the door" or " The chair touches the wall" because the two things in those examples can be present-at-hand together alongside one another . Although the word 'touch' is problematic in these instances for two reasons"
1/ because in actual fact separate things cannot 'touch' at all,
because a minute space exists between them, even if that space is perceived to be nothing.
2/ because the usage of the word 'touch' connotes a sense belonging to Dasein. Entities present-at-hand within the world cannot touch, or be touched, and since Dasein's "Being alongside" can only exists with its "Being-there*." To be able to touch something, a Being must have something like the world is already in mind, so that another entity can manifest itself in the touching from out of that world.
* Note that when Heidegger says "Being-there", it is significant for the German expression of Being there is "Da sein," which is the source (and literal meaning) of Heidegger's term Dasein.
Worldless
Two entities which are merely present-at-hand are worldless. The term worldless here stands for the unthinking existence that mere entities have.
(page 82)
However if we are talking about entities that have awareness of their own existence (Dasein in other words), the clause 'furthermore are worldless' must not be left out. This is because Dasein are present-at-hand 'in' the world, or more exactly can, with some right and within certain limits, be taken as merely present-at-hand.
The Ontological Paradox
So just when we thought we were getting the distinction between category and existentiale and between ontical and ontological understandings, Heidegger seems to throw a spanner in the works by talking about Dasein's worldlessness. A term that we have just learnt denotes things that are not Dasein. So how are we to make sense of this? The answer from Heidegger will follow, but it's worth noting here that some clues to have already been left for us. For example,
when Heidegger says "the clause 'furthermore are worldless' must not be left out. This is because Dasein are present-at-hand 'in' the world." Note that he is using Dasein in the plural with the construction "Dasein are"--(confusingly the plural of Dasein has an identical form to the singular). However, I surmise that, with Dasein we can say the singular is general and the plural is particular. This is the ontological paradox because it reverses the logical rule that multiples are general and singular is particular. In other words, to understand being we must unthink logic, but to understand it logically we must unthink Being — [ref. ¶1, p 24].
To think of Dasein as merely present-at-hand, one must either completely disregard, or just not see the existential state of Being-in. But there is no law which compels us to see Being in this way. For Dasein can be taken as something which is just present-at-hand. However, regarding Dasein (plural) as present at hand should not to be confused with a certain way of presence-at-hand which Dasein (singular) has as its own present-at-handness. For this is presence at handness of an altogether different kind, and therefore it should not be seen as being accessible only if one disregards Dasein's specific structures, but rather by understanding them in advance.
Summary
Entities present-at-hand within the world are understood ontically and their characteristics can be arranged into categories. Dasein on the other hand is understood ontologically and its characteristics are arranged into existentiale. The difference between existentiale and category is not so much in the way that they are used but in the paradigmatic assumptions underpinning them [ref. see the note on page 81].
There are three kinds of presence-at-hand identified so far:
1/ There is presence-at-hand pertaining to entities within the world which is understood ontically as a category.
2/ There is presence-at-hand pertaining to Dasein (plural) and therefore understood ontically as a 'quasi-object', Although to see it in this way we must ignore the concept of Being-in.
3/ There is presence-at-hand pertaining to a pre-ontological understanding of Dasein which a particular Dasein has. This is understood onto-ontologically and does not ignore the concept of Being-in.
regarding the third point we can say that Dasein thinks of its existence in a certain sense as an existent thing. This is something that Heidegger will now examine in more detail
The Presence-at -hand of Dasein's Facticity
An understanding of specific structures in advance comes from Dasein understanding of its Being, in the sense of regarding that as a certain 'factual Being-present-at-hand.' In other words Dasein understands its existence as a fact. And yet this kind of fact has quite a different ontology from the factual occurrence of some thing - for instance like the existence of a type of a mineral in the ground. As we have learnt, things present at hand exist in worldspace but are nevertheless worldless, thus we can talk about them ontically and arrange them into categories. However whenever Dasein "is", it is as a Fact; and the factuality of that Fact is what Heidegger is terming Dasein's facticity . We will not explore what this means in more detail.
A Definition of Facticity
Facticity is a term which stands for a definite way of Being, and it has a complicated structure which cannot even be grasped as such by those with a naive understanding. The concept of "facticity" implies that an entity 'within-the world' has Being-in-the-world so that it can understand itself and its Being-in. That is it understands itself, as if it is bound up in its 'destiny' with the Being of those
entities which it encounters within the world.
The facticity of facts like the Beingness of Being underscores the point that there is a reflexive component to existence - our understanding of ourselves is always framed en abyme (a frame within a frame). Interpretation points to the existence of an interpreter, "myself," who is bound up in the apprehending of both the world and the self.
In traditional philosophy the adoption of the paradigm of objectivism misses the fact that the interpreter (subject) and interpreted (object) are bound up together in their Beingness. Thus the objective paradigm denigrates the role of the interpreter, describing it as "merely subjective".
In Heidegger's ontological paradigm, the subject as a descrete category does not exist and therefore there cannot be any subjectivity either. However, this is not to say that what is though by Dasein is necessarily the truth, for that would deny the facticity of the world and also its capacity to surprise. Rather, what Heidegger's "complex definition" of facticity does makes clear, is that there are no facts that exist independent of people perceiving them as such. And no doubt in the ontological paradigm there are different ways of sorting out facts from fictions, than postulating a dichotomy between the false poles of objectivity and subjectivity.
The Difference between Existentiale and Category in Application
In the first instance it is enough to see the ontological difference between "Being-in" as an existentiale and Being-in as category.
Existentiale
The existentiale concerns Dasein's residing alongside the world and its involvement with those things expresses in terms of "concern" or "care". Thus the "in" of "Being in" as an existentiale takes on a verbal form of "innan" which means "to reside". This is the ontological understanding of Being-in.
Category
The application of categories is grounded an ontical understanding which conceives of the "in" of "Being-in" in the prepositional sense of in.
However by using the existentiale and designating the Being in of Dasein in the sense of to "I reside alongside," we are only denying it is a category, which means that we are not denying every kind of 'spatiality' to Dasein. On the contrary, Dasein itself has a 'Being-in-space' of its own kind. But this kind of spatiality is possible only on the basis of Being-in-the-world generally, and not on the basis of "inness". In other words the prepositional "in" itself is grounded on the form of "Being-in" as an existentiale.
How Ontology Becomes Metaphysics
Taking a category to stand for an existentiale is something that Heidegger argues is actually the basis of metaphysics. For example in the metaphysical paradigm, when conceiving of existence in terms of "inness," the body takes precedence over the mind and "Being-in" is considered only in a psychological sense. Consequently it appears in metaphysics to be incorporeal and therefore somewhat nebulous. In more religious paradigms this sense is elevated to something 'holy', but even then it does not lose its non-corporeality because in this case a spiritual property is attached to it. Thus, in metaphysics the categorisation of inness when it pertains to human Beings, becomes, in practice, a category which stands for the body, the flesh, whereas the inness of Being is conceived of as a psychological inner voice, or in religion it would be our spiritual essence.
Heidegger argues the presence of Being cannot be accounted for in terms of "inness" since the bodily connotations are too strong in that paradigm (corporeality = reality), and therefore the Being connotations are too
weak (non corporeality = non real, or supernatural) therefore Being either becomes relegated to something merely psychological, or elevated into something mystical, depending on your particular metaphysical point of view, and thus the metaphysician ends up emphasising the Cartesian duality of mind and body, or the Platonic duality of the transcendental and the worldly, or some other binary conception of ideas and matter.
Avoiding Metaphysics
Here again we are faced with the analytical fracturing of Being into a Being-present-at-hand of some such spiritual Thing along with a corporeal Thing. And what we have to appreciate is that the Being of the entity, thus compounded, actually grows in obscurity and mystery.
(page 83)
We will not be able to discern the fine details of Dasein's existential spatiality until we have brought Being-in-the-world into focus as an essential structure of Dasein. If we do this we will be able to avoid either failing to see this structure beforehand, or trying to cancel it out afterwards. This latter tendency Heidegger regards as being 'metaphysically' motivated . The naive metaphysical supposition, "that man is a spiritual Thing", is therefore to be eschewed in his analysis of Being. For the reason that it leads to all sorts of supernatural and mystical hypotheses that lead us away from the essential truth of Being: namely that Being is an actual fact.
Concern
Dasein's facticity is such that its Being-in-the-world has always dispersed itself into definite ways of Being-in. This is evident in the following list of everyday phrases, which all have concern as their core component: "having to do with something", "producing something", "attending to something and looking after it", "making use of something", "giving something up and letting something go", "undertaking", "accomplishing", "evincing", "interrogating", "considering", "discussing", "determining". . . All of these phrases illustrate ways of "Being-in" and they are rooted in concern. On the over hand, "leaving undone", "neglecting", "renouncing",
"taking a rest," etc., are also ways in which we show concern; albeit in a deficient mode. This can be defined as where the possibilities of Being-in are kept to a 'bare minimum'.'
Consider how these aspects of "pure" and degenerate concern intersect with the notions of authentic and inauthentic Being. Authentic which means Dasein can chose and win itself [ref.¶ 9, Page 68], and inauthentic which means Dasein fleeing in the face of its Being and forgetting thereof[ref.¶ 9, Page 69-70]. I think it is obvious that these notions are grounded on the notion of Being in the world, conceived of as concern.
What is concern?
Concern is a kind of Being which we have yet to characterise ontologically in detail. As we have seen. The ontical meaning of concern comes in three colloquial significations:
1/ 'to carry something out,' or 'to get it done' - this conceives of concern as a task performed on something by someone.
2/ 'to provide oneself with something' - this conceives of concern as a task which is internal rather than external.
3/ 'to be concerned about the success of the undertaking' - this conceives of concern to mean something like apprehensiveness.
Concern Ontologically Defined
In contrast to these ontical significations, the ontological expression 'concern' designates - the Being of a possible way of Being-in-the-world. Thus concern is an existentiale and the term has been chosen because it allows us to make visible the Being of Dasein as Care.
(page 84)
Care
In making the Being of Dasein visible as care, care itself must be taken as an ontological structural concept. In this sense, care has
nothing to do with its everyday significations of "trials and tribulations", "feelings of melancholy", "looking careworn", or "being bound up in the 'cares of life'." Although, it is true that ontically we can come across these aspects of care in every Dasein. And, like the opposite state of 'gaiety'-- which in its true signification means 'a freedom from care'--they are only possible because Dasein is synonymous with care when understood ontologically.
Dasein is Synonymous with Care
Dasein is synonymous with care because Being-in-the-world belongs essentially to Dasein. In actual fact this is what is meant by the meaning of Being conceived of as "I reside alongside." Dasein's Being towards the world is therefore essentially manifested in concern. And the ontological conception of Being-in as the "alongsidedness of things," suggests both their close proximity to Dasein, and also their intimate intertwining with Dasein.
Being-in Is Not a Choice
It is important to note here that 'Being-in' is not a 'property' of Dasein, because conceiving of it in that way would also imply that Dasein could also do without its alongsidedness with the world. From what we have been saying so far it should be clear that this is not the case. Man does not exist by herself with a relationship-of-Being towards the 'world' thrown in as an optional extra. Dasein is never without Being-in, because taking up relationships towards the world is not a matter of choice or even obligation. Being-in-the-world simply exists because Dasein exists. This state of Being that we call the world does not arise ex nihilo from phenomena which are external to Dasein, and which Dasein merely encounters during the course of its existence. Neither does the world impress itself upon Dasein a posterori through experience. The "Being-in of Dasein and the world are a reality a priori.
A Critique of the Biologist Conception of Being as Environmentalism
Heidegger takes a short detour here to consider, and reject, the notion that ecology, when taken as a "web of life," is in any way comparable with his notion of Being-in-the-world. The concept of Ecology (although it does not go by that name in Being and Time) was known to Heidegger through the work of the embryologist
Karl von Baer. Baer, in his philosophical writings, saw nature as a whole, and viewed the development of organisms and the cosmos in the same light (Source: Oppenheimer, Encyclopaedia Britannica). Nevertheless, Heidegger views this ecologically minded philosophy as a form of 'biologism' which he rejects because it does not cast any light on ontology [ref. ¶ 10, page 72]. The notion of 'the environment,' Heidegger argues is a structure that cannot be defined by biology, but it is rather what the science of biology is in fact premised upon. Yet even as an a priori condition for the objects which biology takes for its theme, the structure of the environment could be not explained philosophically unless it were conceived as a structure of Dasein's Being — that is, taken as the 'Being-in' conceived of in terms of care.
(page 85)
Care Defined In Negative Terms
At this point Heidegger is prompted to remark of his own analysis that, so far, he has conceived of Care purely in negative terms, for instance when he remarked that: "Man does not exist by himself with a relationship-of-Being towards the 'world' as an optional extra, " or, "Dasein is never free from Being-in, " or, "Taking up relationships towards the world is not a matter of choice or even obligation." Thus Heidegger admits that he has only really talked about what 'care 'and 'Being-in' are not in these instances. Heidegger argues that this is actually not surprising, because human Beings find it very difficult to disguise what they really are, which means that traditional philosophers had a great deal of trouble trying to cover over the concept of care (which of course does not fit in with their dominant philosophical paradigm of objectivity). So, rather than trying to disguise care as something else, traditional philosophy simply overlooked it. Except that care is so important to the human condition that it makes its presence known in all these negative definitions. Their function, according to Heidegger, is to outline, as it were, a "care shaped hole".
Filling the "Care Shaped Hole"
Dasein's state of Being is such that it gets its ontological understanding of itself in the first instance from those entities which Dasein is not, but which it encounters 'within its world. To define this more precisely we can say that Dasein's understanding
of things comes from the Being which they possess. This point is equally true of Dasein's understanding of its own Being-in-the-world (as a fact).
The state of Being is always in some way familiar to us. This is what Heidegger meant when he spoke about our pre-ontological understanding. But if Being-in is also to become known to Dasein explicitly, the 'knowing' which such a task implies, must itself be taken as the chief exemplification of the 'soul's' relationship to the world.
Odd at this juncture that Heidegger should chose to describe the 'Knowing' Being as "the soul", since he has spend some time in the previous section eschewing the metaphysics of Being as "spirit". So what is the difference between these two terms?
I think we have to understand the word "soul" without any if its spiritual connotations, or rather we should place these in parenthesis. This prompts the question what other meanings could the word "soul" possibly have? I think the answer is that "the soul" articulates a certain kind of thinking towards Being which can be regarded as a personification. In religion, one of the functions of the soul is to personify the Being which knows as the voice of my conscience. Although this conscience does not make itself known just in the confessional. In this sense perhaps it can be likened to the Freudian concept of the super ego. Heidegger would be rolling his eyes at this point!
The soul signifies something of the facticity of Being, in terms of articulating our pre-ontological understanding of Being ontically. This is manifest in the way that the soul is conceived of as "my soul" and thus represented in much the same way that Being is "my Being"
Knowing the world
'Knowing the world', in the sense of: (1) grasping it, and (2) discoursing about it, are the two primary modes of Being-in-the-
world. Both these modes of Being are manifested in Dasein and for it. There are two main reasons why this is so:
1/ Because the structure of Being remains ontologically inaccessible, yet it is experienced ontically as a 'relationship' between one entity (the world) and another (the soul),
2/ Because I proximally understand 'my Being' by first of all taking entities as entities within-the-world for as my ontological foothold.
(Page 86)
However what we are outlining here is only the meaning of the Being of grasping and discoursing, when conceived of ontically in terms of the Being-present-at-hand. And eventhough Being-in-the-world is something of which I have both a pre-phenomenological experience of and acquaintance with, it nevertheless becomes invisible if I interpret Being-in-the-world in a way that is ontologically inappropriate.
Steering clear of Metaphysics (Part 2)
This state of Dasein's Being is now one with which we are barely acquainted, and indeed if we argue that it appears in the light of what Heidegger has written as something obvious, it is perhaps only because it bears the stamp of "inappropriate interpretation." So Heidegger is warning us here that we must be careful, and not jump to conclusions too quickly. At this point we can very easily jump to the wrong conclusions by focussing upon the superficial aspects of Being--the map rather than the territory--and neglect to keep in mind an appreciation of they way the structures of Being uncover something of the nature of Being itself. The failure to keep this in mind is, according to Heidegger, the origin of all the wrong turns of philosophy. For the stamp of Being all too easily becomes axiomatically the evident point of departure for considering of all the problems of epistemology, in other words it becomes the basis for a 'metaphysics of knowledge'.
What is Knowledge?
Heidegger asks somewhat tongue in cheek, what is more obvious and self evident than 'subject' relationship to an 'Object' and vice versa? When one thinks about this, it is almost as is the 'subject/Object-relationship' must be presupposed. However, while
this presupposition is unimpeachable in terms of its facticity, it is entirely inappropriate ontologically for precisely the same reason. For if we are to illuminate the problem of Being ontologically, we cannot speak of it in terms of 'knowing', since knowing so much concerned with the knowing of things, and therefore we move quickly from the consideration of how we know things about the world to how we also know things about existence, which is where the error begins.
Therefore we can say that knowing is always ontical in nature; and never ontological. This has some important implications for our inquiry. For example it means that the grounding assumption behind all epistemological inquiries, is the cutting up of Being and the world into subject/object categories. Now we have to appreciate that Being has been traditionally represented almost exclusively in terms of 'knowing the world.' This has meant that in our understanding of the Being, 'knowing' has been led astray. To correct this error, 'Being-in-the-world itself 'must be exhibited as a kind of 'Being related to knowing the world'. And furthermore, "knowing the world" must conversely be made visible as an existential, that is itself a kind of Being-in.
This sounds confusing, but if we conceive of the Being of knowing as the soul - or that voice in our head which tells us things, Heidegger will show in the following section how if we try to know knowing in the way that we are supposed to know the world, it leads to some particularly insoluble problems, which have largely been ignored by traditional philosoply.
¶ 13. A Founded Mode in which Being-in is Exemplified.' Knowing the World.
If Being-in-the-world is a basic state of Dasein, and Dasein operates pre-eminently in the mode of everydayness, then Being must also be something which has always been experienced ontically as a part of our everyday existence. For if Being-in-the-world had remained totally veiled from view it would be altogether unintelligible. As we know, one of the defining aspects of Dasein is that it has an understanding of its own Being. And by extension, we can say that this means that, no matter how
indefinitely this understanding may be manifested, or indeed may function, Dasein must be aware of its Being-in-the-world.
The problem then is not that Being-in-the-world is totally obscure, but that it has been habitually overlooked. This begs the question, why was it overlooked in the first place? Heidegger answers because as soon as the phenomenon of 'knowing the world' was grasped, Being-in-the-world was hidden behind it, or rather Being-in-the-world was interpreted by 'knowing the world' in a "superficially formal manner". In traditional epistemology this tended to happen in three main ways:
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Traditional epistemology problem 1/ How it answers the question: "What is Knowing?"
Knowing is conceived as a 'relation between subject and Object'--the subject examines the object and the object is examined by the subject–and such a relationship assumes that there is no intermingling of either entity.
The subject is therefore understood as being quite separate from the object - and vice versa. This separation becomes the grounding assumption of objectivity. The crux of the problem of objectivity is that one cannot 'know' Being ontologically, since the notions of ‘subject’ and ‘Object’ do not coincide neatly with the ontological notions of ‘Dasein’ and ‘the world.' Even if it were feasible to give an ontological definition of "Being-in," primarily in terms of "a Being-in-the-world-which-knows," before we could say anything about this knowing-Being, or use the concept productively, we would still need to show that this knowing has the phenomenal character of a Being, which is both 'in' and 'towards' the world at exactly the same time... A bit of a problem if your grounding epistemological assumption is the absolute separation of the 'Being-subject' and the 'world-object'.
Traditional epistemology problem 2/ How it conceives of "objects as 'Nature'"
In the knowing paradigm, if one reflects upon the relationship of "Being" and "the world", an entity called 'Nature' emerges.
This entity Nature is given proximally as "that which becomes 'known'." But what needs to be noticed here, is that the process of
'knowing' is never to be met in the products of knowledge. In fact there is considered to be no 'knowing' object. And if such a knowing ever existed in traditional epistemology, it was for the most part effectively buried. So much so that, if knowing has a Being at all, we can only generally ascribe it to those entities which 'know'. But even in this case, to those entities (human-Things) knowing is not something present-at-hand, in the sense of being externally ascertainable or verifiable, in the way that, say, bodily properties are.
Traditional epistemology problem 3/ "Knowing is Inside"
Inasmuch as it belongs to "human things, " knowing is not conceived of as something external to us.
So we conclude that it must therefore be 'inside' and furthermore must have a different kind of Being to those entities which are outside. And what are we to conclude then? That the essence of knowing is psychical and not physical? Probably yes–but then we are back with metaphysics again.
Considering 'knowing' in this way prompts the question, "what is knowledge?" For knowledge never appears to be a "thing" of any kind, although we can talk about sharing and possessing knowledge as if it were a thing. This is the metaphorical and thus the metaphysical slight of hand that Heidegger is trying to uncover here.
Conclusion - The Problem of Knowing in a Nutshell
If one believes that one is making headway in answering the question, "what is the essence of knowledge?" It is only because one has perhaps presumed too much and inquired too little. The so called clarity which knowing brings to phenomena through the relationship of subject and Object, gets muddied as soon as we turn the same analytical techniques of knowing upon the problem of knowing itself.
The Ontology Of Knowing — Or How We Really Know What Knowing Is
In terms of Being, we will only really 'know' knowing when we abandon the subject/Object dichotomy. This becomes a necessary
first step to really setting about the task of addressing the problem of how one must think of the so called 'object,' in order that the so called 'subject' can know it - that is if we don't want to venture into another metaphorical sphere.
There is problem of knowing that Heidegger merely touches upon here. In the so called metaphysical sphere of knowing, the existence of subject and object are taken as objective facts in themselves. The question here becomes, how can the knowing subject guarantee a one to one correspondents between the representation of a "known" object in her head and the object itself? Indeed is there any connection between the mind inside and the world outside? The problem here is that, if real things are considered to be external and thought things to be internal, then what guarantees the correspondence of real things to our mental pictures of them? This is a well cited problem in philosophy. Consider the case of the Cartesian Demon denying the reality of everything that could be experienced [ref. My note in Introduction 2, page, 45]. Descartes' solution to the problem was that God guaranteed the correspondence between thought and objects. This is what Donna Hathaway called "the god trick" of epistemology - [ref. Ihde (2002), p 74.]
Of course we are sometimes assured that we are certainly not to think of the subject's "inside" and its 'inner sphere' as a sort of 'box' or 'cabinet. But silence reigns when we ask either of these two questions:
1/ What is the positive signification of this "'inside' of immanence in which knowing is proximally enclosed?
2/ How this 'Being inside' (which knowing possesses as its own character of Being) grounded in the kind of Being which belongs to the subject?
What question 1/ is asking is there any proof of the existence of Descartes' 'God of
epistemology?'
What Question 2/ is asking is for a description of the Being who is characterised as the knowing "voice in your head." In other words asking for the identity of Heidegger's soul, that knowing Being who Peirce referred to as 'your deeper self' when he said that, "all thinking is dialogic in form… your self of one instant appeals to your deeper self for his assent" (Peirce: CP 6.338)
The Argument Against Traditional Epistemology
Heidegger concludes that of any of the numerous in ways which this problem of knowing has been addressed philosophically; crucial questions pertaining to the kind of Being which belongs to this 'knowing subject' are left entirely unasked. Although, whenever the problem of the knowing subject is addressed in traditional epistemology, what we find inevitably is that the Being of this knowing subject is implicitly included in the argument.
It therefore becomes evident that a conceptualising of 'knowing' that leads to such enigmas will remain problematic unless we have at least clarified what this knowing is. For example, howdoes knowing makes its way out of its 'inner sphere’? And indeed, how it is that I can know things beyond that sphere? These questions need to be answered before any fresh epistemological inquiries are embarked upon, for otherwise they will proceed on a very unstable footing.
(page 88)
Heidegger asserts that with the traditional epistemological approach, the subject/Object distinction imputes a false dichotomy into knowing, and therefore the inquirer remains blind to what is already tacitly implied when she takes the phenomenon of knowing as her theme - even in the most provisional manner. Namely, that knowing is a mode of Being of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, and is founded ontically upon this state of Being. This then is the answer to the question "What is knowing?".
An Epistemological Objection
But it might be objected that with such an interpretation of knowing the problem of knowledge is effectively nullified. For what is left to be inquired about, if one presupposes in advance that knowing is already 'alongside' its world? In this case, are not all inquires conducted in vain? As it seems futile to inquire if we already know the answer. So what is the point of education, or experience, or any of the other commonly cited benefits of knowing as it is traditionally conceived. So the question that really needs to be asked here is,
"How can knowing reach the world, except by working its way out of the inner sphere of the self?"
Heidegger's Answer
First of all he points out that , in asking this question the constructivist 'standpoint 'comes to the fore.
Rather than conceiving of knowing as "I think therefore I am", with constructivism there is the assumption that all thoughts originate outside of one's head in the world, although this is not to say the world represents a real reality either. The world is because our mental perceptual faculties experience tell us that it is that way. This means that which we call reality is merely a kind of schema we apply to understanding our world. This schema can be defined of in terms of the metaphorical systems that we utilise to explain things to ourselves and others. However Heidegger is not giving his automatic assent to such thinking,
Heidegger argues that he will not enter into the constructivist debate, since constructivism has not been phenomenally demonstrated. Instead he asks, what right does epistemological thinking have to set itself up as the higher court which decides whether there is to be any problem of knowledge other than that of the phenomenon of knowing as such? And indeed who legislates upon and ascribes necessary limits to the kind of Being which belongs to the knower?
Towards an ontological definition of Knowing
If we are to ask what shows itself phenomenological in knowing, we must first keep in mind that knowing is itself grounded beforehand in a Being-already-alongside-the-world. This Being is essentially constitutive for Dasein's Being.' There are some important points to make about this
1/ Proximally, this Being-already-alongside is not just a fixed or passive staring at something that is purely present-at-hand. But rather, 'Being-in-the-world 'when conceived of as concern, is actively fascinated by the world.
2/ If knowing is to be a possible way of determining the nature of the present-at-hand by observation, then this implies that there must be a deficiency in our having-to-do with the world concernfully.
3/ When concern holds back from producing any kind of interpretation of what it sees, it puts itself into a mode of Being-in, which Heidegger terms the just tarrying alongside. Tarrying alongside is the kind of Being towards the world which lets us encounter entities within-the-world purely in term of the way they look.
Meeting the constructivist objection
Our first attempt at meeting the constructivist objection is by stating that looking at what we encounter in the world is only possible on the basis of concern: looking at something in terms of concern is a definite way of taking up a direction towards something. This means that Dasein enters the…
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…mode of dwelling autonomously alongside entities within-the-world. This kind of 'dwelling' is not a tarrying along, because knowing is not holds back from any desire to influence the entity it perceives. Although on the other hand it is not pre-judging an entity in terms of ideas one might have about it either. Instead knowing allows itself to be, as it were, filled up with the Being of the entity, so that the entities Being enters the Being of the Knowing. In this sense perception is 'consummated'.
Consummating Perception
Perception is consummated when one addresses oneself to
something, as something, and discusses it as such. In other words, we are talking about the phenomenological understanding of both grasping [ref. ¶ 6, page 48] and discourse [ref. ¶ 7, page 56]. Consummation amounts to interpretation, in the broadest sense. And, on the basis of consummation, perception becomes an act of making determinate. This means that what is perceived and also what is made determinate can be expressed by the knowing Being in the form of propositions.
Knowledge Through Grasping is Not Epistemology
Grasping and discourse as the preservation of perception is not to be interpreted in an epistemological way, for then it would be, "a 'procedure;' i.e., something done by someone to something. This way of conceiving of knowledge would create the problem of the aforementioned "god tricks" that is the problem of how the inside and outside 'agree' on an interpretation.
The Being of Dasein is Outside
When Dasein directs itself towards something and grasps it, it does not somehow first get out of an inner sphere in which it has been proximally encapsulated, This is because Dasein's primary kind of Being is already 'outside.' Rather than being conceived of as 'an inside', ontologically speaking Dasein's Being is alongside entities which it encounters and therefore belongs to a world which is already discovered. In saying this Heidegger does not mean to imply that the inside is therefore abandoned completely. Dasein's dwelling alongside the entity in order to determines its character, is done totally externally. What Heidegger is rejecting is therefore not the notions of inside and outside, but that there exists dichotomy between them: it is the subject and object that has no real relevance here not the inside and outside. For even when it is in the mode of 'Being-outside' alongside the object, Dasein is still 'inside' as well as outside - if we understand this in the correct ontological sense of 'inside,' as standing for a Being-in-the-world which knows.
And furthermore, the perceiving of 'what is known' is not a process of returning with one's booty to the 'cabinet' of consciousness after one has gone out and grasped it. In the grasping, we are also retaining and preserving that part of Dasein which knows and which remains forever outside. But again the notion of inside and outside do not have the same urgency in this understanding, since
Dasein always dwells in both:
If I think about way in which the Being of entities is interconnected, I am no less of a Being because of it.
(page 90)
On Forgetting and Delusion and Error
It might be objected here that Heidegger is ignoring the fact that we forget things. For doesn't forgetting undermine his contention that Being always is alongside the world? For if things were really this way, how could the world, as it were, fade from view in the forgetting. Heidegger answer is that forgetting is something which actually happens when the relationship of Being towards a something which one formerly knew has seemingly been obliterated. But in this sense even forgetting must be conceived of as a modification of the primordial Being-in. In the sense that when you forget something, you also forget yourself in relation to that thing. And that rule holds also for every delusion and for every error. So for instance if you mistake something, you also in a sense mistake yourself in relation to that thing.
Our primordial Being-in is therefore continually being shaped by the world, as the world is being shaped by our primordial Being-in. This reciprocity means that the world and Being has changed when when certain things are forgotten, the world is in error when certain things are erred upon. Hence forgetfulness and error and knowing itself are all seen as modifications of our primordial Being-in. Even forgetting in this sense is knowledge, but not necessarily of a positive kind. Note how Heidegger described inauthenticity, as a "fleeing in the face of its Being and forgetting thereof"[ref.¶ 9, Page 69-70].
Summary
Ontologically speaking, Knowing is neither out there or in here. In knowing, Dasein achieves a new status of Being towards a world, but that world has already been discovered in Dasein itself. This new possibility of Being can develop itself autonomously. For
example it can become a task to be accomplished, and when knowing is systematised as scientific knowledge, it can take over the guidance for Being-in-the-world. But a commercium* of the subject with a world does not get created for the first time by the mere act of knowing, nor does it arise from the way in which the world acts upon a subject. Knowing is simply a mode of Dasein founded upon Being-in-the-world. Thus Being-in-the-world, as a basic state, must be interpreted before we can say what knowing is.
* An Explanation of Commercium from The Critique of Pure Reason
The word community has two meanings in (German), and contains the two notions conveyed in the Latin communio and commercium. We employ it in this place in the latter sense- that of a dynamical community, without which even the community of place (communio spatii) could not be empirically cognized. In our experiences it is easy to observe that it is only the continuous influences in all parts of space that can conduct our senses from one object to another. That the light which plays between our eyes and the heavenly bodies produces a mediating community between them and us, and thereby evidences their coexistence with us... That we cannot empirically change our position (perceive this change), unless the existence of matter throughout the whole of space rendered possible the perception of the positions we occupy.(Kant 1993, 187)
Additional References
Ihde, Don (2002), Bodies In Technology, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Kant, Immanuel (1993),, Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by J.
M. D. Meiklejohn, London: Everyman.
On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
PART 1
The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
Horizon of the Question of Being
DIVISION III:
The Worldhood of the World
CONTENTS
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 5"
III. The Worldhood of the World
14. The Idea of the Worldhood of the World' in General
15. The Being of the Entities Encountered in the Environment
For the contents of other sections see the main index
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments are welcome. Please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
July - Sept 2006
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DIVISION III
THE WORLDHOOD OF THE WORLD
¶ 14. The Idea of the Worldhood of the World' in General
In this section Heidegger examines BEING-IN-THE-WORLD from the perspective of the 'world' itself. The task he sets himself is to describe the world as a phenomenon. In other words, to articulate that sense we have of it as being something which actually exists.
Prolegomena to the analysisThe first thing to observe is that one does not arrive at a complete conception of the world as a phenomenon simply by amassing a collection of descriptions of all the 'entities' within the world.
Although this approach in not illegitimate in itself, Heidegger cautions that it can never provide us with primordial access to the world, because this kind of inquiry is ontical, not ontological. An ontical inquiry is distinguished from an ontological one because it is grounded upon a quite different set of paradigmatic assumptions, which means the two methods may look at the same material but they will never see their material in the same way. The
paradigmatic assumptions of the ontological inquiry into the world will of course be elaborated later in this section, but first, Heidegger has a few things to say about the ontical inquiries. Here is a summary of these thoughts.
Historically, philosophical inquiries into the Being of the world have been articulated in two sorts of conceptions, which have led to two sets of arguments:
1/ a reductionist/materialist conception of the world as being only the sum of the things contained within the world, where the world as such does not exist.
2/ a metaphysical/spiritual conception of the world, where the world as such exists beyond the realm of matter.
Therefore, the conceptual choice people have faced in the past is either to deny the world's phenomenological existence, or to describe it in metaphysical terms (effectively mystifying it). In Heidegger's opinion, both theses views are mistaken, precisely because they are grounded in the flawed paradigm of traditional ontology which privileges an objective view of the world. So it is perhaps not surprising that philosophers working in this tradition have developed no concepts nor any arguments to adequately describe the world as a phenomenon. Consequently, despite a plethora of theories attempting to account for the phenomenon known as the world, none have been able to explain the extra surplus quality that the world seemingly has. The aim of Heidegger's analysis is to show how these problem disappear when the world is looked at ontologically.
In order to begin to approach the task of defining the world as a phenomenon, we should recall that Heidegger formally defined 'phenomena' as that which shows itself in its Being, which is itself also part of the structure of the Being of Dasein when looked at generally [ref. ¶ 7, Page 51]. This definition of a phenomenon is premised Heidegger notion that Being is wholeness [ref. Part 1, Division 1, page 65], which yields two additional observations:
1. Each part of Being (which takes the form of a particular phenomenon) is never truly isolate from Being of phenomena when taken as a whole.
2. Each part of being is itself a reflection of whole of Being.
Thus, to describe the 'world' phenomenologically means to exhibit the Being of those entities which are present-at-hand (existent) within the world, and, in addition, to fix their Being in concepts which are categorical. (This manoeuvre involves letting the Being of those entities stand out from the Being of the
manifold of existence, rather than cleaving it away from that Being - as is the case with traditional objective philosophy)
Remember also that the term category should be understood its ontological sense, that is as a means of distinguishing the characteristics of the Being of entities that are not Dasein. (for Dasein we use existentalia)[ref. ¶ 9, page 70] (or see the glossary entry for category and existentiale).
Entities within the world, more commonly called "things". These are of two sorts;
1. Things of nature, and 2. Things 'invested with value'.
Things of NaturePerhaps at this early stage of the inquiry, we might presume that our primary theme should be the Being of the "thinghood of things of Nature as such?*"
(* apologies for the cumbersome use of language here. Heidegger is constantly alluding to the fact that there is a reflexive component when talking about Being. Through his often cumbersome use of language, Heidegger attempts to communicate his claim that you cannot take the subject out of the proposition and vice verse without doing fundamental damage to the wholeness of being (ref. "The formal conception of Being," ¶ 12, page 80). Thus, he wages a constant battle against the tendency of natural language to cleave existence into subject/object categories. This tendency is not, as Heidegger asserts, itself a proof that these linguistic assertions are mirrored in the structuring of reality. But rather, that the subject/object positioning of language expresses an in-built philosophical bias, which colours and distorts our conceptions of the Being of reality.
If we examine entities of nature, what is it about them that we can say exists? The first answer which comes to mind is the characteristic of Being which seems to be revealed...
(page 92)
...is their substance - the very stuff that they are made of. Thus, for example, the substance of the tree is wood and the substance of the rock is various minerals). So it seems natural to ask the question, "What is its ontological meaning of substance?" Here Heidegger cautions that by asking this question, the inquiry veers dangerously near to the rocky reef of traditional philosophical inquiry. For to answer it, we would first have to ascertain that there is an ontological meaning to substance. Can we prove this? Let's
just skip ahead here and answer, not really. For, even if we were able to elaborate a pure explanation of the nature of a substance 'X ,' and through this elaboration, reveal that it describes something of the Being of Nature, this approach will in fact never be up to the task of describing the 'world' as a phenomenon. For "Nature" cannot grant us phenomenological access to the world, and neither can nature of things (their substance), because both are already entities encountered within the world. Nature is a component in a greater whole we call the world. The problem is here is one of not being able to escape the frame of reference from within which the inquiry itself is conceived.
(It might seem strange to pass from a discussion of substance to a discussion of nature so quickly. But as Heidegger argued in the last division, if one reflects upon the relationship of "Being" and "the world", an entity called 'Nature' always emerges. And this entity Nature is given proximally as "that which becomes 'known'." [ref. ¶13 page 87])
So, given that explicating the Being of the world from the substance of entities of nature is a bit of a non-starter. Should we perhaps take the second path and try to discover the being of the world from examining things within the world 'invested with value'?
Things 'invested with value'Things of value can be defines as entities with which Dasein proximally and for the most part dwells (chairs, tables, beds, various tools, houses, computers, televisions, cars street-lamps etc., etc.). Now, while it is true that we do not think of these things purely in terms of their substance (we also think of them in terms of their use for example) we must nevertheless be careful, because, if we are not, very soon these entities will also be regarded as things 'within' the world, (in terms of their substance) and we will be back in the cul-de-sac of traditional philosophy again. As soon as substance enters into the purview of the inquiry our inquiry will flounder, because we will face the same 'framing problem' we encountered when considering the substance of things of nature.
Conclusion to prolegomenaSo, it seems that neither the ontical depiction of things within-the-world, nor the ontological interpretation of their Being (in terms of examining only the entities we value) is completely up to the task of describing the phenomenon that is "the world." The problem is this notion of things. No doubt then we will have to get away from this tendency of objectifying entities within the world and focus on some other aspect of their being. Perhaps we should approach this inquiry from a different direction and ask ourselves if it possible to address ourselves to the phenomenon of world,' directly in terms of its being the determinate for the ontological meaning for all of the entities within the world, and not just something which is determined by them as hitherto assumed. As Heidegger points out, we always refer to things as being "within-the-world", does this not suggest that we have a pre-ontological understanding of a notion of the world, as coming before the notion of the things which are manifest within it? In this case, rather than
trying to escape the framing problem, we would be embracing it? The world after all turns out to be the frame our inquiry into the world. But in that case how is possible to describe the world? The answer to this question is that in fact the world is not the ultimate frame within which everything is conceived because the world also needs a Being to perceive it, i.e. Dasein. Therefore approach would also involve us having to concede that the 'world' is, in fact, also a part of Dasein's Being, i.e., something which dwells alongside Dasein in the same way that the entities of the world dwell alongside Dasein [ref. ¶12, page 80].
My WorldHowever, if the latter contention is taken seriously, would it not imply that every particular Dasein 'proximally' dwells within its own world? In other words, that each Dasein's conception of the world as a phenomenon is ultimately going to be a subjective one. If this is true, it is problematic because if the world is ultimately subjective, how could there also be a 'common' world 'in' which all of Dasein all collectively dwell? Resolving this paradox is going to be one of the major themes of this inquiry.
WorldhoodOntologically speaking, when we raise the question of the world, the object of the inquiry is neither the objective world of collective experience, nor is it the subjective world personal experience, but rather the Worldhood of the world as such. 'Worldhood' is an ontological concept, that stands for the structure of one of the constitutive items of Being-in-the-world. Worldhood therefore needs to be understood an umbrella term that embraces the sense of the world that both is determinate and determines all the other significations and modalities of the world. However, regarding the world in this way does not rule out the possibility that we may try to disclose its secrets by examining entities within-the-world. All it means is that the Being of these entities will not be discovered by inferring a presence of Worldhood as something surplus to them, i.e., as existing outside of entities. Rather the concept of Worldhood presupposes that the world has to exist both outside and within entities, as something which is always already perceived of as part of Dasein's being. A propos to this, as Heidegger has already pointed out (ref. ¶12, page 78), Being-in-the-world is the way in which Dasein's character can be defined existentially. In this sense, Worldhood, like the Being-in Heidegger examined (re. part 1 division 2), must likewise will have to be partly describable as an existentiale, as well as a category [see the glossary entry for category and existentiale].
All Heidegger is doing in this above passage is thinking through the implications of including an analytic of Dasein as a component of the understanding of the world. The notion of Worldhood, when conceived of in this way, can be imagined as something which surrounds both Dasein and the entities within the world with which Dasein proximally dwells. This is how we will arrive at an ontological conception of the Worldhood of the world, which does not suffer from the framing problems of the other conceptions he has discussed. And armed with this conception, we will be able to describe the world phenomenologically.
(page 93)
Four kinds of worldBut before we can explore this question further, we must sort out which world we are talking about, when we use the term WORLD. because quite a lot of worlds have already emerged in the course of this discussion. By sorting out the different meanings of the world, we will be able to grasp both an idea of the various kinds of phenomena signified by the term and also the way they are structurally interconnected.
Heidegger identifies four main meanings of world.
1. World is as an ontical concept, and signifies the totality of things which can be present-at-hand within the world. (This is the traditional ontical conception of the world. In this meaning the world is the frame of the inquiry and thus, we can have no genuine access to it).
2. World functions as an ontological term, and signifies the Being of those things within the world. (This notion, on the other hand, makes Dasein the frame through which the inquiry is conceived. It does give us phenomenological access to the world, but it leads to a conception that the worlds is "subjective," i.e. that it belongs to each Dasein. For instance, a mathematician may talk about the world of mathematics, and a philologist can talk about the world of stamp collecting).
3. World can be understood in an ontical sense, as the place where a factical Dasein 'lives. (This notion, like meaning #1., considers the world to be the frame through which the inquiry is examined. But in this case, rather than privileging things within the world as in meaning #1., or the 'subjective' worlds as in meaning #2, the "world" of meaning #3., is conceived of as a place where factical Dasein lives. I.e. Dasein itself is, as it were, the entity within the world.)
4. The term "world" designates the ontologico-existential concept of Worldhood. This notion expresses in general terms the a priori character of any entity which can be taken to be a world. This conception of the world serves as an umbrella for the other meanings, because it takes into account both framing perspectives found in meanings #1 to #3. And thus the concept of Worldhood allows us to consider also how these frames operate in relation to one another. Although this is not to suggest that we can transcend the frames by doing this, for it is impossible to conceive of the world from a space outside of the world and outside of yourself. However a conception of Worldhood allows us to see the
world as both a framing and a frame, which is itself an important characteristic of the world as a phenomenon.
In order not to lose site of the different significations of the term world, Heidegger proposes the following system:
1. 'world' (with single speech marks) denotes meaning #1 2. Worldhood - denotes meaning #2
3. "world" (with double speech marks) denotes meaning #3
4. worldly, (a term standing for the ontological sense of Dasein's conception of Worldhood), denotes meaning #4 (As the translators of Being and Time note, by employing the term, worldly, Heidegger does not which imply the usual connotation of world as "a man of the world,"
I realise that these four terms and the subtle means that Heidegger intends to distinguishing them is going to be a potential source of confusion (not to mention mental anguish) to readers as well as myself. However, don't worry, I will be reminding the reader of these categorical distinctions every time a particular concept of WORLD is cited.
Heidegger has already drawn our attention to the fact that the phenomenon of Worldhood, gets passed over if one tries to Interpret it in terms of the Being of entities present-at-hand within-the-world.
The world is not discoverable in Nature (against Romanticism)One thing that has already been alluded to (but nevertheless needs to be really underscored here) is that Dasein cannot discover the Worldhood of the world by framing the discussion in terms of the concept of "Nature." This is because Nature is itself an aspect of the world and therefore is also, so to speak, and entity within it.
(page 94)
The romantics always talk about there being a natural world, and this conception implies that this world is more primordial than the mechanised world of humankind. But Heidegger cautions us that we need to abandon this view. This is because, the phenomenon of 'Nature' as conceived of in romanticism, can in fact only be grasped ontologically in terms of the onto-ontological concept of world we will now explore.
Aims of the inquiryThe arguments presented thus far in the inquiry have served to strengthen the theoretical ground upon which we stand. Now that our footing is more secure we can to proceed to outlining the questions the inquiry into the phenomenon of the world will have to answer. They are:
1. how we should Interpret the Worldhood of Dasein? 2. How we should discover the possible ways in which Dasein is made worldly?
We should also try to understand why the kind of Being with which Dasein knows as the world has been continually passed over.
MethodologyIn this sense the method of our enquiry has already been assigned in the last section. The theme of the analytic is going to be "BEING-IN-THE-WORLD", and in this section we will focus on the notion of WORLD itself to discover how this notion is illuminated and how it can in turn light up the hitherto obscure areas of Dasein's Being. The phenomena discussed in this section will also be considered within the horizon of Dasein's average everydayness. (i.e. not in the rarefied conditions of philosophical contemplation (thinking about thinking) that are the purview of normal philosophy (see the glossary entry for 'average everydayness' and 'phenomenological method')..
The EnvironmentThat world of everyday Dasein which it is closest to it is the entity we call the environment.
We shall start by outlining an ontological interpretation of those entities within-the-environment which are closest to us. (But never losing sight of the fact that an understanding of Worldhood of the world is the goal of the inquiry)
The word "environment" is made up of the prefix 'environ' which designates a space. Therefore it seems obvious that a spatial character incontestably belongs to any environment. However, Heidegger argues that the environment does not have a primarily 'spatial' meaning. In fact its spatial quality will only be able to be clarifies in terms of the phenomena of the world (when we understand what this is), and not as its a priori condition.
As with the concept of nature, we will not be able to discover the world if we take the view that the world has spatiality as its grounding a priori condition. This statement can be read as a critique of the transcendental aesthetic of Kant, which regards space and time as being primary forms of our knowledge of the world. Kant asserted that, by means of the external sense we represent to
ourselves objects as being outside of us in space. Thus, through the notion of space alone is their shape, dimensions, and relations to each other determined or determinable. [Kant 1993, p 49]. Heidegger's full critique of this position is outlined in the next section (¶15, p 95 - 102)
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The analysis of the world will be completed in three stages, A, B and C which are structured as follows:
A. The analysis of environmentally and Worldhood in general;
B. Contrasting this analysis with Descartes' ontology of the 'world';
C. The analysis of the 'spatiality' of Dasein - (in other words, the sense of the "aroundness" of the environment)
A. Analysis of Environmentality and Worldhood in General
¶ 15. The Being of the Entities Encountered in the Environment
Heidegger's contention is that the Being of those entities which we encounter as closest to us can be exhibited phenomenologically, if we examine our everyday Being-in-the-world. This notion is expressed by the term "dealings." Thus, our dealings with entities within-the-world become the focus of the investigation. And, as was pointed out in the last section [ref. ¶ 12, page 84], these dealings are always expressed in terms of care and concern.' [for a quick reminder, see the glossary entry for these terms].
We are most concerned with the entities that are closest to us. These are the entities which are closest to us in our everyday lives and which we invest with value. We may postulate that the concern we have for these entities has its own kind of 'knowledge'. (in other words, taking things up and using them on a regular basis promotes a different kind of understanding, to that which is obtained by merely thinking about things. For a start the kind of understanding we obtain of something through use is not consciously articulated to the self, as it is with thought. Hence we may know how to ride a bicycle, but that knowledge cannot be imputed to someone else who is ignorant of the skill of bicycling merely by speaking a set of instructions). Thus, the primary theme of the analysis with be to try to
describe the kind of knowledge that we have of the entities we regularly use. Although, let us not forget that these entities will not form the categories for theoretically knowing the 'world' (we are avoiding talking about things remember). But rather they should be considered as simply what gets used, and what gets produced in the context of our everyday dealings with the world.
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Conceived of in this way, the inquiry will also provide a more complete picture of the understanding of Being that Dasein already has (as a preontological understanding), and which "comes alive" in Dasein's dealings with entities. And thus our investigation into the world. Slowly then we inch towards its ultimate goal of a more complete understanding of BEING-IN-THE-WORLD.
Looking at entities invested with valueThe first entities we are going to look at are ones that put us in the position of having some concern for them. However, strictly speaking, this "putting ourselves into a position" is a misleading way of conceiving of how this concern actually manifests in terms of Dasein's average everydayness. For concern is not so much a posture we adopt, as the way in which we are always orientated towards the world. Heidegger challenges us to examine our own processes of thought. Do we have to assume a thoughtful position before we start thinking about something? No, of course we do not. Thoughts just come to us anyway, and they come to us often before we are really aware of their presence.
To gain a proper phenomenological access to the entities we are examining, we must put aside our tendency to adobt and objective posture by standing back from things; seeking an interpretation for a given phenomena even before we have properly grasped it. For example, Heidegger points out, we are on dangerous ground even by addressing entities as "Things", for in doing so we have "tacitly anticipated their ontological character". This was, in a nutshell, the mistake of Descartes and his forebears. As Heidegger has outlined, the only "thing" a Cartesian type of analysis is ever going to uncover is the totally erroneous conception of a "Thinghood and Reality." And as this is a concept whose elaboration and critique has already been well raked over--not least by Heidegger himself [ref. ¶6, page 45]-- suffice to say that this kind of thinking is never productive, because it falls back very quickly into unresolvable paradoxes. The problem, as Heidegger sees it, is as soon as we start calling entities "Things," we fix their conception in an unacceptably material way and consequently the essentially non-thing-like aspects of their character gets overlooked. And this non-material aspect is what Heidegger foremost want to fix in our thoughts.
PraxisAll this talk about the kind of knowledge that is found in doing rather than thinking evokes something of the notion of praxis, or learning by doing. Heidegger notes that praxis is
the Greeks term pertaining to concernful dealings with 'things'. But he remarks also, that the Greeks left undisclosed their specifically 'pragmatic' character and instead thought of these things which get used more concretely as 'mere things' (ref. B&T p96-97). In other words, Heidegger conception of our concernful dealing with entities within the world should not be defined in terms of what is normally understood by the term praxis.
To find out, what this "hidden" aspect is, we have to answer the question, "what does 'value' mean ontologically?" Which will be the topic of the remainder of this section.
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EquipmentIn our inquiry, we shall call entities which we encounter with an attitude of concern equipment. In our everyday existence we encounter equipment of numerous sorts for writing, sewing, working, transportation, measurement, etc. Of this equipment, we will presume two things:
1. That the kind of Being which equipment has must show itself in some way, and
2. If we can identify the way it shows itself, we will thus be able to defining its value.
These assumptions will be our first clue in defining what turns an 'entity' into an 'item of equipment', or, as Heidegger calls it, equipmentality.
Heidegger defines equipment as, essentially, 'something in-order-to'. As a structure, this in-order-to describes what Heidegger calls an assignment, this is the action of employing 'X' (the equipment) to achieve something 'Y' (the goal of a task). The term assignment' will be used to indicates equipment made visible in its ontological genesis. Now, you may say that a piece of equipment is always visible, "Is not a hammer an object that is quite obviously there before us?" The answer is no. Not if we take a hammer to be something defined by its use, for a rock, a piece of wood, or even a fist, can just as well serve as a hammer on occasions. Jumping to the conclusion that a hammer is a mere 'thing' is precisely the mistake people make when they view equipment purely in material terms.
Strictly speaking, there is no such 'thing' as a piece of equipment. In fact, equipment only becomes truly visible through its use, i.e., in the act of assignment. (for example a hammer is not just a wooden handle with a lump of metal on the end, for as I have pointed out, a rock can function as a hammer just as well, a fact that has probably not escaped anyone who has been on a camping holiday and found that they have had to drive the tent pegs into hard ground.
Totality of Equipment (Equipment Structure)What we need also to consider is that behind the Being of any equipment there already belongs a totality of equipment. For instance the equipment of hammering is not merely a hammer, but an nail, piece of wood, workbench, lighting, furniture, windows, doors, room. However, we do not usually consider this totality of equipment, eventhough the task of the particular piece of equipment under consideration could not be performed without it. Thus, we can say that there is always a hidden aspect of equipmentality, which is the totality of equipment that never shows itself,
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If we take an example of a less that obvious piece of equipment, a room, we can say that the room is both a piece of equipment (to paraphrase Le Corbusier - a machine for living in) and is also a collection of other pieces of equipment that comes together to constitute a room. Of course a room is not normally defined in terms of its equipmentality, but rather as something conceived of in terms of its spatiality. We think of a room rather passively as something merely existent - as the space 'between four walls. Hence we easily fall into the trap of considering the room philosophically in terms of the abstract notion of space, and not in terms of the more everyday notion as a piece of equipment. (Interestingly, if you put four wheels on a room and attach it to a train, the spatial aspects of the room recede and we see it much more as a piece of equipment (i.e. as a carriage which has the purpose of taking us somewhere, hopefully in relative comfort). This goes to show that our interpretation of a room as a space is at the very least conceptually unstable and fortified more by habitual inattention than a genuine philosophical grasp, and incidentally this note was written in a train, travelling from London to Birmingham)
Equipment structureSo we can say that any 'individual' item of equipment only shows itself in a metonymic sense of being a part of a greater system - a totality of equipment that Heidegger subsequently terms its equipment structure.
What is concealed when we consider a piece of equipment is a nexus of related items that also constitutes the assignment for which the individual piece of equipment stands. Equipment therefore is always a general term, which applies to a potentially unlimited number of entities which are also necessary for the assignment. The hammer object itself, for instance, is a mere component of hammering. Now, what is interesting about this is that it implies a totality of equipment has already been discovered before a piece of equipment is disclosed. Hence we could postulate that the task of hammering was initially discovered by hammering with rocks, because in order to take up the rock and hammer with it the equipment structure of hammering and a conceived of set of assignments must already by understood - and the design of a hammer actually comes out of considering that equipment
structure. Thus, in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the role of the Monolith in teaching the apes how to use tools can be seen in Heideggarian terms as imparting the equipment structure of hammering in their minds.
Equipment (or more properly equipment structures) can therefore only genuinely show themselves in the totality of assignments that they are designed for. And this is the only way equipment can be understood. In other words you find out what a price of equipment does by using it, not by thinking about it. (The equipmentality of a hammer for example is not something that is ever going to be revealed in the context of needlecraft, this notion is, of course, absurd - and so how could it be reasonably argued that the equipmentality of a hammer can be revealed in the context of the equally unrelated activity of philosophical contemplation.
The novelty of Heidegger's argument here is we can see that the actions of observation and contemplation, when considered as assignments, have "their own kind of sight," namely purposes which are nothing to do with the assignment of hammering, and thus what you have when you contemplate the hammer is a clash of assignments.
Outside of its proper context (the totality of assignments pertaining to it) a piece equipment is quite opaque in terms of its Being.
Equipmentality is not a verbHowever, before we put too much emphasis on equipment in terms of use, we have to understand that in our dealing with equipment, its equipmentality is not grasped thematically as a verb, i.e. as an occurring thing. We cannot understand what a hammer does merely by miming the action of hammering in mid air, for to do this would be to disregard the piece of wood, the nail, in other word, its equipment structure, and also most importantly the task for which the equipment is intrumental in fulfilling, the in order to. Therefore, in the context of this analysis, Heidegger warns us that if we are not careful we are liable to frame the whole thing in the wrong way. For simple thinking about a hammer, or the actions of a hammer, as an isolated instance of a piece of equipment in use, will never give us knowledge of the hammer's character as a part of an equipment structure of hammering. This misconception is revealed more clearly if we consider the example of a room as a piece of equipment conceived of purely as a verb.
Readiness-to-Hand (Ready-to-hand)It is only when we take up a hammer in order to hammer something that our primordial relationship to the hammer's equipmentality becomes apparent . The act of hammering itself (and the context in which this action occurs) uncovers the specific 'manipulability' of the hammer. The kind of Being which equipment possesses-in which it manifests itself in its own right-we call Readiness-to-Hand.' Readiness to hand does not merely occur in
the act of using equipment. But rather, equipment is only manipulatable in the first place because it has this kind of 'Being-in itself'. However the readiness-to-hand of an entity which leads us to consider it as a piece equipment is only discovered by using it. It is never discovered beforehand. This is the paradoxical nature of equipment, that comes between us and the understanding of it, for no matter how long and diligently we stare at its 'outward appearance,' we shall never be able to discover anything ready-to-hand about a piece of equipment unless we actually take it up and use it.
Conclusion (equipment)Provisionally we can conclude these observations about equipment by emphasising again that the activity of manipulating and using equipment is not a blind one, in the sense of a mere unthinking reflex, but rather, it has its own kind of 'sight'.
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Practical behaviour is therefore not atheoretical in the sense of 'sightlessness.' And it is not true to say that in theoretical behaviour one observes, while in practical behaviour one acts. Instead all dealings with equipment subordinate themselves to a multitude of assignments in-order-to get the task done.
WorkThe peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand means that, in terms of an entity being a piece of equipment, its "thingness" must, as it were, withdraw in order to for it to be ready-to-hand in an authentic way. (The hammer, as a thing, becomes transparent in the hammering. It is as if it becomes an extension of the human arm, in the sense that we can feel the nail as it is being driven into the wood and the resistance of the wood to the nail, as it were through the 'conduit' of the hammer - Don Ihde has a good analysis of this [see, Ihde 1979, p 121 - 122]).
All of this hopefully makes clear that Dasein does not proximally dwell with the tools themselves as things, but with the work the tools do. And because a piece of equipment always conceals an equipment structure, it implies also that work bears with it that referential totality within which the equipment is encountered. The true extent of this referential totality is something we will now explore.
The towards which (the product of work)The work to be produced by the hammer, Heidegger conceives of as the <towards-which< i=""> of the hammer. And this is what has the kind of Being that belongs to equipment. Equipment is never an end in itself. The end product of the labours of the tailor is not just a garment, because the garment itself is produced for wearing; similarly the clock is manufactured for telling the time. And as is clear in these examples the towards which, although it is a product of the work done, does not have to be a product solely in a material sense. </towards-which<>
The work which we chiefly encounter in our concernful dealings has an essential usability which belongs to it. The usability of work is that which allows us to encounter (already) the towards-which the tool is usable. This is a convoluted way of saying the meaning of the tool is only discovered in its use, and in the wider context of what it is used for is discovered in the way the products of the tools are used. We can observe that conceiving of 'equipment', 'work' and 'use' in this way, has no neat terminus, but rather these 'equipment-structures', 'work-structures' and 'use-structures' sprawl out almost indefinitely to form the very structures of the world - and of course that is precisely the point Heidegger is making.
A piece of equipment is definable only by its use (the working with it, and the goal for which it is employed) because this is where the assignment-context of entities (the equipment-structure, work-structure and use-structure) which is revealed.
How Nature is discovered as a resourceThe work to be produced by equipment is not merely usable for something...
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...The production itself is a using of something for something (The work of the tailor is the use of the equipment structures of tailoring to produce a shoe). Heidegger makes this point so beautifully, I will just quote him.
Because something is produced through work, in addition to the equipment structure there is also an assignment of 'materials': Thus the work of the tailor is dependent on leather, thread, needles, and the like. Leather, moreover is produced from hides. These are taken from animals, which someone else has raised. Animals also occur within the world without having been raised at all; and, in a way, these entities still produce themselves even when they have been raised as a resource for some other production. So in the environment certain entities become accessible which are always ready-to-hand, but which, in themselves, do not need to be produced. Hammer, tongs, and needle, refer in themselves to steel, iron, metal, mineral, wood, in that they consist of these.
Finally then, Heidegger is able to give the reason why Nature does not grant us privileged access to the Being of the World.
In equipment that is used, 'Nature' is discovered along with it, it is the 'Nature' we find in natural products.
Here 'Nature' is not to be understood as merely present-at-hand (existent), nor in terms of some mysterious "power of nature" - again Heidegger expresses this beautifully:
The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind 'in the sails'. As the 'environment' is discovered through the resource, then 'Nature' is thus discovered in the encountered as well. If, however, its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is disregarded, this 'Nature' itself can be discovered and defined simply in its pure presence-at-hand. But when this happens, the Nature which 'stirs and strives', which assails us and enthrals us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river is not the 'springhead in the dale'.
So there is always a residual quality to nature, something present-at-hand which becomes apparent after nature has been first discovered as a resource (through equipment structures that do not show themselves overtly). On the other hand this surplus we call nature is something which does show itself overtly, and moreover allows us to contemplate that which has been discovered as a 'something' in its own right (perhaps a beautiful view). But let us not be like the Romantics, so beguiled by the beauty of a view that we are seduced into believing that this is in fact Nature in its most primordial sense, for nature is always also a resource.
What Heidegger has done here is reversed the normal conception of the world as Nature, in the sense of it being conceived of first and foremost as a natural resource, which is then subsequently taken up (and exploited) by humanity in the form of technological resource. However, this view of nature can never make visible the resource structure of nature. So what Heidegger is arguing is that we should consider instead the resource structure as the primordial phenomenon that makes visible the entity known as Nature, by granting us access to it (with all the attendant notions of mythical nature, beautiful nature, sublime nature, that inform our post-industrial romanticisation of the natural world). It is interesting in this context that nature was only really identifies, for example in the world of the Lake Poets, at a time when industrialisation was rampantly exploiting the resource-structure of the world.
The world context that is revealed in equipmental, resource and also person structuresThe work produced refers not only to what is produced but also to the resources which produces it. Both of these facets also have a nexus of structures attached which delimit the world but whose limits are always going to be somewhat arbitrarily drawn. Hence, in addition to the notion of Dasein's Worldhood, we are for this reason also only ever going to be able to outline a general, i.e. formal conception of the world as a phenomenon.
This again has similarities with Being-in as inness discussed in the last division [ref. ¶12, page 79]. For when Heidegger talked about 'worldspace' in terms of the water being in the glass, the glass being in the kitchen, the kitchen being in the house, the house being in the village, the village being in the county and so on and so forth, he also infers the same potentially unlimited structural interconnectedness of entities that spirals out without precise termination.
People structuresBut, in addition to equipment, products and resources, there are also people (factical Dasein) to consider. For work also has an assignment to the person who uses the products of work. The work of the tailor for example is cut to the figure of the person, in this sense, clothes really do "maketh the man." Even in the context of mass production, products are still cut to the person, although in this case the fit cannot be as accurate as is the case with bespoke tailoring, but rather tends towards averaging out attributes. Heidegger employs the specific example of tailoring to explain this, no doubt because of the explicit connotations of tailoring to the idea of self image. There is a suggestion that all products are ultimately working to produce something - the self image of the person.
ConclusionAlong with the work, we encounter not only entities ready-to-hand but also entities infused with value, which through Dasein's concern for them, carry with them part of the Being of Dasein. In this way, the product itself becomes ready-to-hand. Thus finally, and through all the interconnecting structures that have been descried in this section, we encounter the world in which wearers and users live, which is at the same time is ours.
The environment and nature itself (as that which is environing) is discovered not in abstract terms of space but in any work which is ready-to-hand:
In roads, streets, bridges, buildings, our concern discovers Nature as having some definite direction. A covered railway platform takes account of bad weather; an installation for public lighting takes account of the darkness, or rather of specific changes in the presence or absence of daylight-the...
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...'position of the sun'. In a clock, account is taken of some definite constellation in the world-system. When we look at the clock, we tacitly make use of the 'sun's position', in accordance with which the measurement of time gets regulated in the official astronomical manner. When we make use of the clock-equipment, which is proximally and inconspicuously ready-to-hand, the environing Nature is ready-to-hand along with it.
In the section, we have elaborated how we discover the world through our concernful absorption in whatever work lies closest to us. This is the function of world, so to speak, and it is essential to this function that those assignments, or references, which are constitutive for the work remain discoverable in varying degrees of explicitness and with a varying circumspective penetration by Dasein.
This then is how the world can be both a subjective "my world" and objective world present for all. Each Dasein constructs as it were her own world from a commonly accessible tool kit of parts. The fact that each world is going to be different does not mean that the world itself is necessarily subjective because a person's world is actually constituted by how one arranges the same kit of parts available to all.
The kind of Being which belongs to equipment word and resource structures is readiness-to-hand. But this characteristic is not to be understood unreflexively as merely a way of naming these structures and then forgetting that they are in fact too complex to be conceptualised under a name
One cannot simply conceive of the world as something formerly 'present at hand' which is now 'ready to hand', if one does not try to understand the seismic paradigm shift that lies behind the action of substituting 'ready-to-hand' for 'present-at-hand.' Such a superficial interpretation overlooks, for instance, the fact that entities which are 'ready-to-hand' have to be understood and discovered beforehand something 'present-at-hand' can even be inferred.
The conception of entities as existent things, (the present-at-hand) must have priority and take the lead in the sequence of those dealings with the 'world' in which something is discovered and made one's own. Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are 'in themselves' defined ontologico-categorically. Yet only by reason of something present-at-hand, does there exist anything ready-to-hand. However, even if it is the most primordial way of understanding what the world is, Heidegger wonders if all these explications been of the slightest help towards understanding the phenomenon of the world ontologically? In interpreting these entities within-the-world, however we have always...
(page 102)
...'presupposed' the world. Even if we join them together, we still do not get anything like the 'world' as their sum. If, then, we start with the Being of these entities, is there any avenue that will lead us to exhibiting the phenomenon of the world?
Unravelling this conundrum will be the task of the next section...
Continue to next section
Reference
Heidegger, Martin (2000), Being and Time, John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson (trans), London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Additional References
Ihde. Don (1979), "Chapter 9 - Heidegger's Philosophy" in Technology and Praxis, Bloomington U.S.: Indiana Publishing, pp 103 - 129
Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, London: Everyman, 1993
On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
PART 1
The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
Horizon of the Question of Being
DIVISION III:
The Worldhood of the World
CONTENTS
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 6"
III. The Worldhood of the World
16. How the Worldly Character of the Environment Announces Itself in Entities Within-the-World
17. Reference and Signs
For the contents of other sections see the main index
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments are welcome. Please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
October - December 2006
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DIVISION III
THE WORLDHOOD OF THE WORLD (Sections 16 & 17)
¶ 16. How the Worldly Character of the Environment Announces Itself in Entities Within-the-World
The Being of Dasein is grounded on its Being-in-the-world. In order to understand what this compound term means ontologically, Heidegger is analysing each part of the phrase in turn. In this section (Part 1, Division 3 of Being and Time) he is focussing on 'what the world is,' when understood ontologically.
Heidegger argues that the Being of the world cannot be adequately defined in terms of the Being of entities within-the-world. There is always a surplus quality left over, which resists this reductionist definition and moreover this surplus quality of 'world' seems in the first place to be determinate of the notion that there are entities within the world. The world then is that which allows us to encounter entities within the world and show themselves in their being [¶14, page 91].
In what way then does the world exist?
We can articulate a way of answering this question if we consider three additional questions.
1/ If the Being of Dasein is constituted by Being-in-the-World, should not Dasein therefore already have a pre-ontological understanding of the world, no matter how indefinite that understanding may be?
2/ When Dasein's encounters entities within-the-world, does not something like the world show itself for concernful Being-in-the-world?
3/ And does not Dasein itself, in its concernful absorption in equipment ready-to-hand, glimpse a possibility of 'Being in' in which the worldhood of those entities within-the-world is lit up for it, in a certain way?
Pertaining to question 3/, in the last section, Heidegger concerned himself with defining equipment and explaining how it differs from Being a 'mere thing.' The difference stems from the fact that equipment is used for a purpose--Heidegger calls this an 'assignment'--which arises because a goal is awaked, a 'towards which' much can be fulfilled by using the equipment [ref. ¶15, page 97]. A piece of equipment, such as a hammer has an assignment but it also can be regarded in a metonymical sense as part of a much
bigger system--an 'equipment structure,'--which spirals out from the work that equipment does with no neat beginnings or endings until contemplation of the whole world is reached. For example, the equipment structure of hammering also involves nails, wood, a workshop, trees, metal, metal, mining ores from the ground, etc., etc. [¶15, page 97 - 98]. Heidegger argues that by using any piece of equipment the existence of the world as a whole is partially disclosed [¶15, page 100].
The various structures of equipment and the fact that equipment cannot be regarded as a 'mere thing' are both encapsulated in the term ready-to-hand. The ready-to-hand is a state equipment possesses which is opposed to presence-at-hand, or the state and entity possesses when it is regarded as Being 'a mere thing' [ref. ¶15, page 98]. However presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand are not intrinsic states possessed by the Being of an entity. For example, if I decide to take up a rock and start hammering with it, the rock is transformed from something present-at-hand into something ready-to-hand. It becomes a hammer simply by my giving it the assignment of a hammer.
This prompts an intriguing question: which came first, the understanding of a rock as something present-at-hand (merely existent), or the understanding of the rock as something ready-to-hand? Common sense would dictate that the answer should be the former - an entity would have to be understood as present-at-hand before it could be taken up and used as something ready-to-hand. However, Heidegger argues that the 'thinghood' of an entity is actually formed by our taking it up and using that entity as a tool. This is in fact one of the reasons that Heidegger asserts we should unlearn the prejudice of regarding entities within the world simply as things. For the 'thingness' of entities blocks access this realisation [¶8, page 66]. If we return to the 'which came first' question, we have to ask ourselves, where did our common-sense notion of entities as 'things' arise? Does it arise in disinterested contemplation? Or isn't it more plausible to suppose that our notions of an entity are formed through use? Heidegger suggests that, first and foremost, we come to name the things that are most useful to us, and these entities become the 'things' that initially stand out from the wholeness of existence to arrest our attention. Thus, there are things called "rocks" that are good for hammering, and things called "trees," that are strong and tall and can be used for shelter. And trees are
also made of "wood" that is very useful for fuel and for building.
Heidegger focuses on the readiness-to-hand of equipment because of the possibility that the phenomenological aspect of the world can be exhibited through it. The analysis of equipment as 'ready-to-hand' therefore becomes the correct point of departure his inquiry. Our understanding of things (and therefore our pre-ontological understanding of the world) comes in the first instance from taking up and using entities ready-to-hand.
However, Heidegger at the end of the last section has thrown in a word of warning. He tells us that we should not be too complacent and imagine that the puzzle of knowing the world is solved simple because we have substituted 'ready-to-hand' for 'present-at-hand.' For while Readiness-to-hand is a way in which we can encounter the authentic Being of entities phenomenologically. It is only by reason of there being first something that is present-at-hand that we know there is something to be taken up and used. Indeed this pre-understanding has more of the character of a present at handedness (or maybe its better to see it pre-conscious, because it has not been awakened by its use). The point is, merely swapping one category for another is not sufficient to understand the being of entities phenomenologically.
So the most pressing question to ask at this point is how are we to 'square the circle' of the present-at-hand and ready-to-hand and understand the reciprocal interconnectedness of the two? Heidegger attempts to find the a solution by seeking some common ground in the present-at-hand and the ready-to-hand in terms of an entity's relationship to Dasein. He begins by observing that, in Dasein's everyday Being-in-the-world there belong certain modes of concern in which the worldly character of entities comes to the fore.
As a reminder, the term "worldly" designates the ontologico-existential concept of Worldhood [¶14, page 93]. Worldhood serves as an umbrella term for three other meanings of the term world.
1. an ontical concept, which signifies the totality of things present-at-hand within the world.
2. as an ontological term, which signifies the Being of those things within the world.
3. In an additional ontical sense as the place where a factical Dasein (people) 'live'.
Using the concept of Worldhood, we can regard these definitions of world as essentially framing devices. A frame can can be likened to a certain perspective through which we view a problem. Frames reveal; but they can also conceal. That which lies outside the frame is not considered, not because it is not worthy of our attention, but because it is hidden by the frame. The above explanation clarifies the issues of frames to a certain extent but it is an overly simplistic way of understanding how they operate. It is not a case that the view afforded by the frame needs enhancing or changing in order for us to see more clearly. Rather it is as case that the person doing the viewing needs to change. The idea of frames suggests a reciprocity between viewer and viewing. Habitual ways of seeing leave us blind, not to those things that are concealed from us, but to those things that are right in fromt of our noses. Being is a case in point. It is very difficult even to conceive of an alternative way of seeing outside of one's habitual fame (and frames are ossified by culture to become even more opaque). A frame, therefore, can be defined as something that grants A certain kind of access to the world, while foreclosing the possibility of others.
Since worldhood itself can be regarded an umbrella term under which three different frames operate. What Worldhood demands of us, is essentially the ability to see the interplay of these frames as well as the problems they individually reveal and do not reveal. This is part of the self-conscious interrogatory proceedures of phenomenology. It is not so much a case of comparing frames, as keeping them all imultaneously in our sight. Noticing the way the wholeness of the world is mediated by each framing. Noticing that certain aspects of the wholeness rise to the surface while others sink below: depending on how our attention shifts within this picture.
As for the problem of uniting the ready-to-hand with the present-at-hand, the answer is actually quite simple.
The Unreadiness-to-Hand of the Broken tool
Heidegger asserts that in Dasein's everyday Being-in-the world there are certain modes of concern that bring the wordly character of entities to the fore. He notices that when equipment is damaged its readiness-to-hand departs and it becomes conspicuous as something present-at-hand...
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...or more accurately its readiness-to-hand changes into a certain unreadiness-to-hand. The unreadiness to hand of a piece of broken equipment becomes an obstacle to the realisation of the assignment for which the equipment was taken up in the first place and thus the broken equipment reveals the assignment starkly and in a concrete form as an obstacle. Thus its readiness-to-hand becomes present-at-hand in a particularly noticeable, albeit obstreperous way.
However this presence-at-hand of something that cannot be used is still not devoid of all readiness-to-hand whatsoever. Equipment which is present-at-hand is still not just a Thing which occurs somewhere, but rather it is something in which both presence-at-hand and readiness-to-hand can still be glimpsed - Thus broken equipment is worldly because in it can be glimpsed two 'world-views' one that sees it at ready-to-hand; the other that sees it as present-at-hand.
In the unreadiness to hand there are things that are missing-which not only are not 'handy' but are not 'to hand' at all. The helpless way in which we stand before a broken tool is what Heidegger terms a deficient mode of concern. He argues that what we notice about the un-readiness-to-hand of a tool is that its ready-to-handedness enters a mode of obtrusiveness and thus become visible. The level of obtrusiveness that the ready-to-hand can reach depends upon the strength of the assignment, or the urgency of our need. Something that is really necessary for the completion of some assignment becomes the most important thing in the world when it fails to function properly. Heidegger says of this frustrating experience, that its unreadiness to hand is then encountered most authentically. (so next time you are running late for an really important appointment and the car won't start, you can at least ruminate on the fact that you are appreciating the unreadiness-to-hand of equipment in its most authentic aspect!)
Pure presence-at-hand announces itself in broken equipment, but this is not necessarily a permanent state either. For presence at hand can withdraw into readiness-to-hand again simply by the act of repairing the equipment.
Other ways of encountering unreadiness-to-hand
The unready-to-hand can also be encountered as something which 'stands in the way' of our concern, but which is not broken, missing nor unusable. For example we may be perfectly happy with our cheap stereo until we hear our favourite piece of music played on a really good system. Then our cheap stereo becomes unready-to-hand because we will always feel we are missing out on something when we listen that particular piece of music on our system in future. In this context, the obstacle to progress has the potential of allowing us to glimpse the present-at-hand emerging out of what we hitherto considered ready-to-hand. Anything which is unready-to-hand in this way is disturbing to us, and enables us to see the obstinacy of that with which we must concern ourselves in the first instance before we do anything else.
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A 'Worldly' Obstruction
Modes of consciousness, obtrusiveness, and obstinacy all have the function of bringing to the fore the characteristic of presence-at-hand in what is ready-to-hand. Allowing us to see both in this way also allows us to understand how the way we frame entities is different in each case, thus we are viewing equipment from a worldly perspective
But the ready-to-hand is not thereby just observed and stared at as something present-at-hand - even when it is unready-to-hand, a piece of equipment does not veil itself in the guise of a mere thing.
The point Heidegger is making here is that the distinction present-at-hand and ready-to-hand is subtle. For example we do not habitually see a hammer as an assignment, or as part of an wider equipment structure which aims to fulfil a certain 'towards which.' In our common sense understanding, we see a hammer as a mere thing - a particular species of those things we call 'tools'. The novelty of Heidegger's argument is that he allows us to see the hammer in a new way - in terms of what it does. In doing so, he allows us to see the tool as resources. However, as Heidegger has warned us, it is very easy to get stuck in a kind of binary thinking where we start of to pair off entities into colums of opposite, depending upon whether they are present-at-hand or ready-to-hand. This kind of logical thinking misses the point entirely.
A Broken Tool Reveals the World
Now we must qualify that thinking by asking how far does the ready-to-hand, thus encountered under modifications in which its presence-at-hand is revealed, clarify the phenomenon of the world?
In conspicuousness, obtrusiveness, and obstinacy, that which is ready-to-hand loses its readiness-to-hand in a certain way. However readiness-to-hand still shows itself, and it is precisely here that the worldly character of the ready-to-hand shows itself too.
So firstly the unreadiness to hand allows us to appreciate (albeit negatively) that entities within the world are not things, and secondly (in a more positive sense) it grants us a way into thinking about the world as a phenomenon.
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We already know that the structure of the Being of the ready-to-hand is determined by references or assignments and we understand that this is a way of understanding a general readiness-to-hand, although not thematically yet. Nevertheless, when equipment cannot be used, what is revealed is that the equipmentality of equipment is not in its thingness, but in what it is used for. Thus the object which we call a hammer is merely a means to an end (the assignment), and this is revealed because when a hammer is not 'to hand' we will make use of another object to serve as a hammer. Heidegger makes use of this truism about equipment by reversing it. For when something is unusable for the assignment it was designated for, only then does that assignment becomes visible to us. When the tool is broken the assignments themselves are not so much observed; they are simply 'there.'
Similarly, when something ready-to-hand is found missing, though its everyday presence may have hitherto been taken it for granted, the absence makes a break in those referential contexts which circumspection discovers and we see for the first time what the missing article was always ready-to-hand for. For example, when your car breaks down, you suddenly realise the huge distances involved in making your journey. Furthermore you realise that a car is, in fact, a device that collapses distance (and space and time also), so that you now realise that the assignment for which the car was created, is shrinking the world.
Formulating a Thematic Understanding
Even now, of course, the theme of our inquiry has not become explicit as an ontological structure. In the above example of the car we have merely intimated an ontological understanding of a world made smaller by the car. But the notion of the unready-to-hand has made it explicit ontically, in the sense of revealing the circumspection which comes up against a broken or badly performing tool.
When an assignment to some particular "towards-this" has been thus circumspectively aroused, we catch sight of the "towards-this" itself, and along with it everything
connected with the work-the whole 'workshop'-as that wherein concern always dwells [ref. ¶15, page 98]. The context of equipment is lit up, not as something never seen before, but rather it is lit up as a totality constantly sighted beforehand in circumspection.
And in this totality the world announces itself.
What is thus lit up is not itself just one thing ready-to-hand among others; still less is it something present-at-hand upon which equipment ready-to-hand is somehow founded: it is in the 'there' before anyone has observed or ascertained it, but it is itself inaccessible to circumspection. Because circumspection is always directed towards entities.
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The previous paragraphs showed how our pre-ontological understanding of the world forms, because the worldly character of the ready to hand is already disclosed for in taking up any object as something ready-to-hand. In fact this is the very "pre-ontological understanding" that Heidegger referred to somewhat enigmatically in the introduction of Being and Time [¶4, page 32]. Note also that 'disclose' and 'disclosedness' are be used as technical terms here to signify the concept of 'laying open.' Heidegger uses the term disclosed to get away from the idea that these facts are obtained indirectly by inference - for this is not an operation of cognising but of perceiving [see phenomenological method, ref. ¶ 7, page 49 - 51].
That the world does not 'consist' merely of the ready-to-hand shows itself in the fact that whenever the world is lit up in the modes of concern where ready-to-hand becomes present-at-hand.
If we still have not appreciated how the world is lit up for us by considering a broken tool, remember that Heidegger defined the term worldly and worldhood, not as a new way of seeing, but as a way of seeing simultaneously different things in the same object. Worldly allows us to view something through the ontical frame as a entity in the world, and also through the ontological frame as an entity whose being is intimately interconnected with other entities because of Dasein's concernful dealings with the world. Now the task here is to realise that the presence of the world as a phenomenon--which was hitherto either considered to be a spiritual aspect or simply dismissed as not being there at all [ref. ¶14, page 91]--is in fact an expression of Dasein's concernful dealings with entities. Therefore the world as a phenomenon is both formed in Dasein's concern and the world is also the basis on which that concern is
grounded. This almost paradoxical sounding statement in fact defines Dasein's pre-ontological understanding of the world. In the light of this understanding, we can see that the world is truly "there," but that it is only disclosed as being there when we disrupt the habitual mode of circumspection in which Dasein sees entities only as 'things.'
Summing up
The world has already been disclosed beforehand whenever what is ready-to-hand within-the-world is accessible for circumspective concern. In the example of the car, the world was already 'big,' in our pre-ontological understanding, in order that it could be made smaller by the car.
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But moreover, the world is therefore something 'wherein' Dasein as an entity already was, and if in any manner it explicitly comes away from anything, it can never do more than come back to the world.
This pre-ontological understanding can now be explained with reference to equipment and resource structures and assignment (namely that which is ready-to-hand). The ready-to-hand constitutes the ontological character of tools and forms a tension with that which we call present-at-hand. By holding both sides of this tension in view (in other worlds by seeing the worldly character of things) we will be able to disclose the phenomenon of the world.
In such privative expressions as "inconspicuousness", "unobtrusiveness", and "non-obstinacy", what we have in view is a positive phenomenal character of the Being of that which is proximally ready-to-hand. With these negative prefixes in mind we have a view of the character of the ready-to-hand as "holding itself in."
To flesh this out a little more, imagine a thirsty man in a desert who encounters a sealed container made of some unbreakable transparent material containing a generous amount of water. The man is thirsty and he can see the water, but he cannot drink. He tries to break the container, but every strategy he thinks of ends in failure. The situation is hopeless and in his despair, the man reflects upon all the times in his life when he had access to water and he drank and bathed so freely that he took the existence of water for granted and never stopped to consider how essential it was for his survival. Thus it only when the man
is deprived of water, in a situation where water is literally 'holding itself in,' that he can discern the true worldly character of water.
Being-In-The-World - As I Understand It Thusfar
Question: 'Where does Dasein's concern for the world come from?'
Answer: 'From its Being-in-the-world.'
Question: 'Where does Dasein's Being-in-the-world come from?'
Answer: 'From Dasein's concern for the world
Any concern is already as it is, because of some familiarity with the world. In this familiarity Dasein can lose itself in what it encounters within-the-world and be fascinated with it.
Question: What do we understand by the term Being-in-the-world?
Being-in-the-world (as we have understood it up to now) amounts to a non-thematic circumspective absorption in references or assignments constitutive for the readiness-to-hand of a totality of equipment.
Heidegger calls his analysis so far "non thematic," because at the moment it has not been generalised into a principle or set of principles we can apply thematically (generally) - here the metaphor of a theme is employed as something which allows us to guess where the work is heading. The is most overtly apparent in music where the central theme of a composition sets the tone, for instance by being played in the minor or major key or in a fast or slow tempo.
In this section Heidegger has disclosed the worldly aspect of the world. In the next will be able to describe with more precision what exactly this world is that Dasein is so familiar with?
¶ 17. Reference and Signs
Heidegger demonstrated, by provisionally interpreting the structure of Being which belongs to equipment ready-to-hand, how the phenomena of assignments became visible.
In the last section this visibility was only sketched out. Now Heidegger sets about uncovering it properly with regard to its ontological origin.
Every entity that Dasein takes up as ready-to-hand is bound to the interconnectedness of resource, equipment and assignment structures which lie behind that entity. Heidegger's analysis has revealed that the assignments and referential totalities of equipment have no neat point of terminus. He articulate two implications of this theory:
1/ Entities like hammers and radios and cars which are ready-to-hand cannot be described as merely 'pieces of equipment' (for this particularised description is more suited to entities present-at-hand)
2/ The structures that lie behind that which is ready-to-hand become constitutive of the world itself. For example Heidegger talked about hammering involving nails and wood that in turn references metal and trees and ores in the ground, etc., etc. so that the act itself discloses the world.
Heidegger says of the inter-relationship of the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand that it constitutes an entities worldly character - that is to say they are two paradigmatically opposed way of looking at entities. The ready to hand is usually hidden from view, we regard entities simply as 'things.' However, the present-at-hand is starkly revealed in the ready-to-hand when a piece of equipment is broken. In the last section, Heidegger showed how consideration of the unreadiness-to-hand, or a broken tool, led to consideration of its worldly character.
Discerning an entity's worldly character is the act of superimposing one viewpoint (ontological) over another (ontical). This is something we normally do without thinking about it when we are faced with a broken tool. A problem with the broken tool as a method for revealing an entity's worldly character is it manifests as an obstruction; blocking the assignment that piece of equipment was to fulfil. The tool's worldly character takes the form of an obstacle.
Our purpose now is to find a way of grasping the phenomenon of the assignment more precisely. To do this we shall do a phenomenological analysis of a particular kind of equipment whose ordinary job is communicating a sense beyond itself, an article of equipment that specialises in 'referring.'
A Sign
This piece of equipment is a sign. Now it is true that we don't often think of signs as a pieces of equipment. The word "sign" designates many kinds of things: and ontologically speaking, Being-a-sign-for can
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be formalised as a 'universal kind of relation' and this is how the sign-structure itself provides us with an ontological clue for 'characterising' a relationship between any entities whatsoever. For it is this function of signs as 'equipment-for-referring.'
Referring
If we were asked to think of a sign as a piece of equipment, common-sense may in the first instance define it as equipment whose job is to indicate something - and we may find examples of such signs in signposts, road markings and hoardings. Indicating is indeed a concept that can be defined loosely as a 'kind of referring.' But lets now attempt to define referring as generally as possible. We may start by saying that referring is a kind of relating - the terms may even be were synonymous. But here Heidegger warns us that referring as a kind of relation should not be taken as a genus for other kinds or 'species' of references. In other worlds, a sign should not become differentiated into categories such as sign, symbol, expression, or signification, because to make such categorical distinctions implies that the sign is different in each case.
This, says Heidegger, is not the case. He argues forcefully that the equipmentality of the sign, when defined formerly is in every case merely a system of referring and nothing more. In phenomenology, the entities to which a sign refers are not important (when considering the function of a sign as a piece of equipment), they certainly do not change the ontology of the sign itself. This is because all signs are systems of referring, in essence. In a phenomenological analysis, a sign-relation may be read off directly from any kind of context whatever its subject-matter. Heidegger does not deny that sign have other functions and meanings in other domain, but he asserts that within the phenomenological domain, this is the only form sign structure can take, and, moreover, because they have this form they can reveal the worldhood of the world.
Signs a equipment for referencing
By treating signs as formal systems of relating, the general character of relation is brought to light. (Note: general and formal are synonymous terms in philosophy)
However, we are not to characterise these referrals as relations, because to do so would suggest a symmetry between the two terms, which is not the case: every reference may be a relation, but not every relation is a reference. (For example, in written language the world "apple" serves as an adequate reference for the entity " ," despite the fact that the world and the entity are totally unrelated in terms of their Being). Indeed Heidegger claims there is an argument that all signs when considered as relations have their ontological source in a reference because of the sign's general character.
Among signs there are symptoms, warning signals, signs of things that have happened already, signs to mark something, signs by which things are recognised. All of these examples have different ways of indicating, and this is true regardless of what may be serving as such a sign. Heidegger cautions us that if we start to interpret signs by departing from the concept that they are references, we will find ourselves unable to investigate the full multiplicity of possible signs.
Signs of referral
A simple sign of this type is the indicator light on a car. Actually in Heidegger's day, it wasn't a light but an adjustable red arrow, whose position indicated which way the car was going to turn (Heidegger was writing in the 1920s!)
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Anyway, the important thing to realise is that the arrow is a sign of referral. The position of the arrow is controlled by the driver, but it is not exclusively for his benefit since pedestrians and other drivers also make use of the car's indicator signal as well, by stopping at a curb or giving way to the car etc.
Here we must notice that this 'referring' as indicating does not constitute the ontological structure of the sign as equipment. Instead, 'referring' as indicating is grounded in the Being-structure of equipment in-serviceability-for 'x', where 'x' indicates the assignment of the equipment.
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Now we must bear in mind that the above formula states in the most abstract terms what the ontological function of a sign of indication is, and consequentially it does not tell us very much. So to flesh this out a little we need first to answer two questions.
1/ what is this 'x' that the Being structure of equipment is serviceable for; what does it indicate? And
2/ what do we mean then when we say that a sign "indicates?
We can answer these questions only by determining what kind of 'dealings' are appropriate when faced with equipment for indicating. And we must do this in such a way that the readiness-to-hand of that equipment can be genuinely grasped.
Ok so what does the indicating sign do ontologically? We can say that the equipment-in-serviceability-for 'x' of indicating is to modify the behaviour of other road uses with respect to the car which is doing the indicating. The sign is not just there for itself as a way of telling others that the car is about to turn, its purpose by indicating the driver of the car's intentions is to instigate some change of behaviour in other road users, based on a commonly understood scenario of the consequences of the
car's turning. In this particular case a pedestrian sees that a car is indicating to turn into the side road she is about to cross, and modifies her own behaviour by stopping for the car. Therefore the 'x' of this sign is in fact a kind of behaving (Being) which corresponds to the sign we encounter, which is manifested either in the pedestrian 'giving way' or 'standing still,' as these are the 'instruction' which the car with the indicator is signifying.
Ontologically, giving way as taking a direction, belongs essentially to Dasein's Being-in-the-world, because Dasein in the world is always somehow directed and on its way; (standing and waiting are only limiting cases of this directional 'on-its-way'). Thus the sign of indication addresses itself to a Being-in-the-world which is specifically 'spatial'. Notice that the sign of indication is not authentically 'grasped' if we just stare at it; we have enact the scenario indicated by the sign by actually changing the directedness of our Being at that moment.
Because it is equipmental, Such a sign also addresses itself to our circumspection of our concernful dealings with the world. And it does this in such a way that it brings to the forefront of our thoughts an explicit surveying of the aroundness the environment. This circumspective survey does not grasp the ready-to-hand as such; what it achieves is rather an orientation within our environment (the car is going left, I must stop here at the curb in order to let it pass). Notice that the aroundness of the world is only an implicit component of our everyday dealings with cars indicating and yet regarding the referentiality of the sign brings this to the forefront of the analysis. Phenomenologically, we can see how the word's spatiality is disclosed by the sign of indication. Signs of indication allow for context to become accessible in such a way that our concernful dealings take on an orientation and hold it secure.
Signs of reference will be the way that we will uncover the worldly character of entities within the world, and thus reveal the world as a phenomenon.
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[* note: the page reference flips back to 109 here because I think it clarifies Heidegger's argument to focus on signs of referral before comparing them with other equipment]
The inadequacy of equipment per se as a sign
Heidegger has focussed on signs of reference because he asserts not all equipment necessarily signifies. An entity may have serviceability without becoming a sign. For example take the 'hammer' which Heidegger spoke of at length in the previous sections. We can say that a hammer is constituted by a serviceability, but this fact does not make it a sign. The difference between the reference of serviceability in the case of the hammer and the reference of serviceability in a sign of referral is that in the former this serviceability only becomes visible in a rough and ready fashion. On the other hand, the car indicator arrow allows us to see the reference precisely because it is a piece of equipment whose job is to bring this relationship into focus.
A sign of referring, by allowing us to see what it references, allows us to grasp the world in a way that is more amenable to ontological interpretation. Indicating as a 'reference' is only one way in which the "towards-which" of a serviceability becomes ontically concrete; not all equipment can serve as suitable signs to explore the phenomena of the world ontologically. So while in the previous section the example of hammering was useful because it shed light so clearly on the phenomena of the ready-to-hand, It must be jettisoned now, because a hammer is not a formal sign of referring and it would actually obscure the shifting viewpoints between that which is present-at and that which is ready-to hand, which are necessary to distinguish if we are to disclose the worldhood of the world.
So why is a referral sign like indicating a better example? Precisely because, like a broken tool, it allows us to glimpse what is both ready to hand and present at hand in phenomena (i.e., the wordly character of entities).
When considered as something purely present to hand a sign is found to be somewhat wanting. As Heidegger says we do not encounter a sign of indication "if we just stare at it and identify it as an indicator-Thing which occurs" although that is what an indicator is of course when considered as an entity present-at-hand. We encounter a sign authentically when we also see the its significance i.e. we see that which is ready to hand which is referred to by the sign. Note that we still do not see this ready to hand ontologically in terms of Being-in-the-world, but rather we interpret it as a specific instruction. However if we unpack this instruction in terms of ontology, the world is nevertheless revealed as in the case of the car indicator referencing Dasein's "spatiality" and "aroundness." The sign of indication has evoked the world for us as a context for our actions and the actions of others.
Sign of relation are general and do not describe particular relations
While it is certain that indicating differs in principle from reference as a constitutive state of equipment (the hammer for example). It is just as incontestable that the sign in its turn is related in a peculiar and even distinctive way to the kind of Being which belongs to whatever equipmental totality may be ready-to-hand in the environment (its worldly character). While on the other hand indicating is easily shown to be related to aroundness, spatiality and directedness which are all aspects of the world as a phenomenon.
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In our concernful dealings, equipment for indicating gets used in a very special way. But simply to establish this fact is ontologically insufficient. The basis and the meaning of
this special status must be clarified and that is what is achieved if we define signs of referral more precisely.
Defining signs of referral
The definition of a sign of indication is not one thing which stands for another thing in the relationship of indicating; it is rather an item of equipment which explicitly raises a totality of equipment into our circumspection so that together with it the worldly character of the ready-to-hand announces itself .
To take another example, a sign as a symptom of an illness announces what is coming, but not in the sense of something merely occurring. which comes in addition to what is already present-at-hand.
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but as an indication of something coming that we are ready for, precisely because we have attended to the sign's significance (conversely, if we had not paid attention to the sign, its significance would elude us as well and we would be unprepared). This relationship between signs and what they signify alerts us to the reciprocity between the worldly context in which actions take place (context defining actions) and the worldly consequences of actions (actions defining context).
Signs become established due to prior conventions. But these conventions only get established on the basis of our prior ontological understanding of the world, and this is in fact what the significance of the sign addresses.
On the other hand the assignment of the sign could be that which we "weren't ready for," if we had been attending to something else. In which case in the example of the car indicator it means that the inattentive pedestrian gets squashed!
In signs of something that has happened already, what has come to pass and run its course becomes circumspectively accessible. A sign to mark something indicates a state of being, literally "where one is at," at any particular time. Heidegger argues that signs of referral indicate three things primarily:
'Wherein' one lives, Where one's concern dwells, And what sort of involvement there is with something.
The peculiar character of signs as equipment becomes especially clear in the circumstances when a sign is first established. For example a sign may be established because people local to a rural area notice that large animals such as deer have a habit or bolting across a newly build busy road. This is not to say that a sign is
necessarily established immediately. Say, for instance, this observation is not acted upon until a car driver is badly injured or killed in a collision with a deer. So, much in the spirit of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, it is then decided to put up a sign to warn other drivers of the danger. This sign consists of a red triangle (the convention for a warning signal) with an image of a running deer inside. However the sign is not there to announce a fact--a deer will bolt across the road here. Rather, the sign explicitly refers to the drivers circumspection dealings with the world, because it depicts, in symbolic shorthand, a possible incident that a diver may encounter in that particular area at that particular time. Thus the sign councils the driver to 'take care,' specifically be being aware of the aroundness of the world, in the sense of keeping and eye open for bolting deer.
But even when signs are thus conspicuous ' one does not let them be present-at-hand at random. It is importance to realise that context is crucial for signs (another reason why they are so revealing of the world)
Signs depend upon context and, thus, upon the existence of the world. If the deer road sign is stolen and ends up as a trophy in someone's bedroom, one does not look under the bed to check for the presence of running deer.
Signs always get 'set up' in a definite way with a view towards easy accessibility. The Being of what is most closely ready-to-hand within- the-world possesses, the character of holding-itself-in and not emerging, [¶ 16, p106] and this is precisely why the sign is employed, in a manner of speaking to us that enables that which is holding itself in to free itself.
This is the importance of the sign of referral, because its job is to reveal that which is most primordially ready to hand. Thus the warning sign of the deer is not announcing itself as a red triangle with a drawing of a deer inside, but alerting us to a real world danger. So that when we see the sign, we immediately look around us - (thus reading through the present and hand and letting the ready to hand be seen).
One does not necessarily have to produce the sign that significes the ready-to-hand. Signs arise when one takes some naturally occurring thing to be a sign. For instance, the south wind is taken by the farmer to be a sign of rain. In this mode, signs "get established" in a sense which is even more primordial.
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In fact it is only by the kind of circumspection with which one takes account of things in farming, that the south wind is discovered in its Being. This incidentally is another example of how nature is discovered in the ready-to-hand - ref. [ref. ¶15, page100]
And yet we might argue, that signs cannot truly reveal what is yet to be, because that which gets taken up as a sign must first be accessible in itself, and must therefore become apprehended before the sign can be established. Heidegger answers, certainly a sign must be established in some way so that we can come across it. But the question remains as to how entities are discovered in this previous encountering, whether as mere Things which occur, or as equipment which has not been understood-as something ready-to-hand yet. It is a fact that the origins of things is kept veiled from the purview of circumspection. In some cases the existence of entities is discovered by merely revealing what has hitherto been invisible in our circumspection (a paradigm shift). A sign does not have to miraculously appear to tell of things which are yet to happen. Even though, on a very literal level, that is precisely what a sign appears to do (for example the running deer sign foretells an unfortunate incident with a car and a running deer which can be assumed to be a possibility otherwise why would the sign be there?). We are not astonished by prophetic qualities of a sign, because we know that a sign can only alert us to possibilities that others are already fully aware of.
The Being-ready-to-hand of signs in our everyday dealings, and the conspicuousness which belongs to signs and which may be produced for various purposes and in various ways, do not merely serve to document the inconspicuousness constitutive for what is most closely ready-to-hand; the sign itself gets its conspicuousness from the inconspicuousness of the equipmental totality, which is ready-to-hand and 'obvious' in its everydayness.
The sign of the running dear gets its meaning from the context of the busy road (the world in other words). The context allows the sign to signify beyond itself and foretell of a possible dangerous scenario in order to warn drivers. (A sign of a running deer out of context, say, in a bedroom, or at a discotheque would be incongruous and surreal, precisely because of the lack of worldly applicability for the sign in those places).
A sign which references context explicitly (albeit without precision) is the knot which one ties in a handkerchief I as a sign to mark something is another example. What such a sign is to indicate is always something with which one has to concern oneself in one's everyday circumspection. Such a sign can indicate many things, and things of the most various kinds. The wider the extent to which it can indicate, the narrower its intelligibility and its usefulness - it can even become inaccessible. In this instance, the knot does not
lose its sign-character, but it acquires the disturbing obtrusiveness of something most closely ready-to-hand. Hence the frustrating experience of tying a knot in a handkerchief and not remembering what the knot is for
(113)
This interpretation of the sign should merely provide phenomenal support for our characterisation of references or assignments. The relation between sign and reference is threefold.
1. Indicating, as a way whereby the "towards-which" of a serviceability can become concrete, because it is founded upon an equipment-structure and an assignment.
2. The indicating that the sign does is an equipmental character of something ready-to-hand, and as such it belongs to a totality of equipment, and to a context of assignments or references.
3. The sign is not only ready-to-hand with other equipment, but in its readiness-to-hand the environment becomes in each case explicitly accessible for circumspection.
(114)
Heidegger's onto-ontological definition of a sign
A sign is something ontically ready-to-hand, which functions both as this definite equipment and as something indicative of the ontological Structure of readiness-to-hand, of referential totalities, and of worldhood.
This definition underscores the special status of the sign as something ready-to-hand in the particular environment with which we happen to Be. In that it discloses our circumspective concern for the world at that moment. However, the assignment itself cannot be conceived as a sign of this. Reference is not an ontical characteristic of something ready-to-hand, rather it is that by which readiness-to-hand is itself disclosed. References and assignment therefore cannot be signs if they are to serve ontologically as the foundation upon which signs are based. Hence a hammer cannot serve as a sign of reference.
Two questions for the next section
So in what sense, then, can a reference be 'presupposed' ontologically in the ready-to-hand? And to what extent is it an ontological foundation of a sign and at the same time constitutive for worldhood in general? These will be answered in the next section.
Two Criticisms
Magic, Fetishism and 'Primitive Dasein'
On page 112 and 113, Heidegger indulges in what today would be regarded as very politically incorrect speculation about the sign use of 'primitive Dasein' in magic and ritual.
One might be tempted to cite the abundant use of 'signs' in primitive Dasein, as in fetishism and magic, to illustrate the remarkable role which they play in everyday concern for and understanding of the world (B&T, p 112).
Heidegger argues, in this case the establishment of signs which underlies this way of using them is not performed with any theoretical speculation. And so this way of using signs always remains completely within a Being-in-the-world which is 'immediate'. But on closer inspection it becomes plain that to interpret fetishism and magic by taking our clue from the idea of signs in general, is not enough to enable us to grasp the kind of 'Being-ready-to-hand' which belongs to entities encountered in the primitive world (B&T, p 112-113).
The first reason is that primitive man regards a sign as a substitute for the thing it signifies, "for primitive man, the sign coincides with that which is indicated." Thus a voodoo doll is the person, it signifies, rather than being abstracted from its referent and its function does not deviate from this.
The second reason is bound to the first. Primitive Dasein lacks the power of abstracting the sign away from its signify and thus also lacks the power to objectify things. Therefore what Heidegger calls the "coinciding of the sign" is completely embedded in the immediate apprehension of the world, rather than a reflexive understanding.
This "coinciding" consists in the fact that the sign has not as yet become free from that of which it is a sign. Such a use of signs is still absorbed completely in Being-towards what is indicated, so that a sign as such cannot detach itself at all. Thus the coinciding is based not on a prior Objectification but on the fact that such Objectification is completely lacking.
The point Heidegger is making is that signs do not signify for primitive Dasein in the same way as they do for civilised Dasein. Heidegger says that a sign's portability derives from the fact that it can be applied mutatis mutandis to multiple situations. Civilised Dasein can make a sign portable because it has the ability to abstract and isolate certain aspects of a sign to apply them in various contexts. For example the sign of the sun can stand for heat or brightness (qualities of the sun), roundness (its shape)
and yellowness (its colour). All of these metaphorical abstractions can in turn be applied to other things and serve as points of departure for new ways of thinking about the world. However, Heidegger claims that for primitive Dasein signs only signify in a very concrete way: referring only to a particular thing, and consequently having no portability. No evidence is cited to back up this claim, which cannot be derived from direct access to the phenomena, since, to my knowledge, Heidegger never visited any primitive societies. Therefore these remarks seem to be grounded on the phenomenon of Heidegger's prejudice towards 'primitive Dasein'.
On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
PART 1
The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
Horizon of the Question of Being
DIVISION III:
The Worldhood of the World
CONTENTS
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 7"
III. The Worldhood of the World
18. Involvement and Significance; the Worldhood of the World
For the contents of other sections see the main index
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments are welcome. Please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
January - February 2007
(page 114)
DIVISION III
THE WORLDHOOD OF THE WORLD (Section 18)
¶18. Involvement and Significance; the Worldhood of the World
Since the ready-to-hand is encountered within-the-world, Heidegger argues that its Being must stands in some ontological relationship towards the world and towards 'worldhood.'
In anything ready-to-hand the world is always 'there'. In this sense the world is in fact that which the ready-to-hand is ready-to-hand for.
In our pre-ontological understanding, we can say that the phenomenon of the world already manifests as that which the ready-to-hand is ready-to-hand for - The world is discovered through a patterning of relations: The wood is a forest of
timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind 'in the sails' [¶15, page 100]. The 'environment' is therefore discovered through a kind of regression of 'ready-to-hands' forming a discernible pattern or perhaps a kind of structure. However, if this is the case, then this kind of understanding is what Heidegger calls "non-thematic", because the form of this patterning or structure is so nebulous and undefined that as yet that we cannot say anything precise about it. And for that reason we cannot yet define it so as to make any predictions from it.
Assignment and Reference
In terms of equipment, Heidegger has indicated that the state in which the ready-to-hand is constituted is one of an 'assignment.' However, in terms of a signs, it is a 'reference.'
A reference, (defined as the 'towards which of a serviceability') pertains to that which is usually called a sign's significance; whereas an assignment, (defined as the 'for which of a usability) pertains to the significance of equipment, i.e. the 'goal for which the equipment is employed. It should be noted that when talking about an assignment, the word 'significance' is not actually very descriptive of what is taking place, since equipment only discloses its significance in a rough and ready fashion [ref. ¶17, page 109].
I want to emphasize the distinction between reference and assignment because in the following paragraphs Heidegger tends to concentrate on boundary cases where the distinction is not clear. Consequently, its possible for the reader's conception of 'assignment/usability' and 'reference/serviceability' to get rather muddled. In order to avoid any potential confusion, here is a quick mnemonic for you:
Equipment = assignment = the 'for which of a usability'.
Sign = reference = the 'towards which of a serviceability'.
Assignments and References are not properties
The "for-which" of a usability (pertaining to equipment) and the "towards-which" of a serviceability (pertaining to signs) are ways in which assignments or references can become analytically concrete. But they should not be understood as properties of equipment or signs (since that implies that entities have a 'thingly' character). The ontological patterns upon which the ready-to-hand of things are grounded are not
themselves things. Rather they way that the ready-to-hand should be regarded is as a way in which certain aspects of the world have been realised so that they come to the attention of Dasein's concernful understanding.
This, in a nutshell, is how Heidegger conceives that we arrive at our notion of objects, although the conception is still vague and unthematic at this point. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that the ready to hand only become a thing when it has been 'given its freedom' by being taken up and used by Dasein. Incidentally, this observation also pertains (negatively) to such privative expressions as "inconspicuousness", "unobtrusiveness", and "non-obstinacy," where the (un)ready to hand is not free and therefore has the character of holding itself in [ref. ¶16, page 107].
The above passage can be illuminated in the following way. Imagine watching a scene in a movie where a toddler picks up a loaded gun. You may feel some suspense, precisely because you know what the toddler does not know - namely that the gun deadly weapon. In Heideggarian language the gun readiness to hand is holding itself in, thus from the point of view of the child, it appears to be inconspicuous - a mystery object. During the course of her investigation, the toddler points the gun at her head and pulls the trigger. The suspense becomes unbearable at that moment, but luckily nothing happens. The gun is jammed. Again, the obstinacy of the broken tool is completely lost on the child. The unreadiness to hand of the gun is not free and consequently the 'holding-itself-in' of the gun is not even noticed. In sum, the child has no idea what the gun is, because she has no ideas what the gun is for.
Harkening back to the "What is Being?" question asked at the very beginning of Being in Time [ref. ¶2, page 26], when a young child points at an entity and says "What's that?" she is really asking a question about the purpose of an entity (in essence the question is "what's that for?"). And the answer, although it results only in the naming of an object, is meaningful because it names the purposes of the object. The purpose of an object is in fact the very readiness-to-hand which gives an object its worldly context. Names are signs through which an a purpose is initially objectified. On the other hand, Names are signs which cover up purposes. This double aspect of is part of the equipmentality of naming as a phenomenon. A name makes an object graspable in its being by holding in its purpose, yet paradoxically the concealing of purpose is the very thing that frees the
object. The unfortunate consequence of this freeing is that at the same time an imprisoning, because the name stands guard in front of the purpose.
Now we are armed with an understanding of the reciprocity of naming, we can see the name and the purpose and thus we can see why and how the present-at-hand is also that which is also (inconspicuously) ready-to-hand.
(115)
While it is true that these certain aspects of assignment and references designate the definite characters that 'Things' can possess, the caveat is that they possess these only after they have been freed by being ready-to-hand.
Thus, paradoxically, the use to which equipment is put has ontological priority over its 'thingness' (substance). Which means that if we were to ask which came first? The answer would be, not the 'thing' that was lying around waiting to be used, but the use lying around waiting to waiting to be named.
But what this implies is that the ready-to-hand must be grounded on that which is, so to speak, already ready-to-hand.
The ready-to-hand is not a fixed quality which can be applied to things, for a rock may just as easily become a hammer and, for its part, a hammer may in some context be just the perfect thing for keeping a troublesome sash window open, and thus a 'hammer' becomes ready-to-hand as a window prop.
Anything ready-to-hand is, at the worst, appropriate for some purposes and inappropriate for others; and its 'properties' are, as it were, still bound up in these ways in which it is appropriate or inappropriate.' Thus the assignment or reference defines the entity, and not the other way around.
ServiceabilityIn the case of a sign, serviceability takes the form of a reference.
In signs the significance is obvious. In the road sign warning of running deer, you have the problem, which is the significance, then you need to think of a way of representing that in a way that is comprehensible to other car drivers.
However, this is not to say that equipment signifies nothing, whereas in fact a 'serviceability for' is also just as much a constitutive state for a piece of equipment as it is a sign. In fact it is the condition which makes it possible for the character of a 'piece of equipment' to be defined by its appropriateness for a certain task.
In the case of equipment, significance is the idea that some job needs to be done and then you need a tool for doing the job.
Appropriateness for the task and 'context,' therefore, apply both to signs and to equipment. Although they are never constituted by the signs and pieces of equipment themselves.
In the case of signs, to prioritise the sign over context would be particularly absurd, analogous to putting up a sign to warn of an incident that had not yet happened. The appropriateness for the sign as a piece of equipment is the context in which it is used. In other words, both a tool and a sign's significance is realised and the job of the tool or the sign. In this way, the existence of signs is another proof that the world as a phenomenon must already exist in our pre-ontological understanding, for if it were otherwise, there would be no significance and nothing could be taken up and used as a sign.
Involvement
An entity is only 'discovered' as ready-to-hand when it has been assigned or referred to something else and in this way it can be said to have an involvement with something.
Heidegger introduces the term involvement to answer the question what, is the wider meaning of the terms "references" or "assignments."
And that meaning is that such involvements describe a structure of meaning that I alluded to at the beginning of this section as "a patterning". Heidegger defines this patterning as an involvement.
To say that the Being of the ready-to-hand has the structure of assignment or reference means that it has in itself the character of having been assigned or referred to something (thus there is a regression of assignments). The way this works in practice is that an entity is only 'discovered' as ready-to-hand when it has been assigned or referred and this then is its involvement. Therefore:
With any such entity there is an involvement which it has in something else, which comes prior to Dasein's apprehension of the assignment the entity is destined to fulfil.
An example of these involvements was given on by Heidegger when he talked about equipment structures:
the equipment of hammering is not merely a hammer, but an nail, piece of wood, workbench, lighting, furniture, windows, doors, room. However, we do not usually consider this totality of equipment, even though the task of the particular piece of equipment under consideration could not be performed without it. Thus, we can say that there is always a hidden aspect of equipmentality, which is the totality of equipment that never shows itself [ref. ¶15, page 97]
Characterising these structures as involvements emphasises that the ready to hand is not a mere isolated form, but anchored in a structure of ready-to-handedness, so to speak. These structures stretch back much further and go down much deeper than we might at first be aware. Thus we con conclude that any newly discovered ready to hand is not grounded on 'things present at hand,' but rather on involvements.
The character of Being which belongs to the ready-to-hand manifests as just such an involvement. If something has an involvement, this implies letting it be involved in something. The relationship of the 'in' in that last sentence is what has hitherto been indicated by the term "assignment" or "reference". But from now on Heidegger says, he will define assignment and reference more formally to mean "an involvement in something, or an involvement within something."
(116)
When an entity within-the-world has already been proximally freed for its Being by its taking up as ready-to-hand, that Being is its involvement. In other words an involvement is the kind of Being anything ready to hand has.
There is always some kind of involvement when any entity is taken as an entity. And the fact that it has such an involvement is ontologically definitive for the Being of such an entity. Therefore, when we talk about the kinds of involvement an entity has, we are not speaking ontically but ontologically.
This is very important. The structural understanding we obtain through naming and using, and using and naming is both an 'involvement in' and an 'involvement within' an entity. The reciprocity of the 'in' and 'within' reveals the Being of the entity - its phenomenological meaning.
Use is in fact what constitutes the ontological understanding of any object. Ask not just what it is, but also what it is for.
The way an entity is involved is the "towards which" of serviceability, (assignment) and the "for-which" of usability (reference). However, with the "towards-which" of serviceability there can again be an involvement. For example, there is an involvement in a thing, which is ready-to-hand, and which we accordingly call a "hammer", there is also an involvement within hammering, which is an ontological convept. Perhaps that there is a need to make something fast? Within that involvement is Dasein concern about protection against bad weather; and this protection 'is' for the sake of providing shelter for Dasein-that is to say, for the sake of a possibility of Dasein's Being.
again we have an example from Heidegger of the wider significance of hammering, which is revealed in involvement and which reaches back ultimately to the Being of Dasein's Being-in-the-world.
This pattern of an involvement, premised on a prior involvement, which is in turn premised on a yet more prior involvement, and so on right back to Dasein's involvement with the world, is a clue to the ontological understanding of the world because, whenever something ready-to-hand has an involvement with it, what involvement this is, has in each case been outlined in advance, in terms of the totality of such involvements. In a workshop, for example, the totality of involvements which is constitutive for the ready-to-hand in its readiness-to-hand, is 'earlier' than any single item of equipment; so too for the farmstead with all its utensils and outlying lands.
It may be objected that there are instances where the workshop is built long after the tools have been acquired. But in this instance we have to understand that it wasn't the case that there was no workshop before a dedicated one was built. But rather that any place, is designated a 'working area,' can be called a workshop. So any corner in a house or garden shed where the work gets done serves as 'the workshop'. Workshop is just as mutable a concept as a hammer in this respect. The equipmental context of equipment is always in place before the possibility for the other involvements are disclose as dedicated individual 'pieces' of equipment.
This hitherto strange context for understanding equipment is made clearer when we examine the case of signs. For after all it is the job of signs to make concrete these obscure significances that revealed in equipment only in a rough and ready fashion.
If a warning sign is put up, say, because of the likelihood of wild animals bolting across a busy road, there must exist in the first place the danger of that incident happening.
For if it were otherwise, it would seem an absurd act to put up a warning sign. Furthermore, it would be equally absurd to see a warning sign warning of wild animals at busy urban crossing, or in a discotheque, butcher's shop, theatre foyer. Context is primarily important for the particular significance of signs. However even before the particular context discloses itself, that is to say, before an animal has bolted across a road, there must first be in place a prior general context, that of danger. If we did not understand danger, no warning sign would make sense in any context. The concept of danger is derived from Dasein's Being in the world. From this experience Dasein obtains the knowledge that the world can be a dangerous place and therefore Dasein must be wary of the world in certain situations. Thus the general context of danger determines the specific context where there is a danger.
Context then always determines the significance of signs, and the particular context in which a sign functions is itself made comprehensible by a more general context. And we can extend that idea, for even a general context is only made comprehensible by an even more general context, and so on and so forth, right back to the origin of context itself...
The origin of context
But if we extend the analysis back yet further we can say that the totality of involvements itself goes back ultimately to a "towards-which" in which there is no further involvement: this "towards-which" is not an entity with the kind of Being that belongs to what is ready-to-hand within a world; it is rather an entity whose Being is defined as Being-in-the-world, and to whose state of Being, worldhood itself belongs.
Dasein in other words...
This primary "towards-which" is not just another "towards-this" as something in which an involvement is possible. The primary 'towards-which' is a "for-the-sake-of-which". But the 'for-the-sake-of' always pertains to the Being of Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is essentially an issue.
(117)
Thus 'the world' and Being-in-the-world are ontologically related because they ultimately originate with the Being of Dasein and its concern with the world.
Heidegger has now articulated the interconnections by which the structure of an involvement leads to Dasein's very Being as the sole authentic "for-the-sake-of-which." However before this can be clarified further he must first explicate the relationship of involvement that permits us taking up an entity as ready-to-hand.
Letting something be involved
For the structure of involvements to be clarified enough to give us access to the phenomenon of worldhood must actually let something be involved. This also grant worldhood the kind of definiteness which makes it possible to formulate any problems about it. The purpose of letting something be involved is methodological, it allows us to discover the world as a phenomenon. One lets something be involved by thinking about all the involvements that prompt us to consider this "something" as a non thing. That is to say not present-at-hand but ready-to-hand, and in the process recognising this ready to hand is grounded on other ready-to-hands (the structure of involvements that constitute the phenomenon of world).
letting-something-be-involved is the condition for the possibility of encountering anything ready-to-hand‚" and ‚"Letting an entity be involved, if we understand this ontologically, consists in previously freeing it for its readiness-to-hand within the environment
Letting something be involved is premised on two notions, firstly that entities do not become 'things' until they are taken up and used (they have to be freed for a purpose by being taken up as something ready-to-hand). It is only then that our awareness of them obtains a level of concreteness, to warrant the label 'thing,' Secondly, there is the contradictory assertion that things are not simple created in the ready-to-hand (as if from nothing), because there must be some purpose "there" in the first place (that exists as a potential to be freed).
The normal way we are taught to think about objects is that they are determined by other objects (materials) - someone took metal metal ore, quarried from the earth, smelted to make iron, and wood, cut from trees, that they fashioned together to create the hammer. But Heidegger maintings that hammering came before the hammer, which in turn came from Daseins need to fashion the world into shelter, into weapons, which in turn came out of Dasein's concern for shelter and security, which in turn came out of Dasein's concern for its Being. Hammering, first realised in rock and bone only became a hammer later - a tool that was realised in metal and wood much later still.
This then is the ontological way to think about how the thingness of things comes about. The present at hand always concerns things; things that are not Dasein and are therefore worldless [ref. ¶ 12, page 81 - 81]. The very existence of object is premised on a structures of relations of assignments and references (involvements). The first hammer was probably a rock, but that rock was not a nothing before it was taken up and used as a hammer for it already had involvements of its own. In fact, to be uninvolved is the same things as saying that something is non existent. Involvements are what initially give a thing its meaning. The names we give to things are arbitrary and quite superfluous, ontologically speaking, they do not pertain to the meaning of an entity's Being. Although the names and substances seem important, it is only because they masks and are therefore mistaken for the importance of these involvement structures.
A formal definition of involvement
Letting something be involved signifies that, within our factical concern, we let something ready-to-hand be what ever it is already in order that it be such.
This phase emphasises the importance of the structure over that of the thing. Heidegger deliberately does not want to flesh out the nodal points of this structure, the 'so and so' and 'in order that it be such' with examples. Because then our habit of regarding things and ontologically prior to their use will get the upper hand again. He is more interested in the connections between these points, which structure their arrangement.
When Heidegger denies objectivity and substance to the world, he is not questioning the existence of existence, but the assumption that existence is intrinsically related to things. This is what other philosophers would call the fallacy of reification. Descartes for instance can be criticised in this respect (as we shall find out later) because he invokes the concept of substance as the sine qua non of existence. The concept of substance implies that things are real and the relations between things are not.
Letting something be involved is how we Interpret the meaning of previously freeing of what is proximally ready-to-hand within-the-world. Heidegger observes that even though this is an ontical proposition, the way we take this ontical sense of 'letting be' is in principle, ontological.
When a 'thing' becomes something ready-to-hand there is an involvement with something else and you can trace those involvements back until you reach the fundamental 'in order to' of Dasein's existence. This is why the structure is ontological not ontical.
Previously letting something 'be' does not mean that we must first bring it into its Being and produce it; it means rather that the something which is already there in terms of its
Being must be freed in the ready-to-hand and discovered by our circumspectful concern. In other words we must let the entity which has this Being be encountered for what it is.
So here Heidegger acknowledges explicitly that entities are not called into being by the ready-to-hand, for that would be akin to the kind of divine fiat that God performs in Genesis "let their be light and there was light". Our notion of entities does not begin with 'the word,' but with our involvements within the world.
A Priori' Letting-Some Thing- Be-Involved.
The freeing of an entities Being through the ready-to-hand Heidegger call an 'a priori' letting-some thing- be-involved. This 'a priori' [from the Latin for 'before'] is the condition for the possibility of encountering anything ready-to-hand, so that Dasein, in its ontical dealings with entities when thus encountered, can thereby let them be involved in the ontical sense. This is actually the logic that underpins the sense of differentiation behind the tautology that "things are things." For if we look deeper into this ontical statement we realise that things are only things if we are already aware of their existence, (in the sense that their existence is defined by our prior involvement with them).
On the other hand, when letting something be involved is understood ontologically, what is then pertinent is the freeing of everything which has the potential to be ready to hand in that something.
In other words there is a whole host of different ways an entity can be ready to hand. This is illustrated in Robert Pirsig's Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig describes the feeling of being stuck, in the context of trying to fix a motorcycle and reaching a stage where the problem gets the better of his understanding. Here Pirsig says of 'stuckness,' that it is not the objective qualities that are important, for when you are trying to mend something there is no objective 'you' and 'it.' To be immersed in a problem is in fact to lose all sense of differentiation between object and subject. When one experiences stuckness, what is of primary important to the solution of a problem is the care you take in solving it. Pirsig talks about the difficulties of trying to extract a screw whose head has broken off. He says to solve this problem you could try any number of strategies, solvents, drilling, or burning it out. You may even
"come up with some new way of extracting it that has never been thought of before and that beats all the rest and it patentable and makes you a millionaire five years from now. The solutions are all simple--after you have arrived at them. But there simply only when you know already what they are." (Pirsig 2000, page 287)
This illustrates that the ready to hand, is not fixed, nor is it bound to the object itself, but rather the solutions to the problem may be many and varied because they are located in involvement structures. And when the solutions is discovered it is the right solution, (even though it may be one of many) because it is premised on the structures of involvements that make up the world for us.
In this ontological context it does not matter whether and entity is involved or not, or if it is an entity that is not yet existent. (For ontically speaking to say that something does not exist is to say that it is not involved at all).Ontologically those entities are those with which we concern ourselves when we do not let them 'be' as we have discovered them, but that work upon them, make improvements in them, or smash them to pieces.
When we speak of having already let something be involved, so that it has been freed for that involvement, we are using a Perfect tense a priori which characterise the kind of Being belonging to Dasein itself.
As a reminder for those whose grammar is a little creaky, perfect tense formed by using the word ‘have’ plus the past participle of the verb. For example, ‘I have let something be involved,’ or ‘She has begun to understand Heidegger.’
'Letting an entity be involved,' if we understand this ontologically, consists in previously freeing it for its readiness-to-hand within the environment. (118) A 'thing' is never 'world-stuff ' that is merely some 'thing' present-at-hand. Our concern encounters it as ready-to-hand. Heidegger describes this as a relation: the extent that an entity shows itself to our concern, is the extent to which it is discovered in its Being. Therefore it is already something ready-to-hand for it to be considered a thing.
Discoverdness
Discoverdness is Heidegger's term for a possibility of Being which every entity without the character of Dasein may possess.
Discoverdness is really the hook on which this argument hangs. Discoveredness is a concept which we implicitly acknowledge the presence of an involvement in every act of creation or inspiration. This involvement is experienced as the feeling that our creations did not come sui generis from
out of our heads but from somewhere else entirely. Permit me to illustrate this with a personal example. For example I write songs for the pleasure and challenge of doing something creative. On occasions a song's birth is a long and arduous process. Although at other times, a song can be written in the time it takes to play. When this happens it is accompanied by a feeling of pure elation. This I liken to experiencing discovery in its most powerful form. For the dominant emotion attached to discovery is astonishment - "How did that happen?". The feeling of astonishment derives from the sense that it is not me who was in control of the process of giving birth to this song. Although I was notionally its author, the song came from somewhere else. The act of creation feels like the realising the existence of something which is already there. It may sound rather grand to say it, but I think the role of a songwriter is to help the song sing itself into existence.
The Ontological Priority of Involvements
If the Being of something ready-to-hand is to be discoverd, an involvement itself has to be discovered. And this occurs only on the basis of the prior discovery of a totality of involvements. So in any involvement that has been discovered what we have called the "worldly character" of the ready-to-hand, which has been discovered beforehand.
Therefore In this totality of involvements discovered beforehand, there lurks an ontological relationship to the world. In letting entities be involved so that they are freed for a totality of involvements, one must have disclosed already that for which they have been freed. And it is no surprise to discover what the primary 'for the sake of which' from which the structure of involvements emerge is Dasein's Being-in-the-world. Past, present and future belong to this Being. In terms of our existence then we can say that, 'Dasein,' 'Being' and 'the world' are all that ever were, or is, or will be.
But the world itself cannot itself be conceived as an entity with this discovered kind of Being. Because there always has to be a "for which" in order that something ready-to-hand can been freed. Since in terms of the world, there can be no further regress, no uncovering that which is before Dasein and the World. The world itself is therefore essentially not discoverable as an entity, since there is no assignment to free the world for the world in its Being.
Thus I presume that by the same prohibition Dasein is prevented from discovering itself, and so too is Being - except in the general, structural sense that Heidegger has outlined.
Dasein's Understanding of Being
But what does it mean to say that that for which entities within-the-world are proximally freed must have been previously disclosed? As Heidegger has already stated Dasein is that which has a reflexive understanding of its own being, thus: to Dasein's Being, an understanding of Being already belongs.
Any understanding has its Being in an act of understanding. If Being-in-the-world is a kind of Being which is essentially befitting to Dasein, then to understand Being-in-the-world belongs to the essential content of its understanding of Being.
The previous disclosure of that which we encounter within-the-world results in the subsequently freeing of an entity within the world. This amounts to nothing else than an understanding the world, towards which Dasein as an entity always comports itself. The horizon of understanding is therefore constituted by the understanding of Dasein and the world, and since there can be no further involvements beyond Dasein's Being-in-the-world, this is a horizon beyond which nothing can be said to exist.
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Intelligibility
Anything which serves as the basis for involvements, must be disclosed beforehand with a certain intelligibility. And it is only with a certain intelligibility of the primordial involvement that every other involvement is subsequently disclosed. Or to flip this around, intelligibility designates Dasein's awareness that every new involvement is grounded on a previous involvement and the ultimately all these involvements have to be grounded on something which is the primordial involvement. This involvement is the primary 'towards which' of Dasein's involvement with the world - the wherein in which (119) Dasein understands Being-in-the-world pre-ontologically?
The authenticity/inauthenticity of Dasein assigning itself
Being in the world as the primary 'in order to' clarifies why the authenticity or inautheticity of Dasein is the ground on which Dasein's Being stands, so to speak. In understanding a context of relations, Dasein assigns itself to an "in-order-to", and it does in terms of a potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which it itself is.
We all are aware, to a greater or lesser extent, of the strengths and limitations of our Being. This knowledge is what determines the kinds of choices we make in our lives. Code deontologies like the ten commandments are premised on
the fact that we have a choice. Although these ethical codes presuppose that the choice is essentially between right way and the wrong way - not a choice at all, in any meaningful sense. Heidegger also presupposes a binary distinction based on a choice between authenticity and inauthenticity. Dasein can chose itself and win itself, or conversely lose itself and never win itself, or perhaps only seem to do so [ref. ¶ 9, Page 68]. Of the choices presented here, seeming to live an authentic life collapses into inauthenticity, so the choices are really only two: living an authentic life or living an inauthentic one. Is this really a choice at all?
The wherein of Being = the phenomenon of the world
The "wherein" of Being is an act of understanding which assigns or refers itself to itself and lets entities be encountered in the kind of Being that belongs to involvements;
This is where Dasein itself becomes, as it were, the piece of equipment assigned to itself, for the job of realising itself in the nexus of involvements that is the world. The wherein of Being is where Dasein lets itself in the first instance Be involved. Here is where Dasein frees itself as an entity within the world.
The "wherein" of Being is Dasein's involvement with the phenomenon of the world. And the structure of that to which Dasein assigns itself is also what makes up the worldhood of the world.
The wherein of Being is therefore no just where Dasein frees itself but where Dasein frees the world also, since Dasein and the world are reciprocally involved with one another.
The Ontological Structure of The World
Now that he has further clarified the purpose of worldhood, Heidegger's task is to articulate the ontological structure of the world. His first move is to emphasis again that Dasein always assigns itself, "for-the-sake-of-which" a "with-which" of an involvement..
The worldhood of the world
The structure of that to which Dasein assigns itself is what is important here not the actual assignment. This structure is what makes up the worldhood of the world and it is something Dasein is always primordially familiar with. This familiarity with the world (structure) does not necessarily require that the relations which are constitutive for the world should be theoretically transparent. However, the possibility of giving these
relations an explicit ontologico-existential interpretation, is grounded in this familiarity with the world; and this familiarity, in turn, is constitutive for Dasein, because it constitutes the wherein of Dasein's understanding of Being.
In so far as Dasein has set itself the task of giving a primordial Interpretation for its own Being, it can be seized upon explicitly and this is how we will begin to make the possibilities of Being theoretically transparent, and indeed approach and understanding of the meaning of Being in general.
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Dasein's assigning of itself
But as yet our analyses have done no more than lay bare the horizon within which such things as 'the world' and 'worldhood' are to be sought. If we are to consider these further, we must clarify further how the context of Dasein's 'assigning-itself' is to be grasped ontologically.
Disclosedness
Heidegger first manoeuvre is to examine the act of discovery itself. The word discovery presupposes that no find is absolutely novel. For the absolutely novel lies outside of our understanding. Therefore discovery is linking one involvement with another. The act of discovery is also one of understanding. The understanding it that Dasein realises that the relations which are discovered when it lets something be involved must have been previously disclosed. This is the true meaning of discovery after all. In fact Heidegger says that any act of understanding is the purposeful grasping and holding of these involvement relations in their disclosedness. Disclosedness is Heideggarian term related to discovery, that underscores the fact that new knowledge is derived from discovery of new relations between involvements rather than things. Disclosedness therefore can be regarded as Dasein purposefully attempting to hold these relations before itself, in order to understand them. Through this action of disclosedness Dasein discovers how its various assignments operate in relation with one another. Disclosedness is therefore the understanding that lets Dasein make assignments both of these relationships and in them.
Signifying and Significance
The relational character which these relationships of assigning possess, is one of signifying. The existence of an involvement is like a sign, in that it can be used to point to the existence of other involvements. Once one understands the necessary inter-dependence of structures involvements, all one needs to do is look for them - this is letting something be involved.
But on a more primordial level, Dasein 'signifies' to itself giving to itself both its Being and its potentiality-for-Being. Dasein also signifies to itself an understanding with regard to its Being-in-the-world. The "for-the-sake-of-which" signifies an "in-order-to"; this in turn, a "towards-this"; the latter being an "in-which" of letting something be involved; and therefore also, the "with-which" of an involvement.
This sentence is so difficult to follow because there are no objects in it, and therefore nothing to orientate the reader and guide her interpretation. In fact this is because the objects are superfluous and potentially misguiding. Heidegger is more concerned that you notice the structure than get hung up about what these assignments actually are. All of the "towards which" and "for the sake of which" terms he is using undermine the potentially thingly character of the nodal points in these structure, while emphasising the structures of involvements themselves, as well outlining how they interconnect. These structures are the very structures of our Being. They represent the resolutions we make in the case of authentic Being, or avoid making in the case of inauthentic Being. And they determine our personal conduct in our life. Still it may be argued that this could be expressed a little more clearly. Which is quite true, but Heidegger has other reasons of keeping this deliberately vague which will be discussed in section B or this part. For now it will suffice to realise that this is important do not try to pick it apart too much yet. I think the best way to appreciate what Heidegger is talking about is firstly by thinking on what discovery means. For here is an instance where we implicitly acknowledge the existence of pre-existent structures. And secondly realising that these structures do not lie outside of us, but are in fact shaped by us as part of our very being.
Significance
These relationships are bound up with one another as a primordial totality; This system of relations, so to speak, between Dasein, Being and the world is what it is because Dasein, Being and the world are what they are. They can be discerned as a 'signifying,' in which Dasein gives itself beforehand its Being-in-the-world as something to be understood. The self evident proposition that "I exist" presupposes that I have existence in a world which also exists. For if it were otherwise it would be hard to discover what existence is (this is one of the problems with Descartes famous cogito ergo sum). For the statement "I exist" to mean anything, "I" and "the world" must already exist before the realisation can be thought - this is the relational totality of this signifying we call 'significance'.
Significance is what makes up the structure of the world-the structure of that wherein Dasein as such already is.
Dasein, and its familiarity with significance, is the ontical condition for the possibility of discovering anything that it encounters within the world in terms of involvement (In fact the discovery that I exist is the sin qua non of involvements. It is the primordial involvements that is the ground upon which all the others are built. And it is in this involvements that we discover the primordial ready-to-hand, that which Dasein itself is ready-to-hand for.
Dasein reflexively encounters itself in these involvements as the kind of Being that can make itself known to itself as it is in itself. Dasein, as such, is always something of this sort and a context of the ready-to-hand already having been discovered along with its Being,. Dasein, in so far as it is, has always submitted-' itself already to a 'world.'
If we flip this proposition around, we can also approach a definition of the phenomenon of the world. The world is that which Dasein has already encountered and submitted to and this act of submission' belongs essentially to its Being.
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Dasein's capacity to understand and interpret
But in the significance itself, with which Dasein is always familiar, there lurks the ontological condition which makes possible Dasein's ability to disclose such things as 'significations.' This ability, more properly these abilities for there are two, are Dasein's capacity to understand and interpret. For Dasein is after all separated from other beings because of its ability to understand and interpret. These abilities then are what sets the ontological condition for disclosure and the significance, thus disclosed, is an existential state of Dasein. That is to say, a state of its Being-in-the-world. As such it is also the ontical condition for the possibility that a totality of involvements can be discovered.
Significance comes before Language
Interestingly, Heidegger also adds that the Being of words and of language is also founded upon these abilities. This is a big claim, as it suggests the ability to understand and interpret significance comes before language. Which means that language makes no fundamental contribution to our understanding of significance itself and that therefore there is no reciprocity between the sign and its reference. However, I think it can be convincingly argued that this process is dialectical rather than a causal. If we take the example of a road sign warning of animals crossing [my
example ¶17, page 111] we can say that, while it is true signification needs to be experienced before a sign can be put up, It can also be argued that an understanding of the role of the sign itself (to signify this significance) it at least as important as an understanding of the significance itself.
Magical Thinking
Heidegger seems to refute this. He posits a simple determination: significance comes before sign. But I think the converse can just as convincingly be argued. In the case of magical thinking, for instance, this reciprocity between the sign and the significance was consciously exploited. The witch doctor or shaman would attempt to evoke the significance merely by producing the sign in rituals. Heidegger interestingly forestalled any legitimisation of this line of inquiry by disparaging the consideration of magic as being important (see his remarks on 'primitive Dasein' [ref. ¶16, page 112 - 113]). And yes, here we can argue that the realisation of significance must be in place before it can be reversed in the magical ritual. But I ask, what kind of significance is this. Is it a preconscious something that lacks a means of expression? Or is it and significance that can be articulated in language? Heidegger suggests it is the former. But is this unarticulated significance by itself powerful enough to determine the means of its articulation? Or does it need to be articulated in order to realise its own power? In other words does the power of significance not grow in being expressed in signs? Is this process then not dialectical?
Money
If the case of money is examined, I would argue that we can detect the remnants of this magical thinking in our own society. For the way we regard money has been subject to a dynamic change over time, which I argue is illustrative of the dynamic dialectical relationship between the sign and the significance contributing to the power of both in the history of our culture. In medieval times there was little or no money and it was made of precious metals like gold. Therefore money did not signify value since it was already valuable in itself. However, it was not until the twentieth century that the indexical relationship between gold lodged in the bank of England or in Fort Knox in the US, was dropped in favour of a completely symbolic relationship of
monetary exchange. And what better symbol could you have of this then the credit card? In conclusion I argue that money is an illusion and yet we treat money as if it were still made of gold. Therefore I pose this question, if the relationship between significance is a simple determination, and such a strong one that even language is formed out primordial significance. How is it that the relationship between the sign and the significance can be subject to such a dynamic changes and even reversals over time, as in the case with magical thinking and money?
A system of Relations?
In this last section, Heidegger has seemingly determined that
1/ the Being of the ready-to-hand is definable as a context of assignments or references (involvements),
2/ so that even worldhood may so be defined.
Does this not mean that there exists no 'substantial Being' of entities within- the-world, but instead that all this Being consists of it a system of Relations?
Does this not mean also that the Being of entities within-the-world has been dissolved into 'pure thinking'? Inasmuch as Relations are always thought of rather than perceived directly,
The answer to both these questions is no, but the explanation is complex. Remember in section 4 that Heidegger outlined four possible ways of perceiving the world:
1. World signifies the totality of things which can be present-at-hand within the world.
2. World signifies the Being of those things within the world.
3. World is the place where a factical Dasein 'lives. 4. World designates the ontologico-existential concept of
Worldhood [ref. ¶14, page 93].
Heidegger has developed these initial conceptions in the last few sections, but now he notes that, within the present field of his investigation, several ontological problematics have had to be kept analytically distinct:
1. the Being of those entities within-the-world which we proximally encounter as ready-to-hand;
2. the Being of those entities whose nature we can determine if we discover them in their own right by going through the entities that we proximally encounter as present-at-hand;
3. the Being of that ontical condition which makes it possible for entities within-the-world to be discovered at all. In other words, the worldhood of the world.
4. The worldhood of the world that gives us an existential way of determining the nature of Being-in-the-world, that is, of Dasein.
The third and fourth concepts are Existentialia, while the other two are categories, because they pertain to entities whose Being is not of the kind which Dasein possesses [ref. ¶ 9, page 71].
A system of Relations?
While it is true that the context of assignments or references, which, as significance, is constitutive for worldhood, can be taken formally in the sense of a system of Relations, Heidegger is reluctant to formalise this system too much. (Hence all the "for the sake of which" vague terminology in the preceding section). The problem with such formalisations Heidegger notes is that the phenomena get levelled off so much that their real phenomenal content may be lost. This is especially the case of such 'simple' relationships as those which lurk in significance. The phenomenal content of these 'Relations' and (122) 'Relata' the "in-order-to", the "for-the-sake-of", and the "with-which" of an involvement is such that they resist any sort of mathematical functionalisation despite the fact that they appear formal. However, these relations are not just formal and are not merely something created in an 'act of thinking.'
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Against the Mathematisation of Being
These systems of Relations (so called) are better described as relationships in which concernful-circumspection already dwells. While it is true that system of relations', are analytically constitutive for worldhood, they do not create the Being of the ready-to-hand within-the-world. Because it is actually worldhood itself that forms the basis on which such entities as systems of relations can be discovered. And they are not discovered notionally either, but as they are, 'substantially' 'in themselves'. Entities must have already encountered within-the-world, in order to make accessible what is present-at-hand.
The Substance Trap
These entities can have their 'properties' defined mathematically in 'functional concepts. But that does not mean that these concepts are constitutive of the entities themselves. Because, ontologically, such concepts are only possible in relation to entities whose Being has the character of pure substantiality. And this is a problem, because like language the very assumptions on which mathematics are grounded presuppose a Cartesian kind of ontology, involving substance, which is precisely the kind ontology that
Heidegger is seeking to overthrow. Functional concepts are not granted even the possibility of being anything more than insubstantial concepts. In order to explain why this is wrong, Heidegger must explain how Descartes himself got it wrong
Therefore To bring the specifically ontological problematic of worldhood more sharply into focus, Heidegger will pursue this analysis no further until he has explicated a critique of Descartes. He will do this in order to clarify his own Interpretation of worldhood (in the negative sense) by demolishing the opposition.
B. A Contrast between our Analysis of Worldhood and Descartes' Interpretation of the World
The concept of worldhood and the structures wherein that this phenomenon embraces can only secured if this investigation proceeds step by step. The reason the tradition of philosophy has continually failed to grasp the phenomena of the world successfully will now be examined in more detail.
Firstly we should note that, Descartes begins his Interpretation of the world by examining some entity within-the-world. However we should not that if this is done, then the phenomenon of the world in general no longer comes into view.
In order to critique this Heidegger will do two things.
1/ briefly outline the basic features of the Cartesian view.
2/ Compare it with his ontological understanding of worldhood.
In doing this Heidegger's aim is to disclose the undiscussed ontological 'foundations' of the Cartesian Interpretations of the world.
Descartes' extensio
Descartes basically sees the extensio (extension) as ontologically definitive of the world. Extension is the core constituent of Cartesian spatiality, it is the idea that a fixed point in space can be extended along X, Y, or Z axes to create a geometrical solid. This is then a fundamentally a mathematical view of space. Heidegger asks how can this abstract and mathematical theory be constitutive of the world?
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With regard to Descartes' ontology there are three topics which need to be examined:
1. The definition of the 'world' as res extensa (Section 19) 2. The foundations of this ontological definition (Section 20);
3. And a hermeneutical discussion of the Cartesian ontology of the 'world' (Section 21).
The latter point will not be properly appreciated until the 'cogito sum' has been phenomenologically demolished.
On Reading Being and Time:
An Explication and Commentary by Roderick Munday
PART 1
The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental
Horizon of the Question of Being
DIVISION III:
The Worldhood of the World
CONTENTS
In this document: "Explication and Commentary 8"
III. The Worldhood of the World
19. The Definition of the 'World' as res extensa
20. Foundations of the Ontological Definition of the World
21. Hermeneutical Discussion of the Cartesian Ontology of the World
This is an ongoing project, more content will appear here over the next few months.
For the contents of other sections see the main index
There is also an online glossary of terms referred to in this document.
Your comments are welcome. Please make them at my blog site Synthetic Knowledge
March 2007
(page 123)
DIVISION III
THE WORLDHOOD OF THE WORLD (Sections 19, 20 & 21)
¶ 19. The Definition of the 'World' as res extensa
Descartes distinguishes the 'ego cogito' from the 'res corporea' (the thinking 'I' from the unthinking, corporeal 'thing'). This distinction is the origin of his famous mind/brain dualism (see Descartes' Meditations VI). Heidegger claims also that this dualism is also
ontologically determinate for the distinction between 'Nature' and 'spirit'. But the problem with this dualism is that the poles of opposition are never properly defined.
Substance
Descartes defines the essence of such disparate entities as 'mind', 'brain', 'nature' and 'spirit' in terms of one thing - substance. Descartes says of substance that it alone constitutes the essentially being of all things. However Heidegger points out that Descartes actually seems to use the concept in two quite distinct ways. Sometimes it designates the Being of an entity, while on other occasions it designates the entity itself. That substance is used in two distinct ways is not accidental, Heidegger claims that Descartes borrows this understanding from the ancient Greek conception of Being . But he does not elaborate upon this yet.
What Heidegger is most interested in finding out at this point is what exactly Descartes mean by substance.
The Being of corporeal things
First of all let us omit consideration of mind and spirit for the time being and try to determine first the nature of the res corporea (the corporal thing) ontologically. In order to do this, we much explain what the substance of this 'thing' actually is, we must, as it were, examine the substantiality of substance. This prompts two important questions:
Two Questions
1/ What is it exactly that makes up this substance that Descartes considers to be the authentic Being of the corporeal thing?
2/ How is it possible to grasp the substantiality of a substance in any way except as an idea?
Answering the first question
To answer the first question we might say that substances are known by their qualities. For example, if I am asked "how a know something is a rock?" I might answer: "Because it is hard, cold, heavy and made of stone." Descartes, on the other hand, argues that these qualities are not the way we can genuinely discover what the essential being of a thing is, because qualities themselves can deceive us. There is a famous passage in the Meditationswhere Descartes talks about the mutable qualities of a piece of wax:
It is quite fresh, having been but recently taken from the beehive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it contained; it still retains somewhat of the odour of the flowers from which it was gathered; its colour, figure, size, are apparent (to the sight); it is hard, cold, easily handled; and sounds when struck upon with the finger. In finality, all that contributes to make a body as distinctly known as possible, is found in the one before us. But, while I am speaking, let it be placed near the fire--what remained of the taste exhales, the smell evaporates, the colour changes, its figure is destroyed, its size increases, it becomes liquid, it grows hot, it can hardly be handled, and, although struck upon, it emits no sound. Does the same wax still remain after this change? It must be admitted that it does remain; no one doubts it, or judges otherwise. What, then, was it I knew with so much distinctness in the piece of wax? Assuredly, it could be nothing of all that I observed by means of the senses, since all the things that fell under taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing are changed, and yet the same wax remains (Descartes, 1996 part II, §11)
Thus Descartes argues that the essential Being of wax must be found in something other than in its qualities
Extension
In fact it is found in something Descartes calls extension.
To extended substance we refer magnitude, or extension in length, breadth, and depth, figure, motion, situation, divisibility of parts themselves (Descartes 2003, Part I, §XLVIII)
According to Descartes, extension is the only attribute that makes up the real Being of any corporeal substance. "For everything else that can be ascribed to a corporeal thing presupposes extension"(Descartes 2003, LIII). For example in the case of wax, we must presume that wax has extension, in other words we must presuppose that it has specific dimensions in space and it must possess these dimensions for it to be considered a thing. For if it has no extension then it could not occupy and specific dimensions in space and would therefore be a ‘no thing’- inaccessible to perception. This is not to say
that the extension of wax might not appear to be mutable, because from Descartes description it is clear that this is the case - when it melts " its size increases" Descartes 2003, Part I, §XLVIII). However, no matter how mutable wax may appear, it must nevertheless possess some extension for it to exist at all. Therefore Descartes reasons that extension is the core attribute of Being.
Motion as extension
As we have seen, extension is conceived of in terms of space. But surely reality is actual because it exerts a force on us. Therefore it can be objected that things are real because of the force they exert of other things and not because of extension. Descartes answers no, it is a mistake to conceive of motion as being the result of one mass striking another, for motion is grasped only "if we think of nothing except the position of objects in space at any one time. Therefore we do not ask about the force by which objects are set in motion" (Descartes 2003, Part I, §LXV). In order for motion to be experienceable in its Being, it must be conceived in terms of the Being of a thing in itself, that is to say that motion must be conceived as mere change of location.
Motion... in the ordinary sense of the term, is nothing more than the action by which a body passes from one place to another (Descartes 2003, part II, § XXIV).
So nothing like 'force' counts for anything in Cartesian philosophy. Matter may have such definite characteristics as hardness ' weight, and colour; but these are merely sensory qualities and the can all be taken away from the thing and yet it still remains what it is because of extension.
An additional proof that motion has nothing to do with force can be inferred if we consider Descartes reasons for rejecting the quality of 'hardness' as constitutive of the authentic being of things. This discussion is found in part II of his Principles of Philosophy (1644), which Heidegger quotes from:
For with respect to hardness, we know nothing of it by sense farther than that the parts of hard bodies resist the motion of our hands on coming into contact with them; but if every time our hands moved towards any part, all the bodies in that place receded as quickly as our hands approached, we should never feel hardness; and yet we have no reason to believe that bodies which might thus recede would on this account lose that which makes them bodies. The nature of body does not, therefore, consist in hardness. In the same way, it may be shown that weight, colour, and all the other qualities of this sort, which are perceived in corporeal matter, may be taken from it, itself meanwhile remaining entire: it thus follows
that the nature of body depends on none of these (Descartes 2003, Part II, §IV).
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As Descartes has demonstrated, all the qualities an object has can be taken away from it and yet some essential aspect remains which is extension. And this reasoning can also be flipped around to state that extension in turn does not depends upon any qualities for its existence.
According to Descartes, the answer to question 1/ "What is it that makes up the authentic being of the corporeal thing?" is substance whose only real attribute is extension.
Is substance and idea?
Now let us consider question 2/. For if all sensory stimuli are rejected by Descartes as ways for us to gain access to the essential authentic Being of substance how then is substance to be characterised as anything other than an idea?
¶ 20. Foundations of the Ontological Definition of the 'World'
How is it possible to grasp the substantiality of a substance in any way except as an idea? For Descartes the answer to this question is simple. No. Of course substance is an idea, but in order to understand why something as insubstantial as an idea does not undermine the reality of substance we have to understand just what kind of an idea substance is.
What has to be born in mind here is that Descartes' primary aim in writing his Meditations On The First Philosophy was to furnish a rational proof of the existence of God, not to furnish one of the existence of substance.
I have always been of the opinion that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be determined by help of philosophy... I have, therefore, thought that it would not be unbecoming in me to inquire how and by what way, without going out of ourselves, God may be more easily and certainly known than
the things of the world (Descartes 1996, Dedication, I).
Descartes reasons if it can be proved that corporeal things, whose existence no one claims to doubt, are determined by intellectual rather than sensory properties, then it follows that the existence of God, which is not accessible to immediate perception and therefore also potentially subject to doubt, can be placed on a firmer rational footing. If the existence of everything can be predicated on the same idea—substance as extension—then the existence of God is also assured as the guarantor of this idea.
Now, as modern readers of perhaps a more secular persuasion, we may consider Descartes’ solution to be somewhat unsatisfactory. But let us put theological questions to one side for the moment, because it is important to examine Descartes’ claim, philosophically, within the frame of its own terms of reference. This will reveal if Descartes reasoning is entirely consistent in terms of its own axioms. For if we can prove that Descartes’ reasoning is not consistent, then his argument fails without the need to consider other arguments viz a viz the existence or non-existence of a Supreme Being.
This is the approach that Heidegger takes. He asks, if God exists, can His existence guarantee the reality of the idea of substance? Heidegger argues that the guarantee becomes problematic, precisely because of the symmetry Descartes' is setting up between Being of God and the Being of things in the real word. If everything in the universe consists essentially of substance and extension, this prompts awkward questions like, is the Creator made of the same substance as creation?
Here we begin to untangle quite a thorny theological argument. How is Descartes idea of extension, meant to apply to both the Creator and created?
Descartes in his pronouncements seems to be arguing that substantiality is also the idea of Being to which the ontological characterisation of the res extensa ultimately harks back - i.e. that is to say, the idea of God. On this point Descartes says:
Indeed we perceive that no other things exist without the help of God's concurrence... By substance we can understand nothing else than an entity which is in such a way that it needs no other entity in order to be (Descartes 2003, Part I, §LI).
In other words a substance is something that cannot exists without the help of God. But God is a different kind of substance who needs nothing else in order to create and sustain His Being. This nothing of God is more accurately describes as the "ens perfectissimum." . . . or perfect Being. For only God can satisfy this idea of substance in the authentic sense. Thus Descartes postulates his proof of the existence of God.
If Descartes claim is accepted as true, it seems to presume a radical conception of God, made of the same kind of substance as things in the real world. However, Descartes is quick to refute this interpretation of his theory, he points out that his notion 'God', should be understood in the purely ontological sense as the ens Perfectissimum (perfect being). Again Heidegger does not raise any objections to this, for he intends to examine Descartes ideas on their own terms. He asks instead what does Descartes mean ontologically speaking when he claim that the ens Perfectissimum needs nothing else to constitute its substantiality?
Descartes considers God to be the perfect substance because He is the creator and therefore creates Himself as well as everything else in the universe. All other entities apart from God need to be "produced" and moreover rely on God for their sustained existence. The whole of creation is dependent upon the Creator, while the Creator is dependent on nothing but Himself. Therefore, in the Cartesian sense, Being needs to be understood within a horizon which ranges from God is the ens Perfectissimum everything that is not God - the ens creatum.
The Being of the Creator and created cannot be the same thing
This is where Heidegger argues Descartes’ reasoning becomes problematic, for while he states that the idea of God guarantees the ides of substance he also states that the kind of Being which belongs to the ens creatum is 'infinitely' different from that which belongs to ens Perfectissimum:
the term substance does not apply to God and the creatures univocally... that is, no signification of this word can be distinctly understood which is common to God and them (Descartes 2003, Part I, §LI).
Descartes disclaimer is essentially a theological one not a philosophical one, but philosophically speaking, when he talks about the Being of God and the being of created things being different, Descartes is using "Being" in so wide a sense that its meaning embraces an 'infinite' difference, i.e. a difference so wide and undefined that it is in effect meaningless.
The human being
Now we add to this the special category of being which applies to the human being, what Descartes calls the res cogitans or thinking thing. All entities need to be produced and sustained (by the grace of God the Creator of course); but within the realm of created entities there is a special class of things
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These are human beings:
When I think that a stone is a substance, or a thing capable of existing of itself, and that I am likewise a substance, although I conceive that I am a thinking and non-extended thing, and that the stone, on the contrary, is extended and unconscious, there being thus the greatest diversity between the two concepts, yet these two ideas seem to have this in common that they both represent substances [Descartes 1996, part III, §21
Human beings are special because there are in fact two classes of substance found in them: res extensa (extended substance - common to everything else), and res cogitans (thinking substance - which is unique to humans and also the portal through which they perceive the idea of the existence of God the creator)
Descartes argues that any type of Being becomes ontologically definable in principle if we can clarify the meaning of Being which is 'common' to the three kinds of substances, that is to say:
1. (ens Perfectissimum infinite substance or God), 2. (ens creatum ) finite substance of corporeal things res extensa 3. (ens creatum ) finite substance of human minds res cogitans.
Being is not univocal
However how can this commonality be worked out when Descartes states at the same time that - "there can be no signification of this word which can be distinctly understood as being common to God and [to mortal things]… "the term substance does not apply to God and the creatures univocally, to adopt a term familiar in the schools" (Descartes 2003, Part I, §LI).
The term "schools" here refers to the schoolmen. The schoolmen were a group of medieval theological philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas (1224 - 1274) and Duns Scotus (1266 - 1308). Actually they were never an actual group of philosophers, more a convenient category to name individuals
working in monasteries which were geographically and temporally isolated from one another. Despite modern prejudices against medievalism as being synonymous with ‘the Dark Ages’, and thus not a time for great achievement in scholarship, C.S. Peirce claims the schoolmen were able scholars, whose pursuit and grasp of logic is perhaps unmatched in the whole of human history [ref. Peirce: CP 8.11).
Heidegger says of Descartes that when he says the relationship between God and creation is not univocal he touches upon a problem with which medieval ontology often busied itself — that is the signification of "Being" and how it can or cannot signify both God and created things. For instance in the simple assertions "God is" and "the world is", we assert Being. But is this the same Being? Surely not. And for the reason that Descartes has also outlined - The word "is", cannot apply to both Creator and created univocally, because there is an infinite difference of Being between them.
Heidegger claims that if the signification of "is" were univocal, then that which is "created" could be just as easily viewed as if it were 'uncreated', or vice versa that which was "uncreated" would be reduced to the status of something "created". In other words the reality of God and substance would be just and idea. But in the view of the schoolmen 'Being' did not function as just an idea for it was not a mere name, but rather it was understood in the positive sense as a signification 'by analogy' i.e. God and creation were compared by isolating and highlighting similar patterns at work in essentially different systems. Thus, the schoolmen always acknowledged that the Being of the creator was beyond human comprehension, however humankind could nevertheless conceive of it, by analogy as an idea of a human being perfected beyond any mortal measure.
Now Heidegger points out that there was no unity in the approach of the schoolmen themselves. In the middle ages many and various kinds of analogy were established, by different Schools and each of them had a different way of taking the signification-function of "Being". However one thread that did unifite them was the philosophy of Aristotle, whose philosophy they had all to a greater of lesser extent been influenced by. In Aristotelian philosophy the problem of immortal versus mortal substance was the Creator/creation dilemma in a protean form. This incidentally is why Heidegger says that Descartes dual use of substance not accidental, because it is derived from a tradition the which began with the ancient Greeks [ref. ¶19, page 123]
In working out the problem of Being, Heidegger claims that Descartes is always far behind the Schoolmen; indeed he actually evades the question of the impossibility of universal Being altogether when he says that. "No signification of this name[substance]
which would be common to God and his creation can be distinctly understood" (Descartes 2003, Part I, §LI).
This evasion is tantamount to his failing to discuss the meaning of Being, upon which the very notions of substance and extension are grounded. For Descartes it is enough that God guarantees of the reality substance. But this is Descartes the theologian talking, not Descartes the philosopher. Compare the two following quotations: one from the dedication of his Meditations has Descartes wearing his theologians cloak, in the other, from Part I of the same work, he is wearing the cloak of a philosopher:
Although it is quite true that the existence of God is to be believed since it is taught in the sacred Scriptures, and that the sacred Scriptures are to be believed because they come from God, nevertheless, this cannot be submitted to infidels, because they would consider it a circular argument (Descartes 1996, Dedication).
The knowledge we have of God renders it certain that he can effect all that of which we have a distinct idea: wherefore, since we have now, for example, the idea of an extended and corporeal substance, though we as yet do not know with certainty whether any such thing is really existent, nevertheless, merely because we have the idea of it, we may be assured that such may exist; and, if it really exists, that every part which we can determine by thought must be really distinct from the other parts of the same substance (Descartes 2003, part I §LX).
These quotations demonstrate that Descartes the philosopher never quite freed himself of the circular arguments Descartes the theologian vowed to eschew.
A summary of Heidegger’s critique of Descartes
The problem with Descartes’ claim that the idea of God guarantees the idea of substance is that there are actually two distinctly different ideas being expressed here. As Descartes states, for the idea of substance to be real, God must also be real. But if there is an "infinite difference" between the idea of God and the idea of creation, then it is hard to see how one can guarantee the other. Therefore, philosophically speaking, If "no signification that can be
distinctly understood," which is common to both Creator and created, how can the idea of God guarantee the idea of substance in any way other than as a leap of faith?
Being as a thing
Descartes not only evades the question of how his substance can be anything more than an idea, but he also emphasises explicitly that the existence of substance is self evident. That is to say in effect that a substance is substantiality in and for itself, and is therefore inaccessible from the outset. Yet substance cannot first be discovered merely by the fact that that it is a thing that exists, (128) for the existence of the thing itself does not affect us If the qualification of existence itself becomes thingness it is not surprising that 'Being' itself is not considered to be existent.
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This is why Kant said "Being is not a Real predicate" (Kant 1993, p410). He was merely repeating Descartes' principle. Thus the possibility of a pure problematic of Being gets renounced in principle time and time again both by Descartes and by those philosophers who have followed him.
But as Heidegger has shown, Descartes invented a duplicitous way for arriving at those definite characteristics of substance he claims are so constitutive of the being of entities. Because 'Being' is not in fact accessible as an entity through extension. And even Descartes concedes this point, by admitting that Being in the first instance expressed through its attributes:
Substance cannot be first discovered merely from its being a thing which exists independently, for existence by itself is not observed by us. We easily, however, discover substance itself from any attribute of it, by this common notion, that of nothing there are no attributes, properties, or qualities: for, from perceiving that some attribute is present, we infer that some existing thing or substance to which it may be attributed is also of necessity present (Descartes 2003, I, LII).
If qualities grant us initial access to the idea of substance as extension. What Descartes is saying is that we discover the idea of essential reality of substance through those very things he has been strenuously denying any reality to.
The Cartesian Paradox
Therein lies the paradox! Being is not expressed through its qualities but rather through those satisfying in the purest manner that meaning of "Being" and "substantiality", and yet these are things which have to be tacitly presupposed through an object’s qualities.
Descartes says that to all finite substance we must assign the primary aspect of extension. "Indeed we understand the Being of ourselves as partly res extensa, (extended substances - bodies) and partly res cogitans (thinking substances - minds)". However substance may be separable from things intellectually, but it certainly is not separable in reality. For if this were possible, we would first have to disregard the Being who thinks or is extended — in other words the Being of Dasein. For Descartes’ ontology is totally ‘object orientated,’ in that he ignores the role human beings play in actualising the world
Summary
The ontological grounds for Descartes defining the 'world' as res extensa have been made plain in this and the previous section. Therein lies the idea of substantiality, and the problem of Being, because in Cartesian philosophy, not only does the meaning of Being remain unclarified, but gets passed off as something incapable of clarification
Descartes way of defining substance is through some substantial entity. This is in fact why the term "substance" is used in two ways. Substance signifies substantiality; and gets understood in terms of a characteristic of being some thing which is itself an entity. There is an infinite kind of regress here. Any ontology which defines itself in the self-evident terms as a characteristic of that which it already is, cannot be said to stand on a stable footing. This is possibly why the infinite regress calls for the existence of an immutable substance in order to protect it from its own absurdity.
Heidegger argues the reason for this unstableness is because something ontical has been made to underlie the ontological. This means that the expression "substance" functions sometimes with a signification which is ontological, sometimes with one which is ontical, but' mostly with one which is hazily ontico-ontological.
Behind this seemingly slight difference of signification there lies a massive but hidden failure to master the problem of Being. Heidegger suggests that in order to treat this adequately, we must now track down and identify all of Descartes equivocations in the correct ontological way. Heidegger says we do not do this merely by busying ourselves with verbal significations'; but by "venturing forward into the most primordial problematic of the 'things themselves."
It puzzles Heidegger that this mere idea of substance has persisted for so long in Western philosophical thought. He reasons that since Descartes methods at arriving at the Being of substance have been refuted before there must be
some other reason for its persistence. And of course there are other reasons, which will also be discussed in the next section.
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¶21. Hermeneutical Discussion of the Cartesian Ontology of the 'World'
Before we discuss other reasons why Descartes’ theory of Being has persisted for so long we must consider two critical questions:
1/ Does the Cartesian ontology of the 'world' seek the phenomenon of the world at all,
2/ And, if the answer to question 1/ is "No", does the ontology of the 'world' at least define some entity within-the-world fully enough so that the worldly character of this entity can be made visible in it?
Heidegger forestalls any examination of these issues by stating that the answer to both questions is an emphatic "No". The reason why it is such a forceful "no", is because these are essentially Cartesian questions, that is to say predicated on an understanding of Being that is at bottom ontical not ontological. Descartes’ conception of Being is so foreign to Heidegger’s that it can not simply be laid out over his ontological understanding of the world, because the two philosophies have no point of contact. Now Heidegger sets about outlining the reasons why this is.
Heidegger ontological critique of Descartes
According to Heidegger, the entity which Descartes is trying to grasp ontologically and in principle, with his "extensio", is discoverable first of all by going through an entity within-the-world in terms of what we might call ‘proximally ready-to-hand-Nature.’ That is to say, by talking about Being of the world in terms of objects and nature, Descartes is trying to define that which has already been tacitly presupposed — namely that the world’s Being is therefore something to do with the nature and objects.
Heidegger in his own analysis of these issues has already pointed out, the reasons why it is not possible to gain access to the phenomenon of the world through the concepts of nature and objects. Nature is already within the world and is therefore determined by the world not determinative of it [ref. ¶14, page92]. And objects or things present-at-
hand are only realised through Dasein’s involvement with the world. Heidegger concludes by saying any ontological characterisation of an entity within-the-world using Descartes methods may lead us further into obscurity
However even if we forestall our objections to his methods, the problem still remains of the radical separation of God, the "I", and the 'world' in Descartes’ ontology which prevents the understanding of the Being of the world from getting formulated and further advanced.
Nevertheless, Heidegger reasons it might be possible that Descartes has somehow hit upon a correct characterisation of the phenomenon of the world, though his methods are flawed. Otherwise how is one to explain the fundamental role his ideas have played in the traditional of Western ontology as well as the extraordinary tenacity of his ideas?
Heidegger does not think the above statement is true but, in order to discount Descartes completely, he says we must do two things:
1/ The first we have done already. This is to demonstrate explicitly how Descartes' conception of the world is ontologically defective from within his own terms of reference.
2/ The second is to examine the reason Descartes interpretation of the world and the foundations on which it is based have led him to pass over both the phenomenon of the world and also the Being of those entities within-the-world which are proximally ready-to-hand.
This second point Heidegger will demonstrate by applying Descartes method to his own problematic of Being-in-the-world. Here he will focus particularly in how Descartes has attempted to grasp and interpret worldhood.
What kind of Being gives us access to the Cartesian Being-in-the-world?
In our exposition of the problem of worldhood [ref. ¶14], we suggested the importance of obtaining proper access to the phenomenon of the world. So in criticising Descartes’ point of departure, we must ask ourselves which kind of Being he advocates as giving us genuine access to the world? The answer is Descartes considers the authentic being of things to be found the idea of substance as extension, this it is an intellectual being that grants us access to these ideas. An intellectual being is also the one we derive knowledge of mathematics and physics from. And in this sense it is opposed to the sensory kind of Being who grants us knowledge of entities within the world in terms of their qualities.
The traditional hierarchy of ideas over the senses
Mathematical knowledge is regarded by Descartes as an assured way of knowing that the Being of entities has been securely grasped. This is because Mathematic knowledge itself is regarded as being a more precise and immutable kind of knowledge than sensory knowledge. Therefore, according to the logic that Descartes adheres to, it follows that if anything about Being can be expressed mathematically it is going to be a more authentic kind Being. The continues the traditional hierarchy of thought that ranked eternal immutable ideas above perishable contingent sensory information.
This tradition was established in ancient Greece, notably with Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle.
For instance, in the twelfth book of his Metaphysics, Aristotle identifies three types of substances:
1. sensible and perishable
2. sensible and eternal
3. non-sensible and eternal (immovable).
The first kind of substances designate plants, animals and everything in the world. The second kind designates the heavenly bodies, which move, but do so eternally. The third kind of substance is not perceivable at all by the senses but Aristotle reasons that it must exist because: "substances are primarily existing things, and if they are all destructible, all things are destructible" (Aristotle §12 part 6).
The mathematics of Being
But in addition to the existence of this tradition there is another more important reason why Descartes ontology has been so successful. This is because it allows us to grasp the world in terms of a definite mathematical equations. Substance is extended as a point on a graph can be extended, consequently it becomes possible to map the world mathematically through geometry. Which is something Descartes himself excelled at.
Analytical geometry is essentially a mathematical tool for practically every physical scientist, Descartes invented it. The essence of his discovery is the one-to-one correspondence between a plane curve and an equation involving coordinates in the plane. The equation holds at
every point of the curve and expresses its every property. A well defined curve implies the existence of a well defined equation, and, equally, as well defined equation implies the existence of a well defined curve (Massa 1996, 274).
The Cartesian coordinate system evolved from Descartes’ geometry of curves:
Fig 1 — Cartesian coordinate system
We start by drawing x and y coordinates vertical and horizontal lines that intersect at right angles. Their point of intersection is 0. The lines are marked off at regular intervals using a scale of ascending numbers. Numbers on the vertical axis lying above the horizontal are positive, those below are negative. Points on the horizontal to the right of the vertical are positive, those to the left are negative. Points in any of the four sectors established by the lines can now be located exactly by specifying their values on the x and y axes. Trajectories can be represented by equations: points in any four quadrants can be smoothly connected to form a line (Massa 1996, 277 - 278).
This coordinate system can also represent three dimensions by adding a z axis (Fig 2).
(fig 2)
Substance as extension is diagrammed in fig 2 as the extension of along x, y, and z axes of point P to form a square. As Benjamin Waters points out, Science on this basis can turn a 3-dimensional world into a bunch of numbers and abstract relations (Walters 2005).
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Why has Cartesian ontology persisted?
The answer to the answer to the question posed at the end of section 20. Why has Cartesian ontology persisted is because.
A/ It is rooted in a powerful tradition that promotes ideas above sensory perception and,
B/ It permits a mathematically description of the world according to a precise coordinate system invented by Descartes himself.
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The mathematisation of Being
With all this talk about mathematics it is worth remembering that Descartes prescribes for the world a 'real' Being. This was not a Being based on just an idea of Being. Descartes was very clear on that point. He claimed to have discovered the source of the real Being and to have demonstrated its existence. But it is important to understand that Descartes
Being is in fact just an idea. It is an idea which is merely equated with an actual presence-at-hand, rather than one which describes a philosophically proven connection. It is also important to understand that, while Descartes’ ontology of the world is not primarily determined by mathematics, mathematical knowledge, it is nevertheless exceptionally well suited to descibing Being conceived of in terms of extention, substance and the constantlt present-at-hand presupposed by them. Descartes reality is a simplified, abstracted reality that is idally suited to being expressed in mathematical equations. Descartes argument consequently becomes even more slippery, because he explicitly switches over from an ontology allegedly proving the reality of substance, to an ontology based on numbers and their transcendental foundations.
Sensation and intellect
One of the consequences of this switching is that the problem of how to get appropriate access to entities within-the-world is never raised. For one could argue that if one adopts the mathematical view of being, the solutions to the equations are their own kind of proof. And if the territory can be mapped so successfully using equations, what need is there to seek confirmation from the actual territory?
According to Cartesian ontology, you do not need to grasp the essential Being-in-the-world in and for itself, because it can be described mathematically. Although in this case the ontological basis for your equations has already been decided in advance. This is the whole problem that Heidegger is trying to highlight in Being and Time. For it is not that the problem of Being has been solved, nor that it is insolvable, but that the problem of Being has never been properly raised.
Beholding
The blame for this must lie first and foremost at the door of the ancient Greeks, specifically with their notion of 'beholding.' Beholding can be defined as all the ways that humans Beings grasp the world. Thus beholding takes everything in a very large spectrum between the first fleeting apprehension of sensory precepts to their intellectual synthesis in the form of ideas. However the Greeks judged the intellectual end of the spectrum to be more important that the sensory end because they considered ideas to be a fully developed form of beholding than the perceiving of sensations. Thus sense and sensation were relegated to a lower order of knowledge whilst the intellect and ideas were promoted to a higher one.
In this way, the kind of beholding that Descartes advocates can be regarded as well within tradition instigated by the ancient Greeks and therefore as a genuine kind of beholding. However Descartes knows very well that entities do not proximally show themselves in their real Being as ideas. For instance his meditation on wax, quoted
earlier, makes it clear that what is 'proximally' given is the qualities of the wax, not the idea of wax as extension. But in adhering closely to the Greek tradition of beholding Descartes says that:
It will be sufficient to remark that the perceptions of the senses are merely to be referred to this intimate union of the human body and mind, and that they usually make us aware of what, in external objects, may be useful or adverse to this union, but do not present to us these objects as they are in themselves (Descartes 2003, Part II, §III).
Thus the senses are not considered to be of any importance ontologically, because they " merely serve to announce the ways in which 'external' Things within-the-world are useful or harmful for human creatures encumbered with bodies"... And for that reason they cannot "teach us what kinds of things exist in themselves" (Descartes 2003, Part II, §III). This means, according to Descartes, that if we relied on the senses alone, we would be able to perceive the things as hard or heavy or coloured, but we would not be able to perceive, in general, the nature of the substance that possessed these qualities
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However, when Descartes applies his principles in practice, it becomes clear that he does not adhere to his own rules. For example, if we subject the interpretation of hardness and resistance to a critical analysis, it is plain that Descartes is unable to separate qualities and substance completely, except by a sort of philosophical slight of hand.
A further analysis of hardness
Unlike his analysis of movement, where force is exorcised completely, Descartes does equates hardness with resistance of a sort. But this resistance is not understood in the phenomenal sense, as something which is experienced in itself. For all Descartes definition of resistance amounts to is that an object does not undergo any change of location. Descartes explains resistance in the following way: imagine there are two objects, let’s call them ‘object 1’ and ‘object 2’. Descartes says that if object 1 resists, it means that it remains in a definite location relative to object 2. Object 2 is moving, but with a velocity that permits it to 'catch up' with object 1. Heidegger notes that in such an analysis, the nature of hardness cannot actually be determined. But rather, in order for it to make sense of it, one must have decided what hardness is in advance. Thus the nature hardness is actually presupposed before it is analysed. For only then can it be defined in a way that denies the kind of Being which is normally thought to belongs to hardness. Thus, sensory perception is obliterated even before the analysis commences. Which means that any possibility of grasping the genuine Being of entities is also obliterated.
The continually present-at-hand
Descartes takes the kind of Being which belongs to the perception of a given ‘something’, and translates it into the only kind Being he knows, the res extensa, or what
Heidegger now calls, ‘the continually present-at-hand’. The continually present at hand is what is being exemplified when Descartes talks about hardness. His perception of resistance as ‘Object 1’ reacting upon ‘Object 2’, becomes a definite way of conceiving of what Heidegger calls the Being-present-at-hand-side-by-side of entities rather than just their Being in an authentic sense. Object 1 and object 2 have already been characterised as a mode of extension, thus they have to be related to one another.
Now of course there is some truth to the contention that hardness and resistance are related to the being alongside of entities. This is a phenomenon that Heidegger has already spoken about [ref. ¶12, page 81]. While it is true that relative positionality must play some kind of role in the apprehension of the present-at-hand, because our knowledge of touch is itself grounded on a knowledge of the closeness of things. This does not mean that the ontological understanding of touching and the hardness therefore consists entirely in apprehending the different velocities of two corporeal things in respect to one another. Heidegger says that Descartes misses a crucial point here, which is that qualities such as hardness and resistance do not show themselves at all unless there is a Being like Dasein--or at least some other living entity present who can perceive them.
Object-orientated Being
This brings up another problem with Descartes' ontology. The fact that it is dominated by an idea of Being which has been gathered from the realm of entities themselves, rather than from the from realm of Dasein (who is after all the Being who actually does the perceiving and the thinking). Heidegger argues omitting Dasein from his analysis is how Descartes arrives at his characterisation of Being as the continuous present-at-hand. This has two major implications. It not only provides him with a motive for identifying all things within-the-world with the phenomena of worldhood in general. But it also allows him to omit consideration of Dasein and its ways of behaving.
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Why Being in the world cannot be reached by Cartesian ontology
However, by omitting Dasein, the way is blocked to seeing the founded character of all the sensory and intellectual awareness Descartes speaks of. This also prevents him from reaching any genuine understanding of the phenomenon of the world. Therefore we arrive at the reason why Being-in-the-world' lies quite outside of Descartes’ ontology, because he treats the Being of 'Dasein' in exactly the same way as he treats the Being of a ‘thing’ as res extensa, or substance.
Salvaging Descartes
Heidegger wants to make it clear, despite giving the impression that he rejects Descarte’s ontology completely. He does not. The Cartesian ontology must hae something to do with
the phenomenon of the world, for if it were otherwise, and Descartes did not know the phenomenon of the world, he would not even be able to identify the world with certain entities within-the-world in terms of the Being which they possess.
Deconstructing the orthodoxy of common sense
Heidegger notes that if there is ever any controversy over principles, one must do two things.
1/ be conscious of those precepts which can be grasped doxographically, that is to say according to the particular philosophical tradition one happen to be situated in.
2/ And once these precepts have been securely grasped, one should attempt to go beyond them.
Doxography [literally the study of common belief] can be defined as an uncovering of the arguments of past philosophers which now constitute our common sense understanding of the world, and therefore also our taken-for-granted beliefs. Even if we consider ourselves to be phenomenologists, according to the conditions laid down in Heidegger's doctrine [ref. ¶ 7, page 59], and we hold that the world is better described by Heidegger’s theory of Being than Descartes’ theory of Being, because it answers many of the questions left open by the latter. We must nevertheless concede that the place from, where we derive our ontological orientation, is also the position that Descartes was responsible for establishing. Therefore we owe him a debt, because it is from the objective tendency of his problematic that we take our departure. In the light of this, our opposition to Descartes is ironically part of the legacy of his success. As Descartes’ himself owes a dept of gratitude to the Schoolmen and the ancient Greeks, for he likewise carved his philosophical niche into the edifice of the tradition they had built.
However, Heidegger’s emphasises that this does not mean that we should be afraid of questioning those terms and going beyond them. But we should be under no illusions that there is anything radical about this questioning. For in order to take an unorthodox approach, one must at first become, as it were, very orthodox, because one must know where the boundaries of the territory lie in order to transgress them.
Descartes is not radical enough
In his doctrine of the res cogitans and the res extensa (See Meditations I and VI), Descartes claims to have solved the problem of the "I" and the "world" in a radical manner. But Heidegger argues, if anything, he has been not nearly radical enough. This is because he has not subjecting the ontological traditional of his own time to the positive criticism it deserved. By which Heidegger is talking about the philosophical prejudices of the ancient Greeks of which Descartes never really freed himself. For example Heidegger argues his failure to lay bare the primordial problematics of Dasein has as a consequence prevented him from appreciateing the phenomenon of the world. In addition to this, it is also the reason Descartes could compress this whole ontology of the 'world' into certain entities within-the-world.
However, although this is a horribly distorted view of worldhood, it is not true to say that it is no view at all. For Cartesian ontology does allow us to glimpse this phenomenon, albeit in a very partial and restricted way. In this sense perhaps we should congratulate Descartes for laying bare the basic ontological characterisation of the world. So Heidegger sets about trying to correct the distortions in Descartes’ ontology.
Nature
He takes his departure from the Cartesian conception of Nature as a way of accessing the phenomenon of the world. This is problematic for two reasons
1/ Nature itself contained within the phenomenon of the world
2/ And as such it stands in the way of both the problem of the world and the problem of Being, both of which remaining concealed in the Being of the things that one encounters within Nature.
Despite these objections, Heidegger thinks that worldhood can still be conceived in terms of the entity called Nature, by allocating to this entity the function of a container within which the Being of every other entity can be founded. In other words, Nature can be made to perform the same ‘container’ function as the world performed in Heidegger initial analysis of worldhood [ref. ¶12, page 80].
An argument for Nature as worldhood
As a container, Nature could be considered to be the grounding notion of worldhood. This argument would run as follows:
1/ The extended Thing Nature is make to serve as the ground for those definite characters which show themselves as qualities. For example the substance lead is found in nature. lead is soft and mutable, therefore a useful substance for moulding into movable type because it
can carry the impression of a letter and can be easily melted down and recycled once a print run is finished. (In this case, the soft quality of lead would have to be considered as a quantitative modification of its mode of the extension)
2/ Qualities, reduced in this way, would then provide the ground upon which such specific qualitative judgements as "beautiful", "ugly", "appropriate", or "not appropriate" could be based. By giving substances assignments disguised as what Heidegger is terming "specific qualitative judgements," we have started to consider substances as ready-to-hand.
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What this shows is that even if one is primarily oriented by Thinghood, it is still possible to salvage the notion of Being characterised as equipment ready-to-hand. However these qualities would have to be taken as non-quantifiable value-predicates applies in the first instance to the ‘material thing’. In this case the thing would merely get stamped as something "beautiful", "ugly", "appropriate", "not appropriate," etc, rather than being authentically ready-to-hand.
A rounding out of the Things of Nature
But what this demonstrates is, that with a bit of massaging, the Cartesian analysis of Nature can be a way to uncover what is proximally ready-to-hand, and moreover using Descartes system we are able to do this on a fairly secure footing.
Problems with the procedure
But nagging doubts emerge as to whether the Being of what we encounter proximally within-the-world can be reached ontologically by this procedure. The problem is, when we speak of material Thinghood, have we not also tacitly presupposed its Being as a constant presence-at-hand. Thus, rounding out ontologically the Being of things of nature, has the effect of just elevating the ontical characteristics of those things, creating an edifice that further obscures the true ontological characteristics of the Being of the world as a nexus of involvements of entities which are ready-to-hand.
Defence of the procedure — "Goods"
These problems can be addressed if we consider the Cartesian definition of "things" more in terms of how we would regards goods. As Heidegger has pointed out Descartes definition of things is always hazily ontico-ontological [ref. ¶20, page 127], while the definition of things as goods is already more ontologically distinct. Goods are things imbued with a purpose, and consequently a value. Thus, if one considers
things as goods, one is also considering the in-order-to of entities. Heidegger says that goods genuinely require assignments, and therefore an involvements structure.
So, while it is true that adding on value-predicates cannot tell us anything new about the Being of goods (For the reason that it merely presuppose that the goods have pure presence-at-hand as their kind of Being). Values could nevertheless be regarded as determinate characteristics a Thing can possess, and, although these too would be present-at-hand, rather than ready-to-hand, they would have their ultimate ontological source in the previously laying down the actuality of Things, that is to say in the nexus of involvements rather than in the continually-present-at-hand.
Our pre-phenomenological experience shows us that there is something which is not fully intelligible when an entity is regarded as a thing. Thus the Being of Things has to be rounded out pre-ontologically before it can become intelligible. This pre-ontological understanding can be summarised as follows - in order to know what things are we have to name them. In order to name them we have to differentiate them from the manifold of existence. If things themselves are unable to tell us what they are, how is this possible to do this? The only way it is possible is that we possess a pre-ontological understanding, based on the entity considers as a things of use (ready-to-hand) that allows us to distinguish entities.
But what, then does the Being of values or their 'validity' (which Lotze took as a mode of 'affirmation') really amount to ontologically? Lotze’s mode of affirmation characterised, as nothing more than linguistic propositions, those so called self evident truths that philosophers are wont to place so much emphasis on, such as Descartes contention that substance is extension. For Lotze, the function of linguistic propositions is to suggest a context in which the content of a given notion can be brought into relation with the content of another given notion. Thus Lotze rejects the Cartesian claim that reality is composed of simple unchangeable substances, because it is totally dependent on the notion of ‘relation,’ which is not an observable phenomenon. Moreover, Lotze like Heidegger pointed out that it is folly to characterise the Being of things as ‘relation,’ because this judgement already presupposes their existence. It therefore stands to reason that things must already Be, before they can exist in relation to one another, which means that Being cannot be predicated on a priori notions like substance or extension as Descartes claimed(Sullivan 2005).
Heidegger asks, what does the phrase "Things to be 'invested' with values" signify ontologically? For, pertaining to his own attempt to round out the Cartesian Thing of Nature, it seems a questionable exercise, as long as the matter of values remains obscure.
Reconstructing the Thing of use
The 'rounding-out' of the traditional ontology of the 'world' results in our reaching the same entities we uncovered when we analysed the readiness-to-hand of equipment and the totality of' involvements. So if we are to reconstruct this Thing of use, which supposedly comes to us in the first instance 'with its skin off', does not this always require that we have regarded previously the phenomenon of the world? For of it were otherwise, would we not be attempting to assemble our reconstruction without a plan?
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On could argue that, in the process of trying to round our the Being of entities, one has actually clarified their Being, or has at least has clarified it enough for it to become a problem. But what this underscores is that by taking the Cartesian extension of entities as their essentially Being, Descartes could not have reached the Being of substance. But in saying this, Heidegger wonders if he is also just as far from catching a glimpse of his aim? For is not the true being of the ready-to-hand lost when he takes refuge in 'value'-characteristics? Heidegger concedes that it is hard to see how this reverse engineering of Descartes could ever become an genuine ontological theme for his inquiry.
Conclusion
Descartes dubious legacy was that he narrowed down the question of the world to that of Things of Nature, or in Heidegger’s terminology - entities within-the-world which are proximally accessible. He also confirmed the opinion of the Ancients, particularly the neo Platonists, that to know an entity (in supposedly a rigorous ontical manner) is the only possible way one can gain access to the primary Being of that entity. But in order to do this, Heidegger argues that we must at the same time have a pre-ontological insight about the nature of its Being, perform and operation Heidegger calls the 'roundings-out' of the Thing-ontology, in order to grasp its Being in terms of knowledge and ideas. But Heidegger wonders, in doing this are we not operating on the same dogmatic basis as Descartes himself?
The problem is, that Descartes failure to consider the world and those entities which we proximally encounter within in is not accidental. It is not an oversight which is simple to correct, but something which is grounded in a kind of Being which belongs essentially to Dasein itself. If we compare this ontology to the analytic of Dasein that Heidegger has been outlining in Being and Time, we can see that Heidegger main aim has been to uncover those main structures of Dasein, which are of the most importance in the framework of this problematic. Heidegger aims to assign to the concept of Being in general the horizon within which its intelligibility becomes possible, so that readiness-to-
hand and presence-at-hand also become primordially intelligible ontologically. When he has done this he hopes, for the first time, we can critique the Cartesian ontology of the world. An ontology which Heidegger reminds us is, in principle, still the one that dominates our thinking today. He are not able to express this critique fully yet, although he is able to indicate what form it is likely to take. In part 1 division 3 of Being and Time, Heidegger will:
1. Show why was the phenomenon of the world was passed over at the beginning of the ontological tradition.
2. Show why this passing-over has kept constantly recurring. 3. Show why entities within-the-world have intervened time and time again as the
ontological theme blocking access to the phenomenon of the world itself 4. Explain why are these entities always tend to be found in the first instance in
'Nature' 5. Finally explain why it seems necessary to round out such an ontology of the world
On the first point Heidegger refers to Parmenides explicitly. Parmenides was a Greek philosopher and poet, born circa BCE. 510. He argued that the phenomenal world is a delusion and that perception is actually the result of thoughts directed to the pure essence of being (anonymous 2006).
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In sections 19 to 21 of this part we have subjected Descartes’ ontology to positive criticism we are now able to do three things:
1. For the first time reach a positive understanding of the problematic of the world. 2. Recognise the sources of our failure to do this before. 3. Demonstrate why we should therefore reject traditional ontology if we wish to
understand the world
There are three ontologically constitutive states which are closest to us:
The world Dasein Entities within-the-world
We have no guarantee that we will be able to uncover the Being of these as phenomena if we take our departure from common sense and start by considering the Things of the
world, still less by taking our orientation from what is supposedly the most rigorous knowledge of entities. Our critique of Descartes should have clarified this.
Extension and spatiality
But Heidegger will rescue the Cartesian analysis of the 'world' using the notion of Spatiality. Spatiality is manifestly one of the constituents of entities within-the-world. Heidegger has criticised Descartes for not being radical enough in his ontology, but in one respect he was extremely radical, in suggesting that extension is the essential characteristic of the Being of corporeal things. In doing this Descartes prepared the way for Kant’s a priori understanding of space. As we have already intimated, there is some phenomenal justification for regarding extension as a basic characteristic of the 'world', even if by doing this we cannot conceived of anything in a manner than is ontologically adequate. But within certain limits the problems with the notion of extension can be separated from Descartes neglecting to provide an explicit interpretation for the Being of extended entities.
C. The Aroundness of the Environment' and Dasein's Spatiality
Insideness
In our first preliminary sketch of the ‘Being-in’ [ref. ¶12, page], we contrasted Dasein’s Being with a way of Being in space which we called "insideness". This expression means that an entity which is itself extended is enclosed by the extended boundaries of another entity that is also likewise extended.
Spatiality can therefore be defined as both the enclosed entity inside and the entity outsider which encloses both Being present-at-hand in space. However, if the first entity is Dasein, how can the concept of spatiality be applied? For Heidegger has told us often enough that Dasein is not a thing and therefore should not be considered to be present-at-hand? Even if we deny that Dasein has any such insideness in a spatial receptacle, this does not in principle exclude it from having any spatiality at all. For perhaps there is something like a special kind of spatiality that is constitutive for Dasein. This is the notion Heidegger says must now be set forth.
But inasmuch as any entity within- the-world is likewise in space, its spatiality will have an ontological connection with the world. We must therefore determine in what sense space is a constituent for that world which has in turn has been characterised as an item in the structure of Being-in-the-world.
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In particular we must show how the aroundness of the environment and the specific spatiality of entities encountered in the environment, is founded upon the worldhood of
the world, while contrariwise the world, for its part, is not something present-at-hand in space at all.
Our study of Dasein's spatiality and the way in which the world is spatially determined will therefore take its departure from an analysis of this ready-to-hand in space within-the-world. We shall consider three topics:
1. the spatiality of the ready-to-hand within-the-world (Section 22);
2. the spatiality of Being-in-the-world (Section 23);
3. space and the spatiality of Dasein (Section 24)-
Go back to the previous section
This is an ongoing project, the next section will appear shortly
Reference
Heidegger, Martin (2000), Being and Time, John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson (trans), London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Additional References
Anonymous, Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (2006) "Parmenides," html document, URL http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/parmenid.htm [accessed March 2007]
Baltussen, Han (2005) "The Presocratics in the doxographical tradition" pdf document, url: http://www.ut.ee/klassik/sht/2005/baltussen1.pdf [accessed March 2007]
Descartes, Rene (1996), 'Meditations on First Philosophy', Translated by John Veitch, HTML document, url: http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/ [accessed March 2007]
Descartes, Rene (2003), 'The Principles of Philosophy,' Translated by John Veitch, html document, url: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/ pnpph10.txt [accessed March 2007]
Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, London: Everyman, 1993
Massa, Lou (1996) "Physics and Mathematics" in David Weissman (Ed) Discourse and Method and Meditations on First Philosophy: Descartes, Rethinking the Western Tradition, London, Yale University Press
Peirce, Charles Sanders (1931-1935), The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vols. I-VI, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (editors), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Sullivan, David (2005) ‘Entry on Hermann Lotze in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy,’ html document, url: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermann-lotze/ [accessed March 2007]
Waters, Benjamin (2005) "Lectures to Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit," html document, url: http://www.benjaminwaters.org/wat002.0.9.htm#38 [accessed March 2007]
Illustrations
Two dimensional Cartesian coordinate system diagram taken from url: http://www.ccd.rpi.edu/Eglash/csdt/na/rugweaver/nrw/symmetry.html [ref. ¶21]
Three dimensional Cartesian coordinate system diagram taken from url: http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/docs/reference/CRC-formulas/node39.html [ref. ¶21]
