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Sunday, July 20, 2014

Martin Heidegger - Being and Time Introduction

Heidegger – Being and Time: Introduction

The introduction of Being and Time opens a path to all of Heidegger’s later works. P 38.

Ontology – The nature of being.

Exploring being requires analysis of existence.  P 38.
-       More specifically, being that has an understanding of being can be explored.

Introduction: The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being.

The necessity of an explicit recovery of the question of being.
-       The question of being has been forgotten.
o   Was explored by Plato and Aristotle, and then ceased to be investigated.
o   Being is considered an empty topic that everyone fully understands.
§  Questioning the meaning of being is considered meaningless.
There are three prejudices against the study of Being.
-       It is a universal concept and already understood by beings p 42.
o   Heidegger contends that an universal concept is not equivalent to clarity.
o   He contends Being is obscure at best and needs discussion p 43.
-       The concept of Being is indefinable. P 34.
o   Being cannot be understood as a being.
o   It cannot be defined by higher concepts, nor can it be represented by lower concepts.
o   However, the indefinability of Being does not dispense of the questions.
§  It compels the questions.
-       Being is a self-evident concept. P 43.
o   To understand being as a being implies relationships to “a being” without comprehending being.
o   It is an enigma to say something is understood while part of its essense is shrouded in darkness.
o   Kant rejects self-evident as a means to answer philosophical questions.
Being is not only obscure, but the question of being is obscure.

Heidegger wants to re-evaluate the formulation of the question what is being.  P 44

The Formal Structure of the Question of Being.
-       The question of meaning of Being must be formulated.
o   Must examine the nature of a question to ensure the question of Being is distinctive. P 45
-       Every question is a seeking.
-                   What is to be ascertained lies in what is questioned.
-       What is to be interrogated also lies in the question.
-       Questioning has its own character of Being.
-       Questioning needs previous guidance, and that implies we already have some connection to understanding Being. P 45.
What is Being?
-       We stand in understanding of “is” without conceptually determining what “is” means. P 45.
-       This is the average understanding of Being.
o   And it provides the guidance to further question Being.
o   The meaning of Being requires its own conceptualization separate from how beings receive meaningful determination. P 46.
Beings are integrated into the meaning of Being.
-       Being is found in thatness and whatness, reality, substance, validity and existence.
o   All these aspects must be spoken too in any conceptual meaning to be. P 47.
The question of Being develops from the average understanding and requires exploration of existence with regard to Being.

Nothing has been determined, but the notion of existence has revealed itself as part of Being. P 49.

The Ontic Priority of the Question of Being.
-       Dasein always understands:
o   In terms of existence.
o   Inn terms of its possibility to be itself or not to be itself.

Existential – Questionone being only through itself.
Existentiality: The question of structure that aims at the analysis of what constitutes existence.

53 – Footnote
-       Ontological refers to Being of beings.
-       Ontic refers to being w/o raising ontological questions.

Understanding Being is determined through the being of Dasein.

Dasein – a being that is aware of its Being – A human life.
-       It is aware of its very being, but not in the way it considers other beings.
-       Dasein understands itself in terms of its existence.
o   The possibility to be itself, or not be itself.
-       Dasein has either:
o   Chosen the possibilities itself.
o   Has stumbled upon them.
o   Or grew up in them.
Being in a world belongs to Dasein.
-       Accepting the world with other beings in it belongs to the part of us that is aware of our own existence p 53ish.

Dasein – I’m aware of my own existence through my own awareness and through my own life.
-       I recognize other beings, but I don’t extend or know their being in the way I know by being.
-       Other beings have their own dasein in that they understand their existence through their life, but they do not extend that to me
Dasein – I am uniquely aware of my existence and being through my own awareness.
-       My own consciousness recognizes I exist through my own existence.

Dasein takes priority over all other forms of beings because:
-       The ontic – being is defined in its Being by existence.
-       The ontolotical: Being of being is derived through existence.

Ontologically, Dasein is the primary being to be questions p 56.
All forms of being fall under the Dasein.
-       Aristotle refers to it as the soul.
o   The Being of man that discovers in a certain way.
o   Aquinas – The being whose nature it is to meet with all other beings.
§  The soul.

Any discussion of distinct or sub types of being are not relevant without Dasein.

P 57 Chapter 2
The ontological analysis of Dasein.
Formulating the question has:
-       pinpointed the primary object of interrogation, but it needs to also
-       secure the correct access to being.

Dasein tends to understand its own being in terms as it most essentially, continually and most related – the world.
-       The world is interpreted back upon the interpretation of Dasein.

Dasein is:
-       ontically closeted to itself and
-       Ontologically furthest from itself.

The everydayness of Dasein can bring forth the Being of being.
-       Everydayness contains the essential structurs.

Time is the horizon of every understanding and interpretation of Being.
-       Time must be understood in terms of being to understand Being.
-       Time needs to be understood beyond common convention.

Temporal beings are separated from :
-       Natural processes and historical events from
-       Spatial and numerical events.

Temporal means – Being in time.

The problem with historical philosophy is a misinterpretation of time.

The task of deconstructing of the history of ontology.
-       The Being of Dasein finds its meaning in temporality.
-       In its factual Being Dasein always as in and what it already was.
o   Our Being is our past.
o   Dasein is its past in the manner of its Being
§  And occurs out of its future.
o   Dasein grows into a customary interpretation of itself.
o   It is the possibilities of the future that regularities Being.
o   Life isn’t in the past, but how it sees the future.
o   Dasein lives in the future only because the structure of its being ws formed in the past.
-       The questioning of Being is led to understand itself as historical in its own way of proceeding in the future.

The question of being is historical from appropriation of the past.  It’s historical from living a life.

The Greek’s viewed being temporally by grasping it in the present.

The Phenomenological method of the investigation.
-       Phenomenology – Signifies a concept of method.
o   It doesn’t characterize what,
o   But it does speak to how.
o   It is about the things themselves.

Phenomenology – The study of phenomena.
Phenomenon – What shows itself, the self showing, the manifest.
-       Possible to show itself by what is and what is not.
-       Seeming – What it might look like.


78.  Understanding Logos.

Logos – The controlling principle of the universe.

In speech – what is said is derived from what is being talked about.
Logos – Spoken communication, in what it says.
-       Manifests what is being talked about accessible to another.

Logos – Makes manifest what is being talked about.

Logos lets something be seen.

Being true w/logos, lets something be seen, to be discovered, unconcealed.
Being False, covering up, putting something in front of it.
-       Proffering it as something it is not.

Logs does not imply truth, only the things perceived, the sensations the raw information as true.

Because logos lets something be seen in relation to something else, it can take on the meaning with and relating to something.

Preliminary Concept of Phenomenology.

Phenomenology does not describe content or speak to objects.
-       It speaks to the how of something reveals itself.

The character of description itself:
-       The specific sense of logs can only be established form the compelling nature of what is described.
-       What is brought to the scientific determines in the way phenomena are encountered.
Phenomenology is every way of indicative beings as they show themselves in themselves.



Heidegger, M. (1977a). Being and Time: Introduction. In D.F. Krell (Ed). Basic Writings (pp. 37-88). New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

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