Study Aids

Being and Time

Glossary

Ability-to-be/potentiality for Being (Seinkönnen)

A phrase which turns up often in Being and Time and which describes Dasein’s Being as an accomplishment or achievement. To be human is not merely a description of a state of affairs like describ- ing what it is to be a stone, but something one does. This is because the fundamental character of human existence is the difference between authenticity and inauthenticity. I can either be myself, or not. What robs me of my ability to be myself is the They and what gives me back the ability to do so is death. On the whole my ability to be is obscured from me by my occupation in the everyday world. I am so busy with things and people that I never face up to who I am, but even these undertakings have their basis in my ability to be. The fundamental ontological condition of my ability to be is tem- porality, which is why time is a clue to the meaning of Being in general.

Ambiguity (Zweideutigkeit)

Part of the threefold structure of falling, the other two being idle chatter and curiosity. It could be mistaken for an inauthentic mood, since idle chatter is a corollary of discourse and curiosity of understanding. Rather than being a mood, however, ambigu- ity is a confusion specific to interpretation. Because everything has become endlessly fascinating in idle chatter and curiosity, I now no longer know what is important or not. I am bemused by the world.

Anticipation (Vorlaufen)

Literally in German, it means ‘running ahead’ and describes my rela- tion to death as a possibility. Heidegger distinguishes it from expecta- tion, as a particular kind of projection of the understanding. When I expect something, I imagine its realisation, but anticipation is the holding onto its possibility. Thus, in Being-towards-death, I anticipate my death as a permanent possibility, rather than expecting it as some- thing which occurs at the end of my life (which I usually imagine as some time in the future). In such an anticipation, whose condition is the call of conscience, I resolutely face up to my own ability to be. Resoluteness, therefore, is always an anticipation of my death, and Heidegger will combine the two as anticipatory resoluteness. Anticipation also highlights the fact that the temporality of authen- ticity is future orientated, as opposed to the temporality of inauthen- ticity which is directed towards the present.

Anxiety (Angst)

It is of great importance to understand anxiety to make sense of the distinctive nature of the Being of Dasein. One of the most important tasks of Being and Time is to show that Dasein is not the same as a thing. No doubt, it can be investigated as a thing (this is what a scientist does), but this does not exhaust its ontological meaning. What is most dis- tinctive about Dasein is that its Being is an issue for it. This is what Heidegger means when he says Dasein always has an understanding of Being. He does not mean by this that it has a definition or concept of Being always ready to hand (like the definition ‘rational animal’). Rather, it exists through this understanding. In my everyday existence, this understanding is, on the whole, not revealed to me. I am too busy with the affairs of the world. This is why anxiety is so important to the argument of Being and Time. Moods reveal to me the state of my world (what Heidegger calls ‘facticity’), but the peculiarity of anxiety is that it does not reveal, unlike fear, a particular state of the world, but my world in general. In so doing, it illuminates, if only momentarily, the source of the world in the Being of Dasein. Because it reveals the world in general and not specifically, then equally, the ontological origin of the world cannot be a specific possibility of Dasein, but the Being possible as such. In relation to the transformation of the possi- ble into the actual, then, Being possible is nothing, and this is why I

recoil from it in horror. What anxiety reveals is that at its heart Dasein is nothing, which in Being-towards-death Heidegger will describe as the ‘possibility of impossibility’. It is through and in this nothingness that I have resolutely to grasp my Being and authentically choose who I already am. Where I was, I must be.

Assertion (Aussage)

Heidegger’s word for judgement, as in the proposition, ‘The hammer is heavy’. For Heidegger, propositions are derivative of interpretation, which in turn, is based upon the understanding.

Authentic/Inauthentic (Eigentlich/Uneigentlich)

The difference between the authentic and the inauthentic is not a moral but an ontological one. The key to understanding their meaning is the German. Eigentlich derives from eigen meaning ‘own’. I can either own my existence or disown it. If I own my existence, then I make it my own by resolutely choosing my possibility to be. The opposite, disowned existence, is one in which, rather than choosing my possibilities, I let others choose them for me. I follow the crowd. For the most part my existence is inauthentic. I live by rituals and habits of thought. Authentic existence comes out of inauthentic exis- tence and is made possible through anxiety in the face of the possi- bility of my death.

Being/being (Sein/Seiendes)

There is something faintly absurd about explaining such a distinction in a glossary, when it was the aim of Heidegger’s whole philosophical life. Very crudely, Being refers to how things are, and being to a specific something. You might think of Being as verbal and being as nominal. This explains the tautological expressions which you find in Being and Time, such as ‘world worlds’. The ontological explanation of Dasein, therefore, concerns how Dasein is, as opposed for example, how a stone, plant or animal is (to use a rather traditional ontological hierarchy). Such an ontological investigation should be sharply dis- tinguished from an ontic one which only describes what something is and not how it is. Because in English (unlike German), the difference between these two notions of being is not obvious, many translators and commentators capitalise the verbal sense of being to distinguish

it from its nominal sense. Others, however, think this capitalisation leads to a mistaken belief that Being is some kind of mysterious higher substance (by analogy with the word ‘God’). In this case, the difference between Being and being can only be provided by the context of the passage.

Care (Sorge)

The structure of Dasein’s existence is care which has three elements: Being ahead of itself, Being already in the world, and Being alongside beings encountered within the world. Being ahead of itself is projec- tion and understanding, Being already in the world is facticity and thrownness, and Being alongside beings encountered in the world is falling. There are also two modes of care: concern, which is the prag- matic relation to beings as ready-to-hand, of which the present-to- hand is a further modification; and solicitude, which is the relation to others. Finally, each element of the structure of care has its ontolog- ical basis in temporality. Being ahead of itself is the future, Being already in the world is the past, and Being alongside beings encoun- tered in the world is the present.

Categorical (kategorisch)

Being and Time describes two ways of Being, the categorical and the existential. The categorical way of Being belongs to those beings which Dasein encounters in the world. It is the way of Being which has been the basis of ontology since Aristotle and which Being and Time overturns. Dasein ends up describing itself as categorical because it is so absorbed in these beings through fallenness that it thinks of itself in the same way.

Concern (Besorgen)

One form of care (distinguished from solicitude) where Dasein relates to beings in the world. Heidegger gives the following as examples of concern: ‘having to do with something, producing something, attend- ing to something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting it go, undertaking, accomplishing, evincing, interrogating, considering, discussing, determining . . .’ (BT: 83). Concern, as an activity of Dasein must be distinguished from any kind of theoretical or cognitive attitude. In being concerned with

things, I am absorbed and involved. They are ready-to-hand as opposed to present-to-hand.

Conscience, Call of (Ruf des Gewissens)

The description of Being-towards-death explains what it means to be authentic Dasein, but it does not tell us how any individual can accom- plish it as an existentiell. If in my everyday existence, I lose myself in the They, how do I win myself back? To face up to my death as a pos- sibility, have I not already had to have broken with them? Such is the call of conscience which comes from within Dasein. It is the unsettling voice which questions everything I have achieved and accomplished. Unlike the idle chatter of the They, it does not say anything at all, but is the silent ontological disquiet disclosed to me in anxiety. It is the voice of conscience which calls me to be resolute in anticipating the possi- bility of my death, and in so doing choosing to be myself authentically. I can only do so by recognising my guilt. The style of this language is theological or religious, but its content is ontological. It is a description of what it means to be human and stands or falls on this basis.

Curiosity (Neugier)

One of the three elements of falling, the other two being idle chatter and ambiguity. It is an inauthentic corollary of the understanding. Rather than taking a stand upon my existence and owning my possi- bilities, I simply run from one to the other because everyone else does. Here, everything is endlessly new and novel, but nothing is of any significance or importance.

Dasein

Heidegger’s word for human existence which is usually left untrans- lated. Like much of his supposedly technical vocabulary, it is an ordinary German word meaning existence and specifically human existence. Equally, however, as is also usually the case, we need to be aware of its etymology. Literally translated Dasein means ‘being there’. The reason why Heidegger avoids expressions like ‘human existence’ or ‘human beings’ is they can imply that Being and Time is an ontic investigation, attempting to define what it means to be human in the way that the other social sciences do. Dasein is an ontological term, which describes the way in which human beings are rather than what

they are. More specifically, the etymology suggests we should think of the Being of human beings as disclosure.

Datability (Datierbarkeit)

Part of our common experience of time. Time is not first of all a series of now points on a time line, but a chain of significant events. This evening I am going out to the restaurant. Tomorrow, I will be meeting my friend. I always have lunch at 1 p.m. and so on. It is because events are significant for us that we have clocks and calen- dars, and not the other way around. Such events are part of the struc- ture of care which has its ultimate source in authentic temporality.

Death/Being-towards-Death (Sein-zum-Tode)

It is not death as the end of life which interests Heidegger (a fact which is not specific to Dasein anyway), but my relation to death in my life. In the first case death is an actuality, something that happens to me and other beings (including the universe, if the laws of thermodynamics are correct), whereas in Being-towards-death, it is a possibility. As a possi- bility, death is something which can happen to me at any time. I cannot avoid it and have to face up to it myself. In so doing, it forces me to con- front the meaning of my life as a whole. Thus, in the anxiety in the face of the possibility of my death, my Being becomes an issue for me for the first time. Facing up to this possibility is what Heidegger calls res- oluteness and without it I would not be able to be authentic. Equally, running away from the possibility of my death, and occupying myself with the business of the world, is the origin of the inauthentic.

De-severance (Ent-fernung)

The distance and direction of Dasein’s spatiality is not geometrical but lived. In being concerned about things I bring them closer and by doing so I take their distance away from them (which is the literal meaning of the German). Such a space is not something which is measured but is part of my existence. What is close geometrically (like the glasses on the end of my nose) could be furthest away existentially.

Destruction (Destruktion)

The name of the method by which Heidegger reads the past history of Western philosophy. This method has two different strategies, one

which is positive and the other negative. The negative strategy is to demonstrate how this history has distorted the meaning of Being; and the positive, how such a meaning can also be retrieved from the margins of the same history. It is an important precursor of Derrida’s deconstruction.

Disclosure (Erschlossenheit)

Fundamental to the meaning of Dasein and truth. Truth is not first of all a property of propositions or statements, but a way in which Dasein relates to beings in the world. Only to the extent that Dasein makes them present do they have any truth at all. This ‘making present’ Heidegger calls disclosure. Such an illumination and manifestation of beings is inseparable from the ‘there’ of Dasein which is the literal meaning of the German da. It is for this reason that Dasein is not a nominal definition of something (like ‘rational animal’) but an onto- logical description of a way of Being. Dasein is as Being-there and as Being-there other beings are present and have a meaning. Dasein’s Being, therefore is the revelation of the Being of all other beings and thus the origin of the meaning of Being in general which is a presenc- ing. This presencing has a far more complex temporality than the meta- physics of substance describes and it is explained in the second division of Being and Time through Dasein’s concern with things in the world.

Discourse (Rede)

Heidegger is not a philosopher of language (at least at the time of writing Being and Time) if we mean by that someone who thinks reality is constituted by words rather than simply represented by them. What matters in discourse is what is said and not the saying itself. This is why authentic discourse can be silent, for it is not the words which are significant but what is communicated, which is a shared world that already has its own intelligibility and significance (already ‘articulated’ in Heidegger’s vocabulary), and so is not dependent on any linguistic expression. Discourse, then, strictly speaking is not language, but an attitude of Dasein. The inauthentic mode of discourse is idle chatter.

Ecstasis (Ekstase)

Not to be confused with a mystical state, ecstasis depicts the tempo- rality of Dasein. It describes the way in which Dasein ‘stands out’ in

time by projecting itself into the future through the past and into the present. Ecstasis, therefore, is the temporal form of the transcendence of Dasein.

Environment (Umwelt)

The world closest to us in our everyday existence. The world of making a cup of tea, going to college and driving a car. To get along in this world I do not need to have a direct acquaintance with things or a picture of the world in my head. On the contrary, in this world things are familiar to me. Like every world, its source is the Being of Dasein. Philosophy has tended to ignore this world for the sake of cognition, but Heidegger reverses the relation between them. It is not cognition which is the basis of my ordinary experience, but ordinary experience the basis of cognition.

Epistemology

The study of the nature and legitimacy of knowledge in philosophy. Being and Time can be read as an ontological critique of epistemology, which was dominant both in neo-Kantianism and Husserlian phe- nomenology. I first exist in the world and only then subsequently know it. The primary philosophical question is not ‘What do I know?’, but ‘Who am I?’

Equipment (Zeug)

Things which I deal with in the everyday world of the environment. Heidegger uses the example of the hammer which I use to hammer nails into the wood in order to make a shelter for myself. What is important about the nature of equipment is that it does not appear in the same way as things which are described by traditional meta- physics. I do not assign properties or attributes to equipment, rather it is purely functional and in this sense not visible at all. I do not ‘see’ the door through which I walk every day, I just use it. The Being of equipment is what Heidegger calls the ready-to-hand which he dis- tinguishes from the present-to-hand; the latter being the object of cognition or knowledge. Rather than asserting the primacy of knowl- edge over use, Heidegger argues it is only because we use things that we need to know what they are.

The Everyday (Alltäglichkeit)

Most philosophy, since Plato, attempts to escape the everyday (my daily encounter with things and people in a world) for the realm of eternal ideas and supposedly higher truth. For Heidegger, the only possible route into the question of Being is through the everyday. It has to be the starting point of our investigation, because it already presupposes an understanding of Being, and it is this understanding that Heidegger sets against the metaphysics of substance which has led to the forgetting of Being. What is implicit in my everyday exis- tence has to be made explicit by a phenomenological ontology.

Existence (Existenz)

It is important not to understand existence in Being and Time through the traditional philosophical distinction between essentia and existentia (what something is and the fact that something is), but through possi- bility. Dasein does not just exist in the way that a stone, plant or animal exists; rather it makes its own existence because it is something which matters to it individually. Existence is always something which is mine, whereas existentia is merely an indifferent logical statement about all things.

Existentiell/Existential (existenziell/existenzial)

Existentiell describes the particular everyday possibilities of individ- ual Dasein, whereas existential represents the ontological structure underlying every unique possibility no matter who chooses it and when it is chosen. What is existentiell, therefore, is specific to a culture, whereas what is existential must be universal. In a more Kantian lan- guage, we might say the existential is the transcendental condition of every existentiell. If human beings were not the kind of beings that they are, then they would not have possibilities in the way they do. Stones do not have possibilities because of the kind of being they are. Being and Time, therefore, is an existential analysis of existentiells.

Facticity (Faktizität)

It does not mean factual in the sense of 2 + 2 = 4, but describes the way in which our existence is always determined to some extent by our past. The fact that I speak English rather than Japanese, can be an astronaut but not an Aztec warrior, for example, is all part of fac-

ticity. The ontological basis of facticity is thrownness, whose tempo- ral horizon is the past.

Falling or Fallenness (Verfallen)

The third element of the structure of Dasein’s existence; the other two being thrownness and projection. It is essential to the Being of Dasein that it is always involved and occupied with beings in the world. I am always busy with or doing something. It is for this reason that falling or fallenness should not be understood theologically or morally. It is not a sin Dasein is so occupied and habituated. It is what it is. Falling, however, is the everyday condition for Dasein’s own self- misunderstanding of its Being. It is so entangled with the things it busies itself with that it ends up interpreting its own Being as though it were the same as the Being of things. The origin of the metaphysics of substance, which culminates in the forgetting of the question of Being with which Being and Time begins, is ordinary experience. Just as the other two elements, thrownness and projection, falling has its specific temporality which is the present, or making present.

Fear (Furcht)

One of the two moods which Heidegger describes in any detail. The other is anxiety, from which it is to be distinguished. Fear is ontic; whereas anxiety is ontological (this is why Heidegger calls the latter a ‘fundamental mood’). It is ontic because it concerns my attitude towards beings in the world (the lion threatens me, so I fear it), whereas anxiety is ontological because it is my very Being which is at issue.

Guilt (Schuld)

In Being guilty, I recognise my existence is always in debt. Not to this or that person or thing, or even God, but to Being itself. I am in debt to my Being, because my existence is thrown. I exist in a world which is not my own creation. What is possible for me is already given in advance, what Heidegger calls facticity. Ontologically speaking, therefore, Being guilty has no moral or theological meaning for Heidegger. It does not mean I owe something ontically, but my exis- tence, as mine, owes something to the past. This does not mean I am determined by the past causally. History is not a collection of facts,

but a future possibility which I can be. Being a student of philosophy is something given as a possibility through a tradition I have been born into, but it is up to me whether I choose it as future possibility. Such a choice is only authentic when I choose it on the basis of my own nullity. What guilt reveals to me is that at the heart of my exis- tence there is nothing but possibility, which is covered over by my involvement and absorption in the everyday world.

Hermeneutics

This has its origin in German theology as a particular way of reading Scripture. Indeed, Heidegger’s example for a hermeneutical inter- pretation in Being and Time is a textual one (BT: 192). It is the rec- ognition that every interpretation must always presuppose some meaning in advance and never comes across as something empty of significance. This applies equally to the interpretation that Being and Time accomplishes. Heidegger describes it as a hermeneutical ontol- ogy, because it must already presuppose what it seeks to describe. Rather than seeing this as a ‘vicious circle’, we have to understand that the only possible route to Being is through a being which has an understanding of Being. The task of Being and Time, therefore, is to make this ‘pre-ontological’ understanding explicit. It is both negative and positive. Negative, because this pre-ontological understanding is overlaid by the tradition which needs to be ‘deconstructed’ before we can begin the investigation; and positive, because we have to be able to appeal phenomenologically to this pre-ontological understanding otherwise we would have no measure by which to grasp the meaning of Being. To claim this is a ‘vicious circle’ is to apply an ontic rule to ontological investigation. That we already exist in a pre-ontological understanding of Being is not an error on our part, but just what it means for us to be at all.

History (Geschichte)

The past is not just a collection of dates and facts but part of what it means to be me. History in this fundamental sense Heidegger calls ‘historicality’. It is because we are beings which already exist in a past as part of a present that we are historical and not the other way around. Authentic history is more concerned with the future than it is with the past. The past is of importance because it is a future

possibility and not dead and gone. History is, therefore, repetition and more than merely the retrieval of lost information.

Idle Chatter (Gerede)

The fallen form of discourse where, rather than what is spoken about being important, it is the activity of speaking and the words themselves. The modern world is full of noise perhaps, but is it any more significant for that? Idle chatter is linked to curiosity and ambiguity to make up the tripartite structure of falling. The more curious I am about things, rather than being directly engaged by them, the more I talk; and the more I talk, the less certain I am about what is or is not important.

Intentionality

A specific theory of consciousness central to phenomenology. Any kind of consciousness (thinking, judging, wishing and so on) is always a ‘consciousness of . . .’. In other words, I cannot think, unless I think of something judge unless I judge something, wish unless I wish some- thing and so on. Being and Time can be seen as a critique of Husserl’s overtly theoretical version of intentionality. My first relation to the world is not one of consciousness but concern, which has its own specific concrete directionality. Heidegger’s specific critique of inten- tionality can be found in the History of the Concept of Time (1985).

Interpretation (Auslegung)

I interpret the world before I make judgement about it. To interpret something means to understand its function. The hammer is for ham- mering in nails in order to make the house which shelters me from the weather. The ultimate ‘in order to’ is Dasein’s existence. For this reason interpretation has its ultimate source in the understanding. Interpretation is not cognitive. It is more like a practical ‘know how’.

Mineness (Jemeinigkeit)

This designates a particular way in which Dasein can be distinguished from any other kind of being. We should not confuse this with any kind of solipsism. Mineness does not mean I live alone; rather my existence is always an issue for me in a way it cannot be for any other being. Fundamentally my existence is an issue for me in Being-towards- death, since this is one possibility I have to face myself. Dasein is always

individuated, even when it loses itself in the They. However much I

flee from the question of my life, it is still my life I am fleeing from.

Moment of Vision (Augenblick)

One of the few phrases in Being and Time borrowed from another writer (in this case Kierkegaard). The moment of vision is the authen- tic, as opposed to the inauthentic, present of care, where, on the con- trary, I am absorbed and involved in beings such that my own Being is no longer an issue for me. Through anxiety, where my own nullity is made visible for me for the first time, my present comes to me from the future and I seize my possibilities as my own.

Nullity (Nichtigkeit)

Possibly the most difficult idea of Being and Time. What is revealed in the ontological interpretation of Dasein is that at the basis of its exis- tence there is nothing. Everything I interpret myself through, my attributes and occupations, for example, are inauthentic because they are not really me (it is this nothingness which anxiety reveals). They are not me, because anyone else could be them. Someone else could have brown hair and grey/blue eyes, someone else could be a philos- ophy teacher. The only possibility which is truly mine is my death. Not death as a fact, but as Being-towards-Death. In facing this possibility of my impossibility, I see, for the first time, that my existence stands on nothing. My attributes and occupations are merely moments within this nullity. I can be them in two ways: either inauthentically, thinking them as stable and as my real identity; or authentically, as choosing them within this nothingness. If what is at the heart of my Being is a nullity, the possibility of my impossibility, then in choosing to be, I also negate every other possibility. Nullity is what holds Dasein permanently open between possibility and actuality. The ultimate source of the nullity of Dasein is the ontological difference between Being and beings. Being, quite literally, is no-thing. See ‘What is Metaphysics’ in Basic Writings (1994) for Heidegger’s further explana- tion of the relation between nothing and Being.

Ontic (ontisch)

An ontic investigation must be distinguished from an ontological one. It concerns the nature of beings as opposed to Being. In other words,

it defines what things are as opposed to how they are. There are many kinds of ontical investigations covering both the human (like history, theology or literature) and natural sciences (physics, chemistry and biology). Every ontical investigation presupposes a ontology which it usually leaves unquestioned. Thus, physics will take it for granted that natural beings are mathematical. For this reason, Heidegger argues ontology has a priority over any ontical investigation. This does not mean an ontology is ‘truer’ than an ontic study, if you mean by ‘truer’ has a better grasp of the facts. Ontology does not tell you what some- thing is. It does, however, mean it has a philosophical primacy. Fundamentally for Heidegger, every ontical investigation has its onto- logical basis in the Being of human beings, and this includes the natural sciences, but the study of what it means to be human is not itself a science.

Ontology (Ontologie)

The title that Heidegger gives to the study of Being. It should not be confused with traditional ontology which is the study of beings. The method of Being and Time is a phenomenological ontology, a descrip- tion of the way in which beings are, rather than what they are. Specifically, Being and Time is a ‘fundamental ontology’ (BT: 34). It is the investigation of that ontology that is the basis of all other ontolo- gies. This fundamental ontology is the ontology of human beings (which Heidegger calls Dasein), since Being only has a meaning because we are a kind of being whose Being is an issue for it.

Others, Being-with- (Andere, Sein-bei-)

Just as little as I am separate from the world, am I also excluded from others, so that I have to wonder how I know, understand or even relate to them. Being-with-others is part of what it means to be me. This relation belongs to the very way I am. This does not mean I am the same as others or they the same as me. Existence is always individual and singular for Heidegger, but I cannot make sense of myself without others. On the whole Being and Time describes mainly the inauthentic relation to others as the They, and only very briefly indi- cates what an authentic relation to them might be through the posi- tive form of solicitude (and only then from the side of the individual Dasein). There is only one mention of the other relating to me rather

than I to them, and that is the voice of a friend who calls me to be authentic (BT: 206). Even this friend, however, is inside of Dasein (perhaps as a representative of the call of conscience). This lack of a relation to the other as other has been taken by some commentators like Levinas, Blanchot and Derrida, to be one way in which Being and Time is part of a bias towards the subject in Western philosophy which even it is not aware of, despite its powerful destruction of the tradi- tion. It is also why Heidegger consistently subordinates ethics to ontol- ogy, a practice which continues long after the publication of Being and Time (see ‘Letter on Humanism’ in Basic Writings [1994]).

Phenomenology

The philosophical method of Being and Time which Heidegger took over from his teacher Husserl. The fundamental basis of this method is the description of phenomena as they are given to us. Heidegger gives a full description of the application of this method in section seven (BT: 49–63).

Possibility/Actuality

The distinction between possibility and actuality is far more impor- tant to Being and Time than many realise. It has its source in traditional Aristotelian ontology, but whereas this ontology emphasises the actual over the possible, Being and Time stresses the possible over the actual. This is because existence is defined as the possible. My existence is not an actuality which can be defined from the outside (even if this actu- ality is understood as a process – the acorn becoming an oak tree), rather it is a possibility through and through. I am always ahead of myself in the future and always understand myself in these terms. My ultimate possibility is death, but again the existential importance of death is as a possibility and not as an actuality; Being-towards-death and not death as a fact. What is ontologically distinctive about Dasein is that its Being is always a possibility and never an actuality. I am my ‘ability to be’ (Seinkönnen) and not just a collection of actual properties (described from the outside) which go up to make a thing.

Present-to-hand (Vorhandenheit)

There are two ways in which things can be for Heidegger (including human beings, if they are treated as things), either present-to-hand or

ready-to-hand. What is present-to-hand is what is given when I look at something. It is the basis of our theoretical grasp of things. Western philosophy takes this to be the primary way in which things are present. The aim of the description of the Being of Dasein, however, is to show that this is not the ordinary way in which we relate to things. Before we ever just look at something, we use it and in use things are never present in this way. In fact they are rarely visible at all. I never see the door I use everyday, unless it does not open because it is broken or locked. This way of Being, where things are used rather than the- orised about, Heidegger calls ready-to-hand. Rather than the latter being based on the former, as though I first have to understand things before I can use them, the former is based on the latter. It is because I use things that I might need to understand them. The ontological condition of my relation to things which I use Heidegger calls ‘the world’, and it in turn has its origin in the Being of Dasein.

Project/Projection (Entwurf )

When I say to myself I am going to become a student of philosophy or perhaps one day even teach philosophy at university, then I have a project or projection. Most of my projects are obviously banal, but they are the horizon in which I throw my possibilities forward. Such a push into the future is the basis of my understanding. To have a project for Heidegger is not always to have a well defined plan or intention; rather it describes the way in which Dasein is always ahead of itself in the future no matter what task it is occupied with. In the end, it is the ultimate meaning of transcendence; the fact that at every moment of existence Dasein is always outside of itself. Such an exte- riority is eventually to be explained by temporality.

Question (Frage)

Philosophy is not about answers but questions. Heidegger’s question is Being. Just as important as the meaning of Being is our attitude to it. It is important that Being and Time begins with a question and not an answer which it then seeks to prove. This is why it is quite absurd to accuse it of being a failure because it has not answered the question it supposedly it set out with. Heidegger’s aim is more modest; not to answer the question of Being, but to reawaken the question within us. This whole notion of philosophy as a questioning is very important in

Heidegger’s later writings, and in Being and Time he gives a detailed analysis of the structure of questioning itself (BT: 24–8).

Ready-to-hand (Zuhandenheit)

The ready-to-hand is to be distinguished from the present-to-hand. It describes the Being of things that I encounter in the everyday world of environment. The emphasis here is on handiness (a meaning which is visible in the German). Something ready-to-hand is present to me through my use of it. It is not visible in the way it might be through cognition.

Reference (sometimes, Assignment) (Verweisung)

This is way in which within the world as environment what is ready- to-hand is always interrelated. I never encounter something ready-to- hand singly. Rather it is connected to something else which is ready-to-hand. I use the computer towards writing this glossary so that you might better understand Being and Time and so on. The ulti- mate ‘in order to’ is always Dasein. Things have a function because they ultimately point back to me. The general way in which what is ready-to-hand is interconnected makes up the significance of my world. Significance is not a metaphysical definition of the world but expresses my familiarity with what surrounds me. For the most part, I am not even conscious of it. Only when things do not work as I expect them to might I become concerned with it.

Repetition (Wiederholung)

Authentic past as opposed to the inauthentic past of concern. The past is something which I can forget as part of my daily existence, or it can be a future possibility which I repeat. Such a past is not experienced through the present as something which passes away always but consti- tutes it as a future goal. Past as repetition is fundamental to under- standing Heidegger’s notion of history and we must hear it when he speaks of the necessary repetition of the question of Being. The authen- tic past is ahead of and not behind me, vanishing into the distance.

Resoluteness (Entschlossenheit)

The German self consciously refers to disclosure (Erschlossenheit). Being resolute is a particular way in which Dasein understands its

own Being where it faces up to its own ability to be in anticipating its own death as a possibility. It is, therefore, the existentiell condition of authenticity.

Science

Being and Time does not treat the nature of science directly though it is implicit throughout that it cannot answer the fundamental ques- tion of Being. Generally, we might see this as a distancing from neo- Kantianism, which saw science and particularly epistemology as the primary task of philosophy. For Heidegger, science can never answer the questions of philosophy, because it is always an ontic rather than an ontological inquiry. For this reason, its own ontological basis is left in the dark. The ontology of the natural sciences has its source in Western metaphysics, and more especially Descartes (which is one reason why Being and Time has a long section on Descartes [BT: 122– 48].) The aim of Being and Time is to replace this natural ontology with fundamental ontology, the description of Being of nature with the Being of human beings. The former has its source in the latter and not the other way around. There is a brief discussion of what it would mean to be an authentic scientist at the end of Being and Time, but Heidegger never seems to take this topic up afterwards (BT: 408–18). In his later writings, he is more concerned with how science is taken to be the ultimate truth of beings and what this says about our desire to dominate and control nature (see the essay, ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ in Basic Writings [1994]). It is important to realise this is not a critique of science per se, but ‘sci- entism’, the belief (and it is a belief) that science is the only answer to any question.

Serviceability (Dienlichkeit)

This is part of the structure of reference or assignment. Things have a use (are ready-to-hand) because they have a function or purpose. This function or purpose ultimately goes back to Dasein. A hammer is a hammer because there is hammering, and there is hammering because there is a use for it. If something does not have a use then it is just a thing and not a tool. A thing is present-to-hand either because it has become an object of theoretical knowledge, or it has no use at all. A hammer on a desert island, where there was no wood,

would just be a hammer in this sense, unless of course I had another use for it.

Significance (Bedeutsamkeit)

This is the way in which the interrelation of what is ready-to-hand makes up the familiarity of the world which becomes the background of my activity (the way we might talk about a Japanese world or an English one, for example). The world is not a thing or a mysterious substance in which things are placed, rather it has its origin in the understanding of Dasein which understands itself through its possi- bilities passed down to it from its own history and which it projects ahead of itself into the future.

Situation (Situation)

One of those words in Being and Time used by Heidegger in his lec- tures before its publication which are then dropped into the work as though everyone used them. Situation has a precise meaning in Being and Time and should not be confused with its ordinary use. To be in a situation for Heidegger is to see the possibilities visible there and to choose them authentically. We are not authentic because we are in a situation, but there are situations because we are authentic. The opposite of situation, therefore, might be ritual or habit which is the usual way that we exist in the world.

Solicitude (Fürsorge)

This is the other kind of care, as opposed to concern. It relates to my relation to others. It has a positive and negative form. Negatively, on the whole I am indifferent to the presence of others. Positively, I either try and take them over and dominate them, or I attempt to free them for their own possibilities. Possibly the closest Heidegger gets to any kind of ethics in Being and Time.

State-of-mind (Aﬀectedness) (Befindlichkeit)

This is one way in which the world is disclosed to Dasein. It is not cog- nition but moods which reveal to me the totality of my world. Moods are not merely subjective phenomena which can be contrasted unfavourably with the objectivity of knowledge. On the contrary, they have a much more powerful ontological revealing power of my Being

than any proposition or statement. In Being and Time, Heidegger gives a phenomenological description of two moods: fear and anxiety. The first is ontic and the second ontological. The mood of anxiety is fundamental to Being and Time, because it shows how it is possible that Dasein’s Being can be an issue for it, and therefore, it can escape the domination and the influence of the They. Many commentators prefer the translation ‘affectedness’ to ‘state-of-mind’, because the latter is too cognitive.

Temporality (Zeitlichkeit)

Although time is the major theme of Being and Time, it does not appear until the last half of the second division. Heidegger distinguishes between many different kinds of time in Being and Time. There is the scientific image of time as clock time, which has its origin in the ordi- nary experience of time as ‘world time’. Both have their source in the temporality of Dasein, which Heidegger labels with the German Zeitlichkeit so as to distinguish it from the temporality of Being in general, where he uses the German Temporalität, and which was intended to be the topic of the third division of part two, but was never written. The general argument of Being and Time is to show that the image of time we have as a line (past, present and future) has its origin in existential time which has to be described very differently. Time is not a succession of now points, but the unity of the structure of care. It is not a measurement of change, but the expression of Dasein’s Being. Such existential temporality, as opposed to categorical time, Heidegger describes as ‘ecstatic’. Dasein literally stands outside of itself in time. I project myself through the understanding into the future, am thrown into the world through the past, and engage with beings in the present. Temporality is not something which measures me from the outside, rather I am time. I accomplish my future, past and present. What is first, ontologically speaking, is not clock or cal- endar time, but lived time. Equally the direction of time does not begin with the present, but from the future. Dasein, Heidegger says, is essen- tial ‘futural’ (BT: 372–3). This is because authentic Dasein anticipates its own death (the German for ‘future’ is Zukunft, which means literally ‘to come’). Inauthentically, on the other hand, time temporalises itself from the present, and in this way it is the origin of the scientific or metaphysical image of time as a succession of now points.

The They (Das Man)

In concern, Dasein is involved with things and others. For the most part I am utterly indifferent to the presence of others in my life. I catch the bus every morning but am hardly aware of who is driving it. The non-conspicuousness of others is related to invisibility of things generally in the ready-to-hand. Others, however, can affect my existence negatively and positively. Positively I can show concern for others (solicitude), where I can either take them over or let them be free to make their own decisions. Negatively, however, others can also dominate my possibilities, but they do so in an anonymous way. I end up thinking and doing what everyone else thinks and does, but if someone were to ask me who was the origin of these ideas and behav- iour I would not know. This anonymous effect of others, Heidegger calls the They. Most of my life I live as They do (I am myself really a ‘they-self ’), but through anxiety and the call of conscience, where I face up to my death, I can live my possibilities as my own even though they might be exactly the same as theirs. Since the They is part of the structure of the care as fallenness (the others being existence and fac- ticity), it should not be understood pejoratively.

Thrownness (Geworfenheit)

This is one of the fundamental elements of Dasein’s existence (the others being understanding [projection] and falling). Thrownness is the basis of facticity. My Being is not a fact like the existence of a stone. Rather, the fact that I am there, and what this fact involves, is due to me being thrown into a world which has existed before me. The language I speak, the way that I understand myself, the possibilities I can choose to be, are all given to me in advance. The past, therefore, is not some- thing which exists inertly outside of my present, but affects it through and through. This does not mean I am determined by past in a causal fashion. The possibilities given to me are still something I can choose. I have to become my past, or what I was. Thrownness cannot be under- stood without the projection of the understanding, or understanding without thrownness. Both belong to the temporality of Dasein.

Transcendence (Transcendenz)

There are two notions of transcendence in Being and Time. One is the traditional definition of Being transcending both species and genus

(I can say everything is, but there is no specific difference which points to the meaning of Being), which has its origin in Aristotle and is repeated in Scholasticism (though in this case it is attached to the definition of God). The other is the transcendence of Dasein. Heidegger replaces the older form with this idea of transcendence. If Dasein is transcendent, then this does not mean it is God. Being and Time is the description of human finitude and all this entails, and not a the- ological treatise, even if it might use religious language. The transcen- dence of Dasein should be taken literally to mean it is always outside of itself (it is close to the notion of transcendence we find in Husserl’s definition of intentionality where consciousness is always defined as ‘consciousness of . . .’). It is ultimately related to the idea of existence as ecstatic. Dasein always transcends itself because it always projects itself forward into the future, and through this future experiences its past and present. Transcendence should be understood temporally and not categorically as part of a metaphysics of substance. It is the tran- scendence of Dasein which is the ultimate clue for the meaning of the transcendence of Being, and not the definition of species and genus.

Truth (Wahrheit)

Truth, first of all, is not propositional but a disclosure. If beings were not revealed to me then I could not speak about them. In Being and Time, Heidegger uses the example of the crooked picture on the wall. If I do not turn around and look at the picture, then I cannot know whether the statement ‘The picture is crooked’ is true or not (BT: 260–1). The notion of truth as presence or disclosure is much older than logical truth (which Heidegger is not denying, but only claiming cannot be primary). He points to the Ancient Greek word for truth aletheia, which he translates as ‘unconcealment’. Truth, rather than just a description of propositions and how they relate to the world, is the activity of bringing things out of darkness into the light (it is therefore closely related to Heidegger’s definition of phenomenology). Dasein itself can either exist in the truth or not. This does not mean that it is omniscient, but it can either conceal or disclose phenomena, including itself.

Understanding (Verstehen)

Dasein as existence always understands itself through possibilities. Heidegger’s definition of understanding should not be confused with

its traditional definition (in Kant, for example) as comprehension or knowledge. Understanding is not to have a plan, scheme or design, in the sense of moving from one co-ordinate to the next, but to exist. It is therefore ontological and not ontic. It has to do with the Being of Dasein and not with a specific state of affairs. Dasein always exists with a pre-ontological understanding of itself, because its Being is always an issue for it. For the most part, however, it exists inauthenti- cally in its concern for things and solicitude for others. Only in anxiety, where it has to face its ultimate facticity and thrownness, does it authentically understand itself as nullity. Every understanding is a projection into the future, but such a future can merely be expecting the next thing that comes along, or anticipating my death, and thereby resolutely choosing myself.

World (Welt)

The world is not a container in which Dasein finds itself alongside other beings. Rather, it belongs to the Being of Dasein. What it means to be Dasein is to have a world, and such a world is an accom- plishment or activity. It is not a noun but a verb. Being and Time is concerned with the ontological significance of having a world in general (what Heidegger calls ‘worldhood’) and not what it means to exist in this or that culture. In other words, the world is not culture as opposed to nature, but the ontological condition of the distinc- tion between them. For the most part, my existence in a world is inauthentic. I simply occupy myself with things and people in my daily affairs. Only anxiety can reveal to me the general significance of my world as a whole which is fundamentally based upon my thrown projection.

Further Reading

Being and Time is one of those books which it is impossible to under- stand without reading additional material, and perhaps this is true of every great philosophical work, because they are attempting to make us think about the world and ourselves in a new way, so we need all the help we can get. This is not a full bibliography but a selection of books you might find useful if you need to write an essay or just want to find out more about Heidegger. It is divided into three parts:

Heidegger’s own work; commentaries on Heidegger (each with a description of why you might find them useful); and finally the details of other works I have quoted in this book but which are not directly relevant to reading Being and Time.

Works by Heidegger

Heidegger, M. (2002), On Time and Being, trans. J. Stambaugh, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

One of the key issues of reading Being and Time is why it ends without finishing what it has set out to do from the start. The description of the meaning of the Being of Dasein was meant only to be a clue for the question of the meaning of Being in general. We find out that this clue is temporality, but how we are to understand it is left entirely dark except for a few cursory remarks in the last pages. Overall, Being and Time was divided into two parts and the first part was meant to have three divisions. What we have, however, is only part one and the first two divisions. The second part was intended to be a ‘destruc- tion’ of Descartes, Kant and Aristotle through the new ontology of Being and Time, and I think we can safely say that Heidegger did achieve this through lectures and other works published afterwards; but the third division, if it had been written, would have developed the meaning of Being in general from the analytic of Dasein. Can we say that Being and Time is therefore a failure because it is unfinished? I do not think so, unless we have a very restricted under- standing of philosophy. It is not about answering questions, but making us question in a more profound way, and Heidegger always saw his own thought as such a continual questioning. The essay ‘Time and Being’ in this book explains in some way why Heidegger himself never wrote this missing division. It is not, as much as his later writing is, an easy read, but it does explain some of Heidegger’s own unease with his methodology and why his thought had moved elsewhere. This is sometimes described as the famous ‘turn’ (Kehre) in his philosophy from the Being of Dasein to Being as such. It is not we who determine Being, but Being us. This change is also described by Heidegger in ‘Letter on Humanism’ which can be found in Basic Writings.

Heidegger, M. (1977), The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. W. Lovitt, New York: Harper and Row.

The essays on technology found in this collection again demonstrate the transformation of Heidegger’s thought from Being and Time. There is little mention of the domination of technology in the modern world there, which becomes the basis of much of Heidegger’s later thought, though there are clues of it in the description of Dasein’s ‘de- severance’. Technology, broadly speaking, can be understood as the abolition of distance and the reduction of all beings (including human beings) to resources to be manipulated and used up. The pos- sibility of an alternative relation to beings is not really visible in Being and Time, because of its emphasis on the pragmatic aspects of Dasein’s environment. The world is a workshop in Being and Time, and except for a brief mention of the ‘nature which “stirs and strives” ’, there is never a landscape or open country (though we might want to add even this nature is now a resource) (BT: 100).

Heidegger, M. (1982), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. A. Hofstadter, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

One of the indispensable lecture series given by Heidegger just around the publication of Being and Time (this one was taught in the summer of 1927, so it could not have been closer). I think it is arguable that these lectures are the best commentaries and should always be read alongside the major work. Heidegger was a superb teacher, as many of his students bear witness, and a great communi- cator of ideas. Not for him the mechanical summary of what others have thought and the reduction of philosophy to learnt material, but a real living and dynamic thinking. He came to his ideas through teaching and working with his students, which is perhaps why many of them became great philosophers themselves. This lecture series is primarily concerned not with the definition of phenomenology as the title might suggest (many of Heidegger’s lecture titles are a bit mis- leading, because he worked out his thought in his lectures and some- times never got to the topic itself; or he just ran out of time since it took so long to set out what needed to be thought and what lay in people’s way to prevent them from doing so). The first part of the course is a ‘destruction’ of traditional ontology, especially in Kant and

its origins in Scholasticism. It could be said to be a portion, therefore, of the second part of Being and Time, which was intended to be a destruction of traditional ontologies. The second half of the course is a re-elaboration of the temporality described in Being and Time and must be read alongside these sections. It also gives us a clue as to what division three might have looked like, though this finally became a dead end for Heidegger.

Heidegger, M. (1985), History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, trans.

T. Kisiel, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Another of Heidegger’s series of lectures, and this one might be even more important than The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Like the pre- vious lecture series, the title is a slight misrepresentation. Really, it is a preliminary version of Being and Time and for this reason it is essen- tial for understanding of the content of the latter. Because it is a lecture series and Heidegger is speaking to his students, we might argue it is a little easier to comprehend than the major work, since he provides more concrete examples and images to explain his concepts. The first part offers a detailed analysis of Husserl phenomenology and subjects it to an ‘immanent critique’ which is the basis of the redefinition of phenomenology in section seven of Being and Time. The second part covers the same material of the first division of this work, and a brief analysis of Being-toward-death. Even if you do not read any of the commentaries on Being and Time, you should read this. It profoundly illuminates and explains its overall argument for the renewal of ontology through the description of human existence.

Heidegger, M. (1993), Basic Writings, ed. D. Krell, 2nd edn, London: Routledge.

An excellent collection of Heidegger’s writings after Being and Time, which has now become a classic. If you want to expand your under- standing of Heidegger’s thought through his own work, then this is the place to begin. It contains all the important essays, such as ‘What is Metaphysics?’, ‘On the Essence of Truth’, ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, ‘Letter on Humanism’ and ‘The Question concerning Technology’, which are relevant to any reading of Being and Time, both to supplement and develop your understanding (so for example, ‘On

the Essence of Truth’ deepens and broadens the explanation of truth in Being and Time, and ‘What is Metaphysics?’ is absolutely necessary to understand the importance of the ‘nothing’ in the description of Dasein’s Being). The other essays show how Heidegger’s thought changed after Being and Time, and are important to read in compari- son. Thus the ‘Letter on Humanism’ offers an important self-criticism of Being and Time through the reversal of the priority between Dasein and Being because of the latter’s residual subjectivism. Rather than escaping the metaphysics of subjectivity, Heidegger comes to see Being and Time as its continuation in a different form. The editor, David Krell, also provides a very good introduction to Heidegger’s philoso- phy as a whole, and specific introductions to each of the essays.

Heidegger, M. (1995), The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. W. McNeill and N. Walker, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

A lecture series Heidegger gave after the publication of Being and Time in 1929–30. It is important for two reasons. Firstly, it offers a detailed description of what it means to exist in a world, which can be added to the description of Being and Time. Rather than just examining it from the perspective of Dasein, as Heidegger does in Being and Time, he argues why it is only humans who have world and not any other being. Secondly, it provides a complex and fascinating description of moods, which complement the analysis of Being and Time, but now the fundamental mood is boredom and not anxiety. Also moods are no longer described through the individual but through a historical per- spective. Again, this shift from the individual to history is a future sign of Heidegger’s move away from the subjectivism or individualism of Being and Time.

Heidegger, M. (1997), Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, 5th edn, trans.

R. Taft, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Heidegger’s book on Kant was first published in 1929. It could be said to be part of the missing second part of Being and Time which was intended to be a ‘destruction’ of the ontologies of Descartes, Kant and Aristotle. Destruction is both negative and positive. Negative, because it show how these ontologies conceal the original question of

Being, and positive, because they have resources within them (despite the intentions of the authors) to reawaken this question. Heidegger focuses on the role of imagination in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which has sometimes been overlooked by other readers, and how tem- porality is fundamental to understanding Kant’s ontology. This work also shows how far, in his interpretation of Kant, he differed from the then powerful Neo-Kantianism in Germany, which tended to priori- tise epistemological over ontological questions.

Heidegger, M. (1997), Plato’s Sophist, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuawer, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

A reconstruction of Heidegger’s lecture course on Plato and Aristotle given in 1924–5. It is not a guide to the immediate argument of Being and Time but part of the long gestation of that book. It is a detailed textual analysis of book VI of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and the whole of Plato’s Sophist. Again this engagement with the Greek tradi- tion makes good the absence of the second part of Being and Time. It also makes clear how positively we are to understand the ‘destruction’ of the history of philosophy. Being and Time is not so much written against Greek philosophy but written in its shadow, and this lecture series demonstrates that the question of Being is not an arbitrary one, but central to origins of philosophy. Fundamental to the Greek expe- rience of Being is the concept of truth as ‘unconcealedness’ (aletheia) which is crucial to the re-interpretation of truth in Being and Time. This is not for the first time reader, but it does deepen our understanding of the link between Being and truth which is fundamental to Being and Time and all of Heidegger’s subsequent work.

Heidegger, M. (2001), Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, trans. R. Rojcewicz, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

One of Heidegger’s early lecture series given in the winter of 1921–

2. It is interesting to see the origin of some of the key concepts of Being and Time, especially the idea of care. The language and exposition, however, are very abstract and complex because Heidegger is strug- gling to discover a new language in order to express his insights. Much of this vocabulary will be discarded. Perhaps more interesting for the Heidegger scholar rather than the general reader, and not as useful as

The Basic Problems of Phenomenology and the History of the Concept of Time

in understanding the detail of Being and Time itself.

Heidegger, M. (2001), Zollikon Seminars: Protocols – Conversations – Letters, ed. M. Boss, trans. F. Mayr and R. Askay, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

This book is a record of correspondence and conversations between Heidegger and a Swiss psychiatrist Medard Boss, and also a transcript of seminars with the latter’s students between 1947 until Heidegger’s death. It is a fascinating glimpse into the teaching style of Heidegger. Also, because he is speaking with medical and not philosophy students, he starts the philosophical discussion at the most basic level, though he never simplifies the topics that are being discussed. In these seminars, he comes across as a modern Socrates. In relation to Being and Time, the discussions about time are particularly interesting, especially con- cerning the derivative nature of the scientific image of time, and can be compared fruitfully with the material of the second division.

Heidegger, M. (2004), The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. M. Fritsch and A. Gosetti-Ferencei, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

A early lecture series given by Heidegger in 1920–1. It is divided into three parts: ‘Introduction of the Phenomenology of Religion’, ‘Augustine and Neo-Platonism’ and ‘The Philosophical Foundations of Mediaeval Mysticism’. The first section is particularly interesting in relation to Being and Time. Heidegger is not interested in the phi- losophy of religion in the traditional sense as the proofs of existence of God, but how early Christians experienced their lives as it is attested in their writings. This language is closer to our own experi- ence than the metaphysical language of philosophy, and explains the use of religious tropes in Being and Time, which are stripped of any theological baggage. The material on Augustine is also the seed for the description of ‘falling’ or ‘fallenness’ in Being and Time.

Heidegger, M. (2005), Introduction to Phenomenological Research, trans. D.

O. Dahlstrom, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Early lectures which Heidegger gave in the winter semester of 1923–

4. They offer a version of Heidegger’s re-interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology through his emphasis on the Greek etymology which we find again in section seven of Being and Time. Like the lecture series, the History of the Concept of Time, it also provides evidence of Heidegger’s ‘immanent critique’ of Husserl’s phenomenology as the basis of its re-interpretation as the method of Being and Time. What is at issue is Husserl’s continuation of a Cartesian world view which pre- vents him from breaking out of his theoretical prejudices. For this reason, we have to go back to the original Greek experience of the world and see how Descartes’ ontology (or lack of it) prevents any fun- damental renewal of a concrete phenomenology. What is not ques- tioned in Descartes’ famous statement,‘I think, therefore I am’, is what exactly ‘I am’ means and how we are to understand human exis- tence. This lecture series is not as useful for directly understanding the argument of Being and Time as the History of the Concept of Time and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology are, but it does demonstrate how impor- tant phenomenology is to Heidegger’s thought, even though he needed to break from Husserl’s influence. It also shows just how con- sistent his thought is through these years until the publication of Being and Time in 1927, where he keeps coming back to the same issues again and again, especially the importance of the ‘destruction’ of Descartes and the re-invention of phenomenology.

Recommended Secondary Works on Being and Time

Blattner, W. (2006), Heidegger’s Being and Time, London: Continuum.

A student’s guide to Being and Time, though in fact it comments only on the first division. It is heavily influenced by Dreyfus’ book Being- in-the-World and could be said to be a simplified version of it. It is written in a lively and vivid style and uses a lot of illustrative exam- ples to make Heidegger’s work more accessible to the student. This is a good introduction to Heidegger’s critique of epistemology, but it does leave out a lot of the detail of Being and Time. The decision (apart from the analysis of death, conscience and guilt) to ignore most of the second division seems a bit strange when it advertises itself as an introduction to the work as a whole. There are useful study questions at the end of each section which the student and teacher might find

useful, though some of them are a bit idiosyncratic, which might be the general judgement of the book as a whole.

Dreyfus, H. L. (1991), Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s

Being and Time, Division I, Cambridge: MIT Press.

An excellent commentary on the first division of Being and Time. What is so wonderful about Dreyfus’s book is that it is not so much a expla- nation of Heidegger’s great work but a re-formulation. Being and Time (unfairly, I think) has a reputation of being a difficult book to read because of its technical language. This work re-invents Heidegger’s language to make it accessible to the English reader. The origin of this book are the author’s courses on Heidegger’s Being and Time which he taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley and it is great example of what a wonderful teacher he must be. Without this book, Being and Time can seem to be a hermetic and closed text. With it, its true originality and importance to our re-interpretation of our- selves and our world shines through. Like any great book, it does have it own bias which is towards pragmatism and a debate with certain aspects of analytic philosophy. This means that some of the drama and pathos of Heidegger’s writing is missing (which some might say is a good thing). Also there is no commentary (apart from an appen- dix) on division two. None the less, as a lucid explanation of Being- in-the-world it cannot be excelled.

Gorner, P. (2007), Heidegger’s Being and Time: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The latest commentary on Being and Time to be published in a series of text books which are intended to guide the reader through the main classics in the history of philosophy. Out of all the commen- taries, this sticks closest to the original text and makes constant refer- ence to the German. It does tend to read, however, more as a summary of Heidegger’s thought than an analysis. Rather than addressing each section of Being and Time, it divides it into main themes (such as ‘Truth’ and ‘Being-in-the-world) and for this reason it lacks some of the detail and finesse of the other more substantial commentaries. None the less, it is useful in understanding the broad sweep of Heidegger’s thought.

King, M. (2001), A Guide to Heidegger’s Being and Time, ed. J. Llewelyn, New York: State University of New York Press.

This is a new and expanded edition of Magda King’s Heidegger’s Philosophy: A Guide to His Basic Thought, which was one of the best guides to Being and Time ever to be published, and we must thank the editor John Llewelyn for republishing it with the addition of her com- mentary on division two. The first two parts of this book (which are a reproduction of the original work) are a detailed explanation of the first division. King writes in clear and transparent style and has a close engagement with Heidegger’s text. Nowhere, however, does she let Heidegger overwhelm her (which he has done to others). The great- est temptation with any writer on Heidegger is to adopt his own style and writerly tics. King, on the contrary, lays his argument out in an orderly and intelligible way. The third part of this commentary, which was unpublished in her lifetime, concerns the second division of Being and Time, which is absent in Dreyfus’ great commentary, and for that reason it is very useful supplement to his reading. Unlike the other two parts, however, it takes less distance from Heidegger’s text, and perhaps because of this it has less explanatory power for the intro- ductory reader (this might be because King could not re-edit them before publication). This is not the most basic introduction to Being and Time, but like Dreyfus’ commentary it is absolutely essential.

Kisiel, T. (1993), The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Like many great works in the history of philosophy, Being and Time can appear to have descended from the heavens fully formed and without precedent. Kisiel’s book demonstrates unquestionably that this is not so. As Heidegger’s lectures before Being and Time now prove, he had actively been engaged with these ideas for many years. This work is a reconstruction from this additional material of the concep- tual genesis of the main themes of Being and Time. It sets out the context for this work through Heidegger’s relationship with Christianity, phenomenology and the history of ontology (especially the importance of Aristotle to his understanding of Being). The book is not really a commentary on Being and Time but a great work of scholarly reconstruction which illuminates every stage of the con-

struction of Heidegger’s work both in reality (in terms of the histor- ical detail) and conceptually.

Mulhall, S. (2005), Routledge Philosophical Guidebook to Heidegger and

Being and Time, 2nd edn, London: Routledge.

One of the best introductory guides to Being and Time. It offers a simpler explanation than Dreyfus and King’s commentaries and should be read before them. It is a systematic retelling of all the sec- tions of Being and Time (both the first and second divisions), and is written in a clear and rigorous way for first-time readers, but does not insult their intelligence. It is also illuminated by practical examples and vivid illustrations which make Being and Time a lot more accessi- ble. Like Dreyfus’ book, however, it is heavily influenced by Pragmatism and Wittgenstein and ignores completely the French Heideggerians. Out of all the commentaries on this work, however, it offers the best explanation of the second division. Like Dreyfus and King, this book is necessary to any student of Being and Time.

Polt, R. (1999), Heidegger: An Introduction, London: Routledge.

Although this is an introduction to the whole of Heidegger’s thought, most of the book is in fact a commentary on Being and Time. Like most of them, it concentrates on the first division, and its style and philosophical inclination is influenced by Dreyfus. This work is written in a very clear style, but also has a real engagement with Heidegger’s thought and is supported by excellent scholarship (unlike the other explanations of Heidegger’s work, it also makes use of much of the lecture material). It is especially good on explaining the question of Being and the concrete analyses of Being and Time. It also situates this work within Heidegger’s philosophy as a whole and clarifies how the later philosophy differs from it. Finally, it has a useful selective bibliography (with brief annotations) for any reader who might want to take their investigation of Heidegger to a deeper level.

R. Polt (ed.) (2005), Heidegger’s Being and Time: Critical Essays, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.

An excellent collection of essays on aspects of Being and Time, which includes both French and German writers. Not all of these essays are for the student or general reader, but one or two are very useful. Particularly to be recommended are Jean Grondin’s essay on the beginning of Being and Time, ‘Why Reawaken the Question of Being’ and Jeffrey Andrew Barash’s on history, ‘Historical Meaning in the Fundamental Ontology of Being and Time’. Again this edition has a useful short bibliography which supplements the one given by the editor in Heidegger: An Introduction.

Safranski, R. (1999), Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, trans. E. Osers, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Not a commentary on Being and Time, but the best biography of Heidegger, which situates his life within the development of his thought. It is especially important for its careful and balanced analysis and description of the events surrounding Heidegger’s rectorship and joining the Nazi party which has created such scandal within the philo- sophical community. Such terrible facts should not prevent us from reading Being and Time, since being a philosopher does not make one necessarily a good person. We should know the truth of Heidegger’s involvement and its implication for his philosophy as a whole.

Other Works Cited

Arendt, H. (1998), The Human Condition, intro. M. Canovan, 2nd edn, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Blanchot, M. (1982), The Space of Literature, trans. A. Smock, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.

Critchley, S. (1999), The Ethics of Deconstruction, 2nd edn, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Derrida, J. (1994), ‘Letter to a Japanese Friend’, in R. Bernasconi and D. Wood (eds), Derrida and Difference, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pp. 1–5.

Descartes, R. (1984), Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dreyfus, H. L. (1992), What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason, 2nd edn, Cambridge: MIT Press.

Foucault, M. (2001), The Order of Things, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Gadamer, H.-G. (1979), Truth and Method, trans. W. Glen-Doepel, ed. J.

Cumming and G. Barden, 2nd edn, London: Sheed and Ward.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1994), ‘The Thinker Martin Heidegger’, in J. W. Stanley (trans.), D. J. Schmidt (intro.), Heidegger’s Ways, Albany: State University of New York Press.

Heidegger, M. (1962), Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Heidegger, M. (1996), Being and Time, trans. J. Stambaugh, Albany: State University of New York Press.

Husserl, E. (1982), Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book, trans. F. Kerston, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Kant, I. (2003), Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. K. Smith, intro. H. Caygill, 2nd edn, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Levinas, E. (1998), ‘Is Ontology Fundamental?’, in M. B. Smith and B. Harshav (trans.), Entre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 1–11.

Levinas, E. (2000), God, Death and Time, trans. B. Bergo, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Proust, M. (2002), In Search of Lost Time, trans. L. Davies, London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Wittgenstein, L. (2001), Philosophical Investigations, 3rd edn, Oxford: Blackwell. Young, J. (2002), Heidegger’s Later Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Writing an Essay on Heidegger’s Being and Time

For many, the only reason they will encounter Being and Time is as part of a university course, and probably the way they will be assessed is through writing an essay. In this part of the student guide, I want to suggest what kind of questions you might be expected to answer, and how you might go about doing so to the best of your ability.

Types of Questions you might Encounter

It is never possible to be totally sure what the specific content of any question could be, but by targeted research on course outlines which are online, and by using a bit of common sense, you can be fairly certain the following types of questions might turn up. If you are lucky your course tutor might suggest how to answer the questions outlined in your course, and if not, why not ask?

What Questions. They can be the hardest to answer often because they seem to be the simplest. These kind of questions might take the form of, ‘What does Heidegger mean by Being-in-the-World in Being and Time?’ You can substitute for the phrase ‘Being-in-the- world’ any concept or notion in the book. They appear easy, because it seems all you have to do is summarise what Heidegger says. But there are two problems with this: firstly, it can be very difficult to discover what Heidegger means; and secondly, even if you think you know what he does mean, it can be very difficult to organise your answer. I will speak in detail below about how to write an essay, but the danger in writing these kinds of questions (which is why they should really be avoided by course tutors) is you can precisely end up just summarising what Heidegger says, or even what some commentator has written, without analysing his argument at all (the reasons why he says what he says). Essays written in this style can end up just being a list of inter- esting things about Heidegger, but lack any structure or form. If you come across a ‘what’ question, like the one above, the best course of action is to transform it into a ‘why’ question. So to use our example, do not say, ‘What does Heidegger mean by Being-in-the-world?’, but ‘Why does Heidegger use the expression Being-in-the-world?’ In other words, what is the central problem which Heidegger is directing our attention to by using this formulation? As soon as you translate a ques- tion into an issue or problem, then you can begin to structure your essay, which is of utmost importance to its writing.
How Questions. These are questions which are addressed to the method of Being and Time. So, for example, you might find a question which asks you to explain the importance of phenomenology to the overall work. These questions can also take the form of a compari- son, which can either be internal or external to the text. Internally, they might ask you to compare two concepts together, so for example,
‘How does Heidegger distinguish the ready from the present-to- hand?’ Externally, a ‘how’ question might ask you to compare Heidegger analysis with another philosopher’s. Again, for example, ‘How does Heidegger distinguish his own conception of phenome- nology from Husserl’s?’ The aim of answering these questions is the same as above. Be careful of just falling into a list or summary. Think what is the primary problem or issue which is at the heart of the method or comparison (of course, in order to be able to answer this you have to do the research, both primary and secondary). Only when you have discovered this can you even begin to plan your essay and write it. So, for the first example, I might argue what is essential to Heidegger’s definition of phenomenology in Being and Time is the description of beings as they show themselves (and I would probably link this to his description of truth). For the comparison questions, on the other hand, I might argue what is fundamental to the distinction between ready and present-to-hand is the difference between practice and knowledge. Finally, for the comparison between the two different philosophers, I might propose Heidegger is transforming Husserl’s theoretical phenomenology into a concrete one. I am not arguing these are the only ways of answering these questions, but what I would suggest to you is that you need, first of all, to find a way into answering them, and such a path is only possible through formulat- ing an issue, question and problem for yourself.
Why Questions. In my opinion, these types of questions are

more immediately philosophical, and although unlike ‘what ques- tions’ might initially appear difficult, they are in fact easier to answer because they usually ask you a specific and direct question from which it is easier to construct and plan an essay, and therefore write it. A ‘why’ question normally asks for your opinion about a specific part of Heidegger’s argument in Being and Time or a particular concept. So for example, it might take a form such as this: ‘Is Heidegger right to argue truth originally means disclosure?’ What I am suggesting to you is that you should reformulate this question into the following form: ‘Why does Heidegger argue truth is originally disclosure?’ Only when you have understood why Heidegger has argued for something can you even begin to put forward your own opinion as to whether you agree or not. My general advice is that no matter what type of question you are faced with in your course you need to change it into a ‘why’

question, so you can begin to think about what you are reading as a problem for yourself. Only then can you read Being and Time for your- self rather than just be over-dependent on what Heidegger writes, or worse what others have written. You should always think indepen- dently, no matter at what level you are doing philosophy. Of course, it is important to read, because this is the only way you can know what Heidegger might have meant, and commentaries are useful in aiding your own understanding, but what is more important is that you ask yourself, ‘What was Heidegger’s problem?’ In other words, ‘Why did he write this?’ rather than, ‘What did he write?’

How to Write an Essay

As I have already indicated above, the most important part of essay writing is not so much the content but the form. If you do not get the form right, then your reader will not be able to follow or understand your argument, and therefore evidence of your own knowledge will be lost. I shall give you two bits of important and crucial advice to suc- cessful essay writing in this section: firstly, what the form of an essay should be; and secondly, how you should use primary and secondary texts to support your argument.

The basic structure of an essay is an introduction, main argument and conclusion and the art of essay writing is knowing the proper function of each.

Introduction. The main function of an introduction is to answer the question. It is surprising how many students fail to do this because they mistakenly believe the purpose of an introduction is merely to ‘introduce’. If you start your essay by waﬄing on about general stuff about Heidegger, then it is highly unlikely your essay will have any structure thereafter. An essay without structure is one in which the paragraphs follow without any noticeable order. In other words, you could cut the essay up with scissors and it would not make any difference to the argument at all. If you start straightaway by answer- ing the question, then you should be able to avoid this disaster.
One way of improving your writing is imagining it is a conversa- tion. For a start, it will make it more natural and closer to your own voice, which is always better for the reader, but more importantly it will make your argument more direct. If someone were to ask you a

question in the street, would you start wittering on? Would they not expect you to answer the question straightforwardly? Once you have answered the question, the next part of the introduction is to give reasons for your answer; otherwise what you have to say is merely an opinion. Let us say I am answering the question, ‘Is Heidegger right to suggest the meaning of Being has been forgotten at the beginning of Being and Time?’ Following from what I said above, I first of all have to transform this question into a ‘why’ question (which means nothing less than thinking about it). I have to ask myself, ‘Why does Heidegger think the meaning of Being has been forgotten and is he right?’ If I reply ‘yes’, then I have to think of the reasons why I agree. One reason might be that the history of metaphysics has led to the question becoming irrelevant. I would also have to think why this must be so. Is it because this history finds the source of the meaning of Being in things other than Dasein? But why has this happened? Heidegger’s answer is we are so occupied and involved with the beings we encounter in the world that we end up interpreting our own Being in terms of theirs and reverse the true ontological order of dependence. It is not we who gain our Being from things, but things from us. Notice, in attempting to answer the question and give reasons for it, I am not making general and vague comments about Heidegger the man or his philosophy, but getting straight to the question, thinking about and answering it concisely and to the point. If you do this from the very beginning, then your essay should almost write itself.
The main argument. I say the essay should almost write itself, because the introduction already informs you what the main argument should do: provide evidence for the reason or reasons for your answer you gave in the introduction. The issue here is the quantity and quality of the evidence. A useful analogy here is the courtroom (and they say philosophers make good lawyers). A lawyer defends a client (or prose- cutes the offender) by providing evidence for the judge and the jury. Now she does not want to provide evidence which is irrelevant or prolix, otherwise she might bore or confuse her listeners and lose the case. As a general rule it is always quality over quantity. Again those essays which have no form or structure tend to have a lot of informa- tion, but it is haphazard and hit or miss. Your aim is to convince a rea- sonably intelligent audience (and let us hope your marker is one of these!) with enough evidence to convince them that your reasons for
your argument are valid. If we go back to our analogy of the court- room and we imagine I am defending you on a murder charge (unlucky you), then I might provide the court with character witnesses, an alibi, or even show that the blood on your shirt is not that of the murder victim. Hopefully, through this evidence, I convince the jurors and the judge that you could not have committed the crime. It is exactly the same with essay writing. Generally, you need to provide at least three bits of evidence. Less, and I do not think you would con- vince anyone, more and you might bring in irrelevant material and start to confuse your readers. Of course, this is only general advice; sometimes four items might be required, but you should always be trying to evaluate your evidence rather than just providing as much as possible (this is what markers mean when they distinguish between analysis and summary – to analyse means to evaluate, discriminate, make a judgement). I always have to ask myself what is the best evi- dence I can provide for my argument and not how much I can do so. When it comes to essay writing, however, what evidence am I giving? If I am talking about a humanities essay, then it is always textual. The only evidence I have for anything Heidegger has thought is the books he has written. Unfortunately, he is dead so I cannot ask him what he meant (though I do not believe the writer has any better understanding of what she has written than the reader, so even if Heidegger were alive it probably would not make a difference). There is no absolute right or wrong in essay writing, but that does not mean you can say anything at all. I cannot answer our example question above by claiming the forgetting of the question of Being has to do with climate change (an absurd example, I know), because there is no evidence Heidegger wrote about this. In providing my evidence, I have to think of the places in the text which support the reason or reasons I have given for my answer in the introduction. If I am coming to these because I want to provide evidence, then I should be interpreting rather than just summarising them. So, for example, if one of the reasons I do give for the forgetting of Being is the confu- sion of Dasein’s Being with the Being of things, then I might want to look at the sections in Being and Time where Heidegger describes the phenomenon of ‘falling’ or ‘fallenness’, but always with emphasis on

my argument and not just repeating what he says.

Providing material and evidence for an argument is where research

comes into the planning of your essay, because if you do not know the text, then you might miss the best evidence for your essay (imagine I was a lawyer and did not know about DNA testing, for example). Our primary evidence is Being and Time (it has been translated into two ver- sions, the Macquarrie and Robinson, which I have been using, and the more recent Stambaugh – both are equally good, though of course stick to one or the other). Secondary sources and your lectures and seminars are also excellent guides for the overall structure of the work. There is, however, one other important function of secondary sources and that is to provide additional evidence. Again the useful analogy here is the courtroom. Lawyers always use experts to add weight to their arguments. If I want to prove the blood on your shirt is not that of the victim, then would it not be more convincing to my listeners, if I wheeled on some famous forensic scientist to say this rather than just me? I am a lawyer, what do I know? It is the same with using secondary sources in essays. If in your reading, you can find some famous professor from Yale or Oxford who says exactly the same as you, would that not convince the reader even more that your reasons are valid if you provided this evidence in a footnote or end note? On the whole secondary sources are not part of the main text, unless they are crucial to your argument, but then you have to evalu- ate the quality of your evidence, as I said above. Also, if you think of secondary sources in this way, then it gives direction to your research, because as soon as you have worked out the structure of your essay, you know what you are looking for, rather than having to read every single word written on Heidegger (an impossibility anyway) or just picking sources randomly from the shelves or the Web. If it is irrele- vant, throw it away. You can always read it in another life.
Conclusion. Now I am going to be slightly controversial here. I do not think a conclusion is just about concluding, as an introduction is not just about introducing (if you think introducing means waﬄing on about something and adding a bit of general colour). True you can very quickly summarise your argument, but do not insult your reader, because if you have structured your essay well, then they do not want to read it again. There is nothing more deflating than reading an conclusion which begins with the statement, ‘In summary, I have shown . . .’, when it is quite clear the writer has not (indeed, why even end the last paragraph with ‘In summary . . .’, since it is just that?).

Do not think of the conclusion as an ending, but as a chance of saying something new. Psychologically, this will leave your marker in a good frame of mind just before they decide how they are going to grade or mark the essay. But what does ‘new’ mean here? Just like with the main argument, you have to use your judgement. If you go too far off the beaten track, then you will leave your reader confused, but if you lack ambition, you will end up just repeating yourself, which I am trying to convince you is not such a good idea. There are three ways of expanding the scope of your essay at the end. One is referring to the overall context of text as a whole, since your evidence in the main argument is usually specifically tied to the relevant passages. So in relation to our example question, it might be interesting to point out Being and Time does not get around to answering the question of the meaning of Being, because it is only a fragment. Two, I might want to refer to the ambition or scope of Heidegger’s philosophy as whole. Again in relation to our question, I might briefly mention his own self criticisms of Being and Time, and the change of orientation of his later philosophy from Dasein to Being (again I would have to support this with evidence, as I must do in the main argument of the essay). Three, I could contrast Heidegger’s argument with another philosopher, as I have done so in some of the end notes in this book. Is ontology the one and only important question as Levinas suggests? Rather than seeing the conclusion just as the end of your essay, as though it has just run out of steam, view it as setting out new possibilities of research. No essay can answer all of a question, and we must remem- ber even Being and Time ends in just this way.