Being and Time

By: Martin Heidegger

Outline:

I. In the second section of the introduction to Being and Time, Heidegger addresses the nature of the question “What is Being?” as also a question.

A. He tries to show how the ‘question of being’ has a particular character that it does not share with other inquiries.

B. He further stated, “Every question is a seeking and every seeking is "guided beforehand by what is sought." Thus, every question is about something, but it is also a questioning of that something which, at present, remains indeterminate. Beyond this questioning we have the goal of the questioning: "that which is to be found in the asking (Being and Time, 1967)."

C. To ask a question in an explicit way, for example in the question of being, the question itself does not become transparent until we become clear about these different aspects of question as question.

D. Furthermore, "[w]e do not even know the horizon in terms of which that meaning is to be grasped and fixed" (Ibid), hence we do not even know where to start. However, we must realize that this understanding of being, however vague and imprecise, is a fact.

E. The indefiniteness of our understanding of being is an encouraging circumstance that we need to look for. However, before we can understand the concept of being, we need to examine some historical understanding of being as a concept.

II. The approach of asking about being is understood the “being of entities,” we must initially turn to entities; entities are “what are interrogated” (Ibid).

A. However, it might be immediately objected that the approach is circular. B. We are trying to understand an entity in its being so that we can "formulate"

the question of being? This supposed circularity is inescapable when we are trying to find "first principles," but the charge is equally groundless. 

C. Heidegger has two reasons for making this assertion: first, it must be accepted that "first principles" will be in effect in any endeavor we make, so we cannot even raise the question of their meaning without invoking them (in this he is quite close to Kant). Second, our understanding of being is currently deficient and, hence, cannot be used circularly.

D. We may speak of our questioning of the meaning of being as a "'relatedness backward or forward' which what we are asking about (being) bears to the inquiry itself as a mode of being of an entity [Dasein]" (Ibid). We relate "back" by examining our currently vague understanding of being; we relate "forward" by interrogating a being in its being (Dasein) in order to further clarify our current understanding.

III. Heidegger moves to explicate that there are two ways to advance in addressing the ‘Dasein”: these are the ontological and ontical priority in answering the question of Being.

A. It has an ontological priority because insofar as it understands itself as a certain kind of entity, existence is also determinative for it.

B. It has an ontical priority because Dasein is an entity whose Being has the determinate character of existence.

C. ‘Dasein’ for being ontical emphasizes Being (as what makes Dasein the entity that it is), on the other hand, the second claim for it being ontological emphasizes existence (as what makes Dasein as an entity understanding itself).

Reference:

Being and Time by Martin Heidegger

Submitted by: Jan Erwin F. Bulang, 2011-97523