SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

HIIDIGGIR ON TIME AND BIING

WINTER, 1970

JOSEPH J. KOCKELMANS

Pennsylvania State University

Introduction A first reading of the text shows thatin 1962 Heidegger continued to sub-

On January 31, 1962, Heidegger gave cribe to the basic ideas developed in Be-a lecture at the University of Freiburg ing and Time. Therefore, however newin a Studium Generale directed by this essay may be in ~anr aspects, ~neEugen Fink. The title of the lecture, must read it so that Its interpretationZeit und Sein: is a reference to the will remain in harmony with the basicthird section of the first part of Being conception of his original view.' On theand Time, which was originally an- other hand it is clear, also, that thenounced under that title in 1927, but text of the lecture contains many ele-not published at the time. The first ments which transcend the general per-part of Being a,!d Time w~ .devoted spective of Being and Time. T~is isto an interpretation of Dasein 10 te~ due mainly to the fact that Heideg-of temporality, and to an explana~on ger's investigations f~om 19~7 to 1962of time as the transcendental honzon on the meaning of Being (Sem) openedfor the question concerning the me~- up new insights which could not haveing of Being.' In 1927, however, Hei- been expected on the basis of. Beingdegger felt he was not able to deal and Time in 1927. One sees 10 theadequately with the theme indicated Time-lecture, too, that whereas Hei-by the title of the third section of Part degger's view on the meaning of !k~gI of the book and decided therefore to and the aboriginal Event (EreJgnu)publish his work in incomplete form.' is the same as that found in the mainIn 1962 Heidegger stated explicitly that works written from 1935 to 1962, thethe lecture, Zeit und Sein, represented conception of time defended in. it isan attempt to solve the question which relatively new, and the explanation ofhad been left unanswered in Being the relationship between time and Be-and Time' what he said in his lecture ing and their mutual relationship toon the issue, however, is substantially the aboriginal Event (which constitu~edifferent from what he would have the main themes of the lecture), againsaid about it, had the essay been writ- move along lines which are new andten in 1927. "That which is contained partly even surprising.in the text of this lecture, written 35

b link d Joseph J. Koekelmans, born in th~ Neth-years later, can no longer e e up erlands, is currently profes~or of philosophywith the text of Sein und Zeit," Hei- at Pennsylvania ~tate u,nlVerslty. ,He hasdegger wrote. "And yet the leading studied mathematics, phySiCS, and philosophy.

Among his publications are: three antholo-question has remained the same; how- gies, six books .pertaining to the realm ~fever, this simply means that the ques- philosophy of SCience, two books on Hus!erl stion has become still more questionable phenomenology, and two books on Heldeg­

ger, He has taught at the New ~cho~l forand still more alien to the spirit of the Social Research and at the Unlv,rsaty oftime." • Pittsburgh.

1 Heidegger, Martin: "Zeit und Sein," in L'endurance de la pensJe. Pour saluer Jean !!e'!'ufret:ed, Rene Char (Paris: PIon, 1968), pp. 13-71; also in: Zur Sache des Denkens (Tubmgen.Niemeyer, 1969), pp, 1-25. , d Ed rd Rob' (N

t Heidegger, Martin: Being and Time, trans. John Macquarne an wa mson ewYork: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 63.

, Zur Sach», p. 91. '

• Ibid. Z . d S' ,,,. Z S h p 27~0'''Protokoll zu einem Seminar liber den Vortrag , eat un em, In ur ac e, p, ~

pp. 29-35, 46-48. (These 'minutes' were written by Alfredo Guzzoni and later correcteand completed by Heidegger himself.)

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The questions I wish to deal within this essay are the following: 1) Pre­cisely what does the Time-lecture sayabout 'time'? 2) How does Heideggerconceive of the relationship between'time' and Being? 3) What does he sayabout the relationship between 'time'and Being on the one hand and the ab­original Event on the other? But inorder to be able to compare the laterview with the view found in Being andTime, I wish first to add a few re­flections on Heidegger's original con­ception of time and attempt to presentan idea of what Heidegger might havesaid in the section "Time and Being,"if it had been published in 1927. Itseems to me that this way of approach­ing the Time-lecture is the one whichwill best enable us to appreciate thenew ideas suggested here.

I am well aware of the fact thatall of these questions are difficult aswell as of far-reaching importance fora genuine understanding of Heidegger'sthought. Obviously, I shall not be ableto deal exhaustively with them withinthe space limitations set for this essay.But I hope, nonetheless, to be able tobring to light the elements which arevital for a preliminary understandingof the contributions Heidegger wishedto make in his 1961 essay.

1. Heidegger's Original Conceptionof Time (1927)

As the title of the book would sug­gest, the concept of time occupies aprivileged position in Being and Time.Already in the book's brief prefaceHeidegger presents his view on howBeing and time are to be related."Our aim in the following treatise isto work out the question concerningthe meaning of Being . . . Our pro­visional aim is the interpretation oftime as the possible horizon for anyunderstanding whatsoever of Being.'"In the title of the first Part of thebook Heidegger returns to this rela-

• Heideggerz.Martin: Being and Time, p, 19.r Ibid., p. 6/.•uu; p. 27.

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tionship: the interpretation of Daseinin terms of temporality (Zeitlichkeit) ,and the explication of time as transcen­dental horizon for the question con­cerning the meaning of Being.'

The first Part of the Book consistsof two major divisions: A preparatoryanalysis of Dasein and a second divis­ion on the relationship between Daseinand temporality (Zeitlichkeit). In thefirst division Heidegger takes as hisguiding clue the fact that the essenceof man consists in his ek-sistence, thattoward which man stands out is 'theworld,' and thus that for this reasonman can be described as 'Being-in-the­world.' The main task of the first di­vision is to unveil the precise meaningof this compound expression; but in sodoing the final goal remains the prep­aration of an answer for the questionconcerning the meaning of Being. Rei­degger justifies this approach to theBeing-question by pointing out thatman taken as Being-in-the-world, is theonly being who can make himselftransparent in his own mode of Being.The very asking of this question is oneof this entity's modes of Being, and assuch it receives its essential characterfrom what is inquired about, namelyBeing. "This entity which each of usis himself and which includes inquiringas one of the possibilities of its Being,we shall denote by the term 'Dasein'i":"

A preparatory analysis of Dasein'sBeing can only serve to describe theBeing of this being; it cannot interpretits meaning. As a preparatory pro­cedure it merely tries to lay bare thehorizon for the most primordial wayof interpreting Being. Once this hori­zon has been reached, the preparatoryanalytic of Dasein is to be repeated ona higher, genuinely ontological level.Heidegger repeats here that this hori­zon is to be found in temporality, takenas the meaning of the Being of Dasein.That is why on a second level all

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structures of Dasein, exhibited provi­sionally in the first division, must bere-interpreted as modes of temporality.But in thus interpreting Dasein as tem­porality, the question concerning themeaning of Being is not yet answered;only the ground is prepared here forlater obtaining such an answer.'

If it is true that Dasein has a pre­ontologie understanding of Being andif it is true that temporality is themeaning of the Being of Dasein, thenone can show that whenever Daseintacitly understands and interprets Be­ing, it does so with time as its stand­point. Thus time must be brought tolight as the horizon for all understand­ing of Being and this horizon itself isto be shown in terms of temporality,taken as the Being of Dasein whichunderstands Being. It is obvious thatin this context our pre-philosophicalconception of time is of no help andthe same thing is true for the con­ception of time which has persisted inphilosophy from Aristotle to Bergson.This traditional conception of timeand the ordinary way of understandingtime have sprung from temporalitytaken as the meaning of the Being ofDasein.'"

Normally we conceive of time asan endless successionof 'nows,' wherebythe 'not-yet-now' (future) passes by the'present now' to become immediatelya 'no-longer-now.' The future thusconsists of the 'nows' that have not yetcome, whereas the past consists of the'nows' that once were but no longerare; the present is the 'now' which atthe moment is. On the basis of thisconception we can make a distinctionbetween temporal and non-temporalentities; 'temporal' then means 'beingin time.' Thus time, in the sense of'being in time,' functions as a criterionfor distinguishing realms of Being. Noone has ever asked the question of howtime can have this distinctive ontologi-

• Ibid., p, 38'" iu«, p. 39.11 Ibid., pp. 39-40.

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cal function; nor has anyone askedwhether the authentic ontologicalrelevance which is possible for time,is expressed when time is used in sucha naively ontological manner. Thesequestions must be asked here and it willbe clear that if Being is to be under­stood in terms of time and if its variousderivatives are to become intelligiblein their respective derivations by takingtime into consideration, then Being it­self must be made visible in its 'tem­poral' character; but in this case 'tem­poral' no longer means 'being in time.'From this perspective even the non­temporal and supra-temporal are 'tem­poral' with regard to their Being, andthis not only privatively but also posi­tively. It is this temporality of Beingwhich must be worked out in the fun­damental ontology whose task it is tointerpret Being as such."

Temporality is furthermore the con­dition which makes historicity possibleas a temporal kind of Being whichDasein itself possesses. Historicitystands here for the state of Being whichis constitutive for Dasein's coming-to­pass (geschehen) as such. Dasein isas it already was and it is what it al­ready was. It is its past, not only inthe sense that its past is, as it were,pushing itself along 'behind' it, andwhich Dasein thus possesses as a kindof property which is still present-at­hand; Dasein is its past in the way ofits own Being which, to put it roughly,'comes-to-pass' out of its future on eachoccasion. Dasein has grown up in atraditional way of understanding it­self interpretatively. Its own past,which includes the past of its genera­tion, is not something which just fol­lows along after Dasein, but somethingwhich already goes ahead of it. Butif Dasein itself as well as its own un­derstanding are intrinsically historical,then the inquiry into Being itself is tobe characterized by historicity as well.

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Thus by carrying through the questionof the meaning of Being and by ex­plicating Dasein in its temporality andhistoricity, the question itself will bringitself to the point where it understandsitself as historical (historisch).u

After making these preliminary re­marks which merely describe what isto be accomplished by the analytic ofman's Being, Heidegger does not returnto the question of temporality and timeuntil the last chapter of the first divis­ion which is devoted to care (Sorge)as the genuine Being of Dasein. Intrying to explain just what is meantby the compound expression 'Being-in­the-world' Heidegger first focusses onthe ontological structure of the world,"then he tries to answer the question ofwho it is that Dasein is in its everyday­ness," and finally proceeds to explainwhat is meant by "Being-in-as-such." '"In the introduction to this last issueHeidegger explicitly repeats that thatbeing which is essentially constitutedby its Being-in-the-world, is itself inevery case its own 'there' (Da). Whenone speaks of the lumen naturale inman, one refers to this existential-onto­logical structure of man that he is insuch a way that he is his own 'there.'This means among other things thatDasein carries in its ownmost Beingthe character of not being closed off;Dasein because of this 'there' is to becharacterized by its disclosedness. Byreason of this fundamental disclosed­ness Dasein, together with the Being­there (Da-sein) of the world, is 'there'for itself. In the existential constitutionof Dasein's disclosedness three equallyconstitutive components are to be dis­tinguished, namely original understand­ing, original mood, and logos (Rede).'"

After explaining the meaning of thecompound expression "being-in-the-

n tu«, pp. 41-42.11 Ibid., pp. 91-148.~uu; pp. 149--168.11 Ibid., pp, 169--224... Ibid., pp, 171-172.II Ibid., p. 225.«nu; pp, 223-241.

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world" along these lines by describingits basic constitutive elements, Heideg­ger sets out to account for the unity ofDasein's Being: How are the unityand totality of that structural wholewhich we have pointed out, to be de­fined in an existential-ontological man­ner? 11 Heidegger tries to answer thisquestion by pointing out first that care(Sorge) is the unifying factor whichintegrates into a unity the multiple ele­ments of the Being of that being whoseBeing is precisely such that it is con­cerned about its own Being. By takinghis point of departure in a descriptiveinterpretation of anxiety (A ngst) Hei­degger is able to show that Dasein isa being who has the inexhaustible po­tentiality of transcending beings intoBeing; but, if Dasein has the ek-staticnature of ek-sistence, it is always aheadof itself. Dasein's ek-sistence, however,is essentially co-determined by thrown­ness; Dasein is like a process which isnot its own source; it always is alreadybegun and yet it is still to be achieved.Finally, Dasein in its essential depend­ence upon world is fallen to the'world,' to the intramundane things ofits everyday concern and thus caughtby the way things are publicly interpret­ed by the 'they.' Ek-sistentiality takentogether with thrownness and fallennessexplains why the very Being of Daseinis to be understood as care,"

In order to be able to show Dasein'sBeing in its totality Heidegger turns toDasein's final term, death. He describesdeath as a genuine, but also as the ulti­mate possibility of man's Being. It isthat possibility in which man's own Be­ing-in-the-world as such is at stake.Death reveals to man the possibility ofhis further impossibility. In otherwords, death is that possibility whichmakes the potentiality which Dasein is,

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limited through and through. Man isthoroughly and irretrievably finite be­cause his own death is that fundamen­tal possibility which from the very be­ginning leaves its mark upon man'slife and, thus, is a manner of Beingwhich Dasein must assume as soon asit begins to ek-sist,"

In his fallen condition Dasein triesto forget the authentic meaning ofdeath so that the question now becomesone of how one is to come to an au­thentic interpretation of the meaningof death, and thus to genuine au­thenticity. In Heidegger's view thiscan be shown by interpreting the basicconstituents of care (ek-sistence, factic­ity = thrownness, and fallenness) interms of an existential-ontological con­ception of death.

Dasein which has come to authenticBeing knows that death is constitutivefor all of its possibilities and that theultimate possibility of its own ek­sistence is to give itself up," If Daseingenuinely realizes this then it no longerflees from the definitiveness of its endand accepts it as constitutive of its fini­tude and thus makes itself free for it."Now at the moment that Dasein under­stands death as its ultimate possibility,as that possibility which makes its ownBeing impossible, and at the momentthat it accepts this final possibility asits very own by listening to the voiceof conscience," Dasein begins to becometransparent to itself as that which it isin itself, in its own Self. For deathdoes not just appear to Dasein in animpersonal way; it lays claim to it asthis individual Dasein. By listening tothe voice of conscience, by really under­standing the genuine meaning of deathin 'guilt,' and by accepting it as its own

'" Ibid., pp. 279-290 ... Ibid., p, 308.ft Ibid., pp. 308-309... Ibid., pp, 315-335... Ibid., pp, 341-348.r tu«; pp. 349-364." Ibid., pp. 364-370... Ibid., p, 372... Ibid., p. 373.

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death, Dasein breaks away from in­authenticity in resolve,"

Now it will be obvious that if all ofthis is to be true, then man's Beingmust be intrinsically temporal and tem­porality, in the final analysis, mustconstitute the primordial ontologicalbasis of Dasein's ek-sistentiality," Forwhat does the authentic man do? Herealizes his radical finitude by anticipat­ing death, by including it in advancein every project. By anticipating deathin all its projects Dasein receives its Be­ing precisely as its own, as its ownmost'personal' ek-sistence so that it reallycomes to itself." But this coming-to­itself is what is meant by 'future,' if theterm is taken in its primordial sense:This letting itself come towards itself inthat distinctive possibility which Daseinhas to put up with, is the primordialphenomenon of Zu-kunft, coming-to­wards, future,"

But Dasein's temporality extends notonly to the future; it has also thecharacter of a 'having been.' Daseincan project itself towards its own deathonly insofar as it already is. In orderto realize its ownmost Being, Daseinhas to accept, together with its owndeath, also its thrownness, its facticity,that which it is already. Death cannotbe its death if it has no relation towhat Dasein already is. Authenticallyfutural, Dasein is equally authentically'having been' (Gewesen). To antici­pate one's ultimate and ownmost pos­sibility is to come back understanding­ly to one's ownmost 'having-been.''''

Thus far we have seen that Dasein'scoming is a coming to a Self that al­ready is as having-been; on the otherhand, Dasein is what it has been onlyas long as the future continues to come,

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We must now tum to temporal near­ness, the present. According to Hei­degger, the genuine meaning of thepresent consists in a 'making present'(Gegenwiirtigen). Dasein, as temporal­izing, makes things present; this is theessential meaning of the present as itprimordially appears to Dasein. An­ticipating resolve discloses the actualsituation of the Da in such a way thatek-sistence, in its action, can be cir­cumspectively concerned with what isfactually ready-to-hand in the actualsituation, that is letting that which hasenvironmental presence be encountered,is possible only by making such a beingpresent."

The 'making present' of what haspresence presupposes, on the one hand,the future as anticipation of Dasein'spossibilities and, on the other, the re­turn to what has-been. By virtue ofDasein's understanding of its own Be­ing, thus, Dasein is able to understandthe human situation as a whole; at thesame time intramundane beings canmanifest themselves to it in their be­longing to a world. Thus, what Hei­degger calls 'making-present' presup­poses the 'having been' and the 'fu­ture.' The present is as the resultantof the two other ek-stases of time.'Having been' arises from the 'future'in such a way that the future which hasalready been releases the present fromitself. What is meant by temporalityis precisely the unity of this structuralwhole; the future which makes presentin the process of having been. Onlyinsofar as Dasein is characterized bytemporality can it realize its authenticBeing. Thus temporality reveals itselfhere as the meaning of authentic care."

From all of this, it becomes clear thatDasein can realize its total unity onlyby temporalizing itself. This 'becomingtemporal' includes at the same timefuture, having-been, and present. Thesethree 'phases' of time imply one an-

.. Ibid., pp. 373-374.

.. Ibid., p. 374.III Ibid., p, 375.

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other and nonetheless are mutuallyexclusive. For this reason Heideggercalls them the 'ek-stases' of primordialtime. We must now examine the na­ture of the relations which connectthese ek-stases of time with the struc­tural elements of care. According toHeidegger, care must be characterizedby ek-sistence (having to be ahead ofitself), facticity of thrownness (alreadybeing in the world), and fallenness (be­ing absorbed in intramundane things).As basically Being-able-to-be (Sein­konnen), Dasein is always ahead of it­self, ahead of what it actually is. Thatis why its understanding has the char­acter of a project. It is precisely be­cause Dasein possesses the ontologicalstructure of projecting (Verstehen) thatit can always be ahead of its actualbeing. However, being ahead-of-itself,Dasein always is already in a world andis of necessity involved in it. Thus,Dasein cannot go beyond itself withoutbeing 'thrown' into the world. Thismeans that ek-sistence as Being-ahead­of-itself always includes facticity. Final­ly, Dasein, which is in a world intowhich it has been thrown, always dis­covers itself there as absorbed by thatwhich immediately manifests itself thereand with which it deals concernfully(fallenness). But now the relationshipbetween Dasein's essential temporalityand care will be clear at once. Hei­degger expresses it as follows: "The'ahead-of-itself' (ek-sistentiality) isgrounded in the future. The 'being-al­ready-in' (facticity) makes known the'having been.' 'Being-at' (fallennesstbecomes possible in 'making-present'."

After showing that the very Being ofDasein consists in care whereas care,in tum, is understood in terms of tem­porality, Heidegger tries to explainhow man's temporality in its modifi­ability is the principle for the distinc­tion of his possible modes of Being.Dasein is essentially temporal; it tern-

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poralizes time. If it takes the tern­poralization of time upon itself, it isin an authentic way; however, if it takesitself as a temporal thing which findsitself in a temporal horizon, it is in aninauthentic manner. One has to real­ize, however, that Dasein would not beable to temporalize time authentically,if man did not always find himself al­ready in a temporal openness, somehowconnected with his own 'inner-temporal­ity.' In other words, man can ek-sistauthentically only if in his historicityhe expressly endures his destiny ofhaving to temporalize time as finite,that is as a mortal being. But thismeans that 'inner-temporality' and his­toricity are inseparable. When manturns toward historicity, he is able toek-sist authentically; however, if heturns to his own 'inner-temporality' heforgets himself in his concern for whatis ready-to-hand or in his ~resentation

of what is present-at-hand.

Ek-sistence, Being-present-at-hand,and Being-ready-to-hand, thus, areintrinsically connected with man's tem­porality. But this means that the tem­porality of Dasein is not only the princi­ple for the division of Dasein's modesof Being, but the time which is tem­poralized by Dasein is also the principleof the division of the meaning of Be­ing into possible significations of Be­ing (namely Being as ek-sistence, aspresent-at-hand, as ready-to-hand, etc.) .But this means, in tum, that a descrip­tion of the various interplayings of thethree dimensions of temporality cangive us a guiding-clue for the division ofthe significations of Being."

We have defined Dasein's Being ascare and found that the ontologicalmeaning of care is temporality. Wehave seen, also, that temporality con­stitutes the disclosedness of Dasein'sthere. Now in the disclosedness of this

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'there,' the world is disclosed alongwith it. But this means that world,taken as Total-meaningfulness, mustlikewise be grounded in temporality.The existential-temporal condition forthe possibility of the world lies in thefact that temporality, taken as ek-staticunity, has something like a horizonwithin it. For ek-stases are not simple'raptures' in which one gets carriedaway; rather, there belongs to eachek-stasis a kind of 'whither' to whichone is carried away. Let us call thiswhither of the ek-stases the 'horizonalschema.' The schema then in whichDasein comes toward itself futurally isthe 'for the sake of which;' the schemain which Dasein is disclosed to itselfin its thrownness is to be taken as that'in the face of which' it has been thrownand that 'to which' it has been aban­doned; this characterizes the horizonalschema of what has been. Finally thehorizonal schema for the present is de­fined by the 'in order to.'

The unity of the horizonal schemataof future, present, and having been,is grounded in the ek-static unity oftemporality. The horizon of temporal­ity as a whole determines that where­upon each ek-sisting being factically isdisclosed. With its factical Being-there,a Being-able-to-be is projected in thehorizon of the future, its being-alreadyis disclosed in the horizon of having­been, and that with which Dasein con­cerns itself in each case is discovered inthe horizon of the present. The hori­zonal unity of the schemata of theseek-stases connects in a primordial waythe relationships of the 'in order to'with the 'for the sake of which' so thaton the basis of the horizonal constitu­tion of the ek-static unity of temporal­ity, there belongs to Dasein in each casesomething like a world that has beendisclosed. Just as the present (Gegen­wart) arises in the unity of the tern-

11 tus., pp. 383-40 l... Ibid., pp. 401-418. See for the foregoing passage also: Otto poggelerl. "Heideggera Topologied~s Seins," in Man and World, 2 (1969), pp. 331-357, pp. 33/-345, and William J.Richardson, Heidegger. Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1963),pp.71-93.

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poralizing of temporality out of thefuture and the having-been, so in thesame way the horizon of a presenttemporalizes itself equiprimordially withthose of the future and the having been.Thus, insofar as Dasein temporalizesitself, a world is. In temporalizing it­self in regard to its own Being, Daseinas temporality is essentially in a worldbecause of the ek-statico-horizonal con­stitution of his temporality. The world,therefore, is not ready-to-hand as apiece of equipment, nor present-at­hand as a thing, but it temporalizes it­self in temporality. It is there with theoutside-of-itself typical for the ek-stases.If no Dasein ek-sists, then no world is'there' either.

In all forms of concern and in allobjectification the world is always al­ready presupposed; for all of theseforms are possible only as ways of Be­ing-in-the-world. Having its ground inthe horizonal unity of ek-static tem­porality, the world is transcendent. Itis already ek-statically disclosed beforeany entities-within-the-world can be en­countered. Temporality maintains it­self ek-statically within the horizons ofits own ek-stases and in temporalizingitself it comes back from these ek-stasesto those entities which are encounteredin the 'there.' Thus the Total-meaning­fulness which determines the structureof the world is not a network of formswhich a worldless subject lays oversome kind of material; Dasein, under­standing itself and its world ek-statical­ly in the unity of the 'there,' rathercomes back from these horizons to theentities encountered within them. Com­ing back to these entities in understand­ing is the existential meaning of lettingthem be encountered by making thempresent."

There is finally a relationship be­tween Dasein's spatiality and its tem­porality. Dasein must be considered astemporal and 'also' as spatial coordi­nately. In clarifying this relationship,Heidegger says, it cannot be our in-

a Being and Time, pp. 415-418.

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tention to explain Dasein's 'spatio­temporal' character by pointing outthat Dasein is an entity which is 'inspace as well as in time.' Furthermore,since temporality is the very meaningof the Being of care, it will be impos­sible to 'reduce' temporality to spatial­ity. On the other hand, to demon­strate that spatiality is existentially pos­sible only through temporality is nottantamount to deducing space fromtime. What we must aim at is the un­covering of the temporal conditions forthe possibility of the spatiality which ischaracteristic of Dasein - a spatialityupon which the uncovering of spacewithin the world is to be founded.When we say that Dasein is spatial, wedo not mean to say that as a thingDasein is present-at-hand in space.Dasein as such does not fill up space,but it rather takes space in, this to beunderstood in the literal sense. Inek-sisting Dasein has already made freefor itself a leeway (Spielraum). It de­termines its own position or location bycoming back from the space it hasmade free to the place which it occu­pies.

When Dasein makes room for itselfit does so by means of directionalityand de-severance (by making distancesdisappear). How is this possible on thebasis of Dasein's temporality? Let usgive an example of our everyday con­cern with things. When Dasein makesroom for itself and the things withwhich it is concerned, it has first to dis­cover a region in which it can assignplaces to the things in question. In sodoing it must bring these things close,and situate them in regard to one an­other and in regard to itself. Daseinthus has the character of directionalityand de-severance. All of this, however,presupposes the horizon of a worldwhich has already been disclosed. Butif this is so, and if it is essential forDasein to be in a mode of fallenness,then it is clear also that only on thebasis of its ek-statico-horizonal tern-

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porality is it possible for Dasein tobreak into space. For the world is notpresent-at-hand in space and yet onlywithin a world does space let itself bediscovered."

It seems to me that this brief resumeof some of the basic ideas of Heideg­ger's original conception of time shouldsuffice to explain what Heidegger in­tends to say in his 1962 lecture. Butbefore turning to the lecture itself Iwish first to reflect for a moment uponthe intrinsic limitations of his originalview of time, particularly with respectto the problem concerning the meaningof Being.

II. From Being and Timeto Time and Being"

In Heidegger's view Being and Time(1927) was meant to be a 'fundamen­tal ontology' which was to prepare theway for a 'genuine ontology' whosemain task it would be to focus on thequestion concerning the meaning ofBeing. Fundamental ontology consistssubstantially in an analytic of Dasein'sBeing as Being-in-the-world, to be de­veloped by means of a hermeneuticphenomenology. In the first part ofthe book Heidegger conceives of Daseinin terms of care, whereas in the sec­ond part care is understood as tem­porality: The meaning of the Beingof Dasein is temporality. All of thiswas to prepare the answer for a morebasic question concerning the temporalcharacter (Zeithaftigkeit) of the mean­ing of Being itself. "In our considera­tions hitherto, our task has been tointerpret the primordial whole offactical Dasein with regard to its pos­sibilities of authentic and inauthenticBeing, and to do so in an existential­ontological manner in terms of its verybasis. Temporality has manifested itselfas this basis and accordingly as themeaning of the Being of care ... Nev-

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ertheless, our way of exhibiting theconstitution of Dasein's Being is onlyone way which we may take. Our aimis to work out the question of Being ingeneral."" In other words, onc~ tem­porality is laid bare as the mearung ofDasein's Being, the decisive step is stillto be taken: The step namely whichleads from this kind of temporality tothe temporality characteristic of themeaning of Being. This last step is nottaken in Being and Time. Heideggerpublished the book in an incompleteform and in the last sentences of itpointed to the work that in his viewremains to be done: "The existential.ontological constitution of Dasein'stotality is grounded in temporality.Hence the ek-static projection of Be­ing must be made possible by someprimordial way in which ek-static tern­porality temporalizes. How is this modeof temporalizing temporality to be in­terpreted? Is there a way which leadsfrom primordial time to the meaningof Being? Does time itself manifest it­self as the horizon of Being?" IT

By publishing the book in an in­complete form in 1927 Heidegger ad­mitted that he had not completelysucceeded in the task he had set forhimself. The basic question he en­countered was the following: Once thetemporality of Dasein is grasped in theunity of its three ek-stases, how canthis temporality of Dasein be inter­preted as the temporality of the under­standing of Being and how is the latter,in tum, related to the meaning of Be­ing? Originally Heidegger thought hehad found a way to answer this ques­tion, but it appeared almost immediate­ly that that way led away from whathe really wished to accomplish, namelyto show that time is the transcendentalhorizon of the question of Being.· Foron the basis of the analyses as they areactually found in Being and Time

"Ibid.zpp. 419-421.• See lor what follows: Otto Poggeler, Der D,nkw,g Martin H,id,gg,rs

1963), pp. 63-66.• B,ing and Time, pp. 486-487 ... Ibid., p. 483.• Ibid., p. 63.

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it is still not yet clear precisely what isto be understood by 'transcendence'taken as the overcoming of beings inthe direction of Being. In addition thereis the question of the exact relation­ship between Dasein's temporality andtime as the transcendental horizon forthe question concerning the meaningof Being. Exactly what is meant hereby 'transcendental'? This much isclear: The term 'transcendental' doesnot mean the objectivity of an objectof experience as constituted by con­sciousness (Kant, HusserI), but ratherrefers to the project-domain for thedetermination of Being as seen from theviewpoint of Dasein's there" But evenin this supposition it is still not yetclear what the precise relationship isbetween the temporality of Dasein andtime as the transcendental horizon forthe question of Being, because it is notclear how Dasein's understanding ofBeing is to be related to the meaningof Being. Heidegger says that mean­ing is that in which the intelligibilityof something maintains itself." Themeaning of Being then is that in whichthe intelligibility of Being maintainsitself. But what is the precise relation­ship between Being's intelligibility andDasein's understanding of Being? Inthe introduction to the second partof the book Heidegger argues that "tolay bare the horizon within whichsomething like Being in general be­comes intelligible, is tantamount toclarifying the possibility of having anyunderstanding of Being at all - anunderstanding which itself belongs tothe constitution of the being calledDasein." 41 But precisely what is meantby 'being tantamount to'? If one takesthis statement literally, it means thatDasein has an absolute priority over themeaning of Being and then relativismseems to be the final outcome of theinvestigation. Heidegger saw this dan-

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ger and it took him a number of yearsto find a way to avoid it without be­ing forced into a position of havingto appeal to a 'God of the philosophers,'regardless of the concrete form inwhich this 'God' might be proposed.

There are a number of other issueswhich did not receive final answers inBeing and Time, problems such as theidea of phenomenology, the relation­ship between ontology and science, therelationship between time and space, afurther determination of logos, the re­lationship between language and Being,the relationship between Being andtruth, etc." But rather than focussingon anyone of these, let us tum our at­tention again to the problem concern­ing the relationship between Dasein'stemporality and time as the transcen­dental horizon for the question of Be­ing, and this time from a slightly dif­ferent point of view.

In Being and Time Heidegger wasguided by the idea that in the onto­logical tradition Being was understoodmainly as presence-at-hand" as con­tinuous presence, and thus from oneof the dimensions of time, namely thepresent. Heidegger wished to bringthe onesidedly accentuated 'continuouspresence' back into the full, pluridi­mensional time, in order then to tryto understand the meaning of Beingfrom the originally experienced time,namely temporality. In his attempt tomaterialize this goal he was guided bya second basic idea, namely that eachbeing can become manifest with re­gard to its Being in many ways, so thatone has to ask the questions of justwhat is the pervasive, simple, unifieddetermination of Being that permeatesall of its multiple meanings. But thisquestion raises others: What, then,does Being mean? To what extent

.. Zur Sach« p, 29.to B,ing and Tim" p. 193.It Ibid., p. 274.osuu; pp. 133-134, 203, 273, 382, 400, 402-403, 408-409, 411-4:12, 420, 423, 458, 487.«tu«, pp. 41-4:9, 24-4-256.

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(why and how) does the Being of be- meaning of Being and how temporality,ings unfold in various modes? How indeed, is the principle of these dis-can these various modes be brought tinctions, In so doing, he could main-into a comprehensible harmony? tain his original view that the meaningWhence does Being as such (not mere- of Being is the 'Ground' in which allly being as being) receive its ultimate significations of Being are to be ground-determination?" ed and from which all understanding

Heidegger had studied some of these of Being nourishes itself. On the othermodes of Being in the interpretative hand, however, the meaning of Beinganalyses of Being and Time and thus, cannot be understood in terms of anat the very end of the book, found him- eternal standard being ('the God of theself led to consider the question of philosophers'); rather it must be con-whether or not there is a basic mean- ceived of as an abysmal, groundlessing of Being from which all other 'ground.' For the fact that Being comes-meanings can be derived by taking time to-pass in the way it does, and for the(understood as temporality) as a guid- fact that an understanding of Beinging clue. In view of the fact that man's emerges in the way we actually find it,understanding is intrinsically historical, no one can indicate a ground, becausethe further question must be asked of each process of grounding already pre-whether man's understanding of Be- supposes the meaning of Being. Whening's meaning is intrinsically historical, the meaning of Being lets a determinatealso, or whether the understanding of signification of Being become the stand-Being can perhaps in some sense have ard signification, then it 'groundlessly'a 'supra-temporal' character. In Being bars other significations and even it-and Time Heidegger was unable to self as the ground of the manifold pos-answer the first question adequately be- sible other significations. It is in thiscause he had not been able to find a sense that Being shows and hides it-satisfactory solution for the second. self at the same time and why theFor upon closer consideration his con- meaning of Being is to be called 'truth,'ception of historicity as found in Being unconcealment, whose coming-to-passand Time seems to be ambiguous. His- is and remains a mystery and whosetoricity is described in the book first 'happening' is historical in a senseas the genuine temporalization of time which cannot be understood on theand the principle of the distinction be- basis of what we usually call history.tween Dasein's modes of Being, and Furthermore, the world taken as thethen later it is said that historicity is building-structure of the truth of Be-the medium in which all ontolo~cal ing is that organized structure whichunderstanding must maintain itself. It is stratified in many ways and is con-does not seem to be possible to defend structed according to the manner inboth theses simultaneously; and even which time temporalizes itself. Thisif there should be a position from which temporalization of time itself is his-one could defend both, even then it torical and thus the stratification of thewould still not be clear in what sense organized structure of Being's truth isthe meaning of Being itself is affected historical, too; as such it can be dis-by historicity. tinguished in various epochs. In each

In the decade following the publi- epoch we find in the world as the build-cation of Being and Time Heidegger ing-structure of the truth of Beingeliminated part of the initial ambiguity manifold organized and systematizedby first examining more carefully how 'layers' of meaning all of which referdifferent significations of Being become to basic forms of 'experience' betweendifferentiated in the fundamental which there is a tension, and concern-

: Hc;idegger in a letter to William J. Richardson, in Richardson, op. cit., p. x.Beangand Time, pp. 41-62, 424ff.

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ing which it is difficult to see how theycan all belong together. Heidegger'smain concern is to explain how in acertain epoch (particularly our own)all these 'layers' can belong togetherin a whole, the world, and how in thisworld as the building-structure of Be­ing's truth for this particular era the'courses of Being are already tracedout' and how therefore Being can en­counter us in these particular, differentways, and not in others; thus how inthis world Being itself shows and hidesitself at the same time."

But between 1927 and 1962 Hei­degger never explicitly returned to themain question underlying the basic ideawhich directed all of these investiga­tions: The nature of time. It is ob­vious that the conception of time astemporality, found in Being and Time,is not adequate to account for all ofthis. Whereas in Being and Time, whereBeing and time are concerned, the pri­ority is attributed to man, in the laterworks the privileged position is givento Being. If the original relationshipbetween Being and time is to be main­tained, then it would seem logical toattribute a privileged position to timein the coming-to-pass of truth, also. Butif both Being as well as time do notdepend upon man in the final analysis,do they then perhaps refer to 'some­thing' else which precedes them in somesense? This is indeed the main themeof the Time-lecture which we shallnow consider.

III. Time and Being (1962)The Zeit und Sein lecture begins

with a short preface in which Heideg­ger explains that he intends to saysomething about the attempt "whichthinks Being without any reference toa foundation of Being from the side ofbeings."'" In other words, in this lec­ture there will be no reference to a

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summum ens taken as causa sui whichcould be conceived of as the foundationof all that is; nor is Being to be under­stood here within the perspective of themetaphysical interpretation of the onto­logical difference, according to whichBeing is thought of merely for the sakeof beings." Heidegger believed such anattempt to be necessary for at least tworeasons. First of all, without such anattempt it will be impossible to bringto light in a genuine way the Beingof all that which we today encounterin the world as beings and which arefundamentally determined by the es­sence of technique (Ge-stell)." Sec­ondly such an attempt is necessary ifone is adequately to determine the re­lationship between man and that whichuntil now has been called 'Being.'''

Many people believe that philosophyshould be oriented toward 'world-wis­dom.' According to Heidegger, philoso­phy today finds itself in a position inwhich it must stay away from useful'life-wisdom,' and must abandon im­mediate understanding, because a formof thought has become necessary fromwhich everything that makes up theworld in which we live receives its de­termination (works of art, complicatedphysical theories, technical instruments,computors, etc.)"

What is contained in the lecture tofollow, Heidegger says, is no morethan an attempt and a venture. Theventure consists in the fact that theessay is formulated in propositionswhereas its theme is such that this wayof 'saying' is incongruous. What is im­portant in the essay, therefore, is notso much the propositions of which itconsists, but rather that to which thequestions and answers by means ofwhich Heidegger tried to approachthat theme, point (zeigen). These ques­tions and answers presuppose an ex-

.. Poggeler, Otto: "Heideggers Topologie des Seins," pp. 337-345.Of Z"r 8ache des Denkens, p. 2... Ibid., p. 36... Ibid., p. 35.• Ibid., pp. 1-2.II Ibid., p. 1.

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perience of 'the thing itself,' and itis for this experience on the part ofthe reader that Heidegger's essaytries to prepare."1. Being and Time

The first part of the essay deals withthe relationship between Being andtime. These two themes are men­tioned together here because from thevery origin of Western thought Beinghas been interpreted as Being-present(Anwesen) , while Being-present andPresence (Anwesenheit ) refer to thepresent (Gegenwart) which, in turn,together with the past and the futureconstitute what is characteristic of time.Thus as Being-present Being is deter­mined by time. But in how far is Be­ing determined by time? Why, inwhat way, and from what is it thattime re-sounds in Being? It is obviousthat any attempt to think about thisrelationship with the help of our every­day conceptions of Being and time isdoomed to failure.

In our everyday life we say thatthings are in time; or also that theyhave their time. This way of speak­ing, however, does not apply to Be­ing, for Being is not a thing. Andsince Being is not a thing it is not intime either. And yet Being is deter­mined by time. On the other hand,what is in time we call the temporal.The temporal refers to what elapseswith time. Thus time itself elapses;but while elapsing continuously, timenevertheless remains as time. Now 'toremain' means 'not to perish,' and thus'Being-present.' But this means thattime is determined by a kind of Be­ing. But how then can Being be de­termined by time? We must, there­fore, come to the conclusion that Be­ing is not a thing and thus not some­thing temporal, although as Being­present it is determined by time. Andon the other hand, time is not a thingand thus not something-which-is, and

a Ibid., pp. 2, 27-28.• Ibid., pp. 2-4." tu«, pp. 4-5.<tu«, pp. 41-43.

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yet in elapsing it permanently remains,without it itself being something tem­poral. Therefore, Being and time de­termine one another in such a way thatBeing is not something temporal andtime is not something-which-is.

By adopting Hegel's dialectic ap­proach one could try to overcome thesecontradicting statements by transcend­ing Being and time toward a higherand more encompassing unity. Butsuch an approach would certainly leadaway from the 'things themselves' andtheir mutual relations; for such a pro­cedure would certainly no longer dealwith time as such nor with Being assuch, nor with their mutual relation­ship. The genuine problem with whichwe are confronted here seems preciselyto consist in the question of whetherthe relationship between Being andtime is a relationship which results froma certain combination of Being andtime, or whether perhaps this relation­ship itself is primary, so that Being andtime result from it. In order to findan answer for this question we musttry to think circumspectly about these'things themselves,' that is about Be­ing and time, which are perhaps thetwo main themes of thought. The la­bels 'Being and Time' and 'Time andBeing' refer to the relationship be­tween these two themes, to that whichkeeps these two themes together. Toreflect circumspectly upon this relation­ship is the theme of thought,"

Being is a theme of thought, but itis not a thing; time is also a theme ofthought, but it is nothing temporal.Of a thing we say: It is. With respectto Being and time we are more care­ful; here we say: There is Being, andthere is time." 'There is,' this Englishexpression stands for the German 'Esgibt.' This can be understood to mean:'It gives' in the sense of 'there is some­thing which grants.'· 1£ we follow thissuggestion then the question is one of

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what this 'It' is which grants Beingand time. And also: What is Beingwhich is granted here? What is timewhich is given here? Let us first tryto think about Being in order to graspit in what is characteristic of it.

Being which marks each being assuch means Being-present (Anwesen).In regard to that which is present, Be­ing-present can be conceived of asletting-something-be-present. It is onthis letting-he-present that we mustfocus our attention here. It is char­acteristic for this letting-be-present thatit brings something into unconceal­ment. Letting-be-present means to un­veil, to bring into the open. In thoprocess of unveilment there is a kindof granting at work which grants Be­ing-present, while it lets-be-present thatwhich is present, namely beings. Inthis process we come again upon agranting, and thus upon an 'It' whichgrants. eo We do not yet know preciselywhat this granting means, nor do weknow what this 'It' refers to. One thingis clear, however. If one wishes tothink about what is characteristic ofBeing as such, he must abandon theattempt to understand Being from theviewpoint of beings, to conceive of Be­ing as the ground of beings. On thecontrary, he must focus his attentionon this typical granting and that mys­terious 'It' which grants. Being some­how belongs to this granting; it is thegift of the 'It' which grants. Being isnot something which is found outsidethe granting, as is the case with a com­mon gift. In the granting Being asBeing-present becomes changed. Asletting-be-present it belongs to the un­veilment itself, and as gift it remainscontained in the granting. For Beingis not. Being as the unveilment ofBeing-present is granted by a mysterious'It.""

Heidegger is of the opinion that themeaning of this 'It grants Being' can

-Ibid., pp. 5, 3~1." Ibid., pp. 5-6.• Ibid., pp. 6-8.

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be explained in a clearer way by meansof a careful reflection on the variouschanges which have taken place inwhat has been called 'Being.' As wehave mentioned, since the origin ofWestern thought in Greece, Being hasbeen referred to as Being-present. Andeven today, in the era of modern tech­nique, Being is still pointed to as Be­ing-present, namely as Being-present inits availability on which one can con­tinuously count (Ge-stell). The factthat Being must be referred to as Be­ing-present manifests itself in an an­alysis of what is ready-to-hand andpresent-at-hand. We find the samething back when we reflect on themeaning of Hen, Logos, Idea, ousia,energeia, substantia, actualitas, per­ceptio, monad, objectivity, Reason,Love, Spirit, Power, WiII-to-will in theeternal return of the same.

The unfolding of the fullness whichshows itself in these changes manifestsitself at first sight as a history of Be­ing. However, Being has no history inthe way a city or a nation has its his­tory. The history-like character of thehistory of Being is determined only andexclusively from the way Being comes­to-pass, that is from the way in which'It' grants Being."Now from the very beginning peoplehave reflected on Being, but no onehas ever thought about the 'It' whichgrants Being. This 'It grants' with­draws in favor of that which it grants,namely Being. And Being itself, inturn, was almost immediately thoughtof in terms of beings, that is in its re­lationship to beings.

According to Heidegger, the kind ofgranting which grants only its gift butwhich itself withdraws should be called'sending' (Schicken). This becomesimmediately clear when one comparesthe case in which someone gives some­one else a present with the case inwhich he sends it to him. Viewing it

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from this perspective, one may say thatBeing which is granted is that whichhas been sent and which (as sent) re­mains in each one of the modificationswhich we find in history. Thus, the his­torical character of the history of Be­ing must be determined from thatwhich is characteristic of this sending,and not from an undetermined com­ing-to-pass.

History of Being, therefore, meansmittence of Being. And in the variousways of sending, the sending itself aswell as that mysterious 'It' which sends,hold themselves back in the variousmanifestations in which Being showsitself. To hold oneself back means inGreek epoche, That is why we speakof epochs of Being's mittence. Epochdoes not mean, therefore, a certain pe­riod of time in the happening, but thebasic characteristic of the sending it­self, that is to say this holding-itself­back in favor of the various manifesta­tions of the gift, namely Being withrespect to the discovery of beings. Thesequence of the epochs in Being's send­ing is neither arbitrary nor can it bepredicted with necessity. And yet whatis co-mitted manifests itself in the mit­tence also, just as welI as that-which­belongs-to manifests itself in the be­longing-together of the epochs. Theseepochs overlap in their sequence so thatthe original mittence of Being as Pres­ence is more and more concealed in thevarious modifications of the unveil­ment. Only the 'demolition' of theseconcealments (destruction) will grantto thought a provisional insight intowhat then manifests itself as the mit­tence of Being.

When Plato represents Being as Idea,when Aristotle represents it as energeia,Kant as positing, Hegel as absoluteConcept; and Nietzsche as Will to pow­er, then these are doctrines which arenot just accidentally brought forth.They are rather the 'words' of Beingitself as answers to an address whichspeaks in the sending but which hides

.. tsu; pp. 8--10.

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itself therein, that is to say in that mys­terious 'It grants Being.' Each timecontained in a mittence which with­draws itself, Being is unconcealed forthought in its epochal variational full­ness. Thought remains bound to thetradition of these epochs of Being's mit­tence. This is true also, and particular­ly so, when thought reflects upon thequestion of how and from what Beingitself receives the determinations whicheach time are characteristic of it, name­ly from this mysterious 'It grants Be­ing.' For this granting manifests it­self as mittence.

But how are we to conceive of this'It' which grants Being? From thepreceding pages as well as from thetitle of this essay, Heidegger says, onemight expect that this is to be foundin time."

Briefly summarizing this part of thelecture, we may say that Heidegger forthe greater part repeats his view of Be­ing as contained in Letter on Human­ism (1947) and later works. Just as inLetter on Humanism, Heidegger stateshere that the basic conception of Beingand Time is to be maintained in thisnew perspective, although he warnsexplicitly that we should not confuseDasein's historicity with the 'historicity'of Being itself. Finally, in this part ofthe lecture many references are madeto the aboriginal Event (Ereignis) un­der the guise of that mysterious 'It'which grants. Heidegger is to returnto this in the last part of the lecture.But let us first look at his view on time.

We all know what time is and justas was the case with Being we have acommon sense conception of it. It willbe clear once again that this commonsense conception is of no help here.We do not yet know what is char­acteristic of time as such. We havejust seen that what characterizes Be­ing, that is to say that to which it be­longs and in which it remains con­tained, manifests itself in that myster-

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ious 'It grants.' That which is char­acteristic of Being is not somethingbeing-like (Seinsartiges). Trying tounderstand what Being us, we are ledaway from Being toward the mittencewhich grants Being as a gift. We mayexpect that the same thing will be truefor time and that is why our commonsense conception will be of no availhere, either. And yet the titles 'Beingand Time' and 'Time and Being' sug­gest that we try to understand what ischaracteristic of time, the moment wetry to understand what is characteristicof Being. For, as we have seen, Beingmeans Being-present, letting-something­he present, Presence.

Presence is not the present, althoughthe former almost immediately leadsto the latter. Present (Gegenwart) sug­gests past and future, the earlier andthe later in regard to the 'now.'Usually time is described in terms ofthe 'now,' assuming that time itselfis the 'sum' of present, past, and fu­ture. We seldom think of time in termsof Presence. The conception of timein terms of the 'now,' as a series of'nows' which succeed one another, ofa one-dimensional continuum, was sug­gested by Aristotle and has since beendefended by many thinkers. It is thistime which we refer to when we meas­ure time, when a 'temporal interval' isto be measured."

But obviously all of this does notanswer the question of precisely whattime is. Is time and does time have aplace? Time is obviously not nothing.If we wish to express ourselves morecarefully, we should say here again:There is time (Es gibt Zeit'). Timemust he understood from the 'present'and this must not be taken as 'now'but as Presence.

But what is to be understood byPresence (Anwesenheit)? Presence isthat which determines Being as letting­be-present and revealing. But whatkind of thing is this? In Anwesen

.. ius; pp. 10-11.<isu: pp. 12-13.

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(Being-present) we find wesen andwesen means wiihren (to last, to con­tinue). But by realizing this we muchtoo often jump immediately fromwiihren to dauern (to last, to endure) ;this duration, in turn, conceived of inthe light of our common sense concep­tion of time, is mostly understood asan interval between one 'now' and an­other one. However, our speakingabout An-wesen demands that we be­come aware of a staying and lingering(wei/en) and dwelling (verweilen) inthis wiihren as Anwiihren (continuouslasting). This An-uiesen concerns usmen. But who are we? In tryingto answer the question we must againproceed carefully; for it could verywell be the case that man is to be de­fined in terms of what we are trying toreflect on; man himself is affected bythe Presence while this 'goes on' and itis because of this that he himself canbe present to all that is present andabsent. Man stands in that which thusgoes on (Angang) and in which Pres­ence takes place; it is man who receivesthe Presence which that mysterious 'It'grants as a gift, while he learns whatappears in the letting-be-present. Ifthis were not so, man would not be

etman.I t seems that by talking about man,

we have lost the way, Heidegger says;for we are trying to determine what ischaracteristic of time. In some sensethis may be true, and yet we are closerto what we are looking for than it mayseem at first sight. Presence means:The continuous lingering-dwelling (ver­weilen) which concerns man, reacheshim, and is granted to him. But fromwhere does this granting reachingcome? We must realize here, Heideg­ger continues: 1) that man is alwaysconcerned with the presence of some­thing which is present, and that henever immediately heeds the Presenceitself; 2) that which is no longer pres­ent still concerns man and as such it isstill present to him; in what has been,

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Presence is still granted in some sense;3) that which is not yet presented ispresent in the sense that it approachesman; in that which approaches man,Presence is already granted to him.From this it follows that Presence doesnot always have the character of thepresent.

But how are we to determine thisgranting of the Presence in the present,past, and future? Does this grantingconsist in the fact that it reaches us,or does it reach us because it is in it­self a granting? There is no doubtthat the future grants and adduces thepast, whereas the past grants the fu­ture. And this mutual granting givesthe present at the same time. In thisway we attribute a temporal characterto this mutual granting. And thus itis not right to call the unity of thismutual granting time, for time is notsomething temporal; nor can we saythat present, past, and future are there'at the same time.' And yet theirmutual granting of one another to eachother belongs together in a unity. Thisunity which unites them must be deter­mined from what is characteristic ofthem, namely from the fact that theygrant one another to each other. Butwhat is it that they grant to eachother? Themselves, that is to say thePresence which is granted in them.That which comes to light in the mu­tual granting of one another to eachother of present, past, and future isthe Open, or also the time-space. Thistime-space precedes what we cornmon­ly call space and time. It is a three-di­mensional Open in that it comes tolight by means of a three-fold grantingof present, past, and future."

But from what are we to determinethe unity of the three dimensions ofthis time-space? We know already thata Presence is at work in the comingof what is not-yet-present as well as inthe having-been of what is no-longer­present, and in what we usually call

eoIbid., pp. 13-15.8.uu., pp. 15-16

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the present. This Presence does notbelong to one of these three dimensionsto the exclusion of the others. Whilethe three dimensions give themselvesover to one another and precisely inthis passing of the one to the other(Zuspiel) still another granting mani­fests itself which opens up a fourthdimension. It is this latter grantingwhich is characteristic of time itselfand which brings about the Presencewhich is typical in each case for thecoming, the having-been, and the pres­ent. It keeps these latter dimensionsseparated, and nevertheless it keepsthem in each other's proximity, also,so that these three dimensions can re­main close to one another. This iswhy one can call the primordial grant­ing in which literally everything begins(anflingt) and in which the unity ofgenuine time precisely consists, aproximity which brings near (naherndeN like). It brings close to one anotherthe corning, the having-been, and thepresent by keeping them apart. For itkeeps open the having-been by denyingit its coming as present, just as it keepsopen the corning by withholding thepresent in this coming, that is by de­nying it its being present. Thus theproximity which brings near has thecharacter of a denial and withholding,"

Time is not. 'It' gives time. Thegranting which gives time is to be de­termined from the proximity which de­nies and withholds. 'It' grants theOpen of time-space and guards thatwhich is denied in the having-been andthat which is withheld in the coming.This granting thus is revealing andconcealing at the same time; whilegranting the Open of time-space ithides itself as granting.

But where now is this mysterious'It' which grants time and time-space?Obviously this question is not correctlyformulated, for time has no place, no'where.' Time is that pre-spatial 'place'which makes each 'where' precisely pos-

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sible. Since the beginning of Westernthought, people have asked this questionand many of them have said with Aris­totle and Augustine that 'time is inthe soul.' Thus, time cannot be with­out man. The question, however, isone of whether or not it is man whogives time, or whether it is man towhom time is granted. In the lattercase the question still remains of whoor what 'It' is which gives time. Onething is clear, however, man is whathe is only and exclusively because hestands within the three-fold grantingand 'endures' the proximity which de­nies and withholds, and determinesthis granting. Man does not make time,and time does not make man. Ex­pressions such as 'making,' 'producing,'and 'creating' do not make sense here."

Notwithstanding the great differ­ences, the preceding passage on timeundeniably is strongly reminiscent ofwhat was said in Being and Time aboutthe 'horizonal schemata' and spatia­temporality. It seems to me that thelast paragraph of the Time-lecturewhich we have just considered refersto these sections of Being and Timeand reminds us that the perspective ofBeing and Time is and remains pre­understood in the current reflections ontime. Dasein plays an essential part inthe coming-to-pass of Being as well asin the coming-to-pass of time as thetranscendental horizon of Being. It isclear by now, however, that in thiscomplex process Dasein is not the onewho grants, but rather the one to whomall of this is given. But this still en­tails that without Dasein the grantingwould not have taken place. In thatsense it remains true that if no Daseinek-sists, then no world is 'there' either.On the other hand, if it is true thatDasein does not have the priority in thecoming-to-pass of Being and time, thenall that which Being and Time tried todescribe from Dasein's point of view,must now be described from the view­point of that mysterious 'It' which

.. Ibld., pp, 16-17.- Ibid., pp, 17-18.

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grants Being as well as time. Where inBeing and Time the horizonal schematawere understood as that which Dasein'sunderstanding projects, it is now saidthat 'It' gives time in such a way thatin time the ek-stases grant one anotherto each other. In other words, wherein Being and Time the ek-stases weredetermined by the 'for the sake ofwhich,' the 'in the face of,' and the'in order to' of Dasein's projecting case,they are determined now by the Openwhich is granted by the 'It' while thethree dimensions give themselves overto one another.2. 'It' Grants Being and Time

We have seen that we must say:There is something which grants Be­ing as well as time. But what now isthis 'It?' In answering this question,Heidegger suggests, we must not thinkof this 'It' as a 'power' or a 'God.'We must try to determine it from Be­ing as Presence and from time as thetranscendental domain in which theclearing of the multiform Presence isgranted.

The granting which is found in 'Itgrants Being' manifests itself as a mit­tence of Presence in its epochal trans­formations, whereas in the expression 'Itgrants time,' it appears as a lightingpresenting of a four-dimensional do­main, the Open, time-space. Takinginto consideration that in Being asPresence time manifests itself, onecould expect that genuine time, thefour-fold granting of the Open, con­stitutes that mysterious 'It' whichgrants Being as Presence. Genuinetime would then be the 'It' wehave in mind when we say 'It grantsBeing.' The mittence in which Beingis granted, would then consist in thegranting of time. But is it really truethat time is that mysterious 'It' whichgrants being? By no means, for timeitself, too, is the gift of an 'It grants.'Thus this mysterious 'It' is still unde­termined.-

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Heidegger points out that perhapswe find ourselves in a very difficultsituation here in that we have to usesentences of Indogennanic languageswhich do not have a clear theory about'impersonal propositions.' He invitesthe reader, therefore, not to pay toomuch attention to the propositions, butrather to the 'thing itself to whichthey refer. What is meant by the 'It'must be determined from that grant­ing-process which belongs to it, that isthe granting which at the same time ismittence (Geschick) and lighting pre­senting (lichtendes Reichen).

In the mittence of Being and thepresenting of time there manifests it­self an ap-propriation making Being asPresence and time as the Open thatwhich they properly are. That whichmakes both, namely Being and time,what they properly are (Eigenes) andmakes them belong together, is whatHeidegger calls Ereignis, aboriginal andap-propriating Event. The Ereignismakes Being and time belong togetherand brings both to what they properlyspeaking are. In other words, that mys­terious 'It' about which we have spok­en is the Ereignis. And this Ereignisis ontologically prior to Being as wellas to time, because it is that whichgrants to both what they properly are.-This expression is correct and yet itis not completely true, because it hidesthe original relationship between Being,time, and the Event.

But what then is this ap-propriatingEvent? Before trying to answer thisquestion we must point once again totwo difficulties connected with thisquestion. We have already seen thatthis typical Event is such that it can­not be captured in a proposition. Fur­thermore, in asking the question:What is this ap-propriating Event weask about the quiddity (Was-sein), theessence, the mode of Being, the wayin which the Event abides and ispresent. But this presupposes that wealready know what Being is and how

<tsu, pp, 18-21.

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Being is to be determined from theviewpoint of time. We have alreadyseen that the mittence of Being restson the revealing-concealing presentingof the plurifonn Presence in the Opendomain of time-space. But this pre­senting as well as that sending belongwithin the Event, and thus cannot bepresupposed in the determination ofthe Event."

That is why it is perhaps better tosay first what Event does not mean.The word 'event' does not have itscommon meaning here. It usuallymeans occurrence, whereas in this caseit means the ap-propriation taken asa presenting and sending. In otherwords, whereas it does not make senseto speak about the occurrence of Be­ing, it does make sense to speak aboutBeing as Event.

In the past people have tried to con­ceive of Being as Idea, actualitas, Will,and so on. One could think that Hei­degger is suggesting here that it is nowtime to think of Being as Event. Thatthis is not so becomes clear the momentone realizes that any attempt to under­stand Event as a modifying interpre­tation of Being is tantamount to tryingto understand Being in terms of a typi­cal kind of being, namely an event.One might proceed here along the fol­lowing lines. Until now we have triedto think about Being in terms of Pres­ence and letting-be-present in its re­lation to the showing-and-hiding pre­senting of genuine time. In this wayit became clear that Being belongs tothe Event. Thus it is from the Eventthat the granting as well as its gift (Be­ing) must be determined. In this caseone could say that Being is a kind ofEvent, but Event is not a kind of Be­ing. Such a solution of the problem,however, is too cheap in that it hidesthe original relationship. Event is nota summum genus under which onemust distinguish Being as well as time.As we have seen, Being has manifesteditself as the gift of the mittence of

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Presence which is granted through thepresenting of time. As such Being re­mains a property (Eigentum ) of theap-propriating Event; Being vanishesin the Event. And the same is true fortime. In the ap-propriating Event, Be­ing as letting-be-present is sent just astime is presented there. In the Event,Being as well as time are ap-propriated(ereignet im Ereignis). But what aboutthe Event itself? Is there anythingmore we can say about it?

Heidegger is of the opinion that, in­deed, one could say more about it.In the preceding pages we came acrossexpressions such as 'denying,' 'with­drawing,' 'withholding,' etc., whichmade it clear that a certain 'withdraw­al' (Entzug) is characteristic of theaboriginal Event. This clue can andshould be followed up in greater detail.But Heidegger refrains from doing sofor purely practical reasons." He con­cludes the Time-lecture with a fewgeneral remarks on certain character­istics of the Event.

We have seen that the sending inthe mittence of Being was determinedas a granting; that which grants wassaid to hold to itself, to adhere to it­self, to withhold itself; it withdrawsfrom the revealment. A similar state­ment was made in regard to the pre­senting characteristic of time. But ifit is true that the Event withdrawsfrom revealment we may say that theEvent ex-propriates itself from itselfand that a certain ex-propriation ischaracteristic for the ap-propriatingEvent. This does not mean that theEvent gives up itself, but precisely thatit preserves its own property.

We have seen, also, that in Being asPresence there manifests itself a processwhich is going-on and which concernsus men in such a way that the vitalcharacteristic of our humanity is to befound in becoming aware of this pro­cedure and thus taking it over. Butthis acceptance of Presence's going-on

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rests on the fact that we stand in thedomain of presenting which the four­dimensional time has passed on to us.

Insofar as Being and time are foundonly and exclusively in the ap-propria­tion (das Ereignen) there belongs tothis as a characteristic the fact that itbrings man who receives Being to thatwhich is characteristic of him as hestands within the domain of genuinetime. This belonging-to rests on thecomplete ap-propriation characteristicof the ap-propriating Event. It is thiscomplete ap-propriation which letsman enter this Event. This is why wecannot conceive of the Event as some­thing opposite to us or as somethingwhich encompasses everything. Re­presentational thought has as little ac­cess to the Event as does a speakingin propositions.

Finally, by going from Being to themittence of Being and from time tothe presenting of time-space we havegained some access to the Event. It isof importance, however, to repeat onceagain: The Event is not a thing. TheEvent is not, nor is there somethingwhich gives the Event. The only thingwe can say is: das Ereignis ereignet,This tautology points to what hidesitself in truth as a-letheia."

IV. ConclusionWe must now return to the main

question Heidegger left unanswered inBeing and Time. There can be nodoubt that his thought has made con­siderable progress since 1927. Part ofthis development was already evidentin Letter on Humanism (1947), wherethe priority in the coming-to-pass oftruth is given to Being and a historicityis attributed to Being itself which isdistinguished from, and independent of,Dasein's temporality and historicity. Inother words, it is stated in Letter onHumanism that the historicity of theunderstanding of Being is not identicalwith Being's own historicity. In thisand other works of the same period it

...Ibid., pp. 21-23. See for other approaches to the 'Event'; Ibid., pp. 44-45.

.. Ibid., pp. 23-25.

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was not yet clear how Heidegger be­lieved he would be able to avoid rela­tivism once the finitude and historicityof the Being-process is explicitly rec­ognized and admitted. In this regardin Letter on Humanism Heideggerseems to adopt the following point ofview," The thinking of Being thinksBeing as this grants itself in mittences.The various mittences taken togetherconstitute Being's history. "That iswhy thought which thinks upon thetruth of Being is as thought histori­cal." ,0 When a foundational thinkerthinks the mittences of Being andformulates this in words, then histhought is historical. When he retrievesthe thought of an earlier foundationalthinker than his thought is historical ina second sense, but both these sensesare complementary; in both cases Be­ing comes (future) to the thinker ashaving-been in what is (past) and ismade manifest (present) through thearticulation of words. That is why thefundamental structure of thought isthat of recollection." All thinkers thenare engaged in the identical task, name­ly to think the mittences of Being, buteach one accomplishes this in a differ­ent way. That is why there is no realprogress in foundational thought,"That the coming-to-pass of Truth infoundational thought leads to differentexpressions is connected with the factthat Being discloses itself while partlyhiding itself. From this it follows thateach expression is equally meaningfulprovided it understands itself as his­torical. Refutation in foundationalthought is absurd." Heidegger himselfis aware of the danger of relativismwhich remains present in this view,also. He believes that one can over­come this danger by realizing that re­lativism makes sense only within a sub-

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ject-object opposition. Once it is real­ized that the truth of an object is notto be considered as relative to a sub­ject, relativism loses its meaning," Butthis does not answer the question ade­quately, and the danger of relativismwas not yet completely overcome in1947. For there can be no doubt thatHeidegger does not admit an absolutetruth in the sense that there is a truthwhich is 'eternal' or 'praeter-histori­cal.' Furthermore, in his view thereis no necessary link between the variousepochs of Being's history. "The epochsnever permit themselves to be derivedfrom one another and, indeed, to be re­duced to the sequence of a consecu­tive process." On the other hand, thereis a relationship between the epochs inthat each later epoch comes "out of theconcealment of the mittence.""

When later in V ortriige und Augsiitze(1954) and ldentitiit und Ditferenz(1957) the ambiguity of the Ereignisconception as found in Brief iibe« denHumanismus is removed, Heideggerwas in a position to sharpen his posi­tion in regard to the question of rela­tivism. It seems to me that it is oneof the main contributions of the Time­lecture that it makes this later viewexplicit. Heidegger emphasizes onceagain the finitude of man, the finitudeof man's comprehension of Being, thefinitude of the coming-to-pass of truth,that is the finitude of the Ereignis it­self. And yet he asks the question ofwhether a contemplative turning to­ward the Ereignis could perhaps leadto the end of Being's history. Heideg­ger says that the experience for whichthe lecture tried to prepare the reader,does not lead to an identification ofBeing and thought (Hegel), and yet insome sense this experience does lead

...Richardson, William J.: op, cit., pp. 545-548.,oHeidegger, Martin: Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit. Mit einem Brief iiber den 'Humanis-

mus' (Bern: Francke, 1947), p, 81.,. Ibid., p. 111.,. tsu., p. 81.,. Ibid., p. 82."Heidegger, Martin: Vortriige und AUfsiitze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1954), p. 261.,. Heidegger, Martin: Der Satz vom Grund (Pfullingen: Neske, 1957), p. 154.

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to the end of the history of metaphysics.True, the Ereignis contains possibilitiesof unveilment which thought cannotyet distinguish and even less can pushaside as irrelevant; thus the contem­plative turning toward the Ereigniscannot 'stop' future mittences. Butcould it perhaps be that after the ex­perience has been lived in that con­templative turning toward the Ereignisone can no longer speak of Being's his­tory. Before the experience is livedthought remains either within one ofthe epochs (relativism), or it tries totranscend this epoch by appealing tothe 'God of the philosophers' or an­other absolute. However, once this ex­perience is lived one can understandeach mittence as one possible mittencein which the Ereignis itself withdraws."

Heidegger returns to this issue in thequestion concerning the meaning of theterm 'change' as found in the lecturein the expression Wandlungs-fiille desSeins. From within classical meta­physics this means the changing formsof expressions in which Being shows it­self historically in each epoch. Thenthe question is: By what is the se­quence of the various epochs deter­mined? or, from where is this sequencedetermined? Why is the sequence theway it actually is? Hegel thought thatthe sequence is determined by necessitywhich at the same time is the highestfreedom. Heidegger believes that onthis level one cannot ask and answerthis question. One can only say herethat the history of Being is the way itis. This 'that' is the only datum which,for thought, is to be accepted inevitab­ly and thus 'with necessity.' One caneven indicate then a certain regularityin the sequence and (for instance) claimthat the sequence is 'guided' by an in­creasing forgottenness of Being,"

From the viewpoint of the Time-lec­ture, however, that is to say from theviewpoint of the experience for which

1" ZUT Sacn« d,s Denkens, pp. 53-54.ft tsu; pp. 55-57.

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it tries to prepare us, the term has adifferent meaning. In the lecture it issaid that Being is changed into Ereignis.On that level, the expression does notpoint to the various manifestations ofBeing which follow one another, but tothe fact that Being (with all its pos­sible, epochal manifestations) is takenback into the Ereignis. In other words,if the philosopher looks at the Wand­lungsfiiUe des Seins as has always beendone in classical metaphysics, then thisfullness falls apart in epochs which areno longer related to one another in away that can be justified with necessity.One can bring a unity to the multiplic­ity only by introducing the 'God ofthe philosophers' as the one who givesthe series a goal, or eventually who con­stitutes this goal. One can bring akind of unity to this multiplicity bysetting up a law or rule which some­how justifies the sequence of theepochs, one similar to that suggestedby Heidegger. But underlying this wayof looking at things there is the classi­cal conception of time which conceivesof time in terms of isolated 'now'-mo­ments which as such do not necessarilybelong together.

However, if the philosopher looks atthis 'fullness' from the viewpoint whichHeidegger tries to suggest in this lec­ture, then the unity of the multiplicityis never broken. The question then isnot how this particular and isolatedepoch could ever change into anotherisolated epoch, but how the Being proc­ess as a whole 'changes' into the Eventin which future and past are held to­gether in the Presence. For in thiscase one understands, or perhaps moreaccurately stated, experiences that thevarious epochs are no longer mysteries,but are the necessary consequence ofthe inherent finitude of an aboriginalEvent which presents the Open andgrants Being, and in so doing with­draws in favor of this domain and itsgift.