I. THE NECESSITY, STRUCTURE, AND PRIORITY OF THE QUESTION OF BEING
1. The Necessity for Explicitly Restating the Question of Being
Since Plato and Aristotle the question of Being has been trivialized, and hence considered as superfluous. MH lists three prejudices, according to which this question is unnecessary. First, the assertion that 'Being' is the most universal concept does not imply that it is also the clearest: "It is rather the darkest of all." Secondly, even though 'Being' cannot be defined -- since a definition is typically of the form "something is this and that", it presupposes an understanding of the word "is" -- this does not eliminate the question of its meaning. Thirdly, the "self-evident" character of the concept of 'Being' remains, a priori, an enigma. So not only does the question of Being lack a clear answer, but "the question itself is obscure and without direction".
2. The Formal Structure of the Question of Being
The structure of any question splits into: that which is asked about [sein Gefragtes], the starting point of the curiosity; that which is interrogated [sein Befragtes], the things one turns to in order to find an answer; and that which is to be found out by asking [das Erfragte], the answer itself.
In the case of the question of Being, the Gefragtes is... Being [damn! I knew it], or more explicitly "that which determines entities as entities". But "the Being of entities 'is' not itself an entity", in the sense explained above that Being cannot be defined. Rather, Being "must be exhibited in a way of its own" (quite intriguing ain't it?). [I'll hereinafter push the acronym perversity so far as to reduce Being to B.]
The Befragtes are the entities themselves, that is "everything we talk about, everything we have in view, everything towards which we comport ourselves in any way" (a rather broad concept, mind you). [As an aside, I find such periphrases very revealing of the superiority of the German language to forge concepts.] But in sight of the unlimited possible choice, can one single out a specific entity that will be particularly useful to discern the meaning of B? Well we can, and it is ourselves, the inquirers. MH calls this special entity the "Dasein": "This entity which each of us is himself and which includes inquiring as one of the possibilities of its Being". What singles us out, among the infinities of entities, is the very fact that we are able to grow an interest in that which determines us as entities, i.e. our B.
There is an apparent danger of 'circular reasoning': are we supposed to come to grip with the meaning of B by inquiring into entities that are inquiring into their own B by inquiring into entities that are inquiring into their own B by inquiring--you got it--? MH discards this "always sterile" argument, since (if I understand correctly) it is fine to 'presuppose' B "provisionally". No circular reasoning then, but "a remarkable 'relatedness backward and forward' " between the Gefragtes (B) and the Befragtes (us, Dasein). [This is somewhat reminiscent of self-consistent systems in condensed matter theory.]
3. Ontological Priority of the Question of Being
The message of this subsection is basically that "Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, it if has not firstly clarified the meaning of B, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task". What MH means (supposedly) is that among all the scientific investigations, the question of B is the most primordial. But I suspect that he doesn't mean "priority" in the sense that it has to come first. Indeed, in any of the fields of scientific research (or "areas of subject-matter"), the "basic concepts" are (provisionally, "beforehand") "worked out after a fashion in our pre-scientific ways of experiencing...". So the subject-matter of interest is primitively understood, may I say, intuitively, and it is over this original intuition that a science, that is a "system of categories", develops. But:
"The 'real' movement of the sciences takes place when their basic concepts undergo a more or less radical revision which is transparent to itself. The level which a science has reached is determined by how far it is capable of a crisis in its basic concepts." (p.9)
[Remark: I have a similar approach to evaluate the richness of a personality.] And MH to enumerate a few instances in science of what he perceives as "freshly awakened tendencies to put research on new foundations": the foundational crisis in mathematics, in spite of it being "seemingly the most rigorous and most firmly constructed of the sciences" (a clear presentiment of Goedel's incompleteness theorem of 1931); the "problem of matter" in the context of the relativity theory of physics (I don't understand his point at all, even at the seventeenth reading...); the "new kind of B" defined in biology; and the realisation of the "inadequate" foundation of theology (he's probably being polite).
Ontological (concerned primarily with B) inquiries, such as Kant's Critique of the Pure Reason, are "more primordial" than the ontical (concerned primarily with entities) inquiry of the positive sciences. But they still lack an understanding of 'what we really mean by this expression "Being" '.
4. The Ontical Priority of the Question of Being
I find this last section more difficult to understand, perhaps because MH "anticipate[s] later analyses". Here we see listed and swiftly defined a series of key Heideggerian mottos and concepts. For instance, about Dasein, he is writing that "Being is an issue for it" and that
"Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's Being. Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological."
The distinction between "existentiell" and "existential" is also briefly described. As far as I can tell, the former means what you would naively expect, namely it characterises an understanding of existence, and more precisely Dasein's own existence.
"Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence--in terms of a possibility of itself: to be itself or not itself."
(Here one can foresee the concept of authenticity.) MH underlines that Dasein is responsible for its existence, either actively or passively (for example, I suppose, if it lets external circumstances like childhood trauma dictate its conduct).
"Only the particular Dasein decides its existence, whether it does so by taking hold or by neglecting."
"Existential" on the other side characterises an understanding of the context of the "structure of existence".
"By "existentiality" we understand the state of Being that is constitutive for those entities that exist."
Coming back to the ideas of the previous section, MH writes that "Sciences are ways of Being in which Dasein comports itself towards entities which it needs not be itself", but his message is that Dasein "must first be interrogated ontologically." And just like the basic concepts of sciences are first worked out in a pre-scientific way, the question of B has to be worked out in a pre-ontological way:
"the question of Being is nothing other that the radicalization of an essential tendency-of-Being which belongs to Dasein itself--the pre-ontological understanding of Being."
This is the end of the first introduction of Being and Time.
I mean come on! How amazing is that? The guy is slowly cracking the very kernel of the most fundamental question you can imagine, the question of Being. Heidegger was saying in an interview that an entirely new form of thought is now called for, in our modern time. It is simpler than the old way of thinking, more natural, but it is also more difficult, in that it requires a much greater care with the use of language. This perspective should be motivation enough to overcome the disgust inspired by the bestiary of Heideggerian concepts. So let's keep calm and carry on!
No comments:
Post a Comment