Being and Time

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. Albany: SUNY P, 1996.

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“For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression ‘being.’ We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.” [Plato, Sophist 244a]

But are we nowadays even perplexed at our inability to understand the expression ‘being’? not at all. so first of all we must reawaken an understanding for the meaning of this question.

Our provisional aim is the interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of being.

INTRODUCTION The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being

I The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being

1. The Necessity of an Explicit Retrieve of the Question of Being

It is said that “being” is the most universal and the emptiest concept.

There are three such prejudices.

1. “Being” {the being [das Seiende], beingness} is the most “universal” concept: to on esti katholou malista panton. Illud quod primo cadit sub apprehensione est ens, cuius intellectus includitur in omnibus, quaecumque quis apprehendit. “An understanding of being is always already contained in everything we apprehend in beings.”

… oute to on genos [“Being is not a genus”]

2. The concept of “being” is indefinable.

Indeed, “being” cannot be understood as a being…

“Being” is the self-evident concept.

2. The Formal Structure of the Question of Being

…the being that has the character of Da-sein has a relation to the question of being itself, perhaps even a distinctive one.

* {Again as above, an essential simplification and yet correctly thought. Dasein is not an instance of being for the representational abstraction of being; rather, it is the site of the understanding of being.}

3. The Ontological Priority of the Question of Being

Relativity theory in physics grew out of the tendency to expose nature’s own coherence as it is “in itself.” As a theory of the conditions of access to nature itself it attempts to preserve the immutability of the laws of motion by defining all relativities; it is thus confronted by the question of the structure of its pre-given area of knowledge, that is, by the problem of matter.

This kind of investigation [into “fundamental concepts”] must precede the positive sciences—and it can do so. The work of Plato and Aristotle is proof of this. Laying the foundations of the sciences in this way is different in principle from “logic” limping along behind, investigating here and there the status of a science in terms of its “method.” Such laying of foundations is productive logic in the sense that it leaps ahead, so to speak in to a particular realm of being, discloses it for the first time in its constitutive being, and makes the acquired structures available to the positive sciences as lucid directives for inquiry.

…Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason… His transcendental logic is an a priori logic of the realm of being [fundamental concept] called nature.

…ontological inquiry is more original than the ontic inquiry of the positive sciences. But it remains naïve and opaque if its investigations into the being of beings leave the meaning of being in general undiscussed.

4. The Ontic Priority of the Question of Being

Dasein … is ontically distinguished by the fact that in its being this being is concerned about its very being.

The ontic distinction of Dasein lies in the fact that it is ontological.

We come to terms with the question of existence always only through existence itself. We shall call this kind of understanding of itself existentiell understanding. The question of existence is an ontic “affair” of Dasein. For this the theoretical transparency of the ontological structure of existence is not necessary.

We shall call the coherence of these structures existentiality. Its analysis does not have the character of an existentiell understanding but rather an existential one.

Sciences and disciplines are ways of being of Dasein in which Dasein also relates to beings that it need not itself be. But being in a world belongs essentially to Dasein.

Dasein is in itself “ontological.” But just as originally Dasein possesses—in a manner constitutive of its understanding of existence—an understanding of the being of all beings unlike itself. Dasein therefore has its third priority as the ontic-ontological condition of the possibility of all ontologies. Dasein has proven to be what, before all other beings, is ontologically the primary being to be interrogated.

Aristotle… The “soul” which constitutes the being of human being discovers in its ways to be—aisthesis and noesis—all beings with regard to their thatness and whatness…

…Aquinas… “transcendentals,” the characteristics of being that lie beyond every possible generic determination of a being in its material content, every modus specialis entis, and that are necessary attributes of every “something,” …

… verum too is to be demonstrated as being such a transcendens.

…by appealing to a being which… is suited to “come together” with any being whatsoever…the soul (anima).

…it has become evident that the ontological analysis of Dasein in general constitutes fundamental ontology…

…the question of being is nothing else than the radicalization of …the pre-ontological understanding of being.

The Double Task in Working Out the Question of Being: The Method of the Investigation and Its Outline

5. The Ontological Analysis of Dasein as the Exposure of the Horizon for an Interpretation of the Meaning of Being in General

Philosophical psychology, anthropology, ethics, “politics,” poetry, biography, and historiography pursue in different ways and to varying extents the behavior, faculties, powers, possibilities, and destinies of Dasein. But the question remains whether these interpretations were carried out in as original an existential manner as their existentiell originality perhaps merited.

The meaning of the being of that being we call Dasein proves to be temporality [Zeitlichkeit].

…with this interpretation of Dasein as temporality the answer to the guiding question about the meaning o being in general is not already given, the soil from which we may reap it will nevertheless be prepared.

We intimated that a pre-ontological being belongs to Dasein as its ontic constitution.

...time is that from which Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like being at all.

…that—and in what way—the central range of problems of all ontology is rooted in the phenomenon of time…

The fundamental ontological task of the interpretation of being as such thus includes the elaboration of the temporality of being [Temporalitat des Seins]. In the exposition of the problem of temporality the concrete answer to the question of the meaning of being is first given.

Because being is in each instance comprehensible only in regard to time, the answer to the question of being cannot lie in an isolated and blind proposition

What is positive about the answer must lie in the fact that it is old enough to enable us to learn to comprehend the possibilities prepared by the “ancients.”

If the answer to the question of being thus becomes the guiding directive for research, then it is sufficiently given only if the specific mode of being of previous ontology …necessary to the very character of Dasein.

6. The Task of a Destructuring of the History of Ontology

All research—especially when it moves in the sphere of the central question of being—is an ontic possibility of Dasein. The being of Dasein finds its meaning in temporality. But temporality is at the same time the condition of the possibility of historicity as a temporal mode of being of Dasein itself, regardless of whether and how it is a being “in time.”

…historicity is prior to what is called history (world-historical occurrences). Historicity means the constitution of being of the “occurrence’ of Dasein as such; it is the ground of the fact that something like the discipline of “world history” is at all possible… Dasein always is as and “what” it already was. … it possesses what is past as a property that is still objectively present… which, roughly expressed, on each occasion “occurs” out of its future.

Its own past—and that always means that of its “generation”—does not follow after Dasein but rather always already goes ahead of it.

If the discipline of history is lacking, that is no evidence against the historicity of Dasein; rather it is evidence for this constitution of being in a deficient mode. Only because it is “historic” in the first place can an age lack the discipline of history.

…inquiry into being, which was designated with regard to its ontic-ontological necessity, is itself characterized by historicity.

The question of the meaning of being is led to understand itself as historical in accordance with its own way of proceeding, that is, as the provisional explication of Dasein in its temporality and historicity.

…original “wellsprings” … The tradition even makes us forget such a provenance altogether.

The tradition uproots the historicity of Dasein to such a degree that it only takes an interest in the manifold forms of possible types, directions, and standpoints of philosophizing in the most remote and strangest cultures, and with this interest tries to veil its own groundlessness.

The ontology that thus arises is ensnared by the tradition, which allows it to sink to the level of the obvious and become mere material for reworking (as it was for Hegel). Greek ontology thus uprooted becomes a fixed body of doctrine in the Middle Ages.

If the question of being is to achieve clarity regarding its own history, a loosening of the sclerotic tradition and a dissolving o the concealments produced by it is necessary. We understand this task as the destructuring of the traditional content of ancient ontology which is to be carried out along the guidelines of the question of being.

In accord with the positive tendency of the destructuring the question must first be asked whether an to what extent in the course of the history of ontology in general the interpretation of being has been thematically connected with the phenomenon of time.

Kant is the first and only one who traversed a stretch of the path toward investigating the dimension of temporality…his doctrine of the schematism.

In pursuing the task of destructuring on the guideline of the problem of temporality the following treatise will attempt to interpret the chapter on the schematism and the Kantian doctrine of time developed there.

…Descartes… the decisive connection between time and the “I think” remained shrouded in complete obscurity.

Descartes… what he leaves undetermined in this “radical” beginning is the manner of being of the res cogitans, more precisely, the meaning of being of the “sum.” Working out the tacit ontological foundations of the cogito sum will constitute the second stage of the destructuring of, and the path back into, the history of ontology.

Everyone familiar with the medieval period sees that Descartes is “dependent” upon medieval scholasticism and uses its terminology. But with this “discovery” nothing is gained philosophically as long as it remains obscure to what a profound extent medieval ontology influences the way posterity determines or fails to determine the res cogitans ontologically. The full extent of this influence cannot be estimated until the meaning and limits of ancient ontology have been shown by our orientation toward the question of being. In other words, the destructuring sees itself assigned the task of interpreting the foundation of ancient ontology in light of the problem of temporality. Here it becomes evident that the ancient interpretation of the being of beings is oriented toward the “world” or “nature” in the broadest sense and that it indeed gains its understanding of being from “time.”

Aristotle’s treatise on time is the first detailed interpretation of this phenomenon that has come down to us.

…Kant’s fundamental ontological orientation—despite all the differences implicit in a new inquiry—remains Greek.

7. The Phenomenological Method of the Investigation

The task of ontology is to set in relief the being of beings and to explicate being itself. And the method of ontology remains questionable in the highest degree as long as we wish merely to consult historically transmitted ontologies or similar efforts.

… “phenomenology” signifies primarily a concept of method. It does not characterize the “what” of the objects of philosophical research in terms of their content but the “how” of such research.

The term “phenomenology” expresses a maxim that can be formulated: “To the things themselves!”

(a) The Concept of Phenomenon. The Greek expression phainomenon, from which the term “phenomenon” derives, comes form the verb phainesthai, meaning “to show itself.”

…phaino, to bring into daylight… root pha-, like phos, light or brightness…

…”phenomenon” is established as what shows itself in itself, what is manifest.

…phainomenon, phenomenon, means in Greek: what looks like something, what “seems,” “semblance.” Phenomenon agathon means a good that looks like but “in reality” is not what it gives itself out to be.

(“phenomenon” as self-showing and “phenomenon” as semblance) are structurally connected.

But what both terms express has at first nothing at all to do with what is called “appearance”…

One speaks of “appearances or symptoms of illness.

When such occurrences emerge, their self-showing coincides with the objective presence [Vorhandensein] of disturbances that do not show themselves.

Appearance… something makes itself known which does not show itself. …through something that does show itself.

…indications, presentations, symptoms, and symbols have this fundamental formal structure of appearing…

…phenomena are never appearances, but every appearance is dependent upon phenomena.

If one understands what does the making itself known—what in itself self-showing indicates the nonmanifest—as what comes to the fore in the nonmanifest itself, and radiates form it in such a way that what is nonmanifest is thought of as what is essentially never manifest—if this is so, then appearance is tantamount to production [Hervorbringung]…

Kant uses the term “appearance” in this twofold way.

Under a certain kind of light someone can look as if he were flushed. The redness that shows itself can be taken as making known the objective presence of fever; this in turn would indicate a disturbance in the organism.

In the horizon of the Kantian problem what is understood phenomenologically by the term phenomenon (disregarding other differences) can be illustrated when we say that what already shows itself in appearances prior to and always accompanying what we commonly understand as phenomena, though unthematically, can be brought thematically to self-showing. What thus shows itself in itself (“the forms of intuition”) are the phenomena of phenomenology.

…we must delimit the meaning of logos, in order to make clear in which sense phenomenology can be “a science of” phenomena.

The Concept of Logos. The concept of logos has many meanings in Plato and Aristotle, indeed in such a way that these meanings diverge without a basic meaning positively taking the lead. This is in fact only an illusion…

Logos is “translated,” and that always means interpreted, as reason, judgment, concept, definition, ground, relation. But how can “speech” be so susceptible of modification that logos means all the things mentioned…

Logos does not mean judgment, in any case not primarily…

Rather, logos as speech really means deloun, to make manifest “what is being talked about” in speech. Aristotle explicates this function of speech more precisely as apophainesthai. Logos lets something be seen (pheinesthai), namely what is being talked about, and indeed for the speaker (who serves as the medium) or for those who speak with each other. Speech “lets us see”…

…logos simply may not be acclaimed as the primary “place” of truth.

In the Greek sense what is “true”—indeed more originally true than the logos we have been discussing—is aesthesis, the simple sense perception of something.

…pure noein, straightforwardly observant apprehension of the simple determinations of the being of beings as such. This noein can never cover up, can never be false; at worst it can be a nonapprehending, agnoein…

What no longer takes the form of a pure letting be seen, but rather in its indicating always has recourse to something else and so always lets something be seen as something, acquires with this structure of synthesis the possibility of covering up.

And because the function of logos lies in letting something be seen straightforwardly, in letting beings be apprehended, logos can mean reason. Moreover, because logos is used in the sense not only of legein but also of legomenon—what is pointed to as such; and because the latter is nothing other than the hypokeimenon—what always already lies present at the basis of all relevant speech and discussion; for these reasons logos qua legomenon means ground, ratio.

(c) The Preliminary Concept of Phenomenology… “phenomenology” can be formulated in Greek as legein ta phainomena. But legein means apophainesthai. Hence phenomenology means: apophainesthai ta phainomena—to let what shows itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself. That is the formal meaning of the type of research that calls itself “phenomenology.” But this expresses nothing other than the maxim formulated above: “To the things themselves!”

… “theology” … Such titles designate the objects of the respective disciplines in terms of their content. “phenomenology” neither designates the object of its researches nor is it a title that describes their content. The word only tells us something about the how…

The basically tautological expression “descriptive phenomenology” …has the sense of a prohibition…

The meaning of the formal and common concepts of the phenomenon formally justifies our calling every way of indicating beings as they show themselves in themselves “phenomenology.”

Now what must be taken into account if the formal concept of phenomenon is to be deformalized to the phenomenological one…

What is it that phenomenology is to “let be seen”?…something that is concealed, in contrast to what initially and for the most part does show itself. But at the same time it is something that essentially belongs to what initially and for the most part shows itself, indeed in such a way that it constitutes its meaning and ground {Truth of being.}.

But what remains concealed in an exceptional sense, or what falls back and is covered up again, or shows itself only in a distorted way, is not this or that being but rather as we have shown in our foregoing observations, the being of beings. …what demands to become a phenomenon… phenomenology has taken into its “grasp” thematically as its object. … Essentially, nothing else stands “behind” the phenomena of phenomenology.

The way of encountering being and the structures of being in the mode of phenomenon must first be wrested from the objects of phenomenology. Thus the point of departure of the analysis, the access to the phenomenon, and passage through the prevalent coverings must secure their own method. The idea of an “originary” and “intuitive” grasp and explication of phenomena must be opposed to the naïveté of an accidental, “immediate,” and unreflective “beholding.”

What is given and is explicable in the way we encounter the phenomenon is called “phenomenal.” In this sense we speak of phenomenal structures. Everything that belongs to the manner of indication and explication and constitutes the conceptual tools this research requires, is called “phenomenological.”

As far as content goes, phenomenology is the science of the being of beings—ontology.

Phenomenology of Dasein is hermeneutics in the original signification of that word, which designates the work of interpretation but since discovery of the meaning of being and the basic structures of Dasein in general exhibits the horizon for every further ontological research into beings unlike Dasein, the present hermeneutic is at the same time “hermeneutics” in the sense that it works out the conditions of the possibility of every ontological investigation.

…this hermeneutic elaborates the historicity of Dasein ontologically as the ontic condition of the possibility of the discipline of history…

…being is not a genus of beings; yet it pertains to every being. Its “universality” must be sought in a higher sphere.

… Being is the transcendens pure and simple. {… However, transcendence from the truth of being: the event [das Ereignis].}

Ontology and phenomenology are not two different disciplines which among others belong to philosophy. Both terms characterize philosophy itself, its object and procedure. Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, taking its departure form the hermeneutic of Dasein…

…Edmund Husserl; with his Logical Investigations …

8. The Outline of the Treatise

…we may advance to being by way of a special interpretation of a particular being, Dasein… But his being is in itself “historic,” so that its most proper ontological illumination necessarily becomes a “historical” interpretation.

The elaboration of the question of being is a two-pronged task; our treatise therefore has two divisions.

Part One: The interpretation of Dasein on the basis of temporality and the explication of time as the transcendental horizon of the question of being.

Part Two: Basic features of a phenomenological destructuring of the history of ontology on the guideline of the problem of temporality.

The first part consists of three divisions:

1. The preparatory fundamental analysis of Dasein.

2. Dasein and temporality.

3. Time and being.

The second part likewise has three divisions:

1. Kant’s doctrine of the schematism and of time, as preliminary stage of a problem of temporality.

2. The ontological foundation of Descartes’ cogito sum and the incorporation of medieval ontology in the problem of the res cogitans.

3. Aristotle’s treatise on time as a way of discerning the phenomenal basis and the limits of ancient ontology.

PART ONE

The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon of the Question of Being

DIVISION TWO: Dasein and Temporality

V Temporality and History

72. Existential and Ontological Exposition of the Problem of History

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…we have reached the requisite, primordial interpretation of Dasein with the clarification of temporality as the primordial condition of the possibility of care. Temporality was set forth with regard to the authentic potentiality-of-being-a-whole of Dasein. The temporal interpretation of care was then confirmed by demonstrating the temporality of heedful being-in-the-world. Our analysis of the authentic potentiality-of-being-a-whole revealed that an equiprimordial connection of death, guilt, and conscience is rooted in care. Can Dasein be understood still more primordially than in the project of its authentic existence?

342

Dasein has been our theme only as to how it exists, so to speak, “forward” and leaves everything that has been “behind.” Not only did being-toward-the-beginning remain unnoticed, but, above all, the way Dasein stretches along between birth and death.

…something remarkable happens. In this succession of experiences only the experience that is objectively present “in the actual now” is “really” “real.” The experiences past and just coming, on the other hand, are no longer or not yet “real.”

…Dasein is “temporal.” The self maintains itself in a certain sameness throughout this constant change of experiences.

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…something objectively present “in time,” but of course “unthinglike,” has been posited…

When, however, one tacitly regards this being ontologically as something objectively present “in time,” an attempt at any ontological characterization of the being “between” birth and death gets stranded.

Dasein does not first fill up an objectively present path or stretch “of life” through the phases of its momentary realities, but stretches itself along in such a way that its own being is constituted beforehand as this stretching along. The “between” of birth and death already lies in the being of Dasein. … Factical Dasein exists as born, and, born, it is already dying in the sense of being-toward-death. … As care, Dasein is the “Between.”

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The movement of existence is not the motion of something objectively present. It Is determined from the stretching along of Dasein. The specific movement of the stretched outstretching itself along, we call the occurrence of Dasein. The question of the “connectedness” of Dasein is the ontological problem of its occurrence. To expose the structure of occurrence and the existential and temporal conditions of its possibility means to gain an ontological understanding of historicity.

Self-constancy is a mode of being of Dasein and is thus grounded in a specific temporalizing of temporality. The analysis of occurrence introduces the problems found in a thematic investigation into temporalization as such.

Even if the scientific and theoretical kind of treatment of the problem of “history” does not just aim at an “epistemological” (Simmel) clarification of historiographical comprehension, or at the logic of the concept formation of historiographical presentation (Rickert), but is rather oriented toward the “objective side,” history is accessible in this line of questioning only as the object of a science. The basic phenomenon of history, which is prior to the possibility of making something thematic by historiography and underlies it, is thus irrevocably set aside. How history can become a possible object for historiography, can be gathered only from the kind of being of what is historical, from historicity and its rootedness in temporality. …can only be carried out by way of a phenomenological construction {Project}. The existential and ontological constitution of historicity must be mastered in opposition to the vulgar interpretation of the history of Dasein that covers over.

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…what is primordially considered as historical. Thus the point of departure for the exposition of the ontological problem of historicity has been designated.

The analysis of the historicity of Dasein attempted to show that this being is not “temporal,” because it “is in history,” but because, on the contrary, it exists and can exist historically only because it is temporal in the ground of its being.

Factical Dasein needs and uses the calendar and the clock even without a developed historiography. What occurs “with it,” it experiences as occurring “in time.” in the same way, the processes of nature, whether living or lifeless, are encountered “in time.” they are within-time. so while our analysis of how the “time” of within-time-ness has its source in temporality will be deferred until the next chapter, it would be easy to put this before the discussion of the connection between historicity and temporality.

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…we shall content ourselves with indicating the ontological place of the problem of historicity.

73. The Vulgar Understanding of history and the Occurrence of Dasein

… “history” and “historical” in the vulgar interpretation of Dasein. They are ambiguous.

…it means “historical reality” as well as the possibility of a science of it.

347

Here history means what is past {what preceded beforehand and now still remains.}, but is nevertheless still having an effect. …remains of a Greek temple. A “bit of the past” is still “present” in it.

Thus history does not so much mean the “past” in the sense of what is past, but the derivation from it. Here history means a “connection” of events and “effects” that moves through the “past,” the “present” and the “future.”

History means here not so much the kind of being, the occurrence, as the region of beings that one distinguishes form nature…

…what has been handed down as such is taken to be “historical,” whether it be known historiographically or taken over as being self-evident and concealed in its derivation.

If we consider the four meanings together, we find that history is the specific occurrence of existing Dasein happening in time, in such a way that the occurrence in being-with-one-another that is “past” and at the same time “handed down” and still having its effect is taken to be history in the sense emphasized.

The four meanings have a connection in that they are related to human being as the “subject” of events. How is the kind of occurrence of these events to be determined? Is the occurrence a succession of processes, a changing appearance and disappearance of events? In what way does this occurrence of history belong to Dasein? Is Dasein factically already “objectively present” beforehand, and then at times gets into “a history”? does Dasein first become historical through a concatenation of circumstances and events? Or is the being of Dasein first constituted by occurrence, so that only because Dasein is historical in its being are anything like circumstances, events, and destinies ontologically possible? Why does precisely the past have an important function in the “temporal” characterization of Dasein occurring “in time”?

348

The “antiquities” preserved in museums (for example, household things) belong to a “time past,” and are yet still objectively present in the “present.”

What is “past”? Nothing other than the world within which they were encountered as things at hand belonging to a context of useful things and used by heedful Dasein existing-in-the-world. That world is no longer.

World is only in the mode of existing Dasein, that is, factically as being-in-the-world.

Evidently, Dasein can never be past, not because it is imperishable, but because it can essentially never be objectively present.

349

Dasein is what is primarily historical. But does Dasein first become historical by no longer being there? Or is it historical precisely as factically existing?

We asserted that Dasein is what is primarily historical. But secondarily historical is what is encountered with the world, not only useful things at hand in the broadest sense, but also nature in the surrounding world as the “historical Ground.” …the vulgar concept of “world history” arises precisely from our orientation toward what is secondarily historical.

350

No one denies that human existence is basically the primary “subject” of history, and the vulgar concept of history cited says this clearly enough. But the thesis that “Dasein is historical” not only means the ontic fact that human being presents a more or less important “atom” in the business of world history, and remains the plaything of circumstance and events, but poses the problem why and on the basis of what ontological conditions, does historicity belong to the subjectivity of the “historical” subject as its essential constitution?

74. The Essential Constitution of Historicity

The being of Dasein was defined as care. Care is grounded in temporality.

…the interpretation of the historicity of Dasein turns out to be basically just a more concrete development of temporality.

… Dasein understands itself with regard to its potentiality-of-being

351

… Dasein… As thrown, it is dependent upon a “world,” and exists factically with others. Initially and for the most part, the self is lost in the they. It understands itself in terms of the possibilities of existence that “circulate” in the actual “average” public interpretedness of Dasein today. Mostly they are made unrecognizable by ambiguity, but they are still familiar.

@ [circularity]

The resoluteness in which Dasein comes back to itself [from death] discloses the actual factical possibilities of authentic existing in terms of the heritage which that resoluteness takes over as thrown. Resolute coming back to thrownness involves handing oneself over to traditional possibilities, although not necessarily as traditional ones, if everything “good” is a matter of heritage and if the character of “goodness’ lies in making authentic existence possible, the handing down a heritage is always constituted in resoluteness.

Dasein can only bye reached by the blows of fate because in the basis of its being it is fate in the sense described. Existing fatefully in resoluteness handing itself down, Dasein is disclosed as being-in-the-world for the “coming” of “fortunate” circumstances and for the cruelty of chance.

352

But if fateful Dasein essentially exists as being-in-the-world in being-with-others, its occurrence is an occurrence-with and is determined as destiny. With this term, we designate the occurrence of the community, of a people. Destiny is not composed of individual fates, nor can being-with-one-another be conceived of as the mutual occurrence of several subjects. These fates are already guided beforehand in being-with-one-another in the same world and in the resoluteness for definite possibilities. In communication and in battle the power of destiny first becomes free. The fateful destiny of Dasein in and with its “generation” constitutes the complete, authentic occurrence of Dasein.

Only a being that is essentially futural in its being so that it can let itself be thrown back upon its factical There, free for its death and shattering itself on it, that is, only a being that, as futural, is equiprimordially having-been, can hand down to itself its inherited possibility, take over its own thrownness and be in the Moment for “its time.” Only authentic temporality that is at the same time finite makes something like fate, that is, authentic historicity, possible.

The handing down of a possibility that has been in retrieving it, however, does not disclose the Dasein that has been there in order to actualize it again. The retrieve of what is possible neither brings back “what is past,” nor does it bind the “present” back to what is “outdated.” Arising form a resolute self-projection

353

But responding to the possibility in a resolution is at the same time, as in the Moment, the disavowal of what is working itself out today as the “past.” Retrieve neither abandons itself to the past, nor does it aim at progress. In the Moment, authentic existence is indifferent to both of these alternatives.

We characterize retrieve as the mode of resolution handing itself down, by which Dasein exists explicitly as fate. But if fate constitutes the primordial historicity of Dasein, history has its essential weight neither in what is past nor in the today and its “connection’ with what is past, but in the authentic occurrence of existence that arises for the future of Dasein. As a mode of being of Dasein, history has its roots so essentially in the future that death, as the possibility of Dasein we characterized throws anticipatory existence back upon its factical thrownness and thus first gives to the having-been its unique priority in what is historical. Authentic being-toward-death, that is, the finitude of temporality, is the concealed ground of the historicity of Dasein.

…no historiography is needed as yet.

We call the anticipatory handing oneself down to the There of the Moment that lies in resoluteness fate. In it destiny is also grounded, by which we understand the occurrence of Dasein in being-with-others. Fateful destiny can be explicitly disclosed in retrieve with regard to its being bound up with the heritage handed down to it. Repetition first makes manifest to Dasein its own history. Retrieve first reveals to Dasein its own history.

354

The Historicity of Dasein and World History

Understanding signifies self-projection upon the actual possibility of being-in-the-world, that is, existing as this possibility. Thus understanding as common sense, also constitutes the inauthentic existence of the they. What everyday taking care of things encounters in public being-with-one-another is not just useful things and works, but at the same time what “is going on” with them: “affairs,” undertakings, incidents, mishaps. The “world” belongs to everyday trade and traffic as the soil form which they grow and the stage where they are displayed. In public being-with-one-another the others are encountered in the activities in which “one” “swims along’ with it “oneself.” One always knows about it, talks about it, furthers it, fights it, retains it, and forgets it primarily with regard to what is being done and what will “come of it.”

Do not useful things and works and everything that Dasein spends time with also belong to “history”? Is the occurrence of history then only the isolated course of “streams of experience” in individual subjects?

355

The occurrence of history is the occurrence of being-in-the-world. The historicity of Dasein is essentially the historicity of the world which, on the basis of its ecstatic and horizonal temporality, belongs to the temporalizing of that temporality.

With the existence of historical being-in-the-world, things at hand and objectively present have always already been included in the history of the world.

…nature is historical as a countryside, as areas that have been inhabited or exploited, as battlefields and cultic sites. … We shall call these beings world-historical.

On the one hand, it signifies the occurrence of world in its essential existent unity with Dasein. But at the same time… The historical world is factically only as the world of innerworldly beings.

356

…what is world-historical is always already “objectively” there in the occurrence of existing being-in-the-world, without being grasped historiographically. …it initially understands its history as world history. … “connectedness” in the sense of the unity with which experiences are linked together…

…precisely the authentic historicity of Dasein—fate and retrieve—looks as if it, least of all, could provide the phenomenal basis for bringing into the form of an ontologically founded problem what is fundamentally intended with the question of the “connectedness of life.”

357

Does perhaps the primordial stretching along of the whole of existence, which is not lost and does not need a connection, lie in historicity?

Constancy is not first formed either through or by “Moments” adjoining each other, but rather the Moments arise from the temporality, already stretched along, of that retrieve which is futurally in the process of having-been.

358

…we may venture a project of the ontological genesis of historiography as a science in terms of the historicity of Dasein. It should serve as a preparation for the clarification of the task of a historical destructuring of the history of philosophy to be carried out in what follows.

76. The Existential Origin of Historiography from the Historicity of Dasein

..throw more light upon the historicity of Dasein, and its roots in temporality.

If the being of Dasein is in principle historical, then every factical science evidently remains bound to this occurrence. But historiography presupposes the historicity of Dasein in its own distinctive way.

But history must… be in order for a historiographical object to be accessible; and historiographical cognition … is in itself rooted in the historicity of Dasein in accordance with its ontological structure…

359

Every science is primarily constituted by thematization.

…the historiographical thematization of history is possible only if the “past” has always already been disclosed in general.

But since the being of Dasein is historical, that is, since it is open in its character of having-been on the basis of ecstatical and horizonal temporality, the way is in general freed for such thematization of the “past” as can be carried out in existence. And because Dasein and only Dasein is primordially historical… Together with factical Dasein as being-in-the-world, there is also always world history.

Remains, monuments, and records that are still objectively present are possible “material” for the concrete disclosure of Dasein that has-been-there.

360

If historiography is rooted in historicity in this way, then we should also be able to determine from there what the object of historiography “really” is.

If Dasein is “really” actual only in existence, its “factuality” is, after all, constituted precisely by its resolute self-projection upon a chosen potentiality-of-being. What has “factually” really been there, however, is the existentiell possibility in which fate, destiny, and world history are factically determined.

… historiography, which itself arises for authentic historicity… has also already made the “universal” manifest in what is unique.

… even historiographical disclosure temporalizes itself out of the future.

361

The historian who from the outset has “projected” upon he “world-view” of an era has not yet proven that he understands his subject-matter authentically and historically and not just “aesthetically.” On the other hand the existence of a historian who “only” edits sources may be determined by an authentic historicity.

Thus the dominance of a differentiated historiographical interest, even in the most remote and primitive cultures, is in itself no proof of the authentic historicity of an “age.” Ultimately, the rise of the problem of “historicism” is the clearest indication that historiography strives to alienate Dasein from its authentic historicity. Historicity does not necessarily need historiography. Unhistoriographical ages are as such not also automatically unhistorical.

Nietzsche recognized what is essential about “advantage and disadvantage of historiography for life” in the second of his Untimely Meditations (1874)… distinguishes three kinds of historiography: the monumental, the antiquarian, and the critical…

362

As historical, Dasein is possible only on the basis of temporality. Temporality temporalizes itself in the ecstatic-horizonal unity of its raptures. Dasein exists as futural authentically in the resolute disclosure of a chosen possibility. Resolutely coming back to itself, it is open in retrieve for the “monumental” possibilities of human existence.

…future and the having-been as the present. The present as the Moment, discloses the today authentically, but since the today is interpreted in terms of understanding a possibility of existence grasped—an understanding that futurally retrieves—authentic historiography ceases to make the today present, that is it suffers itself to become detached from the entangled publicness of the today. As authentic, monumental-antiquarian historiography is necessarily a critique of the “present.” Authentic historicity is the foundation of the possible unity of the three kinds of historiography. But the ground on which authentic historiography is founded is temporality as the existential meaning of being of care.

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77. The Connection of the Foregoing Exposition of the Problem of Historicity with the Investigations of Dilthey and the Ideas of Count Yorck

367

“…Just as physiology cannot be studied in abstraction from physics, neither can philosophy from historicity, especially if it is critical. . . . Self-relation and historicity are like breathing and atmospheric pressure and, although this sounds rather paradoxical, it seems to me methodologically like a residue of metaphysics not to historicize philosophizing.” [Yorck 69]

368

How else is historicity to be philosophically grasped and “categorically” conceived in its difference from the ontic than by bringing the “ontic” as well as the “historiographical: into a more primordial unity so that they can be compared and distinguished?

The idea of being encompasses the “ontic” and the “historiographical.” This idea is what must be “generically differentiated.”

…traditional ontology that, coming form the ancient questioning of being, holds fast to the ontological problematic…

Temporality and Within-Timeness as the Origin of the Vulgar Concept of Time

78. The Incompleteness of the Foregoing Temporal Analysis of Dasein

371

To demonstrate that and how temporality constitutes the being of Dasein, we showed that historicity, as the constitution of being of existence is “basically” temporality.

…before all thematic investigation, Dasein “reckons with time” and orients itself according to it. …prior to such instruments, and first makes possible something like the use of clocks.

372

Factical Dasein takes account of time without existentially understanding temporality. …before we turn to the question of what it means that beings are “in time.” … We must show how Dasein as temporality temporalizes a mode of behavior that is related in such a way to time that it takes account of it.

…something like world time belongs to temporality itself… Everyday Dasein taking time initially finds time in things at hand and objectively present encountered within the world. It understands time thus “experienced” in the horizon of the understanding of being that is nearest to it, that is, as something that is itself somehow objectively present.

…a levelling down of primordial time. by demonstrating that this is the source of the vulgar concept of time, we shall justify our earlier interpretation of temporality as primordial time.

Hegel attempts to determine the connection between “time” and “spirit” in order to make it intelligible why spirit, as history, “falls into time.” in its results, the foregoing interpretation of the temporality of Dasein and the way world time belongs to it seems to agree with Hegel. But…our analysis of time is already distinguished from the outset in principle from that of Hegel, and …its orientation is precisely the opposite of his…

373

The question as to whether and how time has any “being,” …cannot be answered until be have shown how temporality itself makes possible something like an understanding of being…

79. The Temporality of Dasein and Taking Care of Time

Dasein exists as a being that, in its being, is concerned about that being itself. Essentially ahead of itself, it has projected itself upon its potentiality-of-being before going on to any mere consideration of itself. In its project it is revealed as something thrown. Thrown and abandoned to the world, it falls prey to it in taking care of it. as care, that is, as existing in the unity of the entangled, thrown project, this being is disclosed as a There. Being-together-with others, it keeps itself in an average interpretedness that is articulated in discourse and expressed in language. Being-in-the-world has always already expressed itself, and as being-together-with beings encountered within the world, it constantly expresses itself in addressing and talking over what is taken care of. The circumspect taking care of common sense is grounded in temporality, in the mode of making present that awaits and retains. As taking care in calculating, planning, preparing ahead, and preventing, it always already says, whether audibly or not: “then” …that will happen, “before” …that will get settled, “now” …that will be made up for, that “on that former occasion” failed or eluded us.

In the “then,” taking care expresses itself in awaiting; retaining in the “on that former occasion” and making present in the “now.”

374 @

But every “then” is as such a “then, when . . .” every “on that former occasion” is an “on that former occasion when . . .”; every “now” is a “now that . . .”. We shall call this…relational structure of the “now,” “on that former occasion,” and “then” datability.

Is it then self-evident that we “right away understand” and “naturally” express something like “now,” “then,” and “on that former occasion”? Where do we get this “now. . . that. . .?” did we find something like this among innerworldly beings, among those that are objectively present? Obviously not. Have we found it at all? Have we ever started to look for it and ascertain it? It is “always” available to us without our ever having explicitly taken it over, and we make constant use of it…

(…“it is cold”) we also have in mind a “now that . . .”. Why does Dasein express a “now that . . .”, “then when . . .”, “on that former occasion when . . .” in addressing what it takes care of, although mostly without verbalizing it?

…because this addressing and discussing that also interprets itself is grounded in a making present, and is possible only as this.

375

The making present that interprets itself, that is, what has been interpreted and addressed in the “now,” is what we call “time.”

Saying “now,” we always already also understand a “now that . . “ without actually saying it.

In that “now that . . .” lies the ecstatic nature of the present. The datability of the “now,” “then,” and “on that former occasion” is the reflex of the ecstatic constitution of temporality… is evidence for the fact that they stem from temporality and are themselves time.

…interpreted time has always already been given a dating in terms of the beings encountered in the disclosedness of the There; now that . . . the door slams; now that . . . my book is missing, etc.

Because they have the same origin from ecstatic temporality, the horizons that belong to the “now,” “then,” and “on that former occasion” also have the character of datability as “today when . . . ,” “later on when . . .,” and “earlier when . . .”.

376

If awaiting, understanding itself in the "then," interprets itself and in so doing, as a making present, understands what it is awaiting in terms of its "now," the "and now not yet" already lies in the "giving" of the "then." The awaiting that makes present understands the "until then." Interpretation articulates this "until then"—namely, "it has its time"—as the in-between that also has a relation of datability. This relation is expressed in the "meanwhile." Taking care can again articulate in awaiting the "during" itself by giving further "thens." The "until then" is subdivided by a number of "from then . . . until thens" that, however, have been "embraced" beforehand in the awaiting project of the primary "then." The "lasting" is articulated in the understanding of the "during" that awaits and makes present. This duration is again the time revealed in the self-interpretation of temporality, a time that is thus actually, but unthematically, understood in taking care as a "span." The making present that awaits and retains interprets a "during" with a "span," only because in so doing it is disclosed to itself as being ecstatically stretched along in historical temporality, even though it does not know itself as this. But here a further peculiarity of the time "given" shows itself. Not only does the "during" have a span, but every "now," "then," and "on that former occasion" is always spanned with the structure of datability, with a changing span: "now" in the intermission, at dinner, in the evening, in summer; "then" at breakfast, while climbing, and so on.

In the everyday "living along" that takes care, Dasein never understands itself as running along in a continuously enduring succession of pure "nows." By reason of this covering over, the time that Dasein allows itself has gaps in it, so to speak.

377

As disclosed, Dasein exists factically in the mode of being-with with the others. It keeps itself in a public, average intelligibility. The "now that. . .", "then when. . ." interpreted and expressed in everyday being-with-one-another, are understood in principle, although they are unequivocally dated only within limits. In the "nearest" being-with-one another, several people can say "now" together, and each can date the "now" in a different way: now that this or that happens. The "now" expressed is spoken by each one in the publicness of being-with-one another-in-the-world. The time interpreted and expressed by actual Dasein is thus also always already made public as such on the basis of its ecstatic being-in-the-world. Since everyday taking care understands itself in terms of the "world" taken care of, it knows the "time" that it takes for itself not as its own, but rather heedfully exploits the time that "there is," the time with which the they reckons. But the publicness of "time" is all the more compelling, the more factical Dasein explicitly takes care of time by expressly taking it into account.

Time Taken Care of and Within-Timeness

378

We did not determine at all in what sense the public time expressed “is,” or whether it can be addressed as being at all. Before any decision as to whether public time “is merely subjective” or whether it is “objectively real,:” or neither of the two, the phenomenal character of public time must first be determined more precisely.

Making time public does not occur occasionally and subsequently.

What is existentially and ontologically decisive about reckoning with time must not be seen in the quantification of time, but must be more primordially conceived in terms of the temporality of Dasein reckoning with time.

“public time” turns out to the time “in which” innerworldly things at hand and objectively present are encountered. This requires that we call these beings unlike Dasein beings within-time. The interpretation of within-timeness gives us a more primordial insight into the essence of “public time” and at the same time makes it possible to define its “being.”

The being of Dasein is care. This being exists entangled as thrown. Delivered over to the “world” discovered with its factical There…it reckons with and on whatever is in eminent relevance for the sake of its potentiality-of-being.

379

Taking care makes use of the “handiness” of the sun giving forth light and warmth.

Like sunrise, sunset and noon are distinctive “places” that this heavenly body occupies.

The occurrence of Dasein is a daily one by reason of interpreting time by dating it—a way is prefigured in its thrownness to the There.

…in our being-with-one-another “under the same sky,” …everyone is initially agreed upon it.

380 @

With this relation of in-order-to, time made public reveals the structure that we got to know earlier as significance. It constitutes the worldliness of the world. As time-for . . ., the time that has been made public essentially has the nature of world. Thus we shall call the time making itself public in the temporalizing of temporality world time. and we shall designate it thus not because it is objectively present as an innerworldly being (that it can never be), but because it belongs to the world in the sense interpreted existentially and ontologically.

381

…only now can time taken care of be completely characterized as to its structure. It is datable, spanned, and public and as having this structure, it belongs to the world itself. Every “now,” for example, that is expressed in a natural, everyday way, has this structure…

The historical development of time reckoning and the use of the clock is not to be presented here… Rather, we want to ask existentially and ontologically what mode of temporalizing of the temporality of Dasein is made manifest in developing the direction of reckoning with time and the use of the clock. The answer to this question must further a more primordial understanding of the fact that time measurement—that is, at the same time the explicit making public of time taken care of—is grounded in the temporality of Dasein and indeed in a quite definite temporalizing of that temporality.

The what o’clock is it?, is the “what time is it?” because the clock—in the sense of what makes possible a public reckoning of time—must be regulated by the “natural” clock…

382

The public sundial, in which the line of a shadow is counterposed to the course of the sun and moves along a graduated dial needs no further description. But why do we find something like time at the position that the shadow occupies on the dial? Neither the shadow nor the graduated dial is time itself, nor is the spatial relation between them. Where, then, is the time that we read of directly not only on the “sundial” but also in every pocketwatch?

What does reading off the time signify? “to look at the clock” cannot simply mean to contemplate the tool at hand in its changes and to follow the positions of the pointer. Ascertaining what time it is in using the clock, we say, whether explicitly or not, not it is such an hour and so many minutes, now it is time to . . . , or there is still time . . . , namely now until . . . . Looking at the clock is grounded in and guided by a taking-time-for-oneself. What already showed itself in the most elemental reckoning of time becomes more clear here: Looking at the clock and orienting oneself toward timeis essentially a now-saying. Here the now is always already understood and interpreted in its complete structural content of datability, spannedness, publicness, and worldliness. This is so “obvious” that we do not take any notice of it at all; still less do we know anything about it explicitly.

383

Thus in measuring time, time gets made public in such a way that it is encountered in each case and at each time for everyone as “now and now and now.” This time “universally” accessible in clocks is found as an objectively present multiplicity of nows, so to speak…

It is not that time is connected to a location, but rather temporality is the condition of the possibility that dating may be bound up with the spatially-local in such a way that the latter is binding for everyone as a measure.

[n4 415 We shall not go into the problem of time measurement in the theory of relativity here. The illumination of the ontological foundations of this measurement already presupposes a clarification of world time and within-timeness in terms of the temporality of Dasein and then explication of the existential and temporal constitution of the discovery of nature and the temporal meaning of measurement in general as well. An axiomatic of the technique of physical measurement is based on these investigations and can never in its turn explicate the problem of time a such.]

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Just as the concrete analysis of the astronomical time-reckoning in its full development belongs to the existential and ontological interpretation of the discovery of nature, the foundations of calendrical and historiographical "chronology" can also be set forth only in the scope of tasks of an existential analysis of historiographical cognition [n5 415 For a first attempt at the interpretation of chronological time and “historical numeration,” cf. the Frieburg habilitation lecture of the author (SS 1915): “Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft,” published in the Zeitschrift fur Philosophie und philosophische Kritik… The connection between historical numeration, astronomically calculated world time, and the temporality and historicity of Dasein need further investigation. …The two fundamental works on the development of historiographical chronology are: Josephus Justus Scalinger, De emendatione temporum, 1583, and Dionysus Petavius, S.J., Opus de doctrina temporum, 1627. for the ancient time reckoning, cf. G Bilfinger, Die antiken Stundenangaben … [et al.]]

With the disclosedness of world, world time is made public, so that every being-together-with innerworldly beings that temporally takes care understands those beings as circumspectly encountered "in time."

The time “in which” objectively present things move or are at rest is not "objective," if by this is meant the objective presence in itself of beings encountered in the world. But time is not "subjective" either, if we understand by that the objective presence and occurrence in a "subject." World time is more "objective" than any possible object because, with the disclosedness of the world, it always already becomes ecstatically and horizonally "objectified" as the condition of the possibility of innerworldly beings. Thus, contrary to Kant's opinion, world time is found just as directly in what is physical as in what is psychical, and not just by way of a detour over the psychical. Initially "time" shows itself in the sky, that is, precisely where one finds it in the natural orientation toward it, so that "time" is even identified with the sky.

But world time is also "more subjective" than any possible subject since it first makes possible the being of the factical existing self, that being which, as is now well understood, is the meaning of care. "Time" is neither objectively present in the "'subject" nor in the "object," neither "inside" nor "outside," and it "is" "prior" to every subjectivity and objectivity, because it presents the condition of the very possibility of this "prior." Does it then have any "being" at all? And if not" is it then a phantom or is it "more in

being" than any possible being?

385

81. Within-Timeness and the Genesis of the Vulgar Concept of Time

How does something like "time" initially show itself for everyday, circumspect taking care? In what mode of taking care and using tools does it become explicitly accessible? If time has been made public with the disclosedness of world, if it has always already been taken care of with the discoveredness of innerworldly beings belonging to the disclosedness of world since Dasein calculates time reckoning with itself, then the mode of behavior in which "one" orients oneself explicitly toward time lies in the use of the clock. The existential and temporal meaning of the clock turns out to be making present of the moving pointer. By following the positions of the pointer in a way that makes present, one counts them. This making present temporalizes itself in the ecstatic unity of a retaining that awaits. To retain the "on that former occasion" in making present means that in saying-now to be open for the horizon of the earlier, that is, the now-no-longer. To await the "then" in making present means that in saying-now to be open for the horizon of the later, that is, the now-not-yet.

386

What shows itself in this making present is time. then how are we to define the time manifest in the horizon of the use of the clock that is circumspect and takes time for itself in taking care? This time is what is counted, showing itself in following, making present, and counting the moving pointer in such a way that making present temporalizes itself in esoteric unity with retaining and awaiting horizonally open according to the earlier and later. …Aristotle… “That, namely, is time, what is counted in the motion encountered in the horizon of the earlier and the later” [n7 415 Cf. Physics, IV 11, 219b1 et seq.]

All subsequent discussion of the concept of time in principle keeps to the Aristotelian definition…

Time is “what is counted,” that is, it is what is expressed and what is meant, although unthematically, in the making present of th moving pointer (or shadow). In making present what is moved in its motion, one says “now here, now here, and so on.” What is counted are the nows. And they show themselves “in every now” as “right-away-no-longer-now” and “just-now-not-yet.” The world time “caught sight of:” in this way in the use of the clock we shall call now time.

…the more “naturally” it does so—that is, the less it is directed toward treating time as such the thematically—all the more does the being-together-with what is taken care of (the being-together making present and falling prey) say unhesitatingly (whether with or without utterance): now, then, on that former occasion. And thus time shows itself of r the vulgar understanding as a succession of constantly “objectively present” nows that pas away and arrive at the same time. time is understood as a sequence, as the “flux” of nows, as the “course of time.” What is implied by this interpretation of world time taken care of?

387

…we called time taken care of world time. in the vulgar interpretation of time as a succession of nows, both datability and significance are lacking. The characterization of time as pure sequence does not let these two structures “appear.” The vulgar interpretation o time covers them over. The ecstatic and horizonal constitution of temporality, in which the datability and significance of the now are grounded, is leveled down by this covering over. The nows are cut off from these relations, so to speak, and, as thus cut off, they simply range themselves along after one another s as to constitute the succession.

Although it is not explicitly stated that the nows are objectively present like things, still they are “seen” ontologically in the horizon of the idea of objective presence. The nows pass away, and the past ones constitute the past. The nows arrive, and the future ones define the “future.” The vulgar interpretation of world time as now-time does not have the horizon available at all by which such things as world, significance, and datability can be made more accessible.

388

[n10 415 Cf. Timaeus 37d: “But he decided to make a kind of moving image of the eternal; and while setting the heavens in order, he made an eternal image, moving according to number—an image of that eternity which abides in oneness. It is to this image that we have given thet anme of ‘time’.”]

The main thesis of the vulgar interpretation of time—that time is “infinite”—reveals most penetratingly the leveling down and covering over of world time and thus of temporality in general in this interpretation. Initially, time gives itself as an uninterrupted succession of nows. Every now is already either a just now or a right-away. If the characterization of time keeps primarily and exclusively to this succession, no beginning and no end can be found in principle in it as such. Every last now, as a now, is always already a right-away that is no longer, thus it is time in the sense of the no-longer-now, of the past. Every first now is always a just-now-not-yet, thus it is time in the sense of the not-yet-now, the “future.” Time is thus endless “in both directions.” This thesis about time is possible only on the basis of an orientation toward an unattached in-itself of a course of nows objectively present, whereby the complete phenomenon of the now is covered over with regard to the datability, worldliness, spannedness, and publicness of Dasein, so that it has dwindled to an unrecognizable fragment.

389

Thrown and entangled, Dasein is initially and for the most part lost in what it takes of. But in this lostness, the flight of Dasein from its authentic existence that we characterized as anticipatory resoluteness makes itself known, and this is a flight that covers over. In such heedful fleeing lies the flight from death, that is, a looking away from the end of being-in-the-world.

And if the vulgar understanding of Dasein is guided by the they, then the self-forgetful “representation” of the “infinitude” of public time can first anchor itself. The they never dies…

How should that affect “time” in its course even in the least if a human being objectively present “in time” no longer exists? Time goes on as it already “was,” after all, when a human being “entered live.” One knows only public time that, leveled down, belongs to everyone, and that means to no one.

390

The vulgar characterization of time as an endless, irreversible succession of nows passing away arises from the temporality of entangled Dasein. The vulgar representation of time has its natural justification. It belongs to the everyday kind of being of Dasein and to the understanding of being initially prevalent. Thus even history is initially and for the most part understood publicly as an occurrence within time.

…only from the temporality of Dasein and its temporalizing does it become intelligible why and how world time belongs to it.

…temporality remains inaccessible in the horizon of the vulgar understanding of time. Not only must now-time be oriented primarily toward temporality in the order of possible interpretation, but it temporalizes itself only in the inauthentic temporality of Dasein…

391

…the vulgar understanding of time sees the fundamental phenomenon of time in the now, and indeed in the pure now, cut off in its complete structure, that is called the “present.” One can gather form this that there is in principle no prospect of explaining or even deriving the ecstatic and horizonal phenomenon of the Moment that belongs to authentic temporality from this now. Thus the ecstatically understood future—the datable, significant “then”—does not coincide with the vulgar concept of the “future” in the sense of the pure nows that have not yet arrived and are only arriving. Nor does the ecstatic having-been, the datable, significant “on that former occasion,’ coincide with the concept of the past in the sense of the past pure nows. The now is not pregnant with the not-yet-now, but rather the present arises from the future in the primordial, ecstatic unity of the temporalizing of temporality.

Although, initially and for the most part, the vulgar experience of time knows only “world time,” it nonetheless also always accords world time an eminent relation to “soul” and “spirit.”

Aristotle says: …14

And Augustine writes…15

The grounds that Hegel explicitly gave for the connection between time and spirit…our exhibition of the origin of world time from it.

82. The Contrast of the Existential and Ontological Connection of Temporality, Dasein, and World Time with Hegel’s Interpretation of the Relation between Time and Spirit

391

History, which is essentially the history of spirit, runs its course “in time.” thus “the development of history falls into time.” but Hegel is not satisfied with establishing the within-timenes of spirit as a fact, but attempts to understand how it is possible for spirit to fall into time…

392

Time must be able to receive spirit, as it were. And spirit must in turn be related to time and its essence.

…Hegel’s concept of time presents the most radical way in which the vulgar understanding of time has been given form conceptually. A comparison of this concept with the idea of temporality that we have expounded is one that especially suggests itself.

Hegel’s Concept of Time.

(a) The first traditional, thematically detailed interpretation of the vulgar understanding o time is to found in Aristotle’s physics, in the context of an ontology of nature.

…Hegel… “The Philosophy of Nature.”

… “space and time.” they are the “abstract outside-of-one-another.”

… “space itself goes over.” Space “is” time, that is, time is the “truth” of space. If space is thought dialectically in what it is, this being of space reveals itself as time according to Hegel. How must space be thought?

…space is the abstract multiplicity of the points distinguishable in it. ...Space remains in its turn undifferentiated. [nb phenomenology vs. relativity], differentiated by the differentiable points that are themselves space. …yet the point is a negation of space in that it differentiates something in space, though in such a way that it itself remains in space as this negation (the point is, after all, space). The point does not lift itself out of space as something other than space. Space is the undifferentiated outside-one-another of the multiplicity of points.

393

But space is not a point, but as Hegel says, “punctuality.”

Space is thought and thus grasped in its being only if the negations do not simply subsist in their indifference, but are superseded, that is, themselves negated. In the negation of negation (that is, punctuality) the point posits itself for itself and thus emerges from the indifference of subsistence. Posited for itself, it distinguishes itself from this or that point; it is no longer this one and not yet that one. In positing itself for itself, it posits the succession in which it stands, the sphere of being-outside-of-itself that is now the negated negation. The superseding of punctuality as indifference signifies that it can no longer lie quietly in the “paralyzed stillness of space.” The point “rebels” against all the other points. According to Hegel, this negation of negation as punctuality is time. if this discussion has any demonstrable meaning at all, it can mean nothing other than that the positing of itself for itself of each point is a now-here, now-here, and so on. Every point “is” posited from itself as a now-point. “thus the point has actuality in time.” By what means the point can posit itself for itself, always as this point, is always a now. The condition of the possibility of the point’s positing itself for itself is the now. This condition of possibility constitutes the being of the point, and being is at the same time being-thought. Thus, since the pure thinking of punctuality, that is, of space, always “thinks” the now and the being-outside-itself of the nows, space “is” time. [nb =relativity]

“…absolutely momentary distinctions that directly supersede themselves are determined as external, but external to themselves.” Time reveals itself for this interpretation as “intuited becoming.” According to Hegel, this signifies a transition from being to nothingness, or from nothingness to being.

394

…since every now either “now” is-no-longer, or now is-not-yet, it can also be grasped as nonbeing. Time is “intuited” becoming, that is, the transition that is not thought, but simply presents itself in the succession of nows.

“Moreover, in nature where time is now, no ‘stable’ difference between those dimensions (past and future) ever comes about.” “In the positive sense of time one can thus say that only the present is, the before and after are not; but the concrete present is the result of the past and pregnant with the future. Thus the true present is eternity.”

…on occasion he characterizes time as the “abstraction of consuming,” and thus formulates the vulgar experience and interpretation of time in the most radical way. [nb entropy]

the most appropriate expression for Hegel’s interpretation of time thus lies in the determination of time as the negation of negation (that is, punctuality). Here the succession of nows if formulized in the most extreme sense an leveled down to an unprecedented degree. It is only in terms of this formal and dialectical concept of time that Hegel can produce a connection between time and spirit.

[n30 417 …Hegel’s concept of time is even drawn directly from Aristotle’s Physics. …in the scope of the philosophy of nature… On the way from Kant to Hegel’s developed system, a decisive impact of Aristotelian ontology and logic comes about once more. …of Hegel’s Jenenser Logik and Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics… Aristotle sees the essence of time in the nun; Hegel in the now. Aristotle conceives the nun as horos; Hegel interpets the now as “limit.” Aristotle understands the nun as stigme; Hegel calls the now the “absolute this.” Aristotle connects chronos with sphaira, in accordance with the tradition; Hegel emphasizes the “circular course: of time. of course, Hegel misses the central tendency of Aristotle’s analysis of time of discovering a foundational connection (akolouthein) between the nun, horos, stigma, and tode ti.]

(b) Hegel’s Interpretation of the Connection between Time and Spirit. In what way has spirit itself been understood in its actualization that Hegel can say it is in accordance with spirit to fall into time, with time defined as the negation of a negation?

395

The essence of spirit is the concept. By this Hegel understands not the universal that is intuited in a genus as the form of what is thought, but the form of the very thinking that thinks itself: Conceiving itself—as grasping the non-I. since grasping the non-I presents a differentiation there lies in the pure concept, as the grasping of this differentiation, a differentiation of the difference.

“The I is the pure concept itself that has come to existence as the concept.” “…abstracting from all determinateness and content and going back to the freedom of the limitless identity with itself.” …This negating of negation is both the “absolute unrest” of spirit and also its self-revelation, which belongs to its essence. …The goal of the development of spirit is “to attain its own concept.”… “a hard infinite struggle against itself.” “time is the concept itself that is there, and represents itself to consciousness as empty intuition for this reason spirit necessarily appears in time, and it appears in time as long as it has not grasped its pure concept…

“Thus world history in general is the interpretation of spirit in time, just as the idea interprets itself in nature as space.” The “excluding” that belongs to the movement of development contains a relation to nonbeing. That is time, understood in terms of the revolt of the now.

396

Hegel shows the possibility of the historical actualization of spirit “in time” by going back to the identity of the formal structure of spirit and time as the negation of a negation.

…time is yet conceived in the sense of world time that has been absolutely leveled down, so that its provenance thus remains completely covered over, it simply confronts spirit as something objectively present. For this reason spirit must first fall “into time.” It remains obscure what indeed is signified ontologically by this “falling”…

Our existential analytic of Dasein, on the other hand… “Spirit” does not first fall into time but exists as the primordial temporalizing of temporality. Temporality temporalizes world time, in whose horizon “history” can appear as an occurrence within time. …out of primordial, authentic temporality.

397

83. The Existential and Temporal Analytic of Dasein and the Question of Fundamental Ontology as to the Meaning of Being in General

…what the preparatory \existential analytic of Dasein contributed prior to setting forth temporality has now been taken back into temporality as the primordial structure of the totality of being of Dasein.

…statement expressed in our introduction… Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, beginning with a hermeneutic of Dasein which as an analytic of existence, has made fast the guideline for all philosophical questioning at the point where it arises and to which it returns {Thus not existential philosophy}.”

Can ontology be grounded ontologically or does it also need for this an ontic foundation, and which being must take over the function of this foundation?

Why is being “initially” “conceived” in terms of what is objectively present, and not in terms of things at hand that do, after all, lie still nearer to us? Why does this reification come to dominate again and again? How is the being of “consciousness” positively structured so that reification remains inappropriate to it? is the “distinction” between “consciousness” and “thing” sufficient at all for a primordial unfolding of the ontological problematic?

398

Something like “being” has been disclosed in the understanding of being that belongs to existing Dasein as a way in which it understand. The preliminary disclosure of being, although it is unconceptual, makes it possible for Dasein as existing being-in-the-world to be related to beings, to those it encounters in the world as well as to itself in existing.

The existential and ontological constitution of the totality of Dasein is grounded in temporality. Accordingly, a primordial mode of temporalizing of ecstatic temporality itself must make the ecstatic project of being in general possible. How is this mode of temporalizing of temporality to be interpreted? Is there a way leading from primordial time to the meaning of being? Does time itself reveal itself as the horizon of being?