57 pages • 1 hour read
Martin HeideggerBeing And Time
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1927A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Introduction, Chapter 1 Summary
Being and Time begins with a quote from Plato: “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” (19). With this quote, Heidegger lays the grounds not only for what will follow in his Introduction, but for the direction and purpose of this work as a whole. That is, he seeks to re-awaken an interest in the question and meaning of “Being,” something that has become so taken for granted, and familiar, in philosophy and life that we have forgotten it is an issue. It is, provisionally stated, the question of the unifying meaning and structure underpinning all specific entities, or “beings,” that exist. It is the central philosophical question of how anything is possible at all.
Heidegger goes on to deal with some potential objections to this basic project. These are that we already understand Being whenever we use any concept, that it is “self-evident,” and, oppositely, that as a universal concept, it is obscure and indefinable. Firstly, though, the fact that something is used does not necessarily mean we understand it. Second, the alleged obscurity of the concept is all the more reason why it needs clarification. In fact, these objections make apparent that not only is an answer to the question of Being lacking, but also the question itself is in dire need of proper formulation.
In discussing how this question is to be adequately formulated and pursued, Heidegger suggests an approach that is both radical and simple. It is addressed by investigating the being that is capable of asking this question in the first place. This is human being, or “Dasein.” Why he uses the term “Dasein,” and what more specifically he means by it, will be addressed in subsequent chapters. Nevertheless, his reason for taking this as the focal point for his investigation is two-fold. If what is sought is deeper clarification regarding the question of Being, then one must clarify the nature of the being that asks the question. Relatedly, if Dasein is, and has been, able to ask this question, it must already stand in a certain relation to Being. As Heidegger says, Dasein is “that entity which already comports itself, in its Being, towards what we are asking about” (35). In other words, the structures and understanding of Being are uniquely present in Dasein’s relation to Being. Thus, a proper analysis of Dasein, and how it is able to question, should reveal the nature of Being.
Introduction, Chapter 2 Summary
Heidegger warns against a potentially erroneous, but understandable, interpretation of this investigation into Dasein. It is true that Dasein possesses what he calls a “pre-ontological” understanding of being. In its ability to relate to entities in the world, and to question, human being manifests an implicit comprehension of both itself and Being. Further, in terms of Dasein, “we are it, each of us, we ourselves” (36). It does not follow, though, that the meaning of Dasein, and hence of Being, is immediately or obviously evident to our thought. This would be the case only if our self-understanding were entirely transparent, or if ordinary reflection unproblematically revealed what we are.
According to Heidegger, neither of these things is true. On the contrary, Dasein’s true being typically “remains concealed from it” (37), and this is, ironically, because of Dasein’s very connection and intimacy with the world. That is, due to this connection, we usually interpret our own nature according to the model of entities in the world we are familiar with. We interpret our being, then, as a special kind of present “object.” Further, Dasein stands in a relation both to other human beings and to time. As a result, it inherits traditions. Many of these, especially in philosophy, re-enforce and enshrine those original misunderstandings. These limitations of self-understanding, then, are based in our world-relation and have nothing to do with intellectual or cognitive shortcomings.
At any rate, what is needed is a specific methodology. Heidegger needs a way of enquiring into Dasein that can look at the phenomenon without being hostage either to past interpretations or to ordinary “common-sense.” The methodology he believes fits this bill is that of “phenomenology.” This is a philosophical method that looks to things as they are immediately given in experience. It attempts to describe the nature of objects and the world as the existing individual finds them. This is done independent of, and prior to, the way reflective theorization considers they are or should be. Moreover, this is achieved for Heidegger by looking to describe those objects and experiences Dasein finds “in its average everydayness” (38). That is, we can more effectively bracket out pre-existing theory by focusing on the familiar, everyday world philosophy typically ignores. This is the sphere of work, cooking, transportation, and social intercourse. It is not human beings in a state of introspection, or as they are engaged in theoretical reasoning and contemplation.
Introduction Analysis
Being and Time’s Introduction sets up a project of both radical ambition and originality. However, Heidegger was neither the first philosopher to enquire into the nature of Being, nor the first to use the phenomenological method. The study of Being, or “ontology,” has been around since ancient Greece, and phenomenology, at least as a codified philosophy, originated from the prior work of Heidegger’s teacher at the University of Freiburg, Edmund Husserl. Rather, what constitutes the distinctiveness of Being and Time is the unique marrying of these two elements and Heidegger’s revolutionary idea that: “Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology” (62).
To get a grasp on both the Introduction and Heidegger’s broader enterprise, it is necessary to address what this statement entails. We can start by clarifying what he means by “universal” or “fundamental” ontology (34). Ontology as a branch of philosophy can be distinguished from both epistemology and cosmology. Regarding a particular entity, say a perceptual object, cosmology is concerned with its origins—how it came to be. Epistemology concerns itself with how we know certain things about the object and the certainty of that knowledge. In contrast, ontology is the study of the object’s essential nature. In Heidegger’s terminology, this is the “being” of the object, and “fundamental” ontology is the study of the underlying nature not just of particular beings, or groups of beings—say of material objects, or living creatures—but of all beings. This is “universal” ontology, or, in Heidegger’s terms, the study of “Being.”
To understand what phenomenological (universal) ontology is, it is instructive to address more explicitly what phenomenology is, and to look at its “non ontological” forms. As Heidegger himself says, “the term phenomenology expresses a maxim which can be formulated as ‘To the things themselves’” (50). Taken in its broadest sense, and the way it is often used in contemporary philosophy, this can simply mean focusing on first-person description. Thus, phenomenology attempts to account for what a phenomenon is like for the individual. This account is then contrasted with scientific or objective accounts of a phenomenon that view it from a detached, third-person perspective. For example, it is possible to analyze the phenomenon of pregnancy from a scientific or biological, a sociological, or an anthropological standpoint, but it is also possible to talk about the “phenomenology” of pregnancy. This would describe more immediately what pregnancy is like for, or how it is experienced by, the person involved.
Such a conception of phenomenology, however, significantly simplifies its original meaning. For both Husserl and Heidegger, as well as figures like Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology is not just about describing how things explicitly appear or feel. Rather, as A.D. Smith says in his work on Husserl, it is concerned with “how objects, and the variety of objects with which we know we have dealings, are possible at all” (Smith, A.D. Husserl and the Cartesian Meditations. London: Routledge. 2003). This means, in looking for these conditions of possibility, “seeing” in a new and richer way. Specifically, it involves looking for that which, as Heidegger says, “gets covered up,” “or which shows itself only ‘in disguise’” in ordinary perception (59). For example, in encountering an old house, we might describe its battered windows and doors—but if we ask how it is possible that we can see the house, other perceptual elements start to emerge. It becomes clear, for one, that we can only see the house from a certain perspective in relation to which sides of it are hidden. As such, I can only see the house as a house because I have an implicit awareness of its concealed aspects.
Where Heidegger departs from Husserl, and phenomenological ontology from “classical” phenomenology, is over something called the “phenomenological reduction.” For Husserl, the way towards this deeper seeing was by suspending, or parenthesizing, all beliefs about the nature and existence of the world. This is the “reduction.” The idea is that assumptions and worries about the ontology or real existence of objects colors and prejudices our view of the phenomenon. For instance, in viewing a tree as an existing material object, we assume its phenomenological reality is guaranteed by that objective nature. Thus, we overlook our subjective role in making possible, or constituting, its character as a perceptual object. For Heidegger, such a reduction is both unnecessary and un-phenomenological. It is unnecessary because there is no prima facie reason why phenomenology cannot be used to draw ontological conclusions. It is un-phenomenological because, for the reduction itself to be possible, an assumption must already be made about the phenomenon. Namely, it assumes that our perception of the phenomenon necessarily does not involve an intimation of ontological truths and signs. To put it more simply, it assumes, un-phenomenologically, that the phenomenal world can be neatly separated from its ontological underpinnings.
