Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought: Toward Being as Event 3031412915, 9783031412912

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Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought Toward Being as Event Erik Kuravsky

Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought

Erik Kuravsky

Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought Toward Being as Event

Erik Kuravsky The University of Erfurt Erfurt, Germany

ISBN 978-3-031-41290-5    ISBN 978-3-031-41291-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41291-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Foreword

“Transcendence” is one of the most important concepts in Heidegger’s early thought. It plays a crucial role in Heidegger’s phenomenology of Dasein as temporal Being-in-the-world in Being and Time. In his later thought, too, it is also significant, even though Heidegger, in a different context of thinking, or, to be more precise, no longer in the context of philosophy or phenomenology, but of thinking, now employs different words to speak of transcendence. It is, therefore, important to understand what Heidegger meant by “transcendence” in Being and Time and how he arrived at this understanding, not only to provide a comprehensive account of his interpretation of Dasein and the meaning of Being and thus of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, but also to gain a deeper understanding of Heidegger’s later philosophy after the “turn.” To some extent, the examination of “transcendence” even allows for an interpretation of the entirety of Heidegger’s path of thinking and its “evolutions”: from his early origins in neo-Kantianism and Husserlian phenomenology and his critique of their theoretical biases, through the early hermeneutics of factual life, or facticity, and the transcendental logic of Dasein in Being and Time, to his later thought on the event of Beyng. Erik Kuravsky’s book provides precisely such an interpretation and, in doing so, fills a significant gap in Heidegger’s research. In a very persuasive manner, it helps its readers to see how Heidegger constantly reapproaches and rethinks transcendence and how his earlier and later philosophy are intricately linked. It thus shows the unity of Heidegger’s path of thinking but also its performative nature. For Heidegger, philosophy itself is “explicit transcendence,” so one cannot simply think, speak, or v

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write about transcendence without becoming involved in transcendence itself, that is, without enacting or performing transcendence. Therefore, his philosophy, almost from its very beginning to his last texts, aims not at teaching about things from a theoretical perspective but at initiating the event, the transcendence of philosophizing. Kuravsky shares Heidegger’s view of philosophy and demonstrates performatively the transcending dimensions of philosophizing. Thus, his book is, in the end, much more than a book about Heidegger. It is also much more than a book about Dasein, Being, or the event of Beyng, or about philosophy and philosophizing. However erudite it is (and it is highly educated and accomplished), it is, strictly speaking, not a book about anything if this means that it objectifies a given topic and analyzes and examines it from the position of an outside, detached, and indifferent observer. It is rather a book of philosophy, a very engaging performative approach from and to Heidegger’s philosophy, a performance of thinking Being/Beyng, that is, of transcendence itself. University of Erfurt Erfurt, Germany

Holger Zaborowski

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the following individuals and organizations, without whom this book would not have been possible: –– Prof. Hagi Kenaan, my esteemed PhD mentor, whose guidance and invaluable insights played a pivotal role in shaping the foundational ideas of this book. –– Prof. Holger Zaborowski, for his unwavering support and insightful discussions throughout the entire process of writing this book, enriching its content and direction. –– The Minerva Stiftung, for their generous funding that not only supported my ongoing work but also made it feasible for me to dedicate time and effort to the creation of this book. –– My wife, Batel, for her steadfast encouragement, unwavering support, and unshakable belief in my abilities, which provided the emotional foundation for my academic pursuits. Your contributions and support have been instrumental in this endeavor, and I am truly grateful for your belief in me and my work. Sincerely, Erik Kuravsky

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Contents

Part I Problematizing Transcendental Subjectivity: The Genesis of Heidegger’s “Transcendence”   1 1 The  Early Neo-Kantian Origins and the Problem of Encounter  3 2 The Transcendence of Life as an Event of Experience 27 Part II Heidegger’s Transcendental Phenomenology as the Philosophy of Transcendence  51 3 The Transcendental Logic of Dasein 53 4 Transcendence as Being-in-the-World 83 5 The Transcendental Performativity of Existence109 6 The Temporal Structure of Transcendence141

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Part III  Transcendental Freedom and Beyng as Event 163 7 The Metontological Side of Transcendence165 8 Authenticity as Explicit Transcendence211 9 Transcendence as the Quasi-Agency of Beyng245 10 Transcendence as the Task of Philosophy275 Index303

Introduction

There is no such point from which you can look at the world and at yourself in it. But philosophers say – transcendence. This is the loophole in which we can find ourselves on the verge of ourselves and the world and, nevertheless, we can break through our human veil and think not in an ordinary human way, but in an independent way, independent of human limitations. What acts in us is that which does not depend on us, and the positing of something in the world by us is, in fact, the manifestation of the actions of this “something” in us. Transcendence. (Merab Mamardashvili, Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, 165)

In his 2013 interview, William J.  Richardson highlights a significant concern in the current “new paradigm of Heidegger scholarship” prevalent in the USA and Europe—a lack of transcendence and an understanding of Dasein as transcending. Richardson argues that without such an understanding, grasping later notions like “clearing” becomes challenging.1 This book is a conscious effort to address Richardson’s identified need comprehensively. It aims to demonstrate that by interpreting Heidegger’s early thinking through the lens of transcendence, we can access his later thought, particularly the notion of Beyng as Event. Therefore, the aim of this book is not to provide a historical analysis of how Heidegger’s concept of transcendence relates to previous understandings of the term. While occasional comparisons with Kant and 1   The interview can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpeE-­ A1CMKA&t=551s&ab_channel=HeideggerPhenomenologyandThinking

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Husserl will be made to contextualize Heidegger’s unique perspective, the primary focus is on interpreting Heidegger’s early and middle thought through the lens of transcendence and its role in laying the groundwork for his later thinking. In essence, this book challenges the prevailing trend in Heidegger scholarship, which tends to downplay the radical differences between Heidegger’s early thinking and the transcendental philosophy of his predecessors by emphasizing their similarities. Identifying similarities between philosophers like Husserl, Kant, and Heidegger is a relatively easy task. Husserl, Kant, and Heidegger are all thinkers and rather than inventing some subjective method of intellectual amusement express what is to be thought, namely Being, hence something that is neither Kant’s nor Husserl’s and not even Heidegger’s. However, the philosophical significance lies in the more original questioning that Heidegger undertakes from the outset, enabling him to fundamentally reconceptualize every philosophical problem in a manner that deviates radically from the transcendental philosophy’s understanding. In short, Heidegger sees all transcendental philosophies are ontotheology and his own thinking, from the very beginning, oversteps the rigidity of ontotheology. This book demonstrates how Heidegger’s departure from ontotheology occurs initially as a preparation for the concept of Dasein’s transcendence and subsequently as its explicit development and overcoming. Heidegger’s leap into the problem of the meaning of Being and later of Beyng as Event requires exclusive attention that is not completely detached from the history of philosophy but—as my discussions of Kant, Husserl, Rickert, Last, and others show—is a meditation on the un-­ thought of this history and, more importantly, the un-thought in Heidegger’s own thinking. However, achieving this requires resisting the temptation to reduce Heidegger to something more familiar and less enigmatic, such as Husserl or Kant. Instead, we must strive to grasp the essence of his philosophical intuition and follow its trajectory. It becomes apparent that such a pursuit cannot be purely theoretical but—by its very essence—engages us and puts us under question. To genuinely engage with Heidegger, we must let Heidegger’s thinking engage us. This entails more than scholarly erudition and attentiveness to overlooked aspects of his thought; it necessitates a degree of forgetting that we are “scholars” and remembering that we truly do not know who we are. Only with this level of sincerity can we open ourselves to Heidegger’s thought as a whole and, specifically, to transcendence. Transcendence, then, becomes something that can be comprehended

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not merely through explanation, but through a transformative event of understanding that brings us closer to the essence of Being. That is to say, Heidegger’s thinking is performative; it points towards transcendence in a way that enables us to consciously transcend and venture into the yet-to-be-determined essence of future humanity. Therefore, discussions about historical connections to previous thinkers are only valuable insofar as they help us grasp what sets Heidegger apart, revealing the unfolding of the thinking event in its creative nature, inseparable from our own existential self-discovery beyond what is already known. The concept of transcendence in Heidegger constitutes the original path for this unfolding, as it traces the evolving foundation of his thinking. The book specifically examines the role of transcendence in the development of Heidegger’s comprehensive vision, which is characterized by ontological plurality and the historical performativity of existence. This vision transcends all forms of subjectivism and anthropomorphism while avoiding the pitfalls of naive realism and objectivism. In essence, it moves beyond ontotheology, which understands the universe as having a singular a priori ground that is claimed to belong to beings, God, consciousness, or even to Being itself as an independent “process” that does not require Dasein. One of the key issues addressed in the book is the contingency of Being. It highlights the fact that Being is not something fixed or absolute; there is no singular ahistorical essence of Being. The contingency of Being entails that there is no single sense to what it means for a being to be, i.e., to manifest not just “for me” but as such. This issue is related to two central ontotheological assumptions with which this book wrestles. The first assumption suggests that the world would manifest in the same way without Dasein, implying either a single predetermined way for beings to exist as themselves or multiple possibilities determined solely by Being without the involvement of concrete living existences. The second assumption sees Dasein as something separable from Being and identical with human beings. Consequently, it misses why the notion of Dasein (and later of the mortals) is at all central to Heidegger. This assumption is dependent on the first one; it tends to adopt an anthropomorphic understanding of human existence and interprets it within the framework of an ontotheological structure of the world. By examining and challenging these fundamental ontotheological assumptions, the book seeks to illuminate alternative perspectives that allow for a deeper understanding of

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Heidegger’s philosophical framework and the role of transcendence within it. The problem of transcendence, explored in this book, addresses a dual challenge. On one hand, we understand Being even though there is no a priori transcendental grammar that would secure such understanding. On the other hand, Being somehow depends on existence, yet we neither passively impose subjective forms on it (as in Kant) nor actively shape it (as in constructivism). Dasein’s transcendence necessitates surpassing traditional dichotomies of subject-object and activity-passivity, allowing us to reevaluate central concepts in Heidegger’s philosophy through the lens of ontological performativity. To achieve this, Being must be reconceived through the notion of Dasein and its transcendence. Heidegger explicitly emphasizes the centrality of Dasein for thinking beyond ontotheology. The development of Beyng as Event emerges precisely from this kind of thinking and cannot be comprehended without prior deconstruction of our preconceptions through an analysis of Dasein’s transcendence. Contrary to hasty assertions by some scholars, the Event is not merely “another term for Being” or the “source of Being,” but rather represents a fundamentally different approach to understanding Being, one that breaks away from traditional ontotheological frameworks. To grasp Beyng as Event, a shift in our thinking is required, moving away from perceiving it as a detached process aimed at gathering beings in their presence. Instead, Heidegger envisions Being as a venture—an endeavor devoid of specific content—striving for self-differentiation as the truth of Beyng. This cannot be observed as a play of meanings that our cognition simply registers; rather, it manifests as the struggle of existence, revealing our own non-existence and beckoning us towards the possibility of being re-­ appropriated by Beyng. From this standpoint, the book gradually unfolds the central problem of human agency in relation to ontological performativity and everyday representation. Transcendence is not a characteristic of human consciousness or a relation to something beyond it. Instead, it is a framework of deconstruction that allows a relational thinking of the “between” that is prior to any determination of differentiation between the elements that constitute any image of the world, human essence, and Being as such. As a “primal act,” transcendence paves the way for a non-representational dwelling in the essence of a historically unfolding Being, a contemplative recollection of the truth of Beyng. This truth is not a hidden knowledge about the workings of the universe but rather an abyssal emptiness at the

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core of the creative, self-transforming spontaneity inherent in genuine human action, which also encompasses the event of thinking. Throughout the book, there is a gradual progression towards an understanding of transcendence as an active engagement, wherein we “do” transcendence. This process involves a reconstruction of the ontological significance of action, emphasizing its performative embeddedness in existence and its inseparability from the Being of beings. The opening chapter delves into Heidegger’s critical assimilation of Neo-Kantian concepts, which shed light on the non-theoretical facets of subjectivity crucial for engaging with objective and real beings. The inquiry into the givenness of objects for knowledge transcends mere epistemological investigation and hints at a transcendent standard that cannot be derived solely from beings’ abstract form. This standard, referred to as the Being (Sein) of objects by Rickert, forms the foundation of truth, but only when subjectivity willingly acknowledges its authority. As a transcendental prerequisite for the object’s manifestation, the motivation of the subject takes ontological precedence over the abstract beingness of beings. By incorporating Lask’s elucidation of reflexive categories that extend beyond subjectivity as a self-contained domain and instead determine the very essence of identity, the motivational dimension emerges as ontologically more fundamental than the traditional logical framework defining beings. Within this context, Heidegger’s insights on language and the active role of modus significandi in Duns Scotus are explored, demonstrating their capacity to accommodate ontological plurality without compromising the veracity of objective categories fundamental to scientific knowledge. The subsequent chapter illustrates the outcomes of Heidegger’s evolution beyond Neo-Kantianism, as he delves into the relational and motivational essence of subjectivity while decisively rejecting the subject-object distinction in various contexts. The conception of experience as an event and the novel triple sense structure of phenomena are presented as a groundbreaking departure from the theoretical biases prevalent in phenomenology. These ideas involve a deconstruction of the earlier critical assimilation of Lask’s ideas and pave the way for an exploration of a non-­ theoretical unity between the experiencer and the experienced world, emerging within a singular event. Through the analysis of the content-relation-enactment sense-schema, the event of experience transcends the traditional dichotomy of immanence and transcendence in multiple ways. Furthermore, I demonstrate

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that the event encompasses a self-regulating element that cannot be reduced to mere ontic intention and is linked to a transcendent standard of life, referred to as the Origin. Thus, the first part of the book concludes with a preliminary delineation of the kind of “transcendence” that may characterize the eventual structure of life while also foreshadowing Heidegger’s forthcoming explicit development of this notion. Part II takes a significant leap into Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time, and the subsequent texts that followed it. In Chap. 3, I delve into the transcendental framework of fundamental ontology, highlighting its radical departure from the perspectives of Kant and Husserl. Building upon the conclusions drawn in Part I, I demonstrate Heidegger’s intention to employ the language of transcendentalism to discuss transcendence in a manner that diverges from the ontotheology inherent in transcendental idealism. To achieve this, I initially focus on the concept of “Dasein” and endeavor to free it from anthropomorphic and idealistic interpretations. Emphasizing the profound challenge posed by Being and Time, I explore the necessity of reimagining Being in a non-ontotheological fashion, wherein it lacks a singular essence and thus necessitates a “there” as a focal point for its self-gathering and concrete intelligible manifestation. This challenge is further complicated by the fact that this focal point pertains to human existence, albeit not in the historically prevalent anthropomorphic sense of “human.” I further analyze the divergence between Heidegger’s task and the tasks of Kant and Husserl, a divergence that is encompassed within Heidegger’s notion of transcendence. These analyses provide a preliminary comprehension of what could be referred to as the transcendental logic of enactment, characterized by an ontological performativity rather than the conventional logic of presence and theoretical constitution. As elaborated upon in Part III, this logic serves as a pathway to the “logic of the Event.” Chapters 4 and 5 delve into the logic of enactment within fundamental ontology, focusing on Heidegger’s application of the concept of transcendence. The analysis centers on Being-in-the-world as the primordial transcendence, examining its constituent elements (Being-in, world, existence) and interpreting it as the event of the world’s emergence prior to the conventional notion of “identity” and the intelligibility associated with subjectivity’s “first-person perspective” (mineness). The inherent logic of the unfolding of Being-in-the-world reveals the manifestation of beings in specific modes, which engenders an appropriate

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form of essence that establishes their interconnectedness within the world. The concept of beings’ “itself-ness,” as surpassing the essence-existence dichotomy, is further developed to contrast metaphysical beingness. Transcendence is thus explored as the underlying principle that unites Dasein and the Being of beings in general, emphasizing the performative co-eventuation of Dasein’s selfhood and beings’ itself-ness. In Chap. 5, Dasein’s existence is interpreted as a model of Being itself, necessitating a de-anthropomorphizing of human essence. It is particularly linked to the non-representational transcendental dimension of will, operating in the disclosure of beings and corresponding to the self-­ regulating element within the event of experience, which is integral to the possibility of the ontologically performative logic of Dasein. The singular nature of Dasein is addressed in relation to the multiplicity of human existences, examining the problem of transcendental truth and debunking common misconceptions that equate Dasein solely with human beings. Chapter 6 concludes Part II of the book by examining the role of temporality in facilitating the circular and performative nature of transcendence. It explores how our ability to understand Being a priori, despite the absence of a singular “Being-structure,” is connected to the phenomenological foundation of our experience of an autonomous world. Both aspects are shown to be made possible by the temporally ecstatic character of transcendence. The chapter addresses the self-affecting nature of temporality on the basis of the performativity of existence. Furthermore, it acknowledges the limitations of Heidegger’s perspective in Being and Time while simultaneously hinting at the historical essence of Being and the temporal horizon of Beyng’s interpretation. Building on earlier examinations of Dasein and its transcendence, the chapter refutes idealistic and subjectivistic interpretations of temporality in Being and Time. Chapter 7 opens Part III of the book by introducing the metontological side of transcendence required for a comprehensive analysis of Heidegger’s ontology and its evolution into Beyng-historical thinking. Metontology is shown as the key to Heidegger’s overcoming of ontotheology as it explicitly addresses the Nothing in relation to both the originally concealed state of beings and the essential self-concealment of Being. Transcendence is explored in its new subtle senses as holding onto the Nothing, as the grounding nature of Being, and as freedom. The metontological dimension of transcendence is investigated in relation to the significance of thrownness and the deconstruction of the conventional bias that assumes a preconceived understanding of beings and a

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singular ontological meaning of Being. The transcendental significance of beings and thrownness is analyzed as constituting the finitude of Being and the concealment inherent in all unconcealment. Transcendence itself is revealed to underlie the existential errancy of Dasein and necessitating a transformation towards its explicit mode. Chapter 8 elucidates the transformation of Dasein from inauthenticity to authenticity as a shift of transcendence into its explicit mode. By exploring the inner dynamism of transcendence, I implement Heidegger’s indication that the authenticity-related aspects in Being and Time are intended to shed light on transcendence. In doing so, I reject the suspicions of subjectivism and voluntarism associated with Being and Time and advocate for an interpretation of authenticity in the context of insights from the Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event). I emphasize Heidegger’s explicit definition of transcendence as “standing in the truth of Beyng” and analyze anxiety, death, and conscience as indications of explicit transcendence, which lay the foundation for understanding the distinction between the truth of Beyng and the traditional concept of truth. Particularly, I demonstrate how conscience serves as a prototypical model for the transcendental dimension of will that surpasses the metaphysical conception and can be further expanded beyond Heidegger’s explicit formulation, manifesting as an event where the understanding of Being is inseparable from a specific mode of non-­ representational intention. This model subsequently becomes central in the last two chapters, aligning the performative nature of transcendence with the “logic of the Event” explicitly present in Heidegger’s later works. Chapters 9 and 10 present the trajectory by which transcendence, particularly its performatively active nature leading to the transformation of Dasein, establishes the significance of Beyng as Event. Building upon the dialogue between Heidegger’s later Event-writing and his earlier ideas on explicit transcendence, I initially interpret resolute openness as surpassing the conventional distinction between will and understanding. In this way, I incorporate the event-character of Dasein’s transcendental will within the framework of Dasein’s belongingness to Beyng. The performatively practical essence of transcendence is then explored as a manifestation of Beyng’s inherent rift and as the embodiment of Beyng’s quasi-agency in its strive for truth. I connect the event-nature of transcendental will to the Beyng-historical function of Dasein and Beyng’s need for a “real” agent that would fulfill its quasi-agenda. I demonstrate that the Event, as the origin of the ontological difference, suspends the

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metaphysical certainty of this difference and should be thought of along the implications of leaping over the difference. Following Heidegger’s most radical leap beyond ontotheology, I explore the implicit Beyng-­ historical (or poietic) conception of human agency, which forms the essence of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence. Chapter 10 investigates the specific role of philosophy in the transformative process of Being and existence. I engage with Heidegger’s proposition that philosophy is synonymous with explicit transcendence, weaving between his early and late texts and advocating for an interpretation of philosophy as an endeavor to initiate a philosophizing event. This event entails a profound transformation of the thinker, not merely an accumulation of knowledge, ultimately leading them towards Beyng by allowing them to be appropriated by the Event. I explore the event-like nature of philosophizing within the framework of Heidegger’s concept of Besinnung, which I translate as “contemplative recollecting.” The dual character of Besinnung, encompassing the recollection of Beyng and the self, represents an evolution of the notion of philosophy as explicit transcendence. I emphasize that philosophy is not a mere activity that can be engaged in at will, but rather an event that must be approached through the lens of the transcendental dimension of human agency expounded upon in the book. The Beyng-historical nature of thinking is examined within this context. Particularly, I apply it to interpret Heidegger’s approach to contemplatively recollecting the un-thought element within the history of philosophy, which allows for the possibility of an inceptual, future-grounding mode of thinking. Concluding the book, I explore the performative role of Heidegger’s thinking as a whole, as well as his concept of transcendence, proposing a mindful recollection of Heidegger’s ideas by aiming towards the yet un-thought dimension of the event of transcendental agency.

PART I

Problematizing Transcendental Subjectivity: The Genesis of Heidegger’s “Transcendence”

CHAPTER 1

The Early Neo-Kantian Origins and the Problem of Encounter

1   Introduction The problem of transcendence and the human relation to reality beyond subjective representations was central to the Neo-Kantian debates in which young Heidegger was taking part already during his years as Rickert‘s student. In “The Problem of Reality in Modern Philosophy,” written in 1912,1 Heidegger is dissatisfied with the idealistic tendencies of his time and appeals for a more realistic approach in the fashion of the Aristotelian-­ Scholastic philosophy. The inclusion of the following section at the very beginning of Heidegger’s complete works (Gesamtausgabe) serves as a symbolic representation of his departure from the Neo-Kantian epistemological framework and his adoption of a non-subjective starting point. It signifies that Heidegger’s philosophical journey commences with a recognition that transcendence, or the “trans-subjective,” must be reintegrated into our consciousness. In order to gain the historical basis for the discussion of the problem, it should be briefly noted that the way of thinking of Greek philosophy is

This chapter is based on an article published in Gatherings (2022). 1

 This is the year Heidegger starts taking Rickert’s seminars.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Kuravsky, Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41291-2_1

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­ riented by a critical realism; the Neoplatonists, the philosophers of the o Middle Ages and modern times think realistically. Though there are also rich modifications with regard to the determination of the real, there is unanimity about the setting of a trans-subjective.2

It seems to Heidegger that his contemporaries do not speak of the real itself, hiding behind the epistemological approach that accepts only subjective representations. The problem of the real itself is the problem of the itself-ness of beings, i.e., of both the reality of beings’ itself-ness and its availability in experience. By consciously bringing the Greek version of “critical realism” against the predominant Kantian version, Heidegger touches on one of the central problems in post-Kantian philosophy – if thing-in-itself is not meant metaphysically as a separate world to which we have no access, how should it be understood considering that it bears the responsibility of grounding the truth of actual experienced reality? Or, in other words, how can we be realistic about the world if all we can know about it are our own subjective representations? Heidegger’s first teacher Rickert dedicates to this problem his Habilitation Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis, zum Problem der philosophischen Transcendenz. When in 1912 juvenile Heidegger finally leaves his theological studies and officially turns to philosophy, he plunges into the Neo-Kantian framework of his teacher. Though Husserl’s phenomenology opened an original methodological horizon for Heidegger, the actual content of his thought during his student years is essentially Neo-Kantian. Accordingly, in the early Freiburg lectures, Heidegger does not simply oppose Neo-Kantianism, but instead analyzes it as someone whose own thought was born out of its overcoming. By introducing Rickert’s theory of transcendence, even in a brief manner, we gain familiarity with the Neo-Kantian terminology and motivations that form the backdrop against which Heidegger develops his own reflections on the issue of trans-subjective reality. This introduction also prepares us for a more detailed exploration of another Neo-Kantian thinker, Emil Lask, who eludes Heidegger’s criticism and emerges as one of the few philosophers whose work Heidegger openly admires during this formative period. Lask did revolutionary work in transcendental logic, defending and exploring Kant‘s ideas but severely bending them by subjecting them to Husserl‘s phenomenological insights. Though Lask does not go over to 2

 Heidegger (1978a), 1.

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phenomenology but stays entirely in the scope of Kant’s and Rickert‘s transcendental philosophy, he both develops and criticizes it, being thus a perfect example for the phenomenologically inclined Neo-Kantian Heidegger. Indeed, Heidegger everywhere applauses Lask for his work and regrets his early death on the frontline of WW1. The only reservation Heidegger expresses regarding Lask is that his work is still “too theoretical.” As we will delve deeper, we will observe that Lask’s conceptualization of the “itself-ness“of beings retains a lingering theoretical quality, even when addressing our concrete experiential reality rather than mere representation. Nonetheless, we will discover that Lask’s logical framework enables a profound understanding of the essential nature of the “itself-­ ness” of beings, surpassing the dichotomy between existence and essence. This understanding encompasses both the mode of presence of beings and their formal structure. Furthermore, by synthesizing the insights of Rickert and Lask, we will uncover a Neo-Kantian path that propels Heidegger beyond the boundaries set by his mentors. This realization involves recognizing that the “itself-ness” of beings does not necessitate constitution, yet still needs a “there” provided by consciousness.

2   Intentionality and Transcendence: Examining the Encounter Problem In his work History of the Concept of Time, Heidegger presents a well-­ known critique of Husserl‘s philosophy. Heidegger’s primary focus of criticism lies in the notion of the Being of intentionality, or intentional consciousness. He argues that when intentionality is reduced in order for its contents to be accessible for ideational examination, it obscures the very essence required to comprehend how anything can become the content of intentionality and in what manner. “What the belonging of the intentum to the intention implies is obscure,”3 says Heidegger. “How the being-intended of an entity is related to that entity remains puzzling.”4 Husserl recognized that intentional relations do not align with the naturalistic framework of thought, as they are not considered “real” relations. Consequently, he proposed an idealistic resolution to this problem. Considering Heidegger’s advocacy for “critical realism,” we can contemplate his response to such a solution and the ensuing inquiries it 3 4

 Heidegger (2009), 47.  Ibid.

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would evoke In what manner can idealism uphold the transcendental essence of consciousness while acknowledging that the physical world, in some sense, always exists independently, untouched and unshaped by the mind? How do things independent of subjectivity come into relation with the subject? How does subjectivity participate in objectifying that which enters consciousness for the first time? Husserl strictly prohibits these questions since they refer to the ontological structure of things apart from their intentional manifestation. It is worth noting that Husserl’s starting point is already a phenomenon presented to consciousness. Consequently, Emil Lask asserts in Die Lehre vom Urteil that both Brentano and Husserl refrain from discussing “real” transcendence: The real transcendence, however, is the state of the sense before all contact with subjectivity, while behind the independence of the transcendent sense there is only the mere detachability of the sense after its contact with subjectivity.5

Certainly, the practice of phenomenological reduction effectively prohibits the notion of “real” transcendence, as Husserl‘s methodology necessitates a steadfast focus on intentionality, which is examined in its a priori state. However, this very aspect becomes a critical issue for Heidegger, as Ernst Tugendhat expounds upon in his Habilitation. Tugendhat succinctly frames the divergence between Heidegger’s and Husserl’s phenomenology in terms of the problem of encounter. In Tugendhat’s terms, Husserl’s usage of the concept of intentionality belongs to the dimension of encounter, which is never attended to as such.6 This is precisely what Heidegger intends to convey when he highlights the perplexing nature of the relationship between entities and their being-intended. The “encounter as such” conditions the dimension of encounter; it is what comes “before” and allows the different ways of objects’ givenness. Within Husserl’s framework, the only admissible form of transcendence is a “transcendence within immanence,” confined to the realm of the encounter. Consequently, while Husserl treats the givenness of entities as an axiom upon which his entire project rests, Heidegger’s starting point lies in the problematic status of givenness and, by extension, of intentionality itself. Husserl, according to Tugendhat, does not 5 6

 Lask (1923), 425.  Tugendhat (1970), 270.

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t­hematize this problem because of dogmatic elements in his thinking which do not allow him to question the relativity of constitution to consciousness.7 The aforementioned point becomes intriguing when considering Heidegger’s 1912 endorsement of the Greek version of critical realism. Heidegger’s endorsement does not necessarily imply that the subject plays no role in the constitution of reality; rather, it emphasizes the importance of preserving the Greek approach to “setting the trans-subjective.” If, as Lask stresses, the real transcendence (of an entity) refers to a sense before all contact with subjectivity, understanding “how the being-intended of an entity is related to that entity” requires rethinking constitution in a way that it is decentralized from the transcendental ego. However, this decentralization must still account for the factors enabling the intentio-­intentum relation and thus involve the subject. In other words, an encounter is not a unilateral process in which the ego effortlessly encompasses entities and imparts form upon them; rather, it is a dimension of transcendence shaped in a way that both the subject and the object are integral to it, enabling the emergence of intentionality-like phenomena. Consequently, the fundamental concern of Heidegger’s early development of the concept of transcendence is the problem of encounter as a prerequisite for the possibility of intentionality.8 Even during Heidegger’s initial academic phase, before he explicitly employs the term “transcendence,” we can trace the progression of ideas that are central to the problem of encounter as such. From this perspective, Heidegger’s call to understand the genuinely real beyond the realm of “subjective representations” entails an investigation into how subjectivity relates to the consciousness-­ independent material of the universe in a manner that  Ibid., 218.  To be sure, during the 1910s, Heidegger does not think that the problem of objective encounter is the central problem of philosophy – at this point, he is still not sure what it is. Far from being motivated by an epistemological problematic alone, Heidegger wrote in 1911 on the importance of developing one’s personality guided by spiritual insights irreducible to purely intellectual matters. Thus, we may assume that 7 8

Heidegger’s motivations for analyzing subjectivity in its relation to the world are quite different from his teachers’ motivations. Nevertheless, during the 1910s, Heidegger is playing on the field of Neo-Kantian formulations of transcendental philosophy and is faced with the problem of objective encounter. Heidegger’s (dis)solution of the encounter problem will thus lay the first stones for his future notion of Being-in-the-world.

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allows for objective manifestation (the relationship between an entity and its being-intended). It is also a call for a more profound phenomenological examination of how subjectivity encounters entities and becomes intertwined with them, exploring the conditions for the intentio-intentum relation. In the subsequent discussion, I will demonstrate how Heidegger begins to address both the objective and subjective dimensions of the problem of encounter during his Neo-Kantian period, thereby laying the initial foundations for his distinctive interpretation of transcendence.

3  Rickert and the Motivation Problem: Exploring the Subjective Aspect of the Encounter Problem The initial concern pertains to the challenge identified by Heidegger in his work History of the Concept of Time, concerning the ambiguous relationship between the intentum and the intentio. Though Husserl took for granted that subjectivity is always related to an intended object, it is unclear how it is able to do so. While Husserl assumed that subjectivity is inherently linked to an object of intention, the mechanism by which this connection occurs remains unclear. As we delve deeper, we will discover that this capacity is rooted in the motivating essence of the subject. Despite critiquing Neo-Kantian value philosophy in his inaugural lecture course in the summer of 1919, Heidegger did express admiration for Rickert‘s concept of motivation: One thing is evident: Rickert saw a significant phenomenon when he designated the object of knowledge as Ought and delimited it against the psychic mechanism: the phenomenon of motivation, which has a cardinal meaning in the problem of knowledge as well as in others.9

The concept of motivation is initially introduced in Rickert‘s work, Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: Einführung in die Transzendentalphilosophie, which focuses on the problem of an independent world. Unlike Husserl, who did not consider the existence of an independent world as problematic, Rickert specifically addresses this issue. He views it as a problem of knowledge, where the object of knowledge must possess a certain degree of independence from the knower in order to be considered knowledge. However, within transcendental philosophy, the dichotomy between 9

 Heidegger (2008), 40.

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knowing consciousness and independent objects becomes problematic. This is because the objectivity of an object is constituted by consciousness itself, making the notion of cognition aiming at subject-independent objects contradictory. To reconcile this and preserve knowledge without reverting to pre-critical realism, new concepts of cognition and its object are required. Drawing on Kant‘s insights, Rickert observes that while all the properties of a thing can be attributed to our representations, its existence goes beyond these predicates. Rickert calls all that is recognizable in objects their “objectness” (Objektsein) while referring to their existence as their “Being” (Sein der Objekte): “While objectness is to be an immanent being, the being of objects is to be a transcendent being, and one must make this difference conceptually.”10 Rickert‘s distinction allows him to discuss something beyond the contents of consciousness, yet still connected to the object of knowledge. The “objectness” of a thing encompasses its empirical properties and perceivable structure, which can be understood as its essence in Husserl‘s terminology. However, instead of bracketing a thing’s existence, its Being, Rickert emphasizes its role as the subject-independent component that determines the epistemic value of our judgments. In this way, Rickert transforms the traditional dichotomy between essence and existence to enable a new conception of cognition that is not solely rooted in essence but also encompasses an “existential” element represented by the transcendence of Being. Like Husserl, Rickert states that mere representations do not possess epistemic value; only when we affirm them in judgment do we assign a truth-value to our ideas. Similar to Husserl, Rickert asserts that mere representations lack epistemic value, and it is only through affirmation in judgment that we assign truth-value to our ideas. However, the crucial distinction lies in the reason behind making correct judgments and the basis upon which their correctness is established. Rickert highlights that in judgment, we indirectly relate to the transcendent Being. Judgment, Rickert says, orients itself indirectly to transcendent Being in order to provide knowledge.11 The problem of transcendence does not imply the existence of a metaphysical reality independent of our representations, but rather an element that is independent of the subject’s cognitive analysis and serves as a sufficient grounding for knowledge.

 Rickert (2010), 11. Italics mine.  Ibid., 47.

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According to Rickert, there must be a certain aspect of the act of judgment that establishes a connection between the content of consciousness being judged and a transcendent element. One of the most groundbreaking aspects of attributing transcendence to judgment is reflected in Rickert’s assertion that judgments are not merely conceptual but volitional acts, distinct from the perspectives of Husserl and Frege.12 In other words, when we engage in judgment, we do not passively contemplate evidence and arrive at an intellectual decision. Such contemplation serves as a preliminary step to judgment, as intellectual understanding alone requires no decision-making.13 Instead, Rickert proposes that during the moment of judgment, we experience a compelling appeal from the transcendent force of the “Ought” and willingly submit to it.14 One must be motivated to affirm or reject the representation. Thus, for Rickert, the act of judgment belongs amongst the practical faculties; it is related to feeling and willing: one feels compelled to make the correct judgment and chooses to do so. Accordingly, Rickert stresses that cognition is not a purely intellectual faculty of representation,15 but a practical activity based on feeling. The relation to the object of cognition is consequently practical; we do not speculate about something independent of consciousness, but rather feel the transcendent appeal of a value of truth. While the claim of truth is conveyed through feelings, it is essential to note that this does not denote a psychologically subjective event. The “must” inherent in normative claims surpasses any subjective relativity. Therefore, in this context, “feeling” does not imply a personal connection to truth but rather highlights the practical essence of cognition itself.16 According to Rickert, the practical nature of cognition becomes apparent when we experience the transcendent value in a manner that reveals our dependence on it.17 The phenomenon of motivation, which Heidegger highlighted in 1919, captures the idea that the experienced material becomes a reality in consciousness due to its value for consciousness. It necessitates  Statiti 2015.  Think for example of Descartes or Spinoza for whom the need to decide was a sign that one does not yet reached a clear idea of the available possibilities. 14  Rickert (2010), 57. 15  Rickert defends himself here from Dilthey’s accusations aimed at all cognition-oriented philosophies (such as Kant’s) – “the diluted juice of reason” only flows in the veins of such philosophies when we misinterpret cognition as a purely representative faculty. 16  See Farin (1998). 17  Rickert (2010), 61. 12 13

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recognizing the inherent “itself-ness“of a real entity. Consciousness, by its very nature, is inclined to appropriate the real, rather than solely perceiving sense data and drawing rational conclusions based on interpretations. Subjectivity binds itself to what it perceives as extending beyond its own boundaries. In this perspective, both the knowing subject and its relationship to an independent reality are not purely intellectual in nature. Nevertheless, according to Heidegger, Rickert remains confined by a predominance of the theoretical in his thought as he objectifies the motivational character of subjectivity by asserting that it must be explicitly present as an “Ought.” In his 1919 lecture course, Heidegger critiques this particular point, stating that “There is nothing theoretical in value-taking; it has its own ‘light,’ spreads its own illumination: ‘lumen gloriae.’”18 In other words, recognizing the realness of a being does not require a relation to its Being as another quasi-being. Simply stating, as Rickert does, that Being transcends all objective properties is insufficient for grasping the significance of the ontological difference. Heidegger acknowledges that a subject’s existence is essentially shaped by motivation as value-taking. However, he emphasizes that the kind of illumination that enables reality to be experienced as reality is not the illumination of objectifying thought. While Rickert does reconfigure the structure of the theoretical by intrinsically linking the feeling of Being with the rational evaluation of conscious presentations, he still conceives of cognition in a way that is excessively cognitive. The transcendence necessary for establishing a relation to the standard of truth for a being is still understood objectively. Heidegger appreciates Rickert‘s insight that for something to be regarded as true, we must recognize a value within it; that is, we must be motivated to let a thing take over us in some way. Consequently, motivation becomes the minimal subjective condition for any encounter with entities as they are. Heidegger agrees with Rickert on this point. However, unlike Rickert, Heidegger does not accept that truth itself is a value separate from the essence of a thing. Treating truth as an existential value still maintains the essence-existence dichotomy. By examining our own phenomenological experiences, Heidegger reveals that the “recognition” of a value cannot be modeled according to a theoretical object structure, as if there were an additional object, a positively determined value, implicitly present in experience. On the contrary, Heidegger demonstrates in his  Heidegger (2008), 41.

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Habilitation work that any positive determination typically associated with the structure of theoretical objects presupposes value-taking. When discussing the measure of unity and diversity within an object, Heidegger points out, “It will be shown that the measurement has the character of value appraisal and value apportionment. Unity is the measure of the manifoldness that arises from it: so different is the unity, so different is the type of measurement.”19 Heidegger’s idea is that every type of unity and diversity possesses a measure that is contingent upon attribution, meaning it is dependent on value. In other words, there is no universal method of generalizing reality; rather, any generalization relies on a subjective determination of what constitutes unity and how it is measured. Thus, in Heidegger’s interpretation of Scotus’ theory of meaning, reality cannot be theoretically generalized so that its structure could be entirely reduced to a heterogeneous list of categories, each uniting a homogeneous functional layer of world’s intelligibility (for example, a causal unity of the world, or a unity of the world as substance). Instead, the realm of meaning allows for diverse intelligible unities based on subjective attribution. It suggests that the “itself” of the world may not have a single meaning but rather lacks a specific meaning without the appropriate motivation from those for whom it is a world. The dependence of the theoretical structure on the motivational element of subjectivity highlights the problematic nature of the subjective conditions of intentionality and points towards Heidegger’s later solution to the Intention-Intentum relation. Furthermore, it raises questions about the possibility of critical realism aligning with naive realism, which is a traditional metaphysical perspective positing that the essence of beings exists independently of human consciousness and is determinate in itself. During the 1919 summer course, Heidegger summarizes that Rickert has shown, though without the needed methodological rigor, that every act of acknowledgment “stands in a motivational totality.”20 However, Heidegger contends that Rickert has made the mistake of hypostasizing this motivational character and has not truly resolved the transcendental problem of constitution. The question remains unanswered as to how subjectivity conditions the manifestation of entities, even within the context of a theoretically-objectifying relationship. In fact, the very meaning  Heidegger (1978b), 258.  Heidegger (2008), 161.

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of an “object” itself remains unclear. Since an object is meaningful, a theory of the meaning of an object must precede any theory of objectivity. Moreover, such a theory necessitates a phenomenological examination of the meaningfulness of experience itself, in other words, phenomenology. Nevertheless, it is crucial not to underestimate Heidegger’s incorporation of the motivational character of the Being of intentionality. As early as 1916, Heidegger begins to recognize the primacy of motivation over presentation. This priority anticipates the ontological constitution of Dasein, which is essentially determined by the motivational nature of its existence (its “for-the-sake-of-which”). By 1919, Heidegger speaks of a situation as a unified life-context, of which motivation constitutes the fundamental form. Consequently, Heidegger’s adoption of “motivation” and “value“extends beyond the Neo-Kantian problem of objective encounter. By liberating these notions from their purely theoretical-cognitive framework and highlighting their ontological priority over the theoretical structure of reality, Heidegger points towards the limitations of Neo-Kantian transcendental philosophy as a whole.

4  Lask and the Precedence of Relation: Examining the Objective Dimension of the Encounter Problem As crucial as the realization that motivation underlies all constitution may be, it merely accounts for the possibility of experiencing something. It does not elucidate how and why things acquire objective structure and in what manner this objective constitution remains faithful to the nature of transcendent material. This “objective” aspect of the transcendental problem of encounter can be divided into two parts. Firstly, we must delve deeper into the issue of how subjectivity relates to transcendent material. Namely, motivation alone cannot explain how we experience entities themselves (i.e., in their itself-ness), rather than settling for artificially constructed representations solely for the purpose of theoretical recognition of their truth-value. Second, entities themselves must allow objectification; the transcendent material’s presentability as such requires some elucidation. For Heidegger, resolving these problems entails resolving the problem of the theoretical in its entirety. However, he emphasizes in his 1919 lecture course that few people recognize the existence of this problem, with the exception of Emil Lask:

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What is the theoretical and what can it accomplish? The problem of reality and objectivity leads to this basic question. It would not be reasonable to expect an immediate solution to a problem that has hardly been seen and where the primary elements of its founding have not yet been discovered. The only person who was troubled by the problem, Emil Lask, has fallen for the Fatherland. But to find the genuine problem in him is all the more difficult because he too wished to solve it in a theoretical way.21

Both of Heidegger’s mentors approach the theoretical constitution of reality as something ideal and inconceivable apart from consciousness, without ever questioning the essence of the theoretical itself. Namely, one cannot ask in the context of Husserl’s phenomenology of an already given how is it possible that something real, the transcendent material beyond consciousness, can be objectified and presented for an ideational inspection. However, this question is of utmost importance for a philosophical understanding of the meaning of intentionality. It appears that Husserl implicitly adopts Kant‘s postulate that all experienced reality is theoretical and constituted by forms of intelligibility, which are necessary for something to be considered an object. While Kant views these theoretical forms, known as categories, as strictly subjective and as universal functions of understanding, Husserl introduces the concept of categorial intuition, which allows for the extraction of non-sensuous structural elements from perceived objects. Heidegger emphasizes in The History of the Concept of Time that categorial intuition is Husserl’s most significant discovery following the rediscovery of intentionality. However, if the act of intuiting a categorial structure presupposes a prior constitution of an object structured in such a way, it remains philosophically perplexing how such intuition can present us with something that we did not already contribute to it. In other words, only by addressing the problem of the theoretical constitution of reality can we fully appreciate the role of categorial intuition. Heidegger recognized in Lask an attempt to bridge the gap between the problem of theoretical constitution and the phenomenon of intentionality. Without a proper understanding of intentionality, one can only posit theoretical forms without comprehending how they emerge from the pre-­ scientific level of experience.22 The issue addressed by Lask’s logic is the role of intuited material in objective knowledge. According to Kant,  Heidegger (2008), 74.  Crowell (2013), 23.

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categories, as the primary forms of objectivity, pertain to subjectivity, while the intuited material remains non-rational and foreign to any order.23 Drawing influence from Husserl‘s concept of categorial intuition, Lask emphasizes that the categorial form must be present in the object but not identical to it. Thus, he adopts a Fichtean perspective that highlights the irrational nature of matter, which cannot be reduced solely to its form.24 This raises the question: Why and how is intuition receptive to the organizing principles of subjective forms of intelligibility in relation to the sensible? The Kantian dichotomy between the immanence of concepts and the transcendence of intuition makes it challenging to grasp what is intuited in experience and how it aligns with human conceptualization. In Logik der Philosophie und die Kategorienlehre, Lask stresses that placing constitutive categories in the sphere of transcendental consciousness is a mistake. Forms of objectivity do not belong to subjectivity. However, neither do they belong to things in themselves apart from our comprehension. Lask proposes a correct view that rejects both idealistic and realistic interpretations of objectivity. The intuited material indeed determines objective forms, yet these forms manifest as categories only when in contact with subjectivity. That means that in the intuited material already lies a particular potential of its own forms of intelligibility. This implies that the intuited material already contains a specific potential for its own forms of intelligibility. In other words, sensible material cannot be organized arbitrarily but only according to the specific forms it inherently possesses. Heidegger echoes this sentiment in his Habilitation work, stating, “Form is a correlative term; the form is the form of a material, every material is in form. The material stands always in an appropriate form; in other words: the form receives its meaning from the material.”25 This “principle of material determination“assumes a central role in Heidegger’s early philosophy. However, it may appear overly realistic, suggesting that forms of intelligibility exist within things themselves, independent of any relation to subjectivity. However, that is not entirely true. As mentioned earlier, Lask acknowledges that experienced material determines the form of its own intelligibility, but this determination occurs 23  Unlike Rickert, Lask does not understand irrationality in terms of individuality. In principle, even the “logically naked” categories are irrational (only what is categorially structured is rational) and hence can only be intuited rather than deduced. See Feher (1992). 24  Airbinder (2015). 25  Heidegger (1978b), 251.

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within a subject-object relation. Material merely holds the potential for various categorial manifestations, which require consciousness in order to be fulfilled or enacted. This necessity of consciousness aligns with Husserl‘s perspective that it only makes sense to discuss the structure of an intended object. However, it is precisely at this point that Heidegger later criticizes Husserl for his silence on the relationship between entities and their being-­ intended. Husserl’s reduction prevents the exploration of how an entity is being-intended since he only allows discussion of the already intended entity. In contrast, Lask addresses this very issue. According to Lask, consciousness’s ability to “fulfill” categorial structures depends on its capacity to induce a minimal reflexive form of “something in general.” While the (transcendent) material determines constitutive categories, the relation of subjectivity to the material is not constitutive, but reflective. Heidegger expresses this sentiment in his 1914 article on Lask’s logic (“Recent research in Logic”): Subjectivity is the creator of the reflective sphere. We recognize identity as the regional category, the category for “Something in general”. In the reflexive category, every difference of categorical content disappears, which explains its only formal, not factual meaning. Although the reflective region owes its “being” to subjectivity, once it has survived, it applies objectively; these are formal relationships that are deprived of the arbitrariness of thinking in their validity but remain subordinate to the power of the latter in so far as it can seize any content regardless of the special constitutive character. The reflective forms are therefore of general importance.26

We can see thus that, though Lask investigates the possibility of an entity’s objective manifestation, he points out the subjective conditions for such manifestation. More precisely, he points out what role subjectivity must play for the manifestation to be objective. According to Lask, objectivity does not rely on subjective functions of understanding but on the nature of the subject-object distinction itself. The type of identity that identifies an object as itself is considered a regional category. By characterizing identity as a regional category, Lask relativizes the very itself-ness of entities  – the sense of an entity’s itself-ness is constructed in a unique reflective sense beyond “any difference of categorial content” (i.e., beyond what Heidegger will later call the “beingness” of a being). The  Heidegger (1978c), 25–26.

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intelligibility of an object’s identity is not solely determined by the subject or the “independent” material but by a region that exists “between” the two. This region, known as the theoretical domain (or theoretically reflexive), arises as a result of the enactment of the subject-object relation. The subject-object relation is not specific to a particular theoretical domain but is shared by all such domains.27 It represents an absolute minimum requirement within the theoretical framework to determine the identity of something given, the essence of givenness itself. It is this form of mere givenness that delineates what counts as a category, thus allowing subjectivity to let categories operate as categories when it touches the transcendent material. That is to say, the what of experience, the meaning of the material content, can only manifest if there is already a subjective offering of a reflexive space of determinateness of anything whatsoever, that is of meaningfulness as such. In the Habilitation work, Heidegger emphasizes the logical primacy of the reflexive category by explaining that an object can be constituted in experience according to its own form only if it can “differentiate itself” (in consciousness) as something limited and as not being something else28 (i.e., as self-identical). However, subjectivity plays a crucial role in enabling the possibility of such differentiation. We may assert that even at this theoretically objective level of analysis, subjectivity serves as the existential backdrop wherein an object can initially manifest as its true essence. In order for an object to occupy its rightful position within the orderly arrangement of experience, accessible to all potential observers, it must establish a specific relationship that defines it as numerically identical to itself and distinct from everything else. This stringent demarcation extends to all its connections with other identified objects as well. Consequently, the itself-ness of an object is determined independently of any concrete forms of transcendental objectivity. The appropriate forms of objectivity, such as Kantian categories, align with and are implied by this inherent itself-ness or identity of an object. Heidegger thus agrees with Lask that the objective manifestation of the what-content of an experienced thing is logically dependent on the how of its appropriation by subjectivity. As determining the intelligibility of an object’s identity (as “something in 27  Besides Kant’s domain of sensible knowledge, Lask also treats the domain of non-­ sensible (e.g., philosophical) knowledge. The non-sensible domain is constituted by its own type of categories that Kant does not discuss. This distinction is central to Lask’s theory of categories, yet it is of secondary importance for the current discussion. On this see also Crowell (1992). 28  Heidegger (1978b), 218.

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general”), the reflexive category underlies intentionality.29 It reveals for the first time the “objective” side of the problem of encounter, i.e., of the sense in which entities are experienced as themselves. This relation to entities neither entails a mere realistic reflection nor an idealistic constitution. Instead, it signifies a reflexive manner of enabling the space for an object’s determinability by delimiting it as “something in general.” As Heidegger later formulates it, we allow entities to manifest without subjectivizing them. Incorporating Lask’s reflexive categories marks the initial step in this direction. However, even in Heidegger’s Habilitation work, we can observe that his understanding of the relationship between an entity and its being-intended surpasses Lask’s logic. In Lask’s framework, even non-­ thematized experiences, preceding judgment, already possess categorical structure—i.e., a theoretical framework. In contrast, Heidegger emphasizes that the “real” determines the objective aspect of the encounter, constituting a move toward critical realism. Nevertheless, the influence of transcendent material (the real) can solely guide an objective determination that does not modify the material itself but rather renders it available for judgment. Nonetheless, Lask‘s logic does not resolve the fundamental issue of the theoretical as such. Prior to reflexively apprehending and establishing objective relations among elements of the world, the world must already be accessible in some way for subjectivity’s objectifying operations. While Lask acknowledges that prior to acquiring actual knowledge of an objective world, we must surrender to and live through it,30 the nature of this “living through” remains unaddressed within the context of an objective theory of meaning. The act of surrendering to the world precedes the dimension of encounter in which objects are already given or constituted in their categorical form. It belongs, instead, to the transcendental problem of encounter as such The problem of encounter revolves around the surrendering to what can potentially be encountered, prior to possessing a determinate identity or itself-ness, requiring the reflective realm of consciousness to manifest as what it is. This surrendering is closely connected to the motivational essence of subjectivity discussed earlier. It is crucial to note that surrendering to the world cannot be theoretically conceptualized since the 29  Theodore Kisiel writes that “the reflexive category constitutes a formal skeletal structure of the intentional structure of life itself.” Kisiel (1995), 37. 30  Lask (1923), 396.

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fundamental forms of theoretical conceptualization, namely the categories, are derived from the world. To avoid contradiction, we must question the assertion made by the objective theory of meaning that nothing holds meaning unless it is objectively structured, that is, conforms to the theoretical notion of reality. Instead of accepting any theory of meaning as a given, we should engage in a phenomenological analysis of our actual relationship to the meaningful world. It is from this perspective that we should interpret Heidegger’s departure from both Neo-Kantianism and Husserl‘s phenomenology. Nonetheless, Lask‘s logic provides Heidegger with the groundwork for the entire “objective” aspect of the encounter problem, allowing for further development. Additionally, Lask’s revelation that theoretical identities pertain to the reflective sphere created by subjectivity implies that the very identity of the subject, distinct from the transcendent material, only holds significance within this reflective realm. In other words, the subject-­ object dichotomy constituting the intentional dimension of encounterable objectivities depends on the being of subjectivity. The priority of relation indicates that subjectivity is not just always intentionally related to some identifiable object but that intentionality itself is only possible because subjectivity, in its Being, is relational prior to any identifiable encounter and is the basis of the very intelligibility of the object’s “identity.” In the 1928 lecture course The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, discussing the difference between transcendence and intentionality, Heidegger stresses that understanding the relation’s belongingness to subjectivity is precisely what is missing in philosophies assuming the subject-object dichotomy.31 In this light, even Husserl’s account of consciousness does not offer any ontological clarification of the relation. A relation is neither this nor that but the “between,” unrepresentable within the subject-object structure of theoretical identity. Unlike Heidegger, Lask cannot seriously question the priority of the theoretical identity. Nevertheless, his discovery that the subject-object dichotomy is the most primitive and fundamental structure of the theoretical realm sheds light on the entirety of Heidegger’s subsequent endeavours to delve into the pre-theoretical level of experience. Namely, to move “below” the theoretical is to move “beyond” the subject-­ object distinction, not towards a superficial “death of the subject” but towards a decentralization of subjectivity and away from its traditional image as a self-identical immanence. Consequently, Heidegger’s further  Heidegger (1984), 129.

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analyses of the pre-theoretical level within the dimension of encounter inevitably challenge the traditional notion associated with transcendence, namely the concept of immanence.

5  The Meaning of Encounter at the Pre-theoretical Level In his Habilitation work, Heidegger combines the findings from his investigations into both the subjective and objective aspects of the problem of encounter. Drawing on influences from Husserl, Rickert, and Lask, he interprets Duns Scotus‘theory of meaning. He employs Scotus’ terminology to highlight the subjective and motivational element that determines meaning and the primacy of the relation (Ens) in all meaning-constitution. Heidegger surpasses the Neo-Kantian theory of constitution by demonstrating that meaning cannot be reduced to a simple structure of form and matter. He seeks to synthesize Neo-Kantian and phenomenological insights by emphasizing the relationship between experience and language, while still acknowledging the categorial essence of objectivity. His central argument is that although experience must, in principle, be capable of objectification according to the logical norms of the experienced domain (such as the sensible world), its own realm of sense is fundamentally ordered by other principles: The sensual and supersensible world together with their mutual relationships stand in an order. The main feature of this order should be stated in advance: it is dominated by the analogy. We have not yet encountered this term. We only know the homogeneous continuum and the absolute diversity of the heterogeneous continuum. With the analogy we have a new order character. By highlighting the constitutive elements of this term, the insight into the peculiarity of the categorical structure of the real sensual and supersensible reality opens up.32

While the logical order characterizes the sphere of intentional objectivity, the sensual region of the real is pre-logical yet is not irrational like the transcendent material in Lask’s logic. Instead, the sensual realm serves as a middle ground between the not-yet-related entity and its theoretically constituted identity. According to Heidegger, this middle ground is the  Heidegger (1978b), 255–256.

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domain of meaning, which exists prior to theoretical understanding and cannot be fully grasped within the objective theory of sense. This pre-­ objective theory of meaning not only addresses the conditions for encounters but also expands and transforms the encounter dimension itself. In particular, Heidegger argues that encounter, as a condition of intentionality, is also a condition of meaning – both are problematic unless the subject’s ability to relate meaningfully to entities is explained. However, such a relationship requires a pre-theoretical availability of the world, akin to Lask‘s concept of “surrender.” This availability is not devoid of meaning; rather, it is characterized by pre-theoretical meaning governed by the principle of analogy. Heidegger introduces Duns Scotus‘concept of analogy as an ordering principle that goes beyond the continuum of the homogeneous and the manifold of the heterogeneous. Words can have different meanings in different domains yet convey something similar. Words like “cause” and “reason” have something in common and yet have different meanings applied once to the sensible and once to the logical domain. In other words, meanings transgress to some extent the identity-­ difference dichotomy – the analogous meanings are neither totally different nor totally the same. By transgressing the theoretical identity-difference dichotomy, Heidegger explores a relation that precedes the reflexive sphere, in which theoretical identity functions as a regional category. Though relation remains prior to any what-sense, its meaning is extended beyond a reflectively theoretical type in the Habilitation work. In other words, Heidegger starts distinguishing two levels of experience  – theoretical and pre-­ theoretical. Theoretical forms of intelligibility, which seemed to be mandatory for experience as such, are now restricted to a particular kind of experience. Theoretical forms of intelligibility, once believed to be inherent in all experience, are now limited to a particular kind of experience. In the realm of pre-theoretical experience, categorical forms such as “identity” or “multiplicity” are not experienced as purely numerical but rather as universal guidelines or norms for designating the “belonging-together” of the analogous. However, the forms of analogy are not independent of the categorial structures of reality but always encompass these structures in a way that can be explicitly articulated in objective judgments. We can understand that the inherent nature of entities, their ontological itself-ness, includes the appropriate formal structures but cannot be reduced to them, as these

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structures only hold meaning within the context of an enacted form of identity, whether theoretical or pre-theoretical. The expansion of the theory of meaning as an extension of the encounter dimension is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the transcendental encounter problem. Without this extension, the “subjective” and “objective” aspects of an encounter would not converge. If subjectivity, by relating reflexively to entities, lets them manifest in the form of objective meaning structures, what role does motivation play? To be bound by the claim of truth in a thing, one must be motivated by it in a way that aligns with our everyday motivations. However, if the subject’s motivation determines all manifestations of entities as real, how can the formal structures of reality accommodate the diversity of motivations? The meeting point for these two aspects lies in pre-theoretical experience, which is characterized by the potential for objectification but is not confined to objective forms alone. As Heidegger explains in an example of the transcendental of unity, what counts as unity depends on a subjective motivational element. Different kinds of unities can be analogously determined in different sense regions based on the chosen measurement criteria. The plurality of unity senses arises from Heidegger’s identification of “ens” with the transcendentally reflexive relation and its convertibility with any of the transcendentals. Consequently, not only unity (unum), but also truth (verum) and goodness (bonum) can have multiple forms. Thus, the formal sense of the subject’s motivation cannot be reduced to a single (objective) form of truth or value claims but is determined within a proper relation to the transcendent material. Heidegger’s theory of meaning in the Habilitation work effectively encompasses the entire problematic of encounter by introducing the idea of pre-theoretical experience, which already challenges the unquestionability of the traditional subject-object separation and the singular sense of a thing’s identity (itself-ness) associated with it. Heidegger expresses the co-determining nature of subjective and objective elements as the unity of different modi in Scotus’ philosophy. The investigation of the relationship between the modus essendi and the “subjective” modi significandi and intelligendi leads to the principle of material determination of any form, which in turn includes the fundamental correlation of object and subject. This essential connection between the object of knowledge and knowledge of the object comes to the sharpest

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expression in the concept of “verum” as one of the transcendents, the definiteness of the object in general33

Modus essendi is the “robust” reality that obtrudes in consciousness and “coincides with the universal domain of the ‘something in general’.” This is the objectness of the ens, the form of meaningfulness as such,34 the guide of givenness. However, our experience is not of general “somethings,” but rather of things belonging to specific intelligible domains. Modus intelligendi, on the other hand, pertains to the manner in which we comprehend something. It represents the reality that enters cognition. At this stage, we can recognize something as intelligible, such as a sensible object, but it has not yet been grasped as a concrete meaning, like a green lemon tree outside my window. To determine the concrete experienced meaning, an additional act of consciousness is required, which Heidegger associates with language. This act corresponds to modus significandi. Importantly, the active role of modus significandi surpasses Lask‘s logic. The concrete grammatical form of experience is determined by both the material aspect and its categorial form. There are syntactic limitations on meaning imposed by the transcendent material but induced by subjectivity. The correlation between the noetic sense-bestowing acts and the universal constraints of intentionality-­ related norms of the comprehended material takes place within the domain of analogously (linguistically) structured meaning. What was previously viewed by the Neo-Kantians as a mere problem of encountering a self-­ identical object now becomes a question of active, linguistic engagement with that which transcends the subject. Analogy, Heidegger writes, was the conceptual expression of the specific form of inner existence, which was anchored in the transcendent, primordial relation of the soul to God, as it was experienced in the middle ages.35 It expresses a “qualitatively fulfilled, value-laden world of experience of the medieval man, which is related to the transcendence.”36 Heidegger’s interpretation of Scotus’ theory of meaning offers a more comprehensive understanding of encountering the transcendent material compared to the Neo-Kantian perspective. While Heidegger still employs  Ibid., 402.  Ibid., 314. 35  Ibid., 409. 36  Ibid. 33 34

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the language of consciousness as opposed to an experienced something, the analogical nature of experience makes it challenging to attribute any independent structure to the transcendent material. According to Heidegger in 1916, the world is not merely observed “through” language, but is inherently intertwined with its sense, imbued with values and analogically structured. This understanding of immediate experience as value-laden implies a form of ontological “pluralization.” Namely, what Heidegger calls the “value-laden world of experience of the medieval man” is an example of how different worlds can co-exist, each shaped by specific motivating factors and a transcendent ontological potential that must be actualized in order to become something that can be experienced. The problem that Heidegger later refers to as “transcendence“revolves precisely around the possibility of such a plurality of ontological actualizations and the personal, value-laden engagement of an individual in the process of such enactment. The possibility of an encounter – and that means of intentionality - is dependent on a motivational, relational, and historical subjectivity, or, in other words, a living subjectivity. Thus, according to Heidegger, only a metaphysics centered on living subjectivity can establish the potential for all theoretical inquiries, including the problem of objective truth. It is important to note that this metaphysics of living subjectivity should not be mistaken for the traditional metaphysics of consciousness. In this perspective, the shift from consciousness to living subjectivity in Heidegger’s thinking should not be interpreted as a rejection of transcendental philosophies of consciousness in favor of a philosophy of life. Rather, it emerges from his critical engagement with both Neo-Kantian and phenomenological approaches to understanding the subject-object relationship While Husserl’s ideas offered a new way to illuminate the explanandum, that is, the intentional nature of the encounter dimension, Rickert’s and especially Lask’s logic allowed Heidegger to move into the sphere of explanans. This transition, however, revealed the intrinsic limitations of Neo-Kantianism rooted in its theoretical framework and the conventional notions of the epistemological subject and knowledge-enabling transcendence. On the other hand, phenomenology holds greater potential if it goes beyond Husserl’s methodology and embraces a more radical approach. When investigating living subjectivity, what is required is not an improved transcendental logic but a more robust phenomenology. Four years after the Habilitation, Heidegger expresses his dissatisfaction with Neo-Kantianism by challenging Rickert‘s view that all moments of sense in objectivity are cognized and highlighting that the problem of

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cognition is not on equal footing with transcendence.37 Instead, the very issue of living subjectivity calls for a metaphysics of transcendence. In 1916, Heidegger had not yet fully articulated this notion of transcendence, but he already hints at its significance: Transcendence doesn’t mean any radical remoteness which a subject is lost in; It consists precisely in a living relationship constructed on correlativity. As such it doesn’t have a sole, inflexible sense-orientation, but it has to be compared to the stream of experience that ebbs and mounts in kindred individual minds.38

As early as 1916, Heidegger began contemplating transcendence as a living relationship prior to the related. The motivational and relational aspects of subjectivity challenge the conventional view of subjectivism, leading to a significant decentralization of perspective. Furthermore, the interdependence of motivational and relational elements suggests that the realm of transcendence could potentially be bound to the practical aspects of existence, associated with human will and agency. The Being of subjectivity assumes a surrender to the claim of entities’ truth and self-­ determination rooted in the ontological possibilities of what transcends it. These ontological possibilities depend on the determination of beings’ identity as a regional category, established within the “between” of a transcendental engagement that precedes the subject-object separation and cannot be compared to the familiar ontic nature of human action. Although Heidegger still employs a subjectivist language influenced by Neo-­ Kantianism at this stage, the understanding of consciousness in cognitive and representational terms, becomes questionable. Furthermore, by combining the subject’s particular decentralization with the non-cognitive character of its transcendence, Heidegger takes a significant step towards overcoming the essence-existence dichotomy in his future conception of transcendence. However, prior to 1919, Heidegger operates within the framework of a traditional transcendental problematic. His thinking is predominantly influenced by the language of Neo-Kantian transcendental philosophy and constrained by its limitations. It is only in the early Freiburg lectures that he articulates a more profound decentralization of subjectivity, employing a newly adopted language of the phenomenology of life.  Heidegger (2013), 104.  Heidegger (1978b), 409.

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References Airbinder, Bernardo. 2015. From Neo-Kantianism to Phenomenology. Emil Lask’s Revision Transcendental Philosophy: Objectivism, Reduction, Motivation. Studia Phaemenologica 15. Crowell, Steven. 1992. Lask, Heidegger, and the Homelessness of Logic. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 23. ———. 2013. Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger. Cambridge University Press. Farin, Ingo. 1998. Heidegger’s Critique of Value Philosophy. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 29:3. Heidegger, Martin. 1978a. Das Realitätsproblem in der modernen Philosophie. In Frühe Schriften, Gesamtausgabe 1, ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1–17. ———. 1978b. Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus.” Gesamtausgabe 1. Frühe Schriften, ed. F.-W von Herrmann, 189–411. ———. 1978c. Neue Forschungen über Logik. Gesamtausgabe 1, Gesamtausgabe 1. Frühe Schriften, ed. F.-W von Herrmann, 17–44. ———. 1984. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Trans. Michael Heim. Indiana University Press. ———. 2008. Towards the Definition of Philosophy (Continuum Impacts, 49). Trans. Ted Sadler. Continuum. ———. 2009. History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena. 1st ed. Trans. Theodore Kisiel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2013. Basic Problems of Phenomenology: Winter Semester 1919/1920. Trans. M. Scott. Campbell, Bloomsbury Academic. Kisiel, Theodor. 1995. The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lask, Emil. 1923. Die Lehre vom Urteil. In Gesamelte Schriften: Band 2, ed. Eugen Herrigel, 283–463, Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr. Rickert, Henrich. 2010. Der Gegenstand Der Erkenntnis: Einführung in Die Transzendentalphilosophie. Nabu Press. Staiti, Andrea. 2015. Husserl and Rickert on the Nature of Judgement. Philosophy Compass 10 (12): 815–827. Tugendhat, Ernst. 1970. Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger. Walter de Gruyter & Co.

CHAPTER 2

The Transcendence of Life as an Event of Experience

1   Introduction In the previous chapter, we explored how the problem of encounter leads to a deeper investigation of subjectivity. The conditions that allow entities to manifest, both in general and as objective realities, primarily reside within the subjective realm. The motivational and relational aspects of the subject’s existence together create a pre-theoretical sense of reality, enabling entities to manifest as they truly are, free from idealistic distortions. It is important to distinguish this Greek-inspired critical realism, which Heidegger pursues, from mere naïve realism. The identity of a thing belongs to the reflexive realm, or the “between,” of subjectivity and is considered a regional category. This identity encompasses the form of the thing itself. For instance, traditional theoretical identity, understood in numerical terms, represents a mode of self-­ manifestation where a being is intelligible through theoretical forms such as Kant’s categories. As a regional category, identity is not merely a formally logical concept; rather, it should be understood as the transcendental-­ logical itself-ness of a being, signifying how a being individually manifests as an existing entity. This mode of existence of a thing corresponds to a specific determination of its essence, or its form. Importantly, the inherent nature of beings exists only potentially before their sphere of intelligibility is actualized. However, it is crucial to avoid interpreting this actualization as a theoretical activity of a transcendental © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Kuravsky, Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41291-2_2

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consciousness akin to Kant’s perspective, or as a psychological act driven by human will. Instead of modeling all beings based on a specific mode of theoretical experience, the principle of material determination necessitates an exploration of experience that is decentralized from the traditional ego-­ centric standpoint of subjectivity. If beings determine the terms of their own experience, characterizing subjectivity as “living” goes beyond considering its psychological history and ontic changes. It entails questioning whether subjectivity can exist in a manner that aligns with the transcendent standard of its own experiential forms. In other words, the ontological plurality of possible forms demands an existential plurality on the part of the experiencer. Different life-forms must correspond to the diverse types of appeal from the beings themselves, allowing the various potential modes of their own essence to manifest each time within the appropriate “between” of living subjectivity. Although a definitive resolution to this problem will only emerge in Heidegger’s later work, particularly in Being and Time, his initial Freiburg lectures provide an authentic phenomenological exploration of life. This exploration implicitly reveals a non-ego-centric form of transcendence that surpasses the traditional understanding in multiple ways. As I will demonstrate, Heidegger’s attempts to define the Being of living subjectivity in these lectures make it clear that it cannot be fully grasped within the confines of the conventional immanence-transcendence distinction. Moreover, we shall see that Heidegger’s phenomenology of life first explicitly transgresses the essence-existence dichotomy and insinuates the unique dependence of the essence of life on its modes of existence, as well as the dependence of the itself-ness of beings on life’s existential self-­ determination. Collectively, these innovations lay the groundwork for a future comprehension of Dasein’s existence as the “there” and the “between” of beings and Being, ultimately encompassing the concept of transcendence.

2  The Triple Sense of an Event of Experience In the 1919 semester, before introducing his own phenomenological innovations, Heidegger scrupulously analyzes the methods of both Neo-­ Kantian schools: what they actually say and what they inevitably presuppose so that their methods could vouch for what they say. His critique draws heavily upon the principles discussed in the previous chapter, particularly the principle of material determination and the

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phenomenological unity of experience, which emphasizes the motivational element of fulfillment. However, the most significant aspect of his critique lies in his emphasis on a pre-theoretical level of experience that precedes the teleological foundation of transcendental philosophy. Namely, before anything can be selected and evaluated in terms of a theoretical norm, it must first be (pre)given: “Teleological-axiomatic grounding would lose all sense without a pregiven choosable and assessable something, a what.”1 To manifest as an object, a being must have a pre-objective source in an experience. This pre-given source, although not known in a theoretical sense, is lived through in experience. As a result, Heidegger posits that the “sphere of life as such” precedes what was previously referred to as the “sphere of encounter as such.” He underscores the importance of addressing life as a fundamental theme in philosophy, asserting its claim as a primordial science since it is within life that the pre-objective material of cognition and the motivational nature of experience find their roots. Consequently, theoretical objectivity and all philosophical systems that rely on it are necessarily derived from the more fundamental realm of life: “This primacy of the theoretical must be broken, but not in order to proclaim the primacy of the practical, and not in order to introduce something that shows the problems from a new side, but because the theoretical itself and as such refers back to something pre-theoretical.”2 Heidegger exposes a fundamental assumption underlying an objective theory of meaning, which asserts that all spheres of human experience, such as emotions, aesthetics, morality, and religion, derive their significance from an objective understanding of reality. Objective thinking assumes that any meaningful expression of human life ultimately refers back to objects, which are considered the basic units of sense. However, Heidegger emphasizes the contrary view – that an objective description of experience actually points to something pre-objective that still holds meaning. According to Steven Crowell, Heidegger does not approach meaning from a logical standpoint, but rather understands it as a non-­ objective horizon of intelligibility.3 This non-objective horizon of intelligibility is the sphere of life’s sense. Importantly, it should not be mistaken for objective meaning that is merely unclear or obscure. Instead, the very presence of non-objective intelligibility alters the meaning of “sense”  Heidegger (2008), 34.  Ibid., 50. 3  Crowell (1992). 1 2

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itself. In theoretical thought, “sense” referred to a determinable being with a specific identity. However, the primacy of the subject’s relation allows for different modes of “what-ness” to be attributed to the same experienced “something.” These different modes of “what-ness” represent diverse forms of a being’s own sense of identity. To be “itself” does not necessarily imply self-identity in the numerical sense of theoretical thinking. The distinctions among the possible modes of a thing’s “what-­ ness” form a separate sphere of intelligibility that predates the realm of objective meaning, which is merely one mode among many. Heidegger refers to this sphere as “relation-sense.”4 As we have observed, Heidegger has placed significant emphasis on the logical precedence of a relation, which he introduced in his Habilitation (as ens). By the summer of 1920, he presents a novel understanding of sense that incorporates this precedence and determines the manner in which both theoretical and pre-theoretical experiences unfold. In essence, every sense is already shaped in its how by a relation-sense.5 The sphere of relation-sense, prior to any specific manifestation of a being’s self-identity and its formal structure, is crucial. Without it, the transcendentally necessary correspondence between the subject and the object loses its comprehensibility. During the 1919 semester, Heidegger raises the following question: Is there even a single thing when there are only things? Then there would be no thing at all; not even nothing, because with the sole supremacy of the sphere of things there is not even the ‘there is’. Is there the ‘there is’?6

Although the conceptualization of givenness as relation-sense is introduced in the subsequent year, Heidegger emphasizes that if sense itself  Heidegger (2010a), 46. Tm.  Merleau-Ponty later clarifies that introducing of a non-thematic sense is an ontological statement regarding things in the world rather than a mere description of a “subjective” experience. In Phenomenology of Perception, he stresses that rather than introducing somehow nonsensical or contradictory, he asks the logician “to push back the boundaries of what makes sense” (Merleau-Ponty (2013), 320). What Heidegger shows in the early lectures is that such “boundaries” have a sense-dimension of their own. Lee Braver points out an analogy to Wittgenstein’s grammar, which precedes any concrete conceptual system and determines what counts as an essence, an object, or, in other words, what makes sense. Heidegger’s relation-sense is precisely such a “grammar” of experience, which changes according to the way one non-thematically situates oneself in the world. See Lee Braver (2014). 6  Heidegger (2008), 52. 4 5

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were reducible to what-sense, the act of giving would lose its inherent (giving) character. The access-relationship cannot be understood solely in terms of what it grants access to. The notion of “it gives” does not pertain to a specific entity or being, yet without it, no being could manifest itself. Furthermore, the realm of relation-sense extends beyond the sense of giving and encompasses a multitude of potential relations. It serves as a conceptual framework for contemplating the ontological diversity of how beings manifest. Lask’s reflexive category is one of the potential relation-­ senses of a thing, but Lask himself considered it to be the sole relation-­ sense, the exclusive form through which a sensible phenomenon’s intelligible presence can be understood. The reflexive category in Lask’s framework pertains to a pure (objective) state of thinghood that theoretical cognition necessitates as a requirement for something to be recognized as an object. An object reveals itself through its distinct form, but this form can only be intelligible if an appropriate relation-sense is projected as a space within which the form can manifest. Heidegger’s notion of relation-­sense challenges the exclusive nature of a theoretical relation-­ sense that, due to its supposed singularity, has remained unnoticed throughout the history of philosophy. The different senses of a being’s itself-ness and the diverse modes of pre-theoretical identity open up new possibilities for understanding the subject’s relation to beings, which transcendental philosophy could not achieve. These relation-senses give rise to entirely novel “identity-­ philosophies” that do not rely on an idealistic overlay of the subject and the object. Additionally, they offer fresh perspectives on the relationship between philosophy and its object. Heidegger articulates this non-­ theoretical identity between philosophy and life as “the primordial intention of genuine life, the primordial bearing of life-experience and life as such, the absolute sympathy with life that is identical with life-experience.”7 The absolute sympathy with life determine phenomenology as the original science “from which the theoretical itself originates.”8 All previous efforts of phenomenology, Heidegger says, are meant to arrive at the limit of what still requires any theoretical justification, and leap beyond it. The leap is not a mere intellectual shift between different theoretical positions gained through reading about it. It is an act of personal engagement, where one starts perceiving phenomena in the context of specific 7 8

 Ibid., 92.  Ibid., 81.

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relationships that liberate different modes of their ontological constitution (the what-sense). Consequently, the notion of a leap encompasses the third dimension of Heidegger’s sense-structure: the enactment-sense. The enactment-sense lies at the heart of Heidegger’s phenomenology of life, as it points to the approach of addressing the problem of a non-theoretical identity between the subject and the object, allowing beings to be both lived through and theoretically given. There exists an essential circularity between the experiencing subjectivity and the experienced beings, a circularity wherein the very ontological form of beings and the experiential form of one’s life emerge from a specific mode of enactment (in a relation). The leap is necessary to conceive of this enactment as non-ego-­ centered, neither determined by a transcendental ego nor merely executed by an empirical one, but rather as an event. Heidegger describes the nature of lived experience as an event of appropriation (Ereignis) in the 1919 course: In seeing the lectern, I am fully present in my ‘I’; it resonates with the experience, as we said. It is an experience proper to me and so do I see it. However, it is not a process but rather an event of appropriation (non-­ process, in the experience of the question a residue of this event). Lived experience does not pass in front of me like a thing, but I appropriate it to myself, and it appropriates itself according to its essence. If I understand it in this way, then I understand it not as process, as thing, as object, but in a quite new way, as an event of appropriation.9 Event of appropriation is not to be taken as if I appropriate the lived experience to myself from outside or from anywhere else; ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ have as little meaning here as ‘physical’ and ‘psychical’. The experiences are events of appropriation in so far as they live out of one’s ‘own-ness’, and life lives only in this way.10

The event of experience cannot be equated with the immanence of consciousness, where the transcendence of intentional objects is perceived. Heidegger argues that such immanent reflection ultimately leads to objectified transcendences.11 We should not assume that the co-belongingness of the self-conscious “I” and its experiences indicates absolute possession of experiences by the subject (theoretical identity). While I do not ­appropriate  Ibid., 62.  Ibid., 64. 11  Heidegger (2013), 112. 9

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lived experiences from an external standpoint, I still appropriate the experience to myself. In other words, the experience occurs on terms that I did not posit and therefore requires my appropriation. This decentralization becomes even more apparent when Heidegger emphasizes that, in the event of experience, the experience appropriates itself according to its essence.12 Namely, despite traditional subjectivistic tendencies, experience should be seen as an ontological dimension of its own prior to any psychological and anthropological characterizations of its alleged nature. The “subject” of the event is not a transcendental ego but a situation in the sense of the environmental whole that determines the essence of both the experience and the experienced prior to their theoretical separation. The conventional immanence-transcendence dichotomy proves inadequate at this level since it can only be applied to experience that has already been thematized in a particular way. In contrast, life experience, as an event, is originally pre-­ thematic. Indeed, to claim that the environment is “given” to me already involves a theoretical infringement.13 “Givenness,” as Heidegger repeatedly emphasizes, is a theoretical form. This means that the “how” of one’s relation to the world, required for theoretical cognition, is not an original, authentic relation, but rather a specific modification of it. A reflexive category cannot serve as a skeletal structure of the intentionality of life but only as its theoretical mode.14 In fact, Heidegger argues that when we reflect on the environment and attempt to explain it theoretically, it “collapses upon itself.”15 No superior knowledge of the environment is achieved by its dissolution and

 Ibid.  Ibid., 75–75. 14  Scholars such as Kisiel and Crowell often discuss the reflective category as pre-­theoretical, highlighting its role in shaping experience prior to any theoretical judgment. In this sense, it conditions the possibility of judgment. However, Heidegger takes a different perspective. He considers the view of experience proposed by Lask, where experience is already categorial even before judgment, as a form of theoretical thinking. This perspective assumes that the manner in which experience unfolds “gives” the world as an objective sphere for judgment. 15  Heidegger (2008), 73. 12 13

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subjection to “unclarified theories and explanations.”16, 17 Heidegger thus exposes realism as being blind to the meaningful dimension of the world, as it attempts to “explain one being by another.”18 Similarly, idealism denies the problem of the environing world by equating natural reality (Wirklichkeit) with reality as such.19 While both sides may debate the nature of reality (Realität), the term “reality” itself is already a theoretical characteristic that “lies in the essence of thinginess.”20 Recognizing something as “real” involves a de-vivification of its meaning, i.e., a de-­ interpretation (entdeutung) into the residue of being-real.21 The enactment of a particular relation-sense is then not a reflective act but something that happens within an event of experience as absorption in the world. Such an absorption cannot be thought of in terms of theoretical categories. I am not “identical” to the world, nor are we separated as distinct entities. These objectifying schemas have no place in the understanding of life-experience. The “I” for Heidegger is always already out there, beyond itself, resonating, for example, with the seeing.22 Therefore, the theoretical understanding of transcendence as a problem of givenness (the subject-object problem) is not original. Even the what-sense of transcendence pertains not to objectivity but to the experienced world in which life is continually absorbed The leap into life-experience, which flows from the surrounding world, renders the theoretically-­transcendental formulation of the problem of transcendence meaningless. Rickert presented this problem as a question of knowledge, where objectivity relies on an independent object. However, this problem is relevant only within a theoretical stance that has already de-interpreted and objectified experience into separate theoretical domains. As Heidegger insists, there can be no external world problem on the level of primordial life experience: “The genuine solution to the problem of the reality of the external world  Ibid.  This is evident if one thinks for example of the way a strongly visual person understands colors in This becomes apparent when considering how a visually-oriented individual comprehends colors compared to a physicist who does not engage with colors in the same manner. Even a blind person can grasp the concept of wavelengths. However, this does not imply that color experience is subjective. Rather, it suggests that only those who can see have direct access to the full vibrancy of actual colors. 18  Heidegger (2008), 73. 19  Ibid. 20  Ibid., 75–76. 21  Ibid. 22  Ibid., 94. 16 17

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consists in the insight that this is no problem at all, but rather an absurdity.”23 The problem of the external world’s reality becomes absurd when we recognize that what philosophy refers to as the “external world” is a theoretical construction whose reality is a residue of original life-experience. On the level of the event, there is no strictly “external” world, not because it is inherently “internal,” but because the immanence of the subject is not prior to its relational existence within the world. The very fact that we are absorbed in the world, experiencing ourselves as inseparable from the environment, provides phenomenological evidence of a non-theoretical identity between life and its world. Moreover, since entities can appear in different modes of self-identity, whether theoretical or pre-theoretical, there is a sense of interrelatedness between life and its world that surpasses any specific understanding of identity. Instead, it must be conceived as the “between” of every particular sense of identity, namely in terms of relation-sense and its enactment-sense. The relation between life and the world is not a form of identity or difference, not even in a pre-­theoretical sense, but rather a sphere in which various modes of identity emerge. We can describe life as an event of interconnectedness, within which entities manifest in different modes of their own essence.

3  The Primary Something (Uretwas) Heidegger interprets Lask’s concept of “something in general” as a proto-­ object of knowledge. Importantly, “something in general” does not pertain to the objectivity of the object itself, but rather to the sense of how an object should be present in the world in a manner that aligns with objectivity. It does not address the question of the object’s specific form, but rather the more fundamental question of what it would mean for such a form to be intelligibly present, to manifest itself as an objective form. To be present as an object is to be present foremost as something in general. This mode of presence encompasses the forms of objectivity and represents the intelligible aspect of how objectivity reveals itself for theoretical understanding. In short, it denotes a theoretical relation-sense. Heidegger ascribes it as being “world-foreign,” i.e., as lacking all relation to world-­ content, a “sphere which takes one’s breath away and where no one can

 Ibid., 77.

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live.”24 Considering that life-experience involves an experience arising from the environing world, it becomes clear why one cannot reside in a world of objects. The theoretical self-identity of something in general strictly separates the object from me – I can represent it but not experience myself out of it. The sharp delineation of theoretical identity-difference prohibits the reciprocal interpenetration of life and world. However, without such reciprocal interpenetration, there would be no experience at all, hence indicating that “something in general” is not the primary something. Against the primordiality of “something in general,” Heidegger offers the idea of the “experienceable as such.” The “experienceable as such” can manifest in various forms of experiences as self-identical in various appropriate senses. Therefore, the “experienceable as such” serves as a formal indication of an entity’s state before its concrete mode of identity is actualized in life. It does not possess a more foundational sense of itself-ness than “something in general,” but rather represents something whose itself-ness has not yet been determined at all. It is not “more general,” but rather “formal”  – it is formally indicated as this something prior to the concrete determination of the specific sense of its existence. Consequently, the experienceable as such is never given as a given entity, but rather serves as an indication of the readiness of beings to participate in the event of experience. The “experienceable as such” is pre-worldly in the sense of readiness-for-being-lived; it exhibits the structure of “not-yet” belonging to a genuine life that is also a “being-towards-into” life. While “something in general” is already determined in its relation-sense, the experienceable as such necessitates the enactment of a relation-sense to determine its mode of presence, through which an entity may manifest in one form or another as a “what.” Heidegger labels this pre-worldly something as a primary something (Ur-Etwas);25 it is, he says, a fundamental phenomenon, a moment of life’s essence.26 It’s formal universality “appropriates its origin from the in-itself of the flowing experience of life.”27 Its formal universality derives from the inherent nature of the flowing experience of life, as its not-yet-determined itself-ness. Thus, its universality is intelligible to us since it is inseparable from the flowing itself-ness of our life-­ experience. Its universality surpasses that of a general genus, as it  Ibid., 95.  Ibid., 186. 26  Ibid., 97–98. 27  Ibid. 24 25

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encompasses the universality of the relation-sense of phenomena (while “generality” characterizes only one type of relation-sense). In the context of the question of life’s transcendence it is critical to ask whether primary something is immanent to life or is instead a moment of life’s transcendence. Heidegger, however, emphasizes that the traditional separation of immanence and transcendence does not apply to the realm of life, which is characterized as an event rather than a process. He states, “The consideration of the whole sphere of pure life is neither an external nor an internal consideration, neither transcendent nor immanent.”28 While Heidegger distances himself from traditional frameworks, an unconventional notion of transcendence is already implicitly present in his early lectures. The development of the triple concept of sense in subsequent seminars helps to clarify the required understanding of transcendence. The primary something exists prior to the determination of the identity-­ difference pair that allows for the separation of internal and external. Heidegger emphasizes that such separations do not yet exist on the level of the event of experience. The primary something belongs to the event in which the self-identity of life is determined inextricably linked to the self-­ identity of its world. Heidegger’s statement from 1919 that “it worlds [es weltet] for me”29 does not presuppose the existence of a “me” before the worldling of the world (i.e., a transcendental subject), but rather acknowledges that this impersonal event of worlding is essentially shaped by a disclosure of a “for me.” Accordingly, instead of discussing transcendence against or within immanence, tied to a specific sense of immanent self-identity, I propose interpreting the Being of life as transcendence without or prior to immanence. In other words, rather than assuming a predetermined sense of identity that categorizes the primary something as either internal or external to life, we should perceive life as an event in which identity, as a relation-­sense of both life and the world, is initially enacted.

4  Life’s Transcendence and the Origin Thus far, I have elucidated how Heidegger’s early phenomenology of life brings to the forefront the interdependent nature of subjectivity in co-­ constituting the ongoing, pre-reflective event of life-experience. It  Heidegger (2013), 191.  Heidegger (2008), 61.

28 29

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functions as the dynamic “between” connecting the pre-worldly and worldly entities. The itself-ness of entities, encompassing their sense of presence (existential identity) and the appropriate forms (essence), is not yet determined in the primary something but emerges within the event of experience. Within this event, life and its world are inseparable—entities’ itself-ness and the “for me” of life arise simultaneously in the event of the world’s worldling. However, the analysis of the primary something only reveals the initial elements of Heidegger’s ontological plurality concerning beings and requires further examination of how life itself is determined in the event of enacting the world, which entails the enactment of its own mode of relationality. As explored in Chap. 1, subjectivity’s Being encompasses both relationality and motivation. Accordingly, life is characterized in the early lectures in terms of its motivation as arising out of its own factical flow.30 The primary something, prior to being experienced, presents itself for experience, offering the possibility of satisfying or not satisfying life’s motivation. “The basic form of the life-context,” says Heidegger, “is motivation.” 31 Crucially, “motivation” can be understood in two ways: In the former case, it refers to something consciously desired within an already enacted world. In the latter case, it refers to the event of self-enactment itself, the pre-reflective self-relation within the unity of life and its world, within its own original sphere of intelligibility. The primary something, not yet determined in its enactment and relation senses, enables both levels of experience. Nevertheless, at the original level of the event itself, life’s striving is not to satisfy some objectifiable need but to have a specific meaning within the realm of its enactment. Dilthey previously spoke of a life-category of purpose as a way of “designating the meaning or sense of our own life-unity.”32 Heidegger moves away from the theoretically loaded term “purpose” and declares that life is always in a direction (Richtung), whether we know about it or not.33 Thus, life must “move itself” and care about taking a particular direction within its own sphere of intelligibility. Paradoxically, while life’s self-experience possesses the character of an event, there must exist a distinguishable element of self-regulation within the event itself,  Heidegger (2013), 26.  Heidegger (2008), 172. 32  Dilthey (2010), 103. 33  Heidegger (2013), 26. 30 31

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based on self-care. This element corresponds to the self-regulative moment of an enactment-sense, which cannot be reduced to a traditional notion of self-possessive will. This point is crucial in the context of the question of life’s transcendence. Suppose life’s self-regulation adheres to a standard that it has or potentially can have at its disposal. In that case, life becomes equivalent to some version of a transcendental ego and is essentially immanent. One might be tempted to make this conclusion based on the idea that life moves itself. However, this conclusion is only valid if the direction of life’s movement is either contingent or intentionally determined by life itself. Both options, however, lead to variations of nihilism and subjectivism. The first option turns the possibility of motivation into a miraculous occurrence, while the second contradicts the phenomenological evidence that life experience is an event. The aporia which we face is that, as an event, life’s primordial motivation cannot be determined by an external force nor regulated according to an available intrinsic standard. There is no straightforward path to follow in this regard, as the very theoretical method that imposes dichotomies also shapes the meaning of a potential standard. The philosophical method is inseparable from the terms it employs to establish the intelligibility of its outcomes. For instance, it is unsurprising that Kant’s standard of freedom is comprehensible within the framework of objectifying rationality. Therefore, we are called upon to embark on a different path, one that leads us to the original sphere of phenomenology by attentively considering the dynamics of the event of life experience through Heidegger’s triple sense-schema. The perspective of viewing life through the lens of the triple sense-schema is significant precisely because it provides a sense of the Origin of life as the force that “propels life forward.” The origin and the original region have as a correlate a wholly original mode of living experiential apprehension. We now still stand ‘far’ from it. We shall have to learn to understand what this ‘farness’ means for the subject-matter of phenomenology and what ‘bringing near’, ‘coming nearer’ mean.34

The Origin, as Heidegger elucidates, is not an axiom from which everything is derived, nor is it a mystical entity. Instead, it is the subject that

 Ibid., 22.

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phenomenology endeavours to approach as the original science.35 Not the infinite fullness of life-worlds, but life itself as arising out of the Origin is the proper subject of phenomenology.36 However, in order to see life as arising out of the Origin, the Origin itself must become somehow ­available.37 Unfortunately, our inclination to think in a one-sided manner and emphasize the “what” aspect of experience keeps it distant from us.38 Heidegger asserts that the entire objective and subjective domains of philosophical inquiry are constructs that originate from life, making them derivative and truly comprehensible only from the vantage point of the Origin. Furthermore, many philosophical dichotomies arise from an erroneous formalization of these non-original domains. According to Heidegger, the dichotomy of “transcendence-immanence” is one such formalization.39 What is required, Heidegger suggests, is an original mode of living experiential comprehension. This entails understanding life not only in terms of its “what” but also in terms of the diverse ways (the “how”) in which it manifests and enacts itself. Heidegger clarifies that the “how” is not an abstract concept but is tangibly present as a distinct variety of specific ways in which the “what” manifests itself. The significance of the “how” is particularly pronounced in encounters with significant human beings and in individual conduct within the experiential realm of life.40 The how-contents are not tied to particular what-contents, but live themselves in the “form of a factical mode in which experiences factically run off.”41 Already in 1921, Heidegger identified the “how” of beings with their Being (Sein).42 Therefore, the original meaning that life seeks is not found solely in the contents of experiences, but rather in the particular pre-reflective modes of life’s Being. The Origin of life corresponds to one of these modes, specifically the original mode of living experiential comprehension.  Ibid., 65.  Ibid. 37  Ibid., 66. 38  For a substantial analysis of Heidegger’s early notion of the Origin see Kuravsky, Erik. “Neither Philosophy nor Theology: The Origin in Heidegger’s Earliest Thought,” Open Theology, vol. 7, no. 1, 2021, pp. 180–207. https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2020-0159 39  Heidegger (2013), 114. 40  Ibid., 68. 41  Ibid. 42  Heidegger (2001), 16. 35 36

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Although life is an event and does not actively determine its modes in the conventional sense of a self-positing subjectivity, the volitional aspect remains significant. Heidegger’s decentring of subjectivity does not lead to a passive, fatalistic view of the subject as entirely subject to the uncontrollable dynamics of life’s event. Instead, volition becomes an integral part of the event, co-constituting the historical self-world of life. As a result, the “how” of life, the temporal and specific aspect of experience, becomes understandable through reference to the self-world.43 To bring the Origin closer, we must delve into the how-content of experiences by intensifying our focus on the self-world. Concentrating on the self-world does not objectify it but rather highlights (formally indicates) the pertinent realm of life’s essence. Consequently, directing our attention to the how of life involves an exploration of its vibrant modes, its orientations, and, in essence, its Being. Speaking of the Being of life is synonymous with addressing its Origin and delving into the motivational essence of life within the sphere of its self-regulative, meaning-seeking intelligibility. Furthermore, life’s pursuit of meaning and self-fulfillment must be fulfilled by “being taken back into the origin in its whole facticity.”44 The Origin is not only the source but also the ultimate destination of life. As both the origin and the destination, the Origin assumes a distinct form of life. Origin is not a universal principle, a source of power. It is rather the form of production of life in all its situations, the form, which I always understand and reach only in a particular quality of form.45

The Origin is a gestalt of life-production, yet it should not be understood as a kind of theoretical form. The life-gestalt can only be accessed through a particular quality of embodiment, a specific way of living. Such a way of life should be one in which life owns itself vitally, that is, how it has itself and “rejects its derailments on its way to the origin.”46 The fact that life can veer off course and that its own form can only be comprehended through a particular quality of life points towards an existential interpretation of life’s self-sufficiency.  Heidegger (2013), 68.  Ibid., 69. 45  Ibid., 114. 46  Ibid., 120. 43 44

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The self-regulatory element, through which life strives to fulfill its own intelligibility, relates to the imperative of living, of existing in a specific manner. The pursuit of existing in a particular way is inherently self-­ regulatory as it becomes ingrained in life’s essence, manifested through a focused concentration on the self-world. Emphasizing the self-world, which is necessary to draw nearer to the Origin phenomenologically, does not involve detachment from the external environment but rather a deepening of life’s self-transparency regarding its relational modes of existence in the world. Therefore, access to the Origin is neither a cognitive relationship nor an intuition. Intuition already assumes a schema of external relation, a contact with something present in consciousness. Heidegger’s indication that the way to bring the Origin phenomenologically closer is to intensify our concentration on the self-world insinuates the sphere of sense relevant for conceiving the role of the Origin and the sort of access that we might have to it. The quality of form in life is not solely a matter of a what-sense and is only secondarily a form of the relation-sense. Primarily, it is a form of life’s enactment-sense. Exploring the sense of enactment is intrinsically linked to the intensification of life’s “I” character, its self-world, as a determining center of life’s meaningfulness Hence, the self-world should not be equated with absolute consciousness or a transcendental ego, but rather it co-constitutes the event of life as a self-enactment of life-experience: The self in the actual enactment of life-experience, the self in the experiencing of itself is the primal reality. Experience is not taking note but the vital being involved, the being worried so that the self is constantly co-­determined by this worry. Environing world, with-world and self-world are no areas of being, not determined in something. All reality receives its primordial sense through the worry of the self. The manners of having and pushing away the environing world hang together with the modification of the worry of the self. The worry of the self is a constant concern about lapsing from the Origin.47

The intensification of the self-world involves a phenomenological exploration of the self’s inherent capacity for self-actualization. In other words, the self only truly exists through the acts of life’s self-determining concern. This concern is not about mundane matters or personal  Heidegger (2010a), 133.

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well-­being but rather an existential determination of the world’s significance and one’s position within it. Heidegger refers to this existential distress as one’s preoccupation with not lapsing from the Origin. In the lecture course titled “Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression” (summer 1920), Heidegger suggests that Dasein becomes spoiled or corrupted (verdorben) when it lives in an artificial manner, focusing solely on its tasks and finding temporary tranquility as if it were “on the right path.”48 This avoidance of concern about straying from the Origin is an attempt by Dasein to maintain a sense of stability. Thus, Heidegger presents the Origin as both the form of life’s existential intelligibility (the Being of life) and the object of life’s concern. This implies that every form of life is determined by the way it confronts the worry of not deviating from its source of existential intelligibility. The distinction between staying close to the Origin and straying from it cannot be formulated as a prescriptive ethical doctrine. Instead, it is revealed within the lived experience as a quality of life’s directedness, which Heidegger refers to as a “fundamental experience.” This fundamental experience is a momentary insight into one’s existence, delving deep into the very essence of life, where one makes efforts to persevere, confront confusion and lack of understanding, resist subtle inclinations, and avoid overwhelming distress. This inner journey within one’s life is always a counteraction to the dispersing tendency of the event – life unfolds as one walks, and each step is taken in a terrain that has changed since the previous step. Indeed, the very nature of life-experience as an event necessitates a tendency for life to derail, to lose sight of its own intelligibility and deviate from its Origin. Therefore, a self-regulative effort to return life to its origin must be guided by a specific standard rooted in the enactment-sense of all life. Heidegger explicitly equated “existential” with “enactmental,”49 suggesting that this standard is accessible only within a particular mode of existence. The self is concerned about its own existence and is determined, in its Being, by its relational connection to the Origin, which serves as the standard for its existential intelligibility. The question remains whether such a standard can be immanent to life itself.

 Ibid.  “Meaning’ here must be grasped existentially (enacmentally) as moment of the existentiell explication, in factical experience.” Ibid., 143. 48 49

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It appears evident that the answer is “no.” An existential concern is meaningful only in light of life’s inherent insecurity and the distress caused by its inability to possess the Origin. This inability to have the Origin readily available characterizes the essence of enactment-sense. Even if one has a “fundamental experience,” it does not guarantee the continuity of existential meaningfulness in the next moment of the experiential event. Each new moment requires a fresh effort to resist the fading of meaning in existence.50 Heidegger asserts that a primordial enactment inherently includes the necessity of its renewal.51 Consequently, the Being of life (i.e., the Origin) possesses a transcendence that is distinct in nature. It is not merely transcendent to any specific life, requiring an act of self-transcendence (such as in a fundamental experience). Such transcendence would imply surpassing the essence of a thing while retaining its immanent existence. This separation between existence and essence is a prevalent theme in Western philosophy, exemplified by Plato’s concept of ideas. According to this perspective, a thing does not cease to exist simply because it is unaware of its own essence (idea). However, when considering that something becomes an original phenomenon only within an enactment that necessitates its renewal, it can hardly be said to exist in the same manner if such renewal fails. Therefore, Heidegger suggests in the 1920 summer course that human beings can be there (da sein) without existing.52 By referring to life’s intelligibility as existential, we implicitly assume the self-identity of existence and essence. In other words, life is fully intelligible as life only when it continuously realizes itself through a particular mode of existence. The essence of life is not something given but must be constantly actualized. The Origin must be conceived as a “formless form,” representing a direction of existence that manifests itself uniquely in each primordial enactment, only to elude grasp once again. Unlike the conventional interpretation of Plato’s idea, the form of life cannot be derived directly from the multitude of individual lives. Nonetheless, the essence of life lies in its aspiration to fulfill itself in accordance with the Origin from which it emerges. It is crucial to avoid understanding the concept of “emergence” in a metaphysical sense, as if the Origin were actively producing life. Instead, it should be understood enactmentally, as an inherent  Ibid., 26–27.  Ibid., 57. 52  Ibid., 62–63. 50 51

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determination of life’s self-sustaining process, rooted in a non-reifiable transcendent standard of its appropriate intelligibility. By liberating the idea of life from its traditional reified notion of finality and infusing it with an “existential spin,” Heidegger implicitly reveals its original affinity with Aristotle’s concept of the “unmoved mover.” The Origin, which serves as the form of life, propels and directs life without becoming an entity within it, thus remaining unmoved. In other words, life emerges from the Origin as a movement that is propelled by the Origin itself, which constitutes life’s existential concern. This “existential spin” liberates life from the traditional dichotomy between essence and existence. On one hand, life can only become fully intelligible as an event of existence by appropriating the standard of existential intelligibility. On the other hand, the very pursuit of such fulfillment defines life in its essence. Heidegger’s analysis of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians exemplifies the transcendent nature of the existential standard found in enactment. According to Heidegger, Paul makes enactment a theme.53 In the original Christian enactment, one does not escape from existential distress but confronts the suffering that arises from uncertainty and the imminent risk of falling. The conversion to Christian life revolves around enactment. By explicitly focusing on the sense of enactment, the facticity of Christian life becomes “more difficult.”54 However, this facticity cannot be achieved through one’s own strength; it originates from God. Nevertheless, God is not a secure foundation to rely on; instead, life continually seeks to find a foothold in God. This concrete example illustrates the ongoing need for renewal in primordial enactment. It embodies the necessary insecurity inherent in Christian life. The work of grace is paradoxical, transcending personal strength while still requiring steadfastness in truth.55 Here, we can discern a religious interpretation of the logic of the event of experience: the “strength” of life’s self-regulation arises from the pull of the Origin (the existential distress) on one hand, and one’s own efforts to avoid deviating from it on the other hand. Heidegger’s interpretation of a chaste fear of God as a fear of separation aligns perfectly with the fear to lapse from the very existential intelligibility of life, i.e., a fear of merely “being there” rather than existing.  Heidegger (2010b), 86.  Ibid., 86–87. 55  Ibid., 176. 53 54

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Both in religious and secular contexts, it is evident that the standard of existence is transcendent, although its explicit elaboration is still pending. Scott M. Campbell’s perspective aligns with this notion, suggesting that this standard belongs to the Being of Dasein.56 Moreover, since all reality’s manifestation is determined by Dasein’s relation to the Origin, the Origin should not be solely seen as relevant to Dasein’s life but as determining the Being of beings as such. Campbell shares this viewpoint, considering Heidegger’s ontological project as, in many aspects, “an exploration of the ontological origin of life.”57 Notably, the truth of staying near the Origin, or simply the truth of the Origin, can only be presented within Dasein’s sense of enactment. Although it is not a norm that can be universally expressed as a specific content, such as a practical, ethical, or any other kind of rule, it can serve as an illuminating guide towards an original enactment. This illumination originates from a source that Dasein does not possess or control, making it a transcendent illumination. Following the Phenomenology of Religious Life course, Heidegger highlights another crucial aspect of primordial enactment, which can also be found in early Christianity but is often obscured in religious traditions due to the adoption of non-original philosophizing and dogma. In the Phenomenological Interpretation of Aristotle, Heidegger elucidates that questionability is an essential characteristic of philosophical enactment. He asserts that questionability (Fraglichkeit) sharpens one’s attitude towards historical eventuality (Geschichte).58 The realm of historical eventuality pertains to the sustenance of existential significance, representing the temporal dimension of life’s endeavor to return to its Origin. Authentic temporality of life involves actively remaining open to “get a foothold” in existence, that is, to avoid lapsing from the Origin. This openness is precisely the questionability character of enactment. Life can only enact itself according to the elusive standard of its Being when it engages in self-questioning, particularly questioning Being itself. The question of Being then becomes a mode of life’s existence, reflecting its efforts to live in alignment with its transcendent Origin. As I previously stated, 56  According to Campbell, Heidegger early thinking of life as having an origin is a clear indication that he was moving towards the meaning of Being from the very start. Campbell (2012), 5. 57  Heidegger (2010a), 62–63. 58  Heidegger (2001), 4.

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the movement of life arising from the Origin is determined by the existential concern it holds for the Origin. We can now assert that this movement successfully avoids lapsing from its Origin when the very factor that propels it forward becomes life’s explicit concern as the question of Being.

5  Conclusion to Part 1 In this part, I have outlined the foundational elements of Heidegger’s decentering of subjectivity as they are articulated in the initial stages of his exploration towards an explicit embrace of a new understanding of transcendence. Heidegger’s conception of subjectivity as fundamentally relational and motivational was already evident during his Neo-Kantian phase in his early articles and Habilitation work. Drawing from Lask’s principle of material determination, Heidegger emphasized that beings determine their own modes of manifestation and possess their own truth in an original, pre-propositional sense. To facilitate the self-manifestation of phenomena, subjectivity had to be reconceived as a surrender to beings, offering itself as a realm in which the distinct ontological properties of things could become discerned. The relational sense, or the “how” of a being, took precedence over its concrete what-content, signifying its ens or relational Being. The relationality of Being corresponded to the relationality of subjectivity – it was the same relationality that determined both the form of human experiences and the manner in which a being was present as a being. The notion of a relation-sense already hinted at the potential for ontological plurality, wherein the sense of a being’s presence could vary based on the pre-reflective relation enacted by subjectivity. This implies that the relation-sense not only determines the form or essence of entities but, more importantly, their mode of presence or identity. These two aspects are inseparable and constitute what I have referred to as the “itself-ness” of beings, surpassing the conventional dichotomy between existence and essence. Paradoxically, subjectivity must relinquish itself to a thing in order to yield to the demand of its truth. Thus, an enactment is a form of surrender rather than a means of constituting beings based on subjective principles. This paradox becomes fully present in Heidegger’s first lecture courses, where he presents experience as an event that does not happen in front of us but determines the “for me” within its happening. The foundational role of enactment in every relation becomes the central focus of

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phenomenology, introducing an existential dimension in Heidegger’s thought that raises the question of the intelligibility of life in relation to its Origin. Life is revealed to be more than just constantly immersed “out there” in the world, without the need for an epistemological transcendence. It also exists in a perpetual state of falling away from the standard of its own intelligibility and its proper mode of presence. Unlike the traditional understanding of existence as separate from the intelligibility of a being, life becomes fully intelligible only within a specific mode of existence. The existential intelligibility of life goes beyond the distinction between existence and essence even more decisively than that of worldly beings, shedding light on a primordial dimension of the ontological plurality of beings. At this stage, Heidegger does not explicitly discuss a new sense of transcendence, yet even if he may not be fully aware of it, this novel understanding is already implicitly present in his early lectures. The concepts of Uretwas and Ursprung align with the what-sense and enactment-sense (including the relation-sense) of transcendence, forming a unified structure of life’s transcendence. In this light, life is bound in a double manner: 1) by the pre-worldly tendency of entities to enter life’s world as an experienceable sense-content (a tendency that corresponds to life’s own motivational essence), 2) by an existential concern to lapse from the Origin and the standard of life’s enactment in which this concern can be actualized as existence. Furthermore, the initial sense of life’s transcendence, as being bound to the Uretwas (which will later become “Being-in-the-world”), is only possible due to the existential transcendence (the relationship between life and the Origin). Without this existential dimension, the significance of one’s enactment and the motivational core of life that allows beings to manifest would lack meaning. While a novel understanding of transcendence underlies Heidegger’s ideas during this period, it still requires explicit articulation. In the 1923–1924 semester, Heidegger observes that “transcendence today is always thought of as compared to consciousness, no one moves beyond the sphere of consciousness.”59 However, as we have witnessed, by conceiving experience as an event, Heidegger has already surpassed the confines of consciousness in his early Freiburg lectures. Consequently, a new conception of transcendence must inevitably ensue. The practical dimension of this conception, which was initially  Heidegger (2005), 233.

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hinted at in the Habilitation, is developed further by emphasizing the significance of the enactment-sense. Instead of pursuing the shaping of transcendent material, the authentic drive of life is manifested in its active pursuit of primordial enactment. It is precisely this existentially performative self-enactment of life that will assume a central role in Heidegger’s later explicit formulation of transcendence in the late 1920s.

References Braver, Lee. 2014. Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. The MIT Press. Campbell, Scott M. 2012. The Early Heidegger’s Philosophy of Life: Facticity, Being, and Language. Fordham University Press. Crowell, Steven. 1992. Lask, Heidegger, and the Homelessness of Logic. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 23. Dilthey, Wilhelm. 2010. Selected Works, Volume II: Understanding the Human World, 1st ed. Princeton University Press. Heidegger, Martin. 2001. Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz. Indiana University Press. ———. 2005. Introduction to Phenomenological Research. Trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Indiana University Press. ———. 2008. Towards the Definition of Philosophy (Continuum Impacts, 49). Trans. Ted Sadler. Continuum. ———. 2010a. Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers). Trans. Tracy Colony. Continuum. ———. 2010b. The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Indiana University Press. ———. 2013. Basic Problems of Phenomenology: Winter Semester 1919/1920. Trans. Scott. M., Campbell. Bloomsbury Academic. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2013. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Donald Landes. Routledge.

PART II

Heidegger’s Transcendental Phenomenology as the Philosophy of Transcendence

CHAPTER 3

The Transcendental Logic of Dasein

1   Who is Dasein? Although Being and Time does not provide an extensive exploration of the concept of transcendence, unlike the subsequent lecture courses, it could aptly be referred to as “Transcendence of Being as Time.” Transcendence appears early in the book as a central notion that ties together the double fabric of the treatise: the co-determinative problematic of the Being of entities and Dasein’s possibility of radical individuation. Being, as the basic theme of philosophy, is no class or genus of entities; yet it pertains to every entity. Its ‘universality’ is to be sought higher up. Being and the structure of Being lie beyond every entity and every possible character which an entity may possess. Being is the transcendens pure and simple. And the transcendence of Dasein’s Being is distinctive in that it implies the possibility and the necessity of the most radical individuation. Every disclosure of Being as the transcendens is transcendental knowledge. Phenomenological truth (the disclosedness of Being) is veritas transcendentalis.1

To understand this paragraph is to understand the philosophical framework of the treatise, but that requires correctly seizing what “transcendence” means here. In the passage quoted, Heidegger appears to discuss 1

 Heidegger (1962), 62.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Kuravsky, Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41291-2_3

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two senses of transcendence – a traditional sense referred to as “transcendens” and another sense pertaining to the Being of Dasein. However, these two senses are interconnected, as Dasein discloses Being as the transcendens, thereby enabling transcendental knowledge as phenomenological truth. Heidegger does not intend to present two separate instances of transcendence  – one for Being itself and another for Dasein’s Being. Instead, he implies from the beginning that the transcendence of Being needs to be reinterpreted as the transcendence of Dasein’s Being. This does not imply reducing Being to Dasein’s Being, but rather recognizing that what Heidegger calls “Dasein” characterizes Being in a manner that is relevant to the novel understanding of Being’s transcendence. As Heidegger stresses in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, the problem of (Dasein’s) transcendence must be posited as the problem of Being as such.2 Therefore, it is necessary to briefly clarify the position of the notion of “Dasein” within Heidegger’s ontological inquiry. The term “Dasein” can be somewhat perplexing. On one hand, it refers to an entity (a being) “which each of us is himself.”3 Transcendence then characterizes the Being of this specific entity. However, it is not easy to grasp what is meant by such an entity. It is not simply an objectively present human being. Being and Time meticulously argues against Dasein being an objectively present entity. Therefore, it would be a mistake to compile a list of present human characteristics and claim that they constitute Dasein. The issue lies not in Dasein being a form of humanity that excludes familiar human traits, but rather in the fact that what we typically refer to as “human” and elucidate through psychological, sociological, physiological, and other objective terms is a determination of an objectified entity, an anthropos of anthropology. In contrast, the introduction of the concept of Dasein by Heidegger signifies a de-anthropomorphizing of human beings. It calls for a reevaluation of what it truly means to be human in terms of the Being of Dasein.4 In the early Freiburg lectures, we can discern the initial stages of de-­ anthropomorphizing. Life-experience reveals itself as an event where the essence of beings is enacted, allowing for their appropriation. Rather than being a composition of present elements, life exists solely as a striving to attain the standard of its own existence, namely, its existential intelligibility  Heidegger (1984), 153.  Heidegger (1962), 27. 4  “The question of being and its variations and possibilities is at heart of the correctly understood question of man” (Heidegger (1984), 18). “What is needed now is the great inversion, one beyond all ‘revaluation of values,’ an inversion in which beings are not grounded on the human being, but humanness on beyng”(Heidegger (2012a), 145). 2 3

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or Origin from which it fears to deviate. I have emphasized that the Origin of life transcends the conventional distinction between existence and essence. Thus, for life to lapse from its Origin implies more than falling short of an idealized notion of life; it signifies a cessation of existence in a manner befitting life itself. It is important to note that this does not imply the disappearance of an objectively observable body corresponding to a thus failed life. Nonetheless, life would be reduced to a physiological-­ psychological complex, where one may still be considered “alive” but lacking true existence. Existence entails a distinctive mode of the life event, which cannot be reduced to mere biological and psychological vitality. In Being and Time, Heidegger explicitly states the overcoming of the existence-essence dichotomy by saying that “the essence of Dasein lies in its existence” and that Dasein must be thought of not in terms of present properties but in terms of its possible ways to be.5 Additionally, Heidegger does not claim that Dasein is the essential nature of a human being or that all individuals are Dasein. Instead, he states that Dasein is the entity that each of us is, emphasizing the significance of individuality in the context of Dasein’s transcendence and the imperative of radical individuation. Accordingly, thinking of Being in relation to the Being of Dasein must illuminate what Heidegger means by a “universality” of Being that stands “higher” than the general essence of entities (i.e., class, genus, etc.). Such a “universality” must be somehow determined by the “each,” that is, by the possibility of radical individuation. Being must pertain each time to an entity beyond “every possible character” it may possess. Notably, Kierkegaard has previously argued that the individual is higher than the universal as he “asserts himself in his singularity before the universal”,6 even though he is not himself the origin of the validity of such an assertion (only God is). Apart from the religious tone, this is the right direction to think of the Being-Dasein relation: Being is Dasein-ish; that is, it gives a singular “there” for beings themselves beyond and above their general characteristics.7 As expressed by Heidegger in his 1931 lectures, stating that beings are gathered in Dasein is equivalent to stating that beings are gathered in one.8 Through the analysis of Dasein, we gain insights into the nature of Being itself. The ontological difference, far from being an unbridgeable  Heidegger (1962), 67.  Kierkegaard (1983), 54. 7  Heidegger clearly says that the Being of a stone and the Being of the one who experiences it are not two (see Heidegger (1984), 13). Hence, as long as we do not reduce Dasein to objectified human essence, the Being of Dasein is inseparable from Being “as such.” 8  Heidegger (1995a), 109. 5 6

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gap, serves as an indication of what must be emphasized above any specific being in order to grasp how it is. The ontological difference is thus also the directive to de- anthropomorphize human existence as pointing out the Dasein-ish character of Being and illuminating the fact of the individual itself-ness of beings. Beings emerge in their in-themselves, says Heidegger, only if Dasein gives itself anything like Being.9 Being “lends to beings that which they are.”10 It is important to recognize that the “itself-­ ness” of beings does not refer to their metaphysical essence in terms of a singular or overarching structure of their being. Richard Capobianco highlights the inconsistency in Heidegger’s usage of the term “Being of beings” in his works. At times, Heidegger uses it critically to refer to the metaphysical notion of beingness (Seiendheit), while at other times, he employs it in his own non-metaphysical sense of Being.11 However, beingness is not entirely separate from Being; rather, it represents a factual way in which Being manifests itself in beings. In Being and Time, Heidegger briefly mentions “beingness” in a footnote, noting that traditionally Being was understood as the most general concept. In Contributions, however, he extensively employs the term, using it over 200 times to refer to the metaphysical method of deducing Being from manifest beings. Importantly, what is deduced in this process is not something entirely distinct from Being; beingness is not an additional third term alongside Being and beings. All beings, through their beingness, reveal something about Being. For instance, the mere fact that beings are present in the world and persist over time indicates a connection between Being and presence and temporality. The issue with beingness lies in its tendency to conflate a specific manifestation of Being with Being itself and to consider this manifestation solely in terms of the structural aspects of beings. Still, Being as such is not something separable from beingness but includes it as a necessary form of the essence of beings corresponding to the itself-ness of beings discussed in Part I as the mode of beings’ self-identity. The beingness of beings is grounded in Beyng in its essential occurrence.12 Hence, the aim is not to reject beingness but to understand what it is about Being that – though inseparable from it – transcends and, nevertheless, includes it. My answer will be formulated in terms of what I have called in the previous chapters “the itself-ness of beings.” Unlike beingness, the itself-ness of a  Heidegger (1984), 153.  Heidegger (2012a), 73. 11  Capobianco (2011), 15. 12  Heidegger (2012a), 13. 9

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phenomenon cannot be reduced to the general structure of what is present in it; instead, it relates to the event of its individual presence. It cannot be derived through abstraction from beings. Kant understood such a manifestation of individual itself-ness as receptive intuition and the thing-in-itself. I will address this connection in the upcoming section of this chapter. However, for Heidegger, such a manifestation must be understood within the framework of the event of life/Dasein as the unfolding of Dasein’s possibilities for being. Conversely, Dasein’s existence must be understood in terms of the universal individuation of Being itself. Heidegger asserts that all metaphysical approaches fail when Dasein is comprehended in thought.13 The transition from Being as beingness to Being as transcending the universality of any category and revealing the itself-ness of individually appearing beings involves moving away from a pre-Dasein-like understanding of Being towards a comprehension of Dasein as belonging to Being itself. As Heidegger stresses in one of his last seminars in 1969, “Being, however, for its opening, needs man as the there of its manifestation.”14 Accordingly, as the following chapters will elucidate, the fundamental distinction between metaphysical beingness and the Being of beings implies that Being requires Dasein as the existential structure necessary for beings to historically manifest themselves in one of their possible modes of itself-ness. By introducing the concept of an existential structure, Heidegger not only transcends the dichotomy between existence and essence but also highlights the intricacy of Dasein’s existence. Heidegger specifically chose the term “Dasein” because the essence of the entity under investigation (human beings) is not a mere “what,” but rather a fact of its having its Being as its own.15 Such a “having” has the character of understanding – Dasein understands itself in terms of its existence.16 However, Dasein also understands Being as such – “understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein’s Being.” Consequently, Heidegger asserts that Dasein is ontological. In fact, since Dasein exists only by understanding itself through understanding Being – not explicitly and intermittently, but implicitly and continuously – there is an essential interdependency between Dasein’s Being and Being itself. Being, Heidegger says, is dependent upon the understanding of Being.17 Some scholars interpret this as an indication  Ibid., 235.  Heidegger (2012b), 132. 15  Heidegger (1962), 33. 16  Ibid. 17  Ibid., 255. 13 14

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of early Heidegger’s subjectivism or anthropocentrism, as if things in the world would only manifest as long as human beings exist. However, such an interpretation overlooks the non-anthropological sense of Dasein and the ontological difference that separates entities from their Being. The dependence of which Heidegger speaks is no doubt a complex issue, and it will be thoroughly addressed in the following chapters. Nevertheless, considering what we have learned from Heidegger’s early lectures and what Heidegger says about the sense of Dasein after Being and Time, I propose the following preliminary description of Dasein: Dasein is the there-character of Being itself that allows its explicit intelligibility as an event of beings’ concrete self-manifestation. As Capobianco puts it, Dasein is not “something” that discloses but the “activity” of disclosure.18 Being thus has understanding as its “property” in the sense that beings must be gathered in a particular way to constitute something like an intelligible world (i.e., a unity). There might be many ways in which beings make sense as existing, yet any such way is an understanding and hence an event of the there-character of Being. As Gadamer stresses, the real question of Being and Time is not how we can understand Being but “in what way understanding is being, for the understanding of being represents the existential distinction of Dasein.”19 In this perspective, it is undeniable that there can be no Being without Dasein. The issue in Being and Time lies in Heidegger’s close association of Dasein with human existence, which exposes the treatise to potential misinterpretation with an anthropocentric bias. The idea that the transcendence of Dasein and the transcendence of Being represent two distinct types of transcendence also falls into this misinterpretation.20 Nevertheless, if we attentively heed Heidegger’s words that Dasein is an ontological entity, we can arrive at the following interpretation of Dasein as the there-character of Being itself. An “ontological entity” implies the mutual determination of beings and Being; we cannot simply introduce an “understanding of Being” to a being without repercussions for the structure of Being itself. Therefore, Dasein must embody the very principle through which Being manifests intelligibly in beings, thus shaping the specific significance of Being’s transcendence in relation to beings. The concept of “understanding” holds  Capobianco (2011), 90.  Gadamer (2008), 49. 20  See for example Engelland (2019). 18 19

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great importance here. Understanding involves unveiling and illuminating the intelligibility of something, setting it free. When we understand something, we do not add anything to it or create a replica within our minds. Instead, we allow the thing to manifest its intelligibility within the realm of our existence (which is not necessarily confined to consciousness). The “primary something” in the early lectures can only be experienced, that is, can only manifest as a concrete being, in understanding.21 In this light, understanding a being coincides with the being itself. Understanding the number “3” encompasses the very essence of that number. It is both a pathway to accessing the intelligibility of a being and a liberation of that intelligibility. By understanding itself, Dasein has itself in understanding. Nevertheless, by doing so, Dasein also uncovers the intelligibility of Being. To say that Being is intelligible is to say that it is understood, that is, that there is a “there” upon or rather within which it is being projected. This point requires further elucidation. As we recall from the early lectures, beings lack a singular form that encompasses the entire universe. Instead, there exists a potential multitude of ways in which beings can manifest and the corresponding forms that these ways entail. One specific form “supersedes” the other possibilities only within a restrictive relationship, that is, within a particular enacted event of life-experience. This relationship restricts and fulfills a particular form. However, such a “restriction” is inherently positive.22 Prior to the imposition of a form, no intelligible and meaningful whole can be posited. Consider, for instance, the ­assumption of a super-intelligible order that unifies all potential orders into a universal cosmos. By doing so, we would implicitly assume a certain homogeneity among the possible types of intelligibility, thereby disregarding the plurality of modes that Being embodies.23 Since, as Gadamer pointed out, Being is understanding, the event of Dasein’s understanding of Being is nothing but an event of Being’s self-­ understanding (enacted by Dasein). Prior to the event of Being’s self-­ understanding, there is simply no intelligibility to it, at least not as something that could “function” as the Being of beings. Hence, any  Heidegger (2008), 97.  It is a limitation that can be compared to the way a rock is being limited when one makes a statue of it. The concealed entirety of a thing’s possible Being is a full nothingness. As Heidegger later formulates it, nothingness is higher than anything “positive” or “negative” in the totality of beings (Heidegger (2012a), 210). 23  A peculiar, non-metaphysical sense of intelligibility of the truth of Beyng pertaining to all modes of Being will be discussed in Chap. 7. 21 22

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concrete mode of Being is already an understood and enacted mode of Being. Heidegger’s phenomenology is hermeneutical not only because the essence of a phenomenon is historically determined, both in terms of personal history and history as a whole, and thus necessitates interpretation, but also because Being itself is subject to such determination. What is crucial to recognize here is that the event of Being’s self-­ understanding and self-gathering into one particular form of existence is simultaneously the event of entities’ manifestation in this form. Therefore, to assert that Dasein is an ontological entity is to emphasize the singularity of this event and connect it to human self-understanding. Human beings are Dasein in the sense that human existence is inconceivable without the event of Being’s self-understanding and must be regarded as the paradigm of such self-understanding. Heidegger states that Being “is the originary nature of the understanding-of-being.”24 While Being does not inherently require intelligibility or understanding, the absence of understanding would render it irrelevant to us and all other beings. It is important to note that “understanding” is not an external element separate from Being (let us once again refrain from reducing understanding solely to its subjective cognitive form). Understanding is not an addition to Being, nor a discernible entity in itself. Rather, understanding is existential—it is the manner in which Being reveals itself in beings. Heidegger later distinguishes between human beings and Dasein explicitly to emphasize that Dasein belongs to Being and is not synonymous with humanity as a whole.25 In Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event), Dasein is described as nothing but a thrown understanding projected by Being as the grounding of its truth as event.26 The projection of Being (in understanding) is the essence of Being itself.27 Moreover, earlier  Heidegger (1984), 147.  “Da-sein is to be grounded only as inabiding the en-ownment of enowning, that is, from out of be-ing. Therefore, any attempt at grasping Da-sein predominantly or even exclusively with a view towards man remains inadequate. The Da-sein is equally fundamental for god and is equally fundamentally determined by the relation to the world and the earth which preserve their swaying ownhood in Da-sein. Nevertheless, the relation of Da-sein to man in the sense of an ‘owning-to, and hinting’ mindfulness and naming has a preeminence that requires that the immediate projecting-open of Da-sein goes through man (see Sein und Zeit)” (Heidegger (2016), 290). 26  Heidegger (2012a), 358–359. 27  Ibid., 355. 24 25

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in Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, we hear that “in philosophizing the Da-sein in man launches the attack upon man.”28 And in 1931 Heidegger stresses that Dasein is not man as such, “but only in so far as he continually transforms himself in his history and returns to the ground of his essence.”29 It is evident that the notion of “Dasein” aims to deconstruct human existence and liberate it from its conventional anthropological subjectivity. However, being human entails existing in a manner that involves Dasein as the criterion for the comprehensibility of one’s own existence. In Being and Time, we should consider Dasein as a human way of embodying a specific characteristic of Being—a characteristic that reveals the meaning of Being as a manifestation of its own radiance, which unfolds through understanding. This is precisely why fundamental ontology must commence with the examination of human existence. Humans are not merely one instance of existing entities; they exist either as an explicit embodiment of Being’s self-understanding or as a self-concealing tendency that always accompanies it. The distinction between these two modes of existence relates to what we encountered in the aforementioned passage—the imperative for the radical individualization of Dasein’s transcendence. It becomes apparent that this necessity somehow pertains to the essence of Being itself. Authenticity and inauthenticity are not properties that exclusively pertain to humans in the narrow anthropological sense, but rather they disclose something about Being in its entirety.30 From this perspective, the “preparatory question” concerning the Being of Dasein is not a mere philosophical warm-up before delving into the fundamental question of Being; rather, it is the sole pathway to approach this question. When Heidegger states in Being and Time that exhibiting the constitution of Dasein is only “a way,” the focus should not be on the indefinite article “a,” but rather on “way” itself. The use of the indefinite article does not suggest the possibility of alternative paths, but rather serves to contrast “a way” with “the aim” of fundamental ontology in the subsequent sentence. It is undeniable that Heidegger’s subsequent reflections on Being as such only became viable due to the earlier analysis of Dasein’s Being. This analysis initially illuminated the “syntax” of the  Heidegger (1984), 21.  Heidegger (2002a), 82. 30  I will return to this subject in Chaps. 8 and 9. 28 29

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intelligibility of Being, opening up new avenues for thinking about Being. Even when Heidegger does not explicitly employ the term Dasein, he remains immersed in the currents revealed through the investigation of the there-character of Being. In essence, in order to grasp the transcendence of Being, Being itself must be reinterpreted through its there-character, which manifests as an event of self-understanding. Therefore, when I assert that Dasein is not human in the ordinary sense but rather a “feature of Being,” it is not a detached and abstract attribute that can be contemplated independently of human existence. Consequently, Heidegger’s initial alignment of Dasein with human beings is methodologically essential, and I will adhere to his approach when interpreting Being and Time. First and foremost, it is important to note that the concept of Being’s manifestation in beings, which is ontologically distinct from it, and the notion of Dasein’s transcendence constitute a specific ontological problem. The understanding associated with this problem, as per Heidegger, is regarded as transcendental knowledge. In fact, Heidegger presents fundamental ontology as a “transcendental philosophy” or, as he phrases it in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, a “transcendental science.” In the subsequent part of this chapter, I will explore the relationship between Heidegger’s ideas of “transcendence” and “transcendental.”

2   Transcendence as the theme of transcendental philosophy The relationship between “transcendence” and “transcendental” is a significant point that requires clarification for readers of Heidegger’s early philosophy. There appears to be considerable confusion surrounding this matter. In fact, the use of the term “transcendental” by Heidegger, along with his analysis in terms of “what makes something possible,” often misleads readers and leads them to perceive fundamental ontology as a variant of transcendental philosophy in the traditional sense of Kant or Husserl. This confusion has even given rise to a “transcendental school” within Heidegger scholarship. While this school sheds light on certain important historical connections, it fails to fully appreciate the distinctive departure that Heidegger made from the transcendental philosophy of Kant and Husserl.

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Heidegger bears a significant responsibility for the confusion surrounding this topic, as he constantly explored various strategies to convey his insights. We have observed how he moved away from the early Neo-­ Kantian and scholastic conceptual framework in favor of the language of life-philosophy in his early lectures. In these lectures, Heidegger’s discussions about the traditional transcendental method are often ambiguous. On one hand, he criticizes the Marburg school for limiting reality to the natural mathematical sciences. On the other hand, he appreciates Cohen’s interpretation of Kant for shedding light on the logical foundations of reality.31 He also presents Rickert’s transcendental philosophy as recognizing that “nature” is not merely a world of physical bodies, but rather the Being of things.32 Still, in the Phenomenology of Religious Life, Heidegger insists that transcendental ideas are not only insufficient but obstruct the (religious) problematic.33 It is important to note that the religious inquiry in these lectures is inseparable from Heidegger’s philosophy and touches upon its existential core, addressing the meaningful enactment of life. Heidegger suggests that in order to grasp the problem of enactment, one must free oneself from transcendental formulations. In the preceding semester, Heidegger also highlights that the inadequacy of the transcendental method becomes apparent when considering the articulation of the self. Such articulation cannot be achieved through a “logically demanded reflexive relationship to a consciousness in general.”34 Heidegger draws parallels between Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and the Neo-Kantian method, asserting that neither can come “to the center of original science.”35 When we consider Heidegger’s early assessments of transcendental philosophies together, a clear perspective emerges. While it is essential to address the logical foundation of reality in terms of the Being of entities, transcendental philosophies fail to recognize the existential nature of this foundation. To arrive at the original science of the Being of entities, one must challenge several assumptions inherent in the transcendental method. Firstly, it is crucial to understand that reality or nature is not a realm of objective entities. This does not imply that nature follows a different  Heidegger (2008), 120.  Ibid., 144. 33  Heidegger (2010a), 193. 34  Heidegger (2013), 127. 35  Ibid., 173., 31 32

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(“non-objective”) order grounded in some a priori structure of consciousness. Any such relationship to consciousness assumes a separation between essence and existence, and presupposes the possibility of a universal grammar of Being that precedes life’s self-enactment. Moreover, the traditional question of the possibility of phenomena assumes the existence of a final, unconditioned, or absolute ground that can provide an answer. Heidegger later labels this pursuit as ontotheological. Ontotheological thinking, as a speculative interpretation of Being, posits an absolute Logos that determines all beings.36 This absolute Logos is viewed as the ultimate, highest, and most existent ground. Regardless of the historical and individual variations that shape each unique life, there must be an eidos of life, a transcendental ground that delineates the potential sense of this multiplicity. Metaphysics, in the form of ontotheology, regards Being as something that applies to all beings but cannot be reduced to any specific being. It is considered the general ground of beings.37 Furthermore, this ground is inevitably linked to consciousness itself, specifically to the transcendental ego that guarantees its universality and self-certainty. The concept of a single determinate ground arises from the introspective experience of representational consciousness. Consequently, consciousness is understood as the “most real” or as the internal constitution of the reality of the real. Nevertheless, Heidegger subtly hinted at ontological plurality even in his early lectures. There exists a potential manifold of forms and senses of being-present (identity) that contribute to the plurality of what it means for a being to be itself. Therefore, if Dasein’s existence is to be identified as a transcendental ground of beings, it must be understood not as a specific type of essence (not even the “highest” one), but as the existential source of ontological plurality within the event of beings’ “essensing” (or “coming to essence”). The disparity between Heidegger’s transcendental phenomenology and the principal representatives of the transcendental tradition lies precisely in the divergence between an ontology based on Dasein and the event of Being’s self-understanding, and the traditional ontotheology centered around an absolute ground. As Heidegger explains in Mindfulness, the sense of “theology” in ontotheology is not “theological” in the Judeo-Christian sense but represents the knowledge of what

 Heidegger (1988a), 98.  Heidegger (2002b), 58.

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cannot be changed (akineton), that is to a single, unchangeable sense of Being as constant presence.38 Since this book does not aim at analyzing the whole complexity of Heidegger’s relation to transcendental philosophy39 but instead seeks to elucidate his notion of transcendence, I shall only address Heidegger’s transcendental method in the aspects that contribute to the interpretation of transcendence. According to Heidegger, these two notions are closely intertwined. In his lecture course Introduction to Philosophy (winter 1928–29), Heidegger provides clarification on his understanding of “transcendental” as follows: By this we mean, first of all, everything that belongs to transcendence as such; secondly, we call transcendental everything that in its inner possibility points back to transcendence. What transcendental means can only be discussed if the essence of transcendence is determined.40

Heidegger emphasizes that understanding the essence of transcendence is essential to grasp the meaning of the term “transcendental.” This has significant implications for the overall project of interpreting early Heidegger, as its central theme, ontology, revolves around transcendental knowledge that points towards a transcendental truth.41 According to Heidegger, such knowledge either directly addresses transcendence or, at the very least, possesses the potential to do so. In other words, while the inquiry into the meaning of Being motivates Heidegger’s entire philosophical endeavor, transcendence represents the explicit focus of his early investigations. From Heidegger’s words, it can be inferred that contemplating transcendence allows us to engage with the transcendental problematic concerning the meaning of Being. The relation between transcendence and transcendental is not novel. On the contrary, Heidegger uncovers an essential element of all transcendental philosophies. Specifically, the traditional understanding of “transcendental philosophy” as addressing the conditions for the possibility of experience implies that the experiencing subject transcends in some sense. In a later work, The Principle of Reason Heidegger highlights the  Heidegger (2016), 332.  For a recent analysis of such a relation see Engelland (2019). 40  Heidegger (2001), 207. Similar definition is given in What is a thing? (Heidegger (1970), 176). 41  Heidegger (2001), 208. Also Heidegger (1988b), 17. 38 39

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commonly misunderstood sense of “transcendental” in Kant’s philosophy. The term is used so extensively in philosophy that it may appear to encompass any condition that enables something else. However, the fact that I need to purchase a ticket to attend a concert is not a transcendental condition for the experience of the concert itself. As Kant writes in the Critique of Pure Reason, transcendental logic deals with “the origin of our cognitions of objects insofar as that cannot be ascribed to the objects.”42 The sort of “fact” that allows me to experience a concert must not itself belong to the region of objectivities. Accordingly, the transcendence at play in transcendental logic is a passage beyond the object of experience.43 Importantly, Kant does not classify geometry as transcendental logic, even though it consists of a priori knowledge. Geometry does not explain the possibility of a priori knowledge or, in Heidegger’s terminology, how the intelligibility of beings’ presence relates to beings a priori. From this perspective, Heidegger’s early analysis of phenomena in terms of the triple sense-schema serves as an entry point to his transcendental logic. It addresses the event of life-experience as the enactment of a particular mode of a thing’s presence. Such an event does not fall within the realm of objective reality but enables it, rendering it transcendental. Thus, Heidegger’s interest lies in the transcendental logic of enactment as it determines the Being of phenomena. However, it is important to note that the notion of transcendentality in terms of enactment-sense differs from the Kantian understanding. The distinction lies in the different conceptions of transcendence implied by each perspective. We may inquire: where does Kant’s execution of transcendental logic transcend towards? It transcends towards transcendental consciousness, which encompasses the forms of intelligibility pertaining to the understanding of the subject. Kant recognizes what I have argued in the previous section – something is only intelligible when it is understood. Understanding signifies the manner in which something is gathered as a unified intelligible entity. However, for Kant, this unity is determined by transcendental consciousness. In contrast, Heidegger adheres to the principle of material determination, where the forms of a thing’s intelligibility arise from the thing or material itself. This may seem contradictory to Kant’s critical limitations, but Heidegger emphasizes that we misunderstand these restrictions. Kant  Kant (1988), 196.  Heidegger (1996), 77.

42 43

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simply rejects the transcendence of objects along with the possibility of their foundation.44 Due to his adherence to the existence-essence and subject-­ object distinctions, Kant could not entertain the idea that understanding, which forms the basis of objective intelligibility, could pertain to the thing-­ in-­ itself. He could not seriously contemplate such a possibility. Consequently, Kant had to situate understanding within transcendental consciousness and develop a transcendental logic that restricts rather than explains transcendence in the sense that Heidegger pursues. Prior to Heidegger, Hegel had already challenged Kant’s restriction. According to Hegel, the intelligibility of human experience is not purely subjective, detached from the things themselves. Instead, it characterizes the absolute spirit. However, Hegel mistakenly identified a specific form of intelligibility (that of theoretical reason) as the essence of intelligibility itself, thus overlooking the existential source of all intelligibility. Hegel implicitly acknowledged that understanding belongs to Being, but he failed to recognize (or “forgot,” as Kierkegaard sarcastically observed) that Being is intelligible not only as essence but also as existence. The standard of existential intelligibility, that is, what it means for something to exist, cannot be found solely through reflection on consciousness. As Heidegger argued in his early lectures, accessing the Origin is only possible through a particular form of existence, as a directive for the renewal of a primordial enactment of life. It never becomes a present principle serving as the ultimate foundation of all intelligibility. In principle, there can be no final “transcendental logic," but only an existential elucidation of the event of Dasein’s transcendentality.45 Kant’s restriction is met in the finitude of understanding. Though, for Heidegger, to understand Being is to receive the guidelines for unconcealing beings from the thing itself (i.e., from its Being), such understanding never exhausts the ontological possibilities hidden in Being. In Kant and The Problem of Metaphysics, Kant’s transcendental knowledge is said not to investigate the essent but the possibility of a precursory comprehension of the Being of the essent; that is, it concerns “reason’s passing beyond (transcendence) to the essent (Seinde) so that experience can be rendered adequate to the latter as its possible object.”46 In this  Ibid., 78.  Such a science, says Heidegger, can never become a fixed possession and “can be obtained only if it is each time sought anew” (Heidegger (1984), 11). 46  Heidegger (1997), 16. 44 45

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earlier work, transcendence is meant as passing beyond to the essent. Transcendental knowledge is then a knowledge of how such transcendence founds beings as beings. Hence, it appears that Heidegger recognizes two senses of transcendence in Kant during different periods of his own thinking: transcendence towards beings and transcendence beyond beings towards their objecthood. The two, however, belong together and determine the scope of transcendental philosophies beyond which Heidegger leaps. Namely, both senses are subject-centered. One either goes beyond the subject to meet the object or goes beyond the object to illuminate the subjective source of the intelligibility of beings (i.e., the categories of understanding). We could argue that traditional transcendental philosophy solely addresses the conditions of transcendence from a subjective standpoint, thereby assuming the subject-object distinction. Crucially, these conditions are subjective not only in the sense of belonging to the transcendental ego. The sense of transcendental ego can, in principle, be stretched way beyond any individual “subjectivity” – as it happens in Husserl or Hegel – and encompass the entire cosmos as its way of Being. However, what the transcendentalists overlook is the more radical point that the essence of “subjectivity” lies in serving as a subject-ticity, as that which underlies the world of lived experience, providing its intelligible structure. Subjectum is posited, says Heidegger, when we assume a subject as given.47 To be given means to be pre-determined apart, or before, the event of uncovering.48 Heidegger emphasizes this point repeatedly  – sub-jecticity is Being thought of as the pre-determined a priori structure of beings; it only becomes associated with the human ego after Descartes. Philosophies of sub-jectum think transcendence (onto)-theologically as the unconditioned ground beyond contingent, changing beings.49 However, assuming such a predetermined a priori structure fails to recognize the existential source of beings’ intelligibility, which requires not a  Heidegger (1962), 72.  The concept of “substance” must also be thought as sub-jectum (Heidegger (1984), 32). Accordingly, those readers of Heidegger who stress that he criticizes the metaphysics of substance must be careful that the alternative is not another version of sub-jectum metaphysics, namely, of a metaphysics that assumes some underlying principle determining the unfolding of the universe in an infinite, self-grounded understanding. Such metaphysics would still be sub-jective even if it has nothing to do with human subjectivity. 49  “[Theological] Transcendence is stepping-over in the sense of lying beyond conditioned beings.” Heidegger (1984), 161. 47 48

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sub-ject but Da-sein whose existence unfolds as an event. Dasein’s transcendence does not merely reveal various “forms” of beings (a sufficiently complex sub-jectivity could accomplish that as well), but also different modes or senses of presence. As Levinas noticed, the traditional (sub-ject centered) form of ontology never really goes beyond but sticks within its own pre-determined mode of making-intelligible (i.e., of the “same”). In contrast, the Origin of life, discussed in the previous chapter, only becomes accessible each time for a moment, never as a present ground of the sub-­ ject, and always sustaining the insecurity of a groundless ground-giving of life. Accordingly, attributing the notion of transcendence to traditional transcendental philosophy is somewhat misleading. Heidegger argues that Kant never truly addresses transcendence in its essence because he operates within the framework of the conventional understanding of subjectivity. It is this conventional notion of subjectivity, which conceives of transcendence epistemologically as the relation between subject and object, that restricts Kant’s transcendental project to an investigation of the conditions for subjective intelligibility of beings.50 In contrast, Heidegger, in Being and Time, views transcendence as a “there” for beings themselves, unrestricted by a rigid ontotheological presupposition of a single sub-jective ground. According to Heidegger, Kant fails to achieve the primary phenomenon of transcendence,51 as he does not see it as an original and essential determination of the ontological constitution of Dasein.52 Hence, Heidegger stresses in the Phenomenological Interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason: The problem of transcendence is usually-and also in Kant-initiated as a problem by putting the subject at one side and the object on the other side as two extant beings. But the subject is such a thing [res] which has representations in itself and in addition knows about this having representations and their having been had. The problem now is the following: How can representations in the subject ‘come together’ with their objects?

The fact that Kant conceives transcendence in terms of a subject-object distinction, and Heidegger’s emphasis that this problem consists of relating two present (extant) beings are interconnected aspects. Transcendence  Heidegger (1995a, b), 319.  Ibid., 247. 52  Ibid., 315. 50 51

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is thought of in light of the traditional assumption that Being is nothing but extantness, an assumption inevitable for thinking that reduces all sense to the content-sense of entities viewed as present-at-hand things. Although, in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Heidegger’s attitude is much less critical then in the Phenomenological Interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason, it is only because the aim of this book is not to show where Kant and the entire history of metaphysics before him went wrong, but to “bring to light the basic originality of the origin of metaphysics” by repeating “the laying of the foundation of metaphysics”.53 In other words, the Kant book does not seek to merely clarify Kant’s intended message as a philosopher of the past in order to teach “Kant’s philosophy,” for Heidegger does not engage in second-hand scholarship of that kind. Instead, his objective is to engage in original philosophical inquiry, approaching each exploration from a different perspective and initiating a leading into philosophy, an “Einführung” or “Einleitung” in the German sense of the term—an act of introducing and initiating philosophizing.54 In this way, Kant-book serves as an entry point to a problematic of which Kant himself was unaware. Nevertheless, Kant-book presents the most detailed account of the reason Heidegger feels a unique affinity to Kant – a relation between transcendence and time. This point cannot be fully elucidated until I have addressed the relationship between transcendence and temporality in Heidegger (See Chap. 6). However, I can touch upon a few aspects here that are sufficient to highlight Heidegger’s departure from the Kantian transcendental tradition. In Being and Time, Heidegger writes that “[t]he first and only person who has gone any stretch of the way towards investigating the dimension of Temporality or has even let himself be drawn hither by the coercion of the phenomena themselves is Kant.”55 In Heidegger’s view, Kant’s insight regarding the essence of temporality is essential and proper because Kant connects temporality to transcendence. The productive faculty of imagination is transcendental, namely because it forms transcendence.56 Similarly, the “innermost essence of transcendence is grounded in pure imagination.”57 In Heidegger’s reading, then, Kant’s most precious  Heidegger (1997), 2.  Heidegger (2001), 4. 55  Heidegger (1962), 45. 56  Heidegger (1997), 109. 57  Ibid., 152. 53 54

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achievement is the discovery of the role of imagination because ontological knowledge, in which Heidegger is interested in the context of fundamental ontology, is revealed “through the specific totality of the constitution of transcendence,” the “binding medium of which” is the pure imagination.58 Kant’s schematizing intuition is interpreted here as ontological knowledge; it renders receivable a priori the “transcendental affinity of the rule of unity under the image of time.”59 Such a priori formation of a rule-governed sensible whole assumes a central role in Heidegger’s metaphysics (ontology), and as I will elaborate in Chap. 6, it is only possible on the basis of an original temporality. Therefore, the Kant-book highlights the perceived affinity between Kant’s and Heidegger’s thinking, which some consider to be exaggerated at the very least. However, Heidegger also points out that despite Kant’s progress, he still remained within the framework of the traditional notion of subjectivity. For this reason, Heidegger thinks, Kant himself did not appreciate the role of imagination and understated its status in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. James Luchte highlights this departure from Kant in Heidegger’s insistence on imagination as the “common root” of the faculties. If all faculties, including theoretical reason, have their foundation in imagination, it implies a more fundamental truth than what is familiar to theoretical reasoning. Luchte notes that Heidegger’s position aligns more closely with this view than Husserl’s, who regards imagination as merely reproductive.60 However, even if Kant had emphasized the primacy of imagination, the affinity with Heidegger would still be limited. Kant’s productive imagination still functions within the traditional sense of transcendence, where it serves as a means for the subject to engage with the external world and facilitate cognition. Although transcendence and temporality are connected for the first time, both concepts are misunderstood and misused because transcendence is seen in opposition to subjectivity, conceived as the immanence of the Cartesian ego. The depth of the rift between

 Ibid, 93.  Ibid, 110. 60  Luchte (2011), 21. Engelland offers seeing Heidegger’s over-interpretation and over-­ appreciation of Kant as a phase between 1927 and 1929. That is the period when Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics was written. After 1927, Heidegger’s over-interpretation of Kant ends, and he returns seeing him as being closer to Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology than to fundamental ontology (See Engelland (2019), 77–79). 58 59

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Heidegger’s “transcendental philosophy” and Kant’s is further emphasized in the book: Kant’s profound study of the subjectivity of the subject, ‘the subjective deduction,’ leads us into obscurity. It is not only because Kant’s anthropology is empirical and not pure that he does not refer to it but also because, in the course of the laying of the foundation, our mode of questioning man itself is brought into question. It is not the answer to the question of the essence of man which must be sought; rather, it is a matter first of all of asking how in the laying of the foundation of metaphysics it is possible to bring man into question and why it is necessary to do this.61

These passages highlight the fundamental divergence between Heidegger’s task and Kant’s transcendental tradition. According to Heidegger, the issue with Kant’s philosophy is not that specific ideas need further development or phenomenological clarification through reduction or conceptual refinement. Instead, Kant’s study, much like Husserl’s, inevitably leads to obscurity due to the same underlying reason. In fact, Heidegger argues that this same reason is what has brought Western thought to a dead end, and he aims to show a way out. It is not the individual questions themselves but the very mode of questioning that is responsible for the failure of Western philosophy as a whole. Therefore, it is the mode of questioning itself that must be called into question. The essence of humanity cannot be simply revealed as if the traditional mode of questioning were inherently genuine or suitable for understanding the phenomenon at hand. The traditional mode of questioning is sub-­ jective not because it is founded as a reflection upon human “subjectivity” but because subjectivity is assumed as a sub-ject, that is, as a single pre-­ determined sense of the (existential) meaning of “form.” In terms of the early lectures, it assumes a single relation-sense and is unaware of the enactment-sense. However, it is precisely this sense of enactment that needs to be interrogated. By questioning this aspect, a more original understanding of transcendence—one that encompasses the manifold possibilities of modes of presence—can be uncovered. The existential structures of Dasein constitute the Being of enactment, necessitating an existential  Heidegger (1997), 221–222.

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analysis. What a foundation of sense-manifoldness and sense-unity means enactmentally, says Heidegger, must be explicated from existence (Existenz).62 Remembering that the Origin of life is only accessible in an appropriate mode of life/existence, we understand that the Being of enactment can only become accessible in what Heidegger named a “primordial enactment,” whose central characteristic is that it is being “co-­ directed in a genuinely self-worldly way.”63 Therefore, the mode of questioning that can reveal the true sense of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence must include radical self-questioning as a questioning of the self’s existence. This point often perplexes readers of Heidegger: if we are moving away from the subject-centered transcendentalism of the past, how is it that the self-questioning of human Dasein remains the starting point for the inquiry into Being? Heidegger indeed seeks to transcend the subject-­ object dichotomy, and his concept of transcendence aims to achieve precisely that. However, this transcendence should be understood in two dimensions. First, it involves a de-centralization of human existence away from the conventional notion of a self-positing subject. As demonstrated in Part I, Heidegger initiated this shift early in his thinking. Second, it entails surpassing the notion of a sub-ject, which refers to a final and exclusive a priori foundation for the intelligibility of beings—a foundation that unquestionably assumes a specific sense of Being. These two dimensions are interdependent. We only conceive of human existence as the transcendental immanence of consciousness when we are assured of possessing the ground for the intelligibility of the world (including our own) and when we feel secure in the belief of such possession. On the other hand, existential analysis involves a radical de-­ anthropomorphizing of human beings by questioning their Being. While both Kant and Husserl interpret human existence within an a priori framework of sub-jectivity, perceiving it as the cognition of a world with a singular mode of presence and, consequently, subjectifying human beings themselves, Heidegger focuses on the unbiased fact of our relationship to Being (transcendence). This approach allows us to ponder what such a relationship reveals about our own existential possibilities and the meaning of Being. Even if we interpret Husserl’s work as an investigation into the ways in which things manifest themselves (rather than solely how they  Heidegger (2010b), 25.  Ibid., 57.

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are represented by us), such a de-centralization remains philosophically impotent since Husserl’s method itself assumes a singular sense of (theoretical) intelligibility. Furthermore, as Heidegger argued in his early lectures, this notion of intelligibility is more of a distortion than a revelation of a phenomenon in its original sense. The moment we distance ourselves from the existence of Dasein by reducing it, the phenomenon turns away from us and presents only an idealized, lifeless semblance of its authentic intelligibility. Paradoxically, the phenomenon is precisely that which cannot be given but still manifests. If we believe we have captured it, we have already lost the vitality of lived experience and are merely studying the shadow cast by our own reflective methodology. And nevertheless, we can understand the Being of beings. Husserl’s categorial intuition, on the other hand, merely uncovers universals in an abstract, “universalized,” given residue of a phenomenon. In general, readers of Heidegger who highlight his proximity to either Kant or Husserl (or both) often rely on the apparent fact that Heidegger acknowledges the primacy of intuition in knowledge and experience. However, the truth is that although Heidegger does emphasize such primacy in Kant, thereby aligning him closer to phenomenology, he unequivocally rejects the priority of pure intuition. “All sight,” says Heidegger, “is grounded primarily in understanding.”64 Hence, “‘[i]ntuition’ and ­‘thinking’ are both derivatives of understanding, and already rather remote ones.”65 Being, which is always already understood, cannot be extracted from a phenomenon because an (original) phenomenon is not given in the intuitive sense of Kant’s and Husserl’s thinking. Husserl and Kant can only recognize and articulate transcendence beyond beings because they already have beings at their disposal (priority of intuition). However, for Dasein, it would be too late. A detached contemplation of beings has already obscured both the event of understanding and the phenomenon that revealed itself within it. Thus, when Heidegger refers to his phenomenology as “transcendental,” it is not intended to pursue the conventional transcendental investigation into the conditions of possible experience, although it does shed light

 Heidegger (1962), 187. Italics added.  Ibid.

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on these conditions.66 There are fundamental disparities between such an objective and what Heidegger aims to accomplish.67 Both Kant and Husserl can be considered idealists since they conceive the intelligibility of experience, and consequently transcendence, within the established framework of intuition and the givenness or visibility of an idea. As Heidegger stresses in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic: If the doctrine of ideas is related to the phenomenon of transcendence, and if the idea is the correlate of intuition, then there is, in the doctrine, a tendency to conceptualize the problem of transcendence along the lines of looking. This is prepared already in antiquity and later leads to orienting the problem of transcendence to the epistemological relationship of subject to object.68

The idea of givenness and the priority of intuition are integral to idealism, which, as Heidegger highlights, does not stand in opposition to realism but rather constitutes the intelligibility of any conventional conception of the “real.” Idealism misses precisely what the “understanding of Being

66  Heidegger warns against this misinterpretation of phenomenology two years before the publishing of Being and Time. “ One must not modify phenomenology epistemologically and interpret it as a condition of possible experience.” Heidegger (2018), 452. 67  Chad Engelland argues that Heidegger’s reading of Kant is close to Husserl’s phenomenology since in it he attempts to disclose rather than construct the a priori conditions for the possibility of experience (Engelland (2019), 3). Yet, Heidegger stated clearly already in 1912 that he is no interested in epistemological problematic. Instead, Heidegger is after the ontological knowledge of how beings manifest intelligibly. The difference eludes the transcendentally oriented readers since within Kant’s or Husserl’s transcendental philosophy it is quite unimaginable to leap beyond the sub-jectum, i.e., beyond the very idea that there is an available a priori structure that plays the role of an exclusive determination of the intelligibility of beings. As I explain in the following chapters, existential structures are separated by an abyss from anything like Kant’s and Husserl’s conditions for a possibility of experience. Moreover, even if Husserl is interested not in subjective conditions of experience but in the way things manifest in consciousness, his method falsifies all beings in terms of one particular mode of existential intelligibility. In Heidegger’s early terms, Husserl assumes that a theoretical relation-­sense is free from assumptions while it is itself the expression of Husserl’s main assumption and his inability to question seriously the Being of enactment. Indeed, even if one thinks that the full knowledge of the Being of entities is not available but is an infinite task, i.e., a Kantian ideal, one already misses the nature of Being and thinks it as an abstract “something.” 68  Heidegger (1984), 183.

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means ontologically,” as well as “how this understanding is possible.”69 The fact that the phenomenon is not given in intuition does not mean that its manifestation is mediated – that would indeed put Heidegger outside of phenomenology  – but only that the immediacy of its manifestation requires a more radical comprehension of the “a priority” of understanding on the level that is more original than that of the objective experience. ”It was an error of phenomenology,” Heidegger says, “to believe that phenomena could be correctly seen merely through unprejudiced looking.”70 We must adopt a perspective, he continues, that has a genuine origin in the phenomenon itself.71 However, the phenomenon itself is primarily determined by the enactment-­sense, as explored in Chap. 2. Therefore, the enactment-sense of understanding precedes intuition and observation. Prior to the event of understanding, there is nothing to intuit, for even the intelligibility of being given (i.e., existing at all) has not yet been enacted or disclosed.72 Consequently, Kant’s and Husserl’s idealism conceives of transcendence in a non-original manner. Heidegger does not extensively delve into the discrepancies between his notion of transcendence and Husserl’s, but he simply acknowledges that Husserl still employs the traditional notion73 and that intentionality is an ontic term that presupposes transcendence.74 The projects are too disparate to be reconciled on common ground where

 Heidegger (1962), 50.  Heidegger (2002a), 203. 71  Ibid., 204. 72  The idea that the sense of being-given is pre-determined corresponds to the theological idea that God possesses absolute knowledge, that is, that the whole universe is ready to be known/intuited and does not require a concrete historical event of finite understanding (See Heidegger (1984), 47). For example, Leibniz saw existential propositions as contingent but nevertheless already known and understood by God (Ibid., 49). Knowledge as intuition stems accordingly from the idea of the eternity of God, of the “all at once” existence of the universe (Ibid., 58). In such classic metaphysics (to which both Kant and Husserl belong) we don’t need an event of understanding since everything is already understandable so that the meaning of Being is pre-determined as constant presence and availability for intuition. 73  “What we mean by transcendence cannot be made compatible with the previous formulations of it and is very difficult to see, in light of the usual deadlocked version of the problem. Neither Bergson-and he least of all, along with Dilthey-nor Husserl sees the problem and the phenomenon; two years ago Husserl vehemently opposed the problem from the start.” (Heidegger (1984), 167). 74  Heidegger (1984), 135. 69 70

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differences could be fully elucidated.75 Heidegger’s infrequent comments on Husserl following Being and Time suffice to support this claim. For example, in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger writes: For Husserl, the phenomenological reduction, which he worked out expressly for the first time in “Ideas for a pure phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy” (1913), is the method of leading the phenomenological vision from the natural attitude to the world of things and human beings into the transcendental life of consciousness and its noetic-noematic experiences, in which the objects are constituted as correlates of consciousness. For us, the phenomenological reduction means leading the phenomenological vision from the as-always-determined grasping of beings to the understanding of Being (projecting in the manner of its unconcealment) of these beings.76

In this passage, Heidegger highlights that he diverges from Husserl even in their fundamental methodological terms within phenomenology. Merely using the term “reduction” does not imply a similarity between their respective understandings. Heidegger’s conception of reduction as a transition from beings to their Being shapes the meaning of transcendence that he puts forth. Conversely, Husserl’s reference to transcendental consciousness remains within the confines of the traditional framework, which assumes the Being of beings in general and human beings in particular without questioning it. Therefore, Heidegger’s usage of “transcendence” and “transcendental” belongs to a sphere that Husserl, similar to Kant, remains entirely unaware of. Namely, an idealistic assumption of something like a single universal world-horizon posits no problem for reaching out to its underlying structure. One can calmly observe chairs and tables and confidently posit the general essence of their appearance. However, the crucial question is how one attains the transcendental logic of the event where a phenomenon manifests itself before it is methodologically reduced and transformed into a given or intuited object. Heidegger explains further in the Basic Problems of Phenomenology that even the interpretation of the reduction is not the central methodological 75  Merleau-Ponty points out that there might be an equivalent of Heidegger’s transcendence in Husserl’s operative intentionality, which enables the intentionality of the act. Yet he concedes that the “passive synthesis” of time, in which such operative intentionality is grounded, is a pointer to a problem rather than a solution. Merleau-Ponty (2013), 486. 76  Heidegger (1988b), 21.

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issue since what is most important in guiding the phenomenological vision from beings to Being is to bring ourselves forward toward Being itself.77 To understand what it means is to understand Heidegger’s notion of transcendence. As I will demonstrate, Heidegger’s objective of elucidating the Being of Dasein as a starting point for ontology involves a process of profound self-questioning. It entails opening oneself up to explore the depths of one’s existence, confronting the most unsettling and palpable aspects, and shedding light on the existential nature of Being. This undertaking bears no resemblance to Husserl’s orientation towards “pure object and data acquisition”78 in the “unclearly thought-out egological sphere.”79 Heidegger’s formulations of ontology as a conceptual grasp of the problem of Being can mislead to think that Heidegger’s project aims at some propositional knowledge about the essence of Being, i.e., a theoretical overview of the most fundamental structures constituting beings as such, perhaps different from the traditionally accepted structures we meet, for example, in Kant.80 Indeed, this misinterpretation invites attributing to Heidegger a sort of formal science of Being. The root of this misinterpretation lies in overlooking the fact that Heidegger’s notion of “conceptuality” refers to formal indications, as discussed in Chap. 2. These indications enable him to move beyond categorical analysis of Being and introduce an existential approach. Existentialia are not categories; they do not pertain to cognitive intelligibility or the categorical existence of entities (such as the substance’s substantiality). Rather, they serve as formal indications of the fundamental aspects of existence implementing the there-character of Being. When intensified in one’s life, these aspects can shed light on the meaning of personal transformation into authentic Dasein,81 a transformation necessary to bring ourselves toward Being. Therefore, to truly grasp the concepts of transcendence and the transcendental in Heidegger’s philosophy, one must engage in this transformative process. The “logic” in Heidegger’s version of transcendental logic should be understood as a manner of “letting something be seen,”82 as he elucidates in Being and Time. By actively participating in the  Ibid.  Heidegger (2001), 142. 79  Ibid. 80  Husserl in his later work attempts precisely such a renovation of ontology. See Tengelyi (2015). 81  Kisiel (1995), 59. 82  Heidegger (1962), 56. 77 78

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transcendental event of understanding Being, following Heidegger’s guidance regarding the transformation of Dasein, one can perceive (i.e., understand) this very event as what it truly is—an event of transcendence. Therefore, Heidegger’s “transcendental philosophy” does not seek to improve upon the transcendental logic of either Husserl or Kant, but rather to explore the (more) original meanings of “logic” and “transcendence.” The existential mode of questioning differs from the traditional transcendental search for grounds in that it does not simply transfer the model of such a ground from the cognitive realm of self-reflective consciousness. Instead, it questions the very suitability of this realm for providing the foundation of the “truly real” world in which we exist and perish, as Heidegger expressed in 1919. As we have seen in Part I, the way beings acquire determinacy in themselves is inseparable from the event of the world’s unfolding. In this event, the potential modes of a being’s existence collapse into a particular mode. The early lectures already presented this reciprocal determination as enactmentally-practical. Specifically, the manner in which the world unfolds is not a quasi-cognitive construction based on an a priori schema, but rather a performative, self-regulating event sustained by the quality of life’s existence in one way or another. Therefore, Heidegger’s transcendental logic of enactment must be understood within the context of this ontologically practical performativity of existence. Heidegger’s early concept of the lived experience event, where the experiencer and the experienced are inseparable and appear simultaneously, establishes the framework for interpreting the performativity of existence and guides the appropriate method of questioning for such an interpretation. To be sure, the shift from a cognitive understanding of logic to an enactmental notion does not align with what some readers of Heidegger perceive as a “practical” revolution in philosophy. The so-called “practical” stance still operates within the cognitive framework of logic, either by assuming an a priori foundation for the universe (which we may only access “in our practices”) or by remaining uncertain about such a trans-­ practical foundation. In the latter case, practice is still unconsciously conceived within a quasi-cognitive logic of truth. On the contrary, Heidegger’s profound questioning of the very event in which beings manifest in a suspiciously familiar categorical form delves into the realm of existence’s ontological performativity that surpasses our understanding of being-­ human. It challenges the traditional quasi-cognitive interpretation of logic, which becomes an obstacle on the path to apprehending Being. This

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impediment is present in all transcendental philosophies and hinders the self-questioning inquiry required to engage with Heidegger’s thought. The performative logic of the enactment is anticipated in the early notion of the event and will be central into the later development of Being as Event. Indeed, in Being and Time, Heidegger includes a marginal note alongside the passage discussing the transcendence of Being in relation to Dasein’s transcendence, stating: “But transcendence of the truth of Beyng, the Event.” This raises the question of why Heidegger did not explicitly formulate transcendence as an event in Being and Time? After all, the logic of the event’s existential enactment-sense is easily recognized in Being and Time by those who have the ears to hear. I believe the reason for this omission is that Being and Time itself was an event of speech, representing Heidegger’s initial explicit enactment of the thinking of Being on the world philosophical stage. However, speech is only effective if it is understandable, and all language is inherently historical. Heidegger’s historical position led him to express the enactmental nature of the ontological difference in the language of transcendental philosophy. Undoubtedly, the transcendental school’s interpretation of Heidegger provides valuable insights into the historical context of his language. Still, what is said in this language is not a description of a transcendental sub-jectivity but the event of Being-in-the-world, which entails a necessary problematization of sub-jecticity.

References Capobianco, Richard. 2011. Engaging Heidegger. University of Toronto Press. Engelland, Chad. 2019. Heidegger’s Shadow: Kant, Husserl, and the Transcendental Turn. Routledge. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 2008. Philosophical Hermeneutics, 2nd ed. Trans. David E. Linge. University of California Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward S. Robinson, Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 1970. What is a Thing? Trans. W. B. Barton and Vera Deutsch. Gateway/ Henry Regnery. ———. 1984. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Trans. Michael Heim. Indiana University Press. ———. 1988a. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Indiana University Press. ———. 1988b. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Rev ed. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. Combined Academic Publication.

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———. 1995a. Aristotle’s Metaphysics th 1–3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force. Trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek. Indiana University Press. ———. 1995b. Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Gesamtausgabe 25. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 1996. The Principle of Reason. Trans. Reginald Lilly. Indiana University Press. ———. 1997. Kant and The Problem of Metaphysics. Trans. Richard Taft. Indiana University Press. ———. 2001. Einleitung in die Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe 27, ed. O. Saame et I. Saame-Speidel. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2002a. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus. Trans. Ted Sadler. UNKNO. ———. 2002b. The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics. Identity and Difference, 42:75. Trans. Joan Stambaugh, University of Chicago Press, Revised edition. ———. 2008. Towards the Definition of Philosophy (Continuum Impacts, 49). Trans. Ted Sadler. Continuum. ———. 2010a. The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Indiana University Press. ———. 2010b. Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers). Trans. Tracy Colony, Continuum. ———. 2012a. Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Indiana University Press. ———. 2012b. Four Seminars: Le Thor 1966, 1968, 1969, Zahringen 1973. Trans. Andrew Mitchell and Francois Raffoul. Indiana University Press. ———. 2013. Basic Problems of Phenomenology: Winter Semester 1919/1920. Trans. Scott M. Campbell. Bloomsbury Academic. ———. 2016. Mindfulness. Trans. Parvis Emad and Thomas Kalary. Bloomsbury Academic. ———. 2018. Platon: Sophistes. Gesamtausgabe 19. Verlag Vittorio Klostermann. Kant, Immanuel. 1988. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Paul Guyer. Cambridge University Press. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1983. Fear and Trembling/Repetition, Rev ed. Trans. Howard V. Hong, and Edna H. Hong. Princeton University Press. Kisiel, Theodor. 1995. The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time. Berkeley: University of California Press. Luchte, James. 2011. Heidegger’s Early Philosophy: The Phenomenology of Ecstatic Temporality, NIPPOD ed. Continuum. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2013. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Donald Landes. Routledge. Tengelyi, László. 2015. Welt und Unendlichkeit: Zum Problem Phänomenologischer Metaphysics. Verlag Karl Alber.

CHAPTER 4

Transcendence as Being-in-the-World

1   The Primordial Transcendence of Being-in-the-World As demonstrated in Chap. 2, Heidegger’s early analyses at Freiburg reveal the inseparability of life and its world within the domain of philosophy. It is not necessary for me to constantly step outside of myself in order to experience the world, but rather, as Kisiel articulates, my “I” becomes fully immersed and absorbed in the world. This implies that there is no pre-existing life independent of the world it inhabits; rather, life and its world are interconnected moments within a shared event. My experiences are thus not so much “of” the world (as if I was observing from a distance) but “out of the immediate world (Umwelt).”1 Experience is not confined to an internal realm, even though it is inherently personal. According to Heidegger, lived experience does not simply pass before me like an object; instead, it is an event where I appropriate it to myself, and it appropriates itself in accordance with its essence. In this manner, the world reveals itself as a worlding event, constantly unfolding and revealing its inherent nature.

 Kisiel (1995), 44.

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Such thinking eludes the traditional immanence-transcendence and subject-object dichotomies, a fact that Heidegger himself agreed with.2 However, in his early Freiburg lectures, Heidegger has not yet provided a definitive definition of the Being of the entity that is immersed in the world. The term “life” is merely an indication of the necessity for an alternative framework that can replace the static delineation of subject and object and shed light on the event of existing in the world. Though Heidegger gradually shifted from the concept of “life” towards “Dasein” and its modes of Being, of which “existence” is an appropriate one,3 he did not offer a sufficient analysis of the Being of Dasein’s enactment and relation senses, which determine how Dasein and entities in the world come to manifest as they are. It is crucial to understand that “enactment” should not be understood as something that Dasein consciously performs, as if it were an act of Dasein’s psyche belonging to traditional subjectivity. Similarly, “relation” does not imply a connection between two separate domains. Heidegger likely ceased using these terms precisely because they can be easily misinterpreted within the subject-object framework. In the 1927 course Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger speaks of a directional sense (Richtungssinn), which means something close to relation-sense, but perhaps better expresses the dynamic nature of the givenness of entities.4 Nonetheless, what is crucial is that these structural senses were necessary to demonstrate a particular unity of sense that surpasses the subject-object dichotomy without compromising the reality of the world or the individuality of the experiencing subject. It is essential to recognize that the phrase “the world worlds for me” in the early seminars describes a unified phenomenon in which the “for me” does not refer to a subjective representation of an impersonal world that would exist independently “without me.” Likewise, the “for me” does not 2  Heidegger contrasts his notion of transcendence to the notion of an epistemological transcendence opposing immanence: “On the basis of the concept of transcendence we described, the one having immanence for its contrary, it becomes possible to have what is known as a theory of knowledge [epistemology]. So we call this conception epistemological transcendence.” Heidegger (1984), 161. 3  In Being and Time Heidegger names the kind of Being of Dasein in general “existence”, which can be either authentic or not. After BT, Heidegger will return to the original definition of existence as an authentic mode of Dasein’s being. 4  “The intentional directional sense of the perceiving, whether or not it is illusory, itself aims at the extant as extant.” Heidegger (1988), 95.

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imply that the world only “worlds” by borrowing significance from the subject. Although project-related significances play an important role in the event of worlding, which will be further explored, their ontological relevance hinges upon first acknowledging the fundamental co-­ belongingness of the event of worlding and Dasein’s “mineness.” Dasein’s mode of being a self and the world in which selfhood emerges constitute a single structure. Thus, in Being and Time, Heidegger writes: Mineness belongs to any existent Dasein, and belongs to it as the condition which makes authenticity and inauthenticity possible. In each case Dasein exists in one or the other of these two modes, or else it is modally undifferentiated. But these are both ways in which Dasein’s Being takes on a definite character, and they must be seen and understood a priori as grounded upon that state of Being which we have called ‘Being-in-the-world’. An interpretation of this constitutive state is needed if we are to set up our analytic of Dasein correctly.5

Heidegger introduces the concept of “Being-in-the-world” as a positive term that characterizes Dasein’s Being, emphasizing its inseparability from the world. In fact, the notion of “mineness,” traditionally understood in terms of individual self-consciousness, is fundamentally grounded in the Being of Being-in-the-world. Therefore, the nature of mineness and its various modes cannot be comprehended within the confines of the conventional subject-object distinction. Understanding the meaning of authenticity in relation to Dasein becomes nonsensical for those who conceive of Dasein as detached from the world. However, this is merely an initial negation. To fully grasp the positive significance of Being-in-the-­ world and Dasein’s authenticity, we need to elucidate the manner in which mineness and the world are interconnected. 6 Above all, it is essential to  Heidegger (1962), 78.  Michael Zimmerman indicates Heidegger’s motivation in Being and Time as having a double nature: ontological, represented by the idea of existence, and dramatic, represented by the idea of mineness (Zimmerman (1981), 33)). Though this distinction can serve as an interpretation-schema for reading Being and Time, it assumes something that Zimmerman does not sufficiently addresses – the unity and the necessity of the two interests. As I shall show, only in the context of Heidegger’s unique notion of transcendence and its possible modes can we see why the dramatic interest is in fact radically ontological, and the ontological interest is nothing apart from the dramatic. 5 6

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recognize that “Being” in Being-in-the-world has an active connotation, signifying the event of worlding. Being-in-the-world should not be interpreted as being trapped within the world without the possibility of getting “outside of it.” It does not merely indicate the mundane fact of our physical and causal embeddedness among beings. Instead, it is “a state of Dasein which is necessary a priori.”7 As Tugendhat stresses, Being-in-the-world does not mean that Dasein is always related to beings, but that it is always in an “open state of encounteredness before and as a condition of any relation to beings.”8 In this light, the problem of intentionality as Dasein’s ontic transcendence, i.e., as a relation to what is already given for experience, assumes a more original problem of what allows any such givenness at all – a problem of Dasein’s ontological transcendence.9 As Heidegger puts it explicitly in the Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, The problem of transcendence as such is not at all identical with the problem of intentionality. As ontic transcendence, the latter is itself only possible on the basis of original transcendence, on the basis of Being-in-the-world. This primal transcendence makes possible every intentional relation to beings. But this relation occurs in such a way that beings are in the ‘there’ of Da-sein in and for Dasein’s comportment with beings. The relation is based on a preliminary understanding of the Being of beings. This understanding-­of-being, however, first secures the possibility of beings manifesting themselves as beings.10

This passage highlights Heidegger’s understanding of Being-in-the-­ world as an original or primary form of transcendence, and it emphasizes the ontological nature of this transcendence. All intentional relations with beings can only occur on the basis of this primary transcendence, which is the sole condition for beings to manifest as beings. However, this does not imply that without such transcendence, beings would manifest as something different. Nor does it suggest that beings are merely represented as beings while potentially existing without any need for transcendence. Both of these interpretations miss the essence of “manifestation” in  Heidegger (1962), 79.  Tugendhat (1970), 269. 9  The ontological priority of transcendence over intentionality seems to be overlooked by scholars identifying the two. For example Crowell, Malpas (2007), 35. 10  Heidegger (1984) 135. 7 8

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Heidegger’s framework. Heidegger’s phenomenology is, in fact, an ontology precisely because it seeks to unravel the enigma of how phenomena manifest themselves. In Being and Time, Heidegger argues that the meaning of phenomenon signifies that which shows itself in itself.11 Phenomenology, he stresses earlier in the Sophist lectures, signifies nothing else than exhibiting in language beings that show themselves in their way of showing themselves.12 In other words, a phenomenon does not manifest itself solely through our representation of it; instead, it reveals itself in its own distinctive manner. As I have previously argued in earlier chapters, it unveils itself in its inherent itself-ness. Heidegger further asserts in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, that transcendence is “directly connected with the problem of being as such.”13 In this context, “Being as such” specifically refers to the manner in which a being presents itself in its itself-ness, encompassing its particular mode of self-identity and the corresponding formal structure. The essential distinction between intentionality and primordial transcendence can be phenomenologically observed through the interdependence of the Being of beings and the mineness of Dasein. Being-in-the-world, far from being merely an indication of an ontic relatedness to surrounding beings, is the event in which the world worlds in such a way that an individual character of beings is manifested in a “form” of a for me. Heidegger’s exceptional phenomenological insight highlights a remarkable aspect: the intelligibility of something as an individual and as presenting itself is ungraspable apart from what we are familiar with as the “for me” element of our selfhood. We encountered a precursor to this idea in Chap. 1. The conventional form of an objective “for me” is associated with the theoretical relation-sense and presents a specific structural framework for beings as numerical identities, based on an epistemological understanding of the subject. That is, it only makes sense to us that things are indeed something “on their own,” “individual,” and “themselves” because our Dasein is characterized by an existential dimension that is available to us as our own “mineness.”14 Heidegger sees this idea already in Leibniz, who establishes  Heidegger (1962), 51.  Heidegger (2018), 586. 13  Heidegger (1984), 135. My italics. 14  The investigation of mineness then is not an inquiry into what is traditionally understood as subjectivity but, as Heidegger puts it, into I-ness in its metaphysical neutrality (Heidegger (1984), 188). 11 12

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the unity of each being by referencing the being-structure and being-­ mode of one’s own “I.”15 It is within this discussion of Leibniz that Heidegger stresses that “we ourselves are the source of the idea of being”16 and ties this source to the transcendence of Dasein’s understanding of Being. However, in Being and Time, we read that “Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence – in terms of a possibility of itself: to be itself or not itself.”17 Namely, Dasein does not merely understands what belongs or does not belong to its selfhood but it grasps the meaning of being itself or not being itself. Heidegger explicitly emphasizes this point in On the Essence of Ground: In this surpassing Dasein for the first time comes toward that being that it is, and comes toward it as it “itself.” Transcendence constitutes selfhood. Yet once again, it never in the first instance constitutes only selfhood; rather, the surpassing in each case intrinsically concerns also beings that Dasein “itself” is not. More precisely, in and through this surpassing it first becomes possible to distinguish among beings and to decide who and in what way a “self” is, and what is not a “self.”18

The core the intelligibility of Dasein’s understanding resides in the sense of Dasein’s itself-ness. What does it mean for Dasein to be “oneself” can only be understood in terms of the foundational possibilities of its transcendence.19 Hence, “before” any being may manifest as itself (as a self-identical individual), the sense of its itself-ness is predetermined within the event of Dasein’s self-understanding (which, as I will show further, is affected by an already prevailing understanding of beings). Beings, says Heidegger, can only exist in their in-themselves if Dasein gives itself anything like Being (i.e., understands Being).20 This is not a subjectification of Being but an indication of the there-­ character of Being on the one hand and of the phenomenological evidence for the ontological intelligibility of a being’s individual itself-ness on the other hand. The fact that Dasein’s Being is always intertwined with the individuality of each being establishes the intelligible framework for the  Ibid., 85.  Ibid., 88. 17  Heidegger (1962), 33. 18  Heidegger (2010), 108. 19  Heidegger (1984), 214. 20  Ibis., 153. 15 16

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individual existence of beings as unique entities. Thus, Being is “more universal” than the general essence of beings in a qualitative sense. While universality applies to all beings and is inseparable from them, the individual presence of a being’s itself-ness is the most intimate characteristic, inherent to beings in a more profound manner than their “general” essence. As Heidegger stresses, “we perceive both color and sound, both the blue of the sky and the sound of the lark, first and foremost as existing.”21 A being’s itself-ness, i.e., its existential intelligibility, is the intelligibility not just of what belongs to a being (of what it owns) but of the very mode of a being’s self-appropriation. Indeed, the traditional, theoretical essence turns out to be only one of the possible modes in which beings might en-own or appropriate what belongs to them, and thus it does not possess absolute universality. For Kant, the “I think” was merely a principle of the universality of consciousness, i.e., of the necessary accessibility of representations. The self’s identity was understood in terms of the theoretical unity of beings, representing a principle of a purely theoretical understanding and conceived as something simple and indivisible. In contrast, Heidegger’s understanding of Being is intrinsically linked to the original transcendence of Being-in-the-world, encompassing the manner in which the world comes into being and opening up a “there” for the individuality of entities themselves. While Heidegger’s “mineness” can also be seen as a principle of unity, it should be seen as a principle of existential unity. In Identity and Difference, Heidegger stresses that since German idealism we cannot think of identity as a simple sameness but must consider the mediation that prevails in identity as unity.22 There Heidegger speaks explicitly about the active nature of identity as “letting belong together which we call the appropriation.”23 This idea was foreshadowed in Heidegger’s 1928 exploration of the metaphysical foundations of logic, particularly in relation to Leibniz. Just as in Leibniz, the self-unification of an entity (of a monad in Leibniz) is actively achieved as an individuation of a being that belongs to the world.24 However, unlike Leibniz, Heidegger emphasizes the plurality of potential modes of self-unification.

 Heidegger (2002a), 133.  Heidegger (2002b), 25. 23  Ibid., 38–39. 24  Heidegger (1962), 96. 21 22

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For instance, the phenomenon of the ready-to-hand emerges within a specific mode of understanding, wherein the “for me” aspect of experience is shaped by the contextual “in-order-to” structure of my surroundings. Consequently, the individual tool appears within an already discovered totality of equipment.25 The manner in which a hammer manifests itself as a hammer in the ready-to-hand mode is distinct from its self-identity when viewed through theoretical understanding. In the ready-to-hand mode, the singularity of the hammer’s essence emerges without strict numerical differentiation, partially blending into the medium of the overall equipment and being co-constituted by its functional possibilities within this totality. Nonetheless, it remains the hummer itself. Identity, says Heidegger, is a compatible harmony of what belongs together.26 Thus, to be itself is to fulfill a particular mode of owning and appropriating what belongs to the thing. Moreover, the conspicuousness of a damaged hammer consists precisely of its inappropriate mode of being-itself. The hammer suddenly becomes individual in a quite different sense, one in which its itself-ness is present as allowing to be viewed in terms of the hammer’s objective qualities. The as-structure of a hummer transforms and hence also the sense of its identity (itself-ness). As Otto Pöggeler stresses, “if we take a being as being, then we take it in the identity in which it stands with itself.”27 One can also notice that that when a thing’s mode of existence changes, there is a corresponding shift in my sense of mineness—a certain distance arises between myself and my environment, altering the way in which the hammer is present “for me.” The fundamental nature of finiteness in a thing’s presence signifies precisely this aspect: each time it embodies a particular mode of being itself28 while excluding other potential modes or modes of presence.29

 Ibid., 98.  Heidegger (1984), 69. 27  Pöggeler (1989), 117. 28  More precisely, there is no “each time” in a sense of a discrete moment in which both Dasein and its environment become themselves in a single and distinctive sense. Instead, we should speak of Being-in-the-world as an ongoing event, a flow of both autonomous and heteronomous self-determination in which singled out final determinations rarely appear. Dasein and the beings constituting its environment are in a constant movement “between” the different modes of being-itself. 29  Heidegger (1984), 98. 25 26

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The interconnectedness of the world’s worldling and the mineness of Being-in-the-world reveal the intrinsic relationship between the transcendence of Being and the potential for Dasein’s profound individuation. Heidegger introduces a new dimension of meaning to Being, suggesting that the very essence of an entity’s itself-ness can vary depending on how Dasein assumes a particular character, whether authentic or inauthentic. The true innovation of Being and Time does not lie solely in presenting entities primarily in the form of the ready-to-hand rather than the present-­ at-­hand. In his earlier lectures, Heidegger had already demonstrated the lack of originality in a theoretical mode of relating. What is truly fascinating here is the role of mineness in determining Dasein and enabling diverse modes of being a “there” and hence various senses in which an entity that shows up in the “there” is itself, is owing what belongs to it, or simply is. Moreover, the multitude of possible modes of self-identity is rooted in Dasein’s existence, in the worlding of the world; it belongs to the eventuation of the event of Dasein’s transcendence. Heidegger’s early statement that in the event of experience beings are appropriated according to their essence resonates in Being and Time: the ongoing self-appropriation of beings constitutes the event of Dasein’s transcendence and determines the sense in which beings are themselves along with the particular form of their essence (e.g., as ready-to-hand or present-at-hand). By transcending the dichotomies of essence-existence and inner-outer, Heidegger sheds light on the active and self-composed nature of an entity’s self-identity and its manifestation in the world. However, a more detailed analysis is necessary to understand the transcendence of Being-in-the-world and specifically how Dasein’s mineness is intricately linked to the self-identity of beings. The three essential aspects of Being-in-the-world—the who of Being-in-the-world, the world, and the notion of “in”—must be examined in order to provide further clarification on what this transcendence truly entails, as Heidegger emphasizes its primacy.

2   The Concept of “Being-in” and the Essence of Primordial Transcendence The concept of “world” undergoes significant development in early works by Heidegger from 1927 to at least 1935. However, in Being and Time, the primary sense of the world, which remains consistent throughout

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these developments, is thoroughly expounded for the first time.30 Beings manifest neither in one’s consciousness nor in “objective reality.” Both idealism and realism presuppose a sub-jectum as an a priori foundation that underlies beings and is either derived from empirical evidence or proven through transcendental reasoning. According to Heidegger, beings manifest in the world. However, the world itself must be redefined based on the primary transcendence of Being-in-the-world. To accomplish this, we must first grasp the meaning of Being-in, understanding what it signifies for Dasein to be in the world. The notion of Being-in sheds light on the transcendence of Being-in-the-world, elucidating the ontological inseparability of Dasein’s Being and the Being of worldly entities. Being-in, Heidegger writes, is a state of Dasein’s Being – an existentiale.31 Crucially, existentiale is not a category since it is not a what-structure of something present, i.e., is not a structure of a “what.” Instead, Being-in is closely connected to dwelling alongside that “which is familiar to me in such and such a way.”32 That is to say, Dasein dwells within a space of familiarity, which should not be confused with a “familiar space.” The space of familiarity is not a space of what is familiar to me but is rather the how of a relationship with entities determined by the possibility of witnessing the ways of their self-showing as something that makes sense. In other words, “familiarity” denotes a level of ontological appropriateness within an anticipated framework of discernment between what is and what is not. Accordingly, something is deemed ontologically “unfamiliar” when we struggle to ascertain its existence, when it appears distant or elusive like a mirage. As Heidegger stresses, something can only be encountered as (ontologically) familiar or unfamiliar if Dasein is not just another entity present among beings but rather only is as always already finding itself touched by entities along the projected contours of familiarity. 30  Laszlo Tengelyi argues that the sense of “world” in the lectures following Being and Time is essentially different since in those lectures Dasein transcends not toward Being but toward world. Moreover, he notices that rather than serving as a referential whole, the world in these lectures allows a play-space of the either-or of truth and untruth (Tengelyi (2015), 257). While Tengelyi is clearly right regarding the fact of a change in Heidegger’s definition of “world,” I believe that this notion undergoes a development which contains and sharpens the definition of Being and Time, rather than transforms it into something entirely other. I do not agree with Tengelyi that after Being and Time Dasein does not transcend toward Being, but rather suggest that transcending toward Being and transcending toward world belong together. See further. 31  Heidegger (1962), 84. 32  Ibid., 80.

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Unlike Dasein, entities within the world do not “touch each other.” A present-at-hand stone manifests in a way “unaffected” by other entities; its structure can be categorially presented as, for example, a substance, and its existence is brute extantness – it is simply present in a way that says nothing about what it is, but only that it is in fact present. Similarly, Dasein can also be understood in this manner, as often interpreted in the natural sciences. 33 The mere physical presence of a human being does not inherently indicate a special relationship with entities. Only a complex analysis of one’s physiology might suggest that human beings are influenced by their environment. However, such causal relationships exist among all entities and do not elucidate the phenomenon of Being-in-the-world. Present-at-­ hand entities are devoid of worldliness, and they cannot truly “encounter” one another within a projected space of familiarity. Entities exist “in the world” in the sense that they occupy the world as part of its present-at-hand and ready-to-hand population. On the other hand, Dasein dwells “in the world” in a distinct manner, where the very fact of its existence entails being intertwined within the fabric of the Being of entities among which it finds itself. The existence of Dasein is an event of the world’s worldling, as Heidegger eloquently expresses it. In the context of Being and Time, this ontological interconnection becomes evident in the form of Dasein’s facticity: The concept of “facticity” implies that an entity ‘within-the-world’ has Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its ‘destiny’ with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world.34

In the previous chapter, I put forth an interpretation of Dasein as the “there-character of Being” and, simultaneously, as characterizing human existence. The Being of beings possesses a Dasein-like quality, as it can only occur within an event where its existential intelligibility, or understanding, is positively limited by a “there.” This “there” shapes the individual sense of itself-ness for each being. However, metaphorically speaking, Being cannot restrict or comprehend itself autonomously. Its “there” character must manifest as a concrete fact, entwined with human facticity. Furthermore, I proposed conceiving of Dasein as signifying the singularity of the event in which Being becomes intelligible and beings manifest  Ibid., 81–82.  Ibid., 82.

33 34

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within the existential intelligibility of Being. This event, encompassing Being’s self-understanding and beings’ self-manifestation, must be understood in relation to facticity and in connection with Dasein’s mineness. It is crucial to recognize that although the mode of beings’ manifestation is determined within the event of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world, Dasein’s own self-understanding relies on beings. Consequently, Dasein comprehends itself as inseparably linked to the Being of the beings it encounters. Being-in captures the essential interconnectedness between Being and beings, representing the inherent boundness of human facticity with the Being of beings. That is to say, Being-in-the-world can only be thought of as primary transcendence because Being-in replaces the relation of Being-­ against, i.e., the “gegen” of the Gegenstand. Rather than existing “against” or “in front” of beings, Dasein is bound in its destiny with the Being of beings. The fact that Dasein is not merely present as a once and for all ontologically determined transcendental consciousness but is bound by the Being of beings makes it problematic to think of Dasein as a logically separate “subject” which constitutes beings in a one-way “condition-­ conditioned” schema of classic transcendental thought. Indeed, what Dasein is ontologically, is determined by how it understands itself, which is always co-configured by worldly beings. Being-in thus characterizes the transcendentality of the event of Being-in-the-world. As in Heidegger’s early description of the event of life-experience, Being-in-the-world happens prior to theoretical distinctions of the inner and the outer and does not allow to posit a sub-jectum as a transcendental ground untouchable by the contingencies of facticity. It is important to distinguish the dependency of beings on Dasein from the traditional notion of beings’ intelligibility being dependent on subjective functions of consciousness. Beings are not constituted based on a predetermined list of categories imposed by Dasein, but rather on their own terms. The way beings manifest themselves, presenting themselves as something rather than nothing, is conditioned by the familiarity of such a mode of presence (i.e., their own itself-ness) to Dasein. Dasein is acquainted with the Being of beings and their unique ways of manifestation. Notably, that with which Dasein is so familiar does not precede Dasein’s facticity in the sense of being the sub-jectum of beings describable as a single pre-determined structure of what it means for beings to be. Dasein cannot be bound by such a structure, nor can it dwell within it. In fact, if we consider the mode of presence of a sub-jectum, we realize that it

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cannot constitute facticity and thus denies the very possibility of human experience. Human experience of the world is distinct from a machine’s representation of the objective features of the world. Experiencing the world entails understanding oneself as intertwined with it in one’s destiny. Experience is always personal and factual; it occurs as an event where anything can be experienced because the sense of my own selfhood, my individual existence, is pre-reflectively projected as the intelligibility of beings’ self-manifestation (their itself-ness). This projection is reciprocally returned from beings back to me in a way that I consciously perceive myself in relation to beings. Dasein then “understands itself proximally and for the most part in terms of its world.”35 The reciprocity between Dasein’s Being and the Being of beings is foremost a co-determination of the existential sense of Dasein’s and entitys’ identity. Without such a co-determination, there would be no experience at all. To truly perceive something as existing on the same ontological plane as myself, I must be intimately interconnected with it. Without this ontological enmeshment, an insurmountable transcendental gap would separate two entities that exist in different ways (such as an ideal consciousness and a tangible object). The enmeshment of Being-in is, in fact, a transcendental condition for any form of experience, representing a fundamental aspect of Heidegger’s understanding of transcendence. It is important to conceive Being-in in an ontological sense, rather than merely as a causal interdependence between myself and the environment. It signifies the manner in which Dasein relates to beings through their Being and enables the self-revelation of Being.36 Through Being-in, Dasein remains open to beings, not just those physically present in the immediate moment, but to all beings that can be intended in one way or another. In other words,

 Ibid., 156.  Demanding a priority of beings over Being as Levinas does (Levinas (1969), 51) betrays an idealistic interpretation of Being, as something that is brought upon beings by Dasein. Such interpretation is covertly based on a subject-object distinction and inevitably thinks Being as another being. As Derrida notices, priority can only be stated between two existents (Derrida (2005)). Francoise Dastur points out that Levinas (and Sartre) oppose a Cartesian motive to Heidegger’s thought (Dastur (2008). Laurence Paul Hemming stresses as well that Husserl’s, Buber’s and Levinas’ elucidation of “intersubjectivity” is a “constructive securing of an other through the subjectivity of the same.” This “very dependent and derivative resolution”, writes Hemming, “arises out of the decay of the notion of substance, substantia, ousia.” (Hemming (2008), 240). 35 36

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beings are available for intentional relations, but only if they are disclosed by or within Dasein. Crucially, disclosure is not synonymous with knowledge or experience, but rather it is the very condition that makes both knowledge and experience possible. It represents the opening character of the “there” of Being-­ in-­ the-world. In this sense, Being-in-the-world entails existing amidst entities in a manner that illuminates or clears them, allowing them to appear as ready-to-hand or present-at-hand. Being-in-the-world, Heidegger says, is cleared in itself in such a way that it is itself the clearing.37 Figuratively speaking, Dasein exists in-the-world as the illuminating focal point, the very spot where self-showing becomes possible.38 However, the way in which this “there” is illuminated is intimately tied to the beings it illuminates, borrowing its illumination “colors" from the Being of these beings. This constitutes the central axis of Dasein’s transcendence as Being-in. It is important to note that the sphere of familiarity characterizing Dasein’s Being-in is not generated by an isolated “I.” Dasein does not impose its own subjectivity to determine what constitutes a being. Instead, it is bound by the terms that beings themselves allow to be projected as familiar. Indeed, it is only within the realm of primary transcendence that entities can shape the structure of our familiarity with them, always already presenting themselves in some mode of familiarity. The transcendentality of Being-in lies in the fact that, on one hand, Dasein offers itself as the “there” for the self-showing of phenomena, dependent on Dasein’s mode of access, while on the other hand, beings themselves dictate the appropriate terms of self-showing based on their own nature. Thus, Being-in signifies the overarching hermeneutical and circular nature of Dasein’s unique relation to the Being of beings. To understand Being means to interpret it. In interpretation, writes Heidegger, understanding becomes itself.39 Herefore, we should not conceive of Being in a pre-hermeneutic manner, as if it were a predetermined a priori structure defining the existence (or reality) of entities. Being is not  Heidegger (1964), 171.  However, Dasein is not a source of the illumination - that would make Dasein into a self-sufficient subject in a sense too close to the traditional subjectivity of idealism. Any idealistic interpretation of Being and Time misses precisely this point. In the Gesamtausgabe version we find a footnote “aber nicht produziert” added to the sentence saying that Dasein is the illumination (Heidegger (1977), 177). 39  Heidegger (1962), 188. 37 38

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a static foundation underlying beings’ sense of existence. Instead, Being possesses a dynamic nature that allows for the existence of beings in various senses. To claim that Being has a fixed meaning independent of historical Dasein is akin to suggesting that a poem possesses such a meaning. Embracing the historicity of a poem does not subjectivize it but rather recognizes its open essence as an inexhaustible source of potential meanings, albeit still constrained by the poem’s truth. Being-in, understood as dwelling, emphasizes the fact that a poem can be read and understood only if the essence of the reader’s self-understanding (and hence their own itself-ness) is such that it can be intimately connected to the unfolding event of reading. It is through this connection that the poem can potentially transform one’s self-world. Without this engagement, nothing could be read at all – machines do not “read.” Similarly, beings are only experiential because their Being is reciprocally entwined with our self-­ understanding. This reciprocity does not merely define Being-in-the-world as a collection of interrelated characteristics, but it fundamentally determines the intelligibility of our existence (and the existence of beings) as something that is genuinely there in its own right.

3   The World’s Transcendence That ‘toward which’ the subject, as subject, transcends is not an object, not at all this or that being-whether a certain thing or a creature of Dasein’s sort or some other living being. The object or being that can have an encounter-character is that which is surpassed, not the towards-which. That towards which the subject transcends is what we call world.40 As Heidegger articulates in various passages, beings are inherently compelled to be encountered and illuminated as beings through Dasein’s transcendence. We have previously explored this notion of transcendence in the analysis of Being-in. It is not merely about the actual encounter with beings, but it encompasses the very condition for beings to possess an encounterable nature. This ontological transcendence opens up the space where phenomena reveal themselves, which I referred to as the “there” of their self-showing. However, in the preceding section, I argued that understanding the Being of beings involves surpassing them by a priori grasping the potential modes of their self-showing, their very itself-ness.  Heidegger (1984), 166.

40

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This surpassing becomes possible because Dasein is not separate from beings but rather constitutes the intermediary “between” their pre-­ manifested state and their concrete ontic manifestation. Heidegger’s early concept of Uretwas, introduced in the initial part of the book (Chap. 2), foreshadows this transcendental function of being-in-between. A primary something in Heidegger’s 1919 lecture course formally indicates the passage of the pre-worldly into the world, where it is lived and let be as a something for the first time.41 However, in order to grasp the essence of this “passage,” we must delve into the concept of the world. In his early lectures at Freiburg, Heidegger discussed an ontic world of Dasein, which is also identified in Being and Time as Dasein’s everyday environment. In Being and Time, Heidegger investigates the ontological conditions of such a world. The central question in this exploration is how Dasein facilitates the sphere of encounterability with beings in a manner that goes beyond a mere encounter with their self-manifestation in familiar senses, and instead perceives them as meaningfully belonging to a world. The notion of transcendence, which I previously addressed in terms of transcending towards the Being of beings, needs to be further elucidated as a transcendence towards the world. Before delving into Heidegger’s perspective on the world, it is helpful to establish a preliminary understanding of this notion within the transcendental logic of Dasein. As discussed in Chap. 3, Heidegger interpreted Kant’s concept of the transcendental as implying a transcendence beyond beings to the beingness of beings. In Kant’s framework, beingness is transcendent in relation to beings, closely resembling Heidegger’s notion of world-transcendence, particularly when we emphasize beingness as constituting an intelligible whole in which beings manifest in their relational context. Beingness, according to Kant, imparts form to beings not merely as individuals but as entities that can only manifest in relation to other beings. Beings become encounterable as objects, while anything that deviates from the order of beingness, that is, the order of the natural and objective world, remains unencounterable. As stated in the quoted passage, beings acquire an encounter-character through their transcendence toward the world. Both Kant and Heidegger regard such transcendence as inherent to understanding. However, Kant’s understanding operates as a subjective function in two ways: firstly, it constitutes objects based on a set of categories belonging to the  Heidegger (2008), 97–98.

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transcendental subject, and secondly, the idea of a predetermined a priori ground that underlies all encounterable beings posits a sub-jectum, regardless of whether it is situated within consciousness or, as in Aristotle’s philosophy, within natural entities. Heidegger’s notion of understanding Being through transcending toward the world must therefore be fundamentally distinct, despite the aforementioned connections. However, this formulation differs from what is presented in Heidegger’s Being and Time. In Being and Time, it is the world itself that transcends beyond entities.42 Dasein’s transcendence is described in terms of the world as its existentiale. In this context, the transcendence of the world is inseparable from the transcendence of Dasein itself. Transcendence underlies both the practical engagement with the ready-to-hand and the thematization of the present-at-hand, supporting Dasein’s concernful being alongside entities within the world.43 Furthermore, the world not only liberates entities for their encounterability but also emancipates Dasein and others in their shared existence. The world is not something external to Dasein, but rather signifies its transcendental and transcending nature. In my view, in Being and Time, this emphasis was necessary to distance itself from the common-sense notion of a world existing “out there.” Additionally, the assertion that the world transcends is an evolution of the earlier formulation—the world worlds.44 The world worlds as an event of Being-in-the-world, i.e., as the happening of Dasein’s primordial transcendence. The world-event takes precedence over whatever is encountered within it. However, it is also valid to speak of the world as that toward which Dasein transcends. This is because “Dasein” carries a dual meaning, referring to Being itself and serving as a paradigm for de- anthropomorphizing human existence (as discussed in Chap. 3). In the former sense, the world pertains to it as allowing the “there” of entities, i.e., it transcends. In the latter sense, it is that to which human existence is bound within the event of its Being-in-the-world and hence can be said to be that toward which Dasein transcends. Heidegger adopts this formulation in his later works, following Being and Time. Once the connection between Dasein’s transcendence and the world is established, both formulations essentially  Heidegger (1962), 417–418.  Ibid., 415. 44  Heidegger reminds us this formulation also in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (Heidegger (1984), 171). 42 43

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convey the same idea. It is evident that Heidegger did not change his perspective from “transcendence towards Being” to “transcendence towards the world,” as the latter is simply a more specific elucidation of what precisely occurs in Dasein's transcendence towards Being, resulting in the liberation of beings in their existence within the world. The development of the notion of the world corresponds to Heidegger’s exploration of the essence of Dasein’s transcendence. Returning to Being and Time, we find Heidegger’s statement that an ontological-existential notion of the world designates an a priori character of worldhood.45 He emphasizes that worldhood can manifest in different modes, giving rise to various kinds of structural wholes. It is crucial to note, as Kant also pointed out, that beings must exhibit their connection to a structural whole in order to manifest in any way. Heidegger, however, stresses that the original form of a structural whole through which we encounter beings is not a categorial net of extant objectivity but a serviceability-­directed unity similar to what we meet in the sphere of equipment. Nevertheless, beings can also appear in an objectively present manner. The fundamental essence of Heidegger’s ontological plurality lies in the plurality of the “as-structure” of beings. This as-structure is the very way in which worldhood unfolds and establishes a connection between the subjective and objective aspects that I discussed in Chap. 1 regarding the problem of encountering beings. Namely, Heidegger’s presentation of the as-structure allows an understanding of the way the motivational unity of life is not a subjective phenomenon but characterizes Dasein’s primary transcendence as allowing beings to show themselves as themselves in the various ontological senses of their itself-ness. Indeed, Heidegger’s early notion of the motivational unity of life undergoes an ontological transformation in the period leading up to the publication of Being and Time. In the earlier lectures, life’s directedness is considered a prerequisite for encountering anything at all. However, in Being and Time, Heidegger defines the worldhood of the world as a structural whole that determines the meaningful unity of encountered beings based on Dasein’s motivations. In this light, the “there,” which Dasein’s primordial transcendence opens up, is not a formless container but is transcendentally structured according to Dasein’s factical means of making sense of beings. The ontological specification of entities is not exhausted by an appropriate mode of  Heidegger (1962), 93.

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self-showing; it is not enough to know a priori how something can present itself; that would only suffice for letting beings announce that they are, i.e., that something is indeed “there.” However, beings reveal themselves as distinct entities that align with the world in specific ways. This alignment is precisely what binds Dasein to beings, as highlighted by the notion of Being-in. It is evident that if beings impact Dasein’s understanding, they must exert pressure on Dasein in relation to its motivations. Heidegger indeed states that the “there” of beings’ manifestation possesses a directional structure that allows beings to appear as available for serving a purpose. Importantly, Heidegger does not imply that we project our individual concerns onto beings that exist independently of our concerns. Such a view would imply that the readiness-­ to-­hand of beings is not inherent to their ontological constitution. Instead, Heidegger emphasizes that any practical use of a being expresses its inherent potential. For instance, the fact that chalk can be used for writing is not accidental but a manifestation of its intrinsic potential, which can be realized within an appropriate structural whole. In other words, Dasein does not “deafen” what beings themselves say by forcing its own subjective totality of meanings. This would be a misinterpretation of Dasein as a subject opposed to beings. Instead, Dasein’s limited set of motivations frees beings to manifest finitely before, for example, one intentionally contemplates upon beings as being-­independent of all motivations, i.e., as present-at-hand. In Heidegger’s view, beings are released to be themselves, not in relation to a constituting subject, but through the meaningful relations that connect them within the world.46 The world, in this sense, constitutes a contextual whole that enables the “as-structure”  – beings manifest as the concrete entities they are. Heidegger emphasizes that the world is not constituted by the ready-to-­ hand but instead embodies the structural form of readiness-to-hand, as it is essential to the mode of presence of entities. As Heidegger writes, “The world is that in terms of which the ready-to-hand is ready-to-hand.”47 This may appear to contradict my previous statement about how the mode of individuality in beings aligns with Dasein’s minenessHowever, this simply implies that Dasein’s way of existing as a self is not separately tied to each individual being. It would presuppose an individuation prior to the event of understanding. Instead, Dasein’s mode of being a self is  Didier (2015), 76–77.  Heidegger (1962), 114.

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intimately connected to the unfolding totality of worldhood as its “forthe-sake-of-which.” Therefore, the practical and motivational essence of existence should also be ontologically linked to “for-the-sake-of-which” in a manner that surpasses the conventional assumption of a subjective foundation. It is crucial not to conflate this “for-the-sake-of-which” structure with something like “human practice.” Such an anthropological misinterpretation assumes that the term “human” is inherently determined and presupposes a corresponding understanding of “practice.” Heidegger stressed in his early lectures that moving away from the “theoretical” does not entail a shift toward the “practical.” In Being and Time, Heidegger stresses that our notion of “practical” is understood in relation to “theoretical” as “non-theoretical” or “a-theoretical.”48 However, even in such thinking, a sub-jective standard remains, and anything deemed practical can, in principle, be grounded in a single structure of objective intelligibility (as is the case in Kant’s philosophy). Heidegger, on the other hand, radicalizes Aristotle’s idea that phronesis deals with things that can be otherwise than they are.49 By de- anthropomorphizing phronesis and thinking it ontologically as the nature of the Being of beings, Heidegger shows that Being itself is contingent (i.e., can be otherwise than it is) and that no theoretical postulation of a single sub-jectum (i.e., a single a priori ground, essence, idea) can eliminate this ontological plurality. We must think of the worldhood of the world as arising in the event of Being-in-the-world. Before anything that could be taken as Dasein’s practical concerns, the “for-the-sake-of-which” determines Dasein’s purposiveness as being concerned about its Being. Something only counts as a purpose or a task if Dasein cares about the way its existence is affected by it. That is, Dasein does not merely project its wishes upon things but, as discussed earlier, is intricately intertwined with beings in its destiny..The intelligibility of a task, as well as of the ready-to-hand entity that manifests in relation to it, is rooted in the enactment-sense (in the sense of Dasein’s existence). Heidegger’s examples of practical comportment in Being and Time serve as simple illustrations for the intended readers of his treatise in

 Ibid., 86.  Aristotle (2012), 120.

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1927, who may be unfamiliar with the distinctiveness of his existential ontology. Beings extend beyond mere hammers and chairs.50 Moreover, individual beings are not the central focus within the framework of the world’s notion. What holds paramount importance is the understanding of Being as the event where beings are gathered within a liberated structural whole, shaped by the concrete and historically grounded perspective of human Dasein. The world, Heidegger says, is a determination of Being-in-the-world,51 and that means of Dasein’s primary transcendence.52 When Heidegger says that the world has the character of Dasein,53 he expresses the there-character of Being itself in its need to gather entities according to some sense of their itself-ness and in relation to other entities within a structural whole of the event of Being-in-­ the-world. As Heidegger stresses in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, the world indicates each time a certain mode of beings.54 Similarly, in the Introduction to Philosophy, Heidegger explains that being in the world encompasses the structure of transcendence, of going beyond. Notably, in this lecture course, Heidegger elucidates that the world is the how of beings-as-a-whole.55 What is surpassed in transcendence is not this or another being, but beings-as-a-whole. Two years later, Heidegger emphasizes that beings-as-a-whole do not encompass all beings in the universe collectively. Rather, it is a wholeness of the obstructiveness of beings56 – a force of the world’s pressure and its claim of realness. Thus, the world, as the manner of beings-as-a-whole, embodies the obstructiveness of their self-presentation. Heidegger’s concept of “obstructiveness” can be interpreted as the inherent itself-ness of beings, the distinct quality of their self-manifestation. It is not merely the “what-structure” of a

50  “One cannot pack transcendence into intuition, in either the theoretical or the aesthetic sense, because it is not even an ontic activity. Even less can it be packed into a practical comportment, be it in an instrumental-utilitarian sense or in any other.” Heidegger (1984), 183. 51  Heidegger (1988), 166. 52  Stefan W. Schmidt offers to distinguish “transcendence of Dasein” form “transcendence of the world” by understanding the former as a genitive subject and the latter as a genitive objectus. (Schmidt (2016), 69). This distinction is helpful if it is taken in the context of Heidegger’s notion of primordial transcendence as characterizing the “there” of the manifestation of beings. Dasein is the “there” by projecting a world. 53  Heidegger (1988), 166. 54  Heidegger (1984), 173. 55  Heidegger (2001), 240. 56  Heidegger (1995), 18.

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being, nor is it an indeterminate state of being. Rather it is that “which intrudes and obtrudes itself on all beings from every side.”57 The worldhood of the world then can hardly be thought of as a “structure” of objectness in the Kantian sense or even as a “practical structure” of Dasein’s comportments. Instead, Heidegger keeps bringing our attention to the fact of the world’s worldling as determining what it means for something to stand as itself, namely as an undeniable existence of a phenomenon, an existence that indeed also includes the sense of its essence since it must “fit in” in the structural whole of the world. The unity of any structural whole, such as the unity of a structural whole of the present-at-­ hand, raises the question of its constituting factors. The theoretical categories merely establish the manner in which the unity occurs, while the specific existential intelligibility of the present-at-hand determines the ontological significance of such constitution. In other words, entities acquire their essential structure from their mode of presence (their itself-­ ness) because it is through existing in a particular sense, such as extantness, that they embody a structure enabling a distinct sense of unity. These two aspects of understanding, the mode of presence of an entity and its essential structure, are inseparable, as the entity’s mode of presence determines its essentiality. The rejection of a single universal sense of “essence” (i.e., a denial of the sub-jectum) is a development of Heidegger’s early idea of the principle of material determination echoing what Heidegger called in 1912 the Greek version of critical realism (as discussed in Chap. 1). This understanding of beings as not requiring a subjective constitution but rather emerging or manifesting in their own right demonstrates the connection between Heidegger’s conception of the world and the Greek perspective. In his 1932 lecture course titled “The Beginning of Western Philosophy,” Heidegger provides a clarification of the significance of the “appearing” of phenomena: Every being sets itself out in relief, every being raises itself up over and against others. Appearance is not merely a stepping-forth; the stepping-­ forth is an entering into a contour and into the limits of the contour. Set out in its contours, standing out in them, the being ‘is,’ i.e., comes into the light of day. Contour— not an indifferent framework, but the integrating gathering power and inner substantiality of things. Thus, through the clarification  Ibid.

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of an appearing thing in its appearing a new essential character of the Being of beings has obtruded. More precisely, appearance as emergence has been better determined as an entering into contours. Appearing— emergent entrance into contours. The experience of beings as what appears in possessing such Being— that is the primal experience of the Greeks.58

According to Heidegger, the world provides beings with boundaries and limitations; entering a world means entering into a specific framework. It is only because Dasein’s “there" offers a comprehensive structure of worldhood that beings can come into existence and be revealed. The intrinsic essence of a being is “gathered” when it enters a world, and it manifests as a distinct being for the first time. However, Heidegger rejects any conventional interpretation that sees world-entrance as a constitutional process. Earlier, in the Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, he insisted that what enters the world “undergoes nothing.”59 It is not a matter of adding something to entities; rather, beings are illuminated as what they truly are. At the same time, it is not simply a matter of perceiving beings in a particular way, as if entities already presented themselves for such perception. Both interpretations miss the essence of Heidegger’s ontology, which can only be understood in terms of original transcendence. Remarkably, the gathering power of beings’ inner substantiality is not itself a being, i.e., not a subjective process, or an objective occurrence. The world is, indeed, “nothing,” Heidegger says, if taken in terms of beings. In other words, the world is an indication that points out something not about beings but about the Being of beings.60 Understanding the happening of a world-entry, Heidegger says, radically transforms the concept of subjectivity.61 While beings come into being only if the site of the world is opened up as Dasein, it is not within Dasein’s power to cause a world-­ entry. Only subjectivity, understood as immanence, could claim credit for distinguishing between shapeless entities and appearing beings. Dasein, on the other hand, is beyond itself, is enmeshed with Being in a way that Being – figuratively speaking – manifests in beings through Dasein, “uses” Dasein as a site for its illumination. The contours of beings are both an expression of their Being and a framework of dependence determined by  Heidegger (2015), 19–20.  Heidegger (1984), 195. 60  Ibid. 61  Ibid. 58 59

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Dasein. These two aspects are inseparable as identifiable moments of transcendence. Such a notion of the world surpasses the ontic-natural, the ontic-­ existentiell (e.g., Christian), and the traditionally ontological (e.g., Kant’s) sense of the world and indicates the ontological-existential essence of Dasein’s transcendence.62 Accordingly, a world-entry is not a ­(traditionally) subjective gestalt of apprehension but a happening of transcendence: World-entry has the characteristic of happening, of history. World-entry happens when transcendence happens, i.e., when historical Dasein exists. Only then is the being-in-the-world of Dasein existent. And only when the latter is existent, have extant things too already entered world, i.e., become intraworldly. And only Dasein, qua existing, provides the opportunity for world-entry.63

In summary, “Being-in” and ”world” are integral components of the event of Dasein’s transcendence, which goes beyond the subject-object dichotomy and establishes the inseparable connection between Dasein’s Being and the Being of beings. Both elements contribute to our understanding of how Dasein surpasses beings, allowing their manifestation without imposing a subjective mode of experience. The practical and performative character of transcendence, which has been gradually introduced in the preceding chapters, must be understood within the framework of Being-in-the-world. The concepts of “for-the-sake-of-which” and the world’s worldhood provide us with a preliminary understanding of how the itself-ness of beings and the individuality of Dasein are intertwined within the event of the world’s worldling. However, this account of Being-­ in-­the-world only scratches the surface of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence. It serves as a foundation for a more comprehensive exploration of the ontological performativity inherent in Dasein. To grasp the essence of Heidegger’s concept of original transcendence, we must delve deeper into the “who” of Being-in-the-world, specifically Dasein itself, considered as a thrown existence. Indeed, the original transcendence of Being-in-the-­ world is a phenomenon that can only be conceived because Dasein exists as the unique entity that it is.

 Ibid., 180.  Ibid., 194.

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References Aristotle. 2012. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Robert C.  Bartlett and Susan D. Collins. University of Chicago Press. Crowell, Steven, and Jeff Malpas. 2007. Transcendental Heidegger. Stanford University Press. Dastur, Francoise. 2008. The Reception and Non-Reception of Heidegger in France. French Interpretations of Heidegger, Albany: SUNY Press 265: 289. Derrida, Jacques. 2005. Violence and Metaphysics. In Emmanuel Levinas, ed. Claire Elise Katz & Lara Trout, 1: 88. Routledge. Didier, Franck. 2015. The Sincerity of the Saying. In Between Levinas and Heidegger, 75–84. State University of New York Press. Kisiel, Theodor. 1995. The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time. Berkeley: University of California Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward S. Robinson. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 1977. Sein und Zeit. Gesamtausgabe 2, ed. F.W von Hermann. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 1984. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Trans. Michael Heim. Indiana University Press. ———. 1988. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Rev ed. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. Combined Academic Publication. ———. 1995. Aristotle’s Metaphysics th 1–3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force. Trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek. Indiana University Press. ———. 2001. Einleitung in die Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe 27, ed. O. Saame et I. Saame-Speidel. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2002a. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus. Trans. Ted Sadler. UNKNO. ———. 2002b. Identity and Difference, 42:75, Rev. ed. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. University of Chicago Press. ———. 2008. Towards the Definition of Philosophy (Continuum Impacts, 49). Trans. Ted Sadler. Continuum. ———. 2010. On the Essence of Ground. In Pathmarks, 97–135. Trans. William McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2015. The Beginning of Western Philosophy: Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz. Indiana University Press. ———. 2018. Platon: Sophistes. Gesamtausgabe 19. Verlag Vittorio Klostermann. Hemming, Laurence P. 2008. Work as Total Reason for Being: Heidegger and Jünger’s ‘Der Arbeiter’. Journal for Cultural Research 12 (3): 231–251. Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. XanEdu Publishing, Inc.

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Pöggeler, Otto. 1989. Martin Heidegger’s Path of Thinking. Trans. Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund Barber. Humanity Books. Schmidt, Stefan W. 2016. Grund und Freiheit: Eine phänomenologische Untersuchung des Freiheitsbegriffs Heideggers. Springer. Tengelyi, László. 2015. Welt und Unendlichkeit: Zum Problem Phänomenologischer Metaphysics. Verlag Karl Alber. Tugendhat, Ernst. 1970. Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger. Walter de Gruyter & Co. Zimmerman, Michael E. 1981. Eclipse of the Self: The Development of Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity, Rev. ed. Ohio University Press.

CHAPTER 5

The Transcendental Performativity of Existence

1   Introduction: Existence as Transcendence In the previous chapter, I interpreted “Being-in” and “world” as two elements of what Heidegger calls primary transcendence. The world worlds in a manner that allows beings to appear as distinct, self-identical entities, contributing to a unified structural whole. The way in which a being embodies its own itself-ness and fits into this whole is determined within the event of Being-in-the-world. Each being appropriates what belongs to it in a particular mode of self-owning corresponding to what we find in ourselves as one or another mode of the mineness of experience. In this mutual process of appropriation, transcendence occurs as a happening of Dasein’s self-understanding, intertwined with the destiny dictated by the Being of beings. It signifies the meaningful manifestation of beings in our existence before we objectify them or perceive them as separate from our own selfhood. As emphasized in Chap. 3, Being is Dasein-ish and can only manifest in beings finitely as a particular form of intelligibility. It requires a “there” – a concrete space in which the possibilities of Being collapse into a tangible presentation of beings. Heidegger identifies this collapse as the event of self-understanding enacted through Dasein’s comprehension of Being. Even in his early lectures, Heidegger highlights the existential dimension of this enactment-sense of phenomena. It is a dimension absent in transcendental philosophies and traditional metaphysics. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Kuravsky, Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41291-2_5

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In his Phenomenology of Religious Life course, Heidegger draws attention to the groundlessness and uncertainty of existence, which stands in stark contrast to the traditional metaphysical notion of a predetermined underlying ground for beings. The idea of a predetermined ground assumes a specific mode of structural wholeness and a particular form of intelligibility as the sole and final expression of Being. However, as discussed in Chap. 4, such a preexisting and predetermined ground could never adequately constitute human experience. Without the influence of the historical unfolding of grounded beings on the event of understanding, beings would lack significance and fail to manifest existentially. Therefore, the ontological plurality emphasized by Heidegger from the outset is not merely a phenomenological fact, but rather a condition for the possibility of beings’ manifestation. However, a potential ontological plurality alone would not be sufficient; beings must always rely on a specific ground. Heidegger articulates this notion in relation to the principle of sufficient reason and emphasizes that for something to be one way and not another, there must be a justification or a preference. While Heidegger rejects the traditional version of the principle that reduces all grounds to a sub-jectum, there must still be a preference for one mode of Being over another if beings are to manifest at all. It is important to note that this preference for a particular mode of Being does not occur through conscious choice, nor does it happen neutrally as in Kant’s transcendental understanding. In fact, according to Kant and Husserl, since the ground is always already present, there is no need for human beings in this framework. Human existence becomes entirely redundant. The transcendental ego could potentially serve as a static container for the inner intelligibility of everything that exists, or, if the finiteness of human cognition were somehow necessary, it could be fulfilled by rational, machine-like creatures simply observing chairs and registering their perceived appearances. In this picture, human existential struggle is merely an obstacle to overcome in order to contemplate the static perfection of the universe, including predictable ontic changes within a single logic of beingness. However, such a monstrous universe would lack any experience, and beings would not manifest since there would be no ontological difference or transcendence. As Heidegger emphasized in 1919, a reified ground is not a ground at all – if there were only things, there would be no “there is.” Nevertheless, a single predetermined ground does qualify as a thing in the deepest sense, as it embodies the intelligibility of thingness itself. Yet,

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this notion does not allow us to conceive of beings as being open to themselves in a way that enables them to gather themselves and actively appropriate their itself-ness. Heidegger states that “the thing things” in 1950,1 underscoring that Being is not an external force that gathers beings. Such an idea of Being thinks of it as another (quasi) entity. In a later text, Heidegger says directly that Being is a “relation” in the sense of a form of gathering (of beings).2 Therefore, the self-gathering of beings must occur “in itself” and necessitates what Heidegger refers to as Leibniz’s idea of the monad being open to itself. Being open to itself involves a temporal horizon of self-becoming – beings can only manifest in their own essence if they gather themselves as the worldling of the world, i.e., as an event of worldling transcendence. Such an event, however, is foremost determined by the sense-dimension of enactment; this is an existential event or an event of existence. Heidegger asserts that “Existence is, in its essential ground, transcendence” 3 and that the “exceeding of beings must always have occurred and must have occurred in the very foundation of existence.”4 Having said that, it is important to recognize that what we commonly understand as human “existence” is not merely a fact of our presence, but it exemplifies a specific dimension of intelligibility that constitutes the manner in which Being unfolds in beings. Thus, we need to de-­ anthropomorphize “existence” and consider it as a “form” of Being with its Dasein-character. As Heidegger explains retrospectively in the introduction to What is Metaphysics?, existence is the “place” of the truth of Being.5 Still, it happens as concrete human existence. Consequently, we encounter a problem similar to the one faced in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology: how can the transcendental ego both constitute the world and be a part of it as an empirical ego? In the idealistic version of this question, it remains unsolvable since, as I mentioned earlier, once we have utilized our personal consciousness as a model for the manifestation of beings and have arrived at the universal grammar of Being, there is no fundamental necessity for something akin to personal empirical consciousness within this grammar. In short, if Being is exclusively  Heidegger (2013), 175.  Heidegger (2018), 245. 3  Heidegger (2015), 69. 4  Heidegger (2001a), 206. 5  Heidegger (2004), 373. 1 2

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conceived in universal terms of essences, ideas, and so forth, it is not surprising that personal existence remains both unexplainable and unnecessary. The type of intelligibility that would render individuality ontologically significant must characterize Being itself – Being must possess a “there.” Therefore, existence is precisely the factual unfolding of the Daseincharacter of Being. The fact of human existence does not anthropomorphize Being; rather, it de-anthropomorphizes the Being of human beings. Let us, however, return to the idea that existence allows a preference for one mode of grounding over another. This preference is neither arbitrary nor reducible to the conscious decisions of a human Dasein. Instead, it constitutes a transcendently practical dimension of existence that serves as the foundation for the recursive performativity of Dasein’s transcendence.

2  The Practical Dimension of Willing and the Recursive Nature of Transcendence The practical dimension of volition, which I hinted at in Chap. 2 as an inherent self-regulating aspect of enactment, plays a central role in comprehending the recursive performativity of transcendence. However, it should be noted that the conscious intentions of Dasein do not directly determine the terms of intelligibility of phenomena. Heidegger does not declare a primacy of practical over theoretical. In fact, he sees theoretical comportment as just another form of human comportment, a praxis in its own right. Heidegger insists rather that transcendence cannot be localized in practical or theoretical activities,6 but both are only possible on the basis of transcendence itself.7 Thus, the ontological execution of transcendence, understood as a performative act, must be conceptualized in a manner that exists “in-between” the passively received “a priori” characteristic of theoretical objectivity and the subject’s voluntary determination of Being. Only in this way can we maintain the essence of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence as surpassing the subject-object dichotomy, this time in terms of the subject’s spontaneity contrasting with the object’s passivity. To achieve this, we must closely examine Dasein’s purposiveness in relation to its “for-the-sake-of” orientation.

6 7

 Heidegger (1984), 183.  Ibid., 184.

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While Heidegger does not seek a “practical revolution in philosophy,” he regards Dasein’s existence as imbued with a sense of practice, albeit not in the conventional sense of action directed towards a desired outcome. Instead, he embraces the original Greek understanding of praxis as the realization of inherent agility within action. In the Introduction to Philosophy, Heidegger elucidates Aristotle’s analysis of action as follows: From this it becomes clear: πρακτικός and πράξις, practical and practice, do not mean to be active in the application and use of something, but rather acting and action. The practical is not the work, the success of the action, but it itself. We shouldn’t think of the “practical” in today’s sense at πράξις. Actual action is precisely that which does not first make sense through the possible use and the so-called practical value, but realizes the agility that lies in action – accomplishment by being qua ένέργεια itself τέλος.8

The enactment of transcendence, which constitutes the ontologically performative unfolding of Dasein as the “there” for the self-revelation of phenomena, can be understood as an action in its highest sense. This action does not serve any practical purpose and is not driven by expectations of success or failure – there is no external norm guiding such enactment. Rather, it simply manifests the inherent agility that resides within it; in other words, Dasein exercises its capacity to exist as an entity whose essence is nothing but to be This forms the fundamental nature of the recursive grounding praxis of existence: it grounds because it grounds, but not in the static sense of a transcendental sub-jectum. Instead, it actively confronts itself within existence. Dasein’s being-a-self, says Heidegger, is in every case only in its process of realization (enactment).9 The norm for such activity can only arise internally within the performance of transcendence itself and relates to the quality of Dasein’s self-understanding.10 Since Dasein is disclosure itself, the quality of its self-disclosure (understanding) determines the manner in which disclosure occurs. Tugendhat emphasizes that the scope of Dasein’s “finding itself” is not a pre-transcendental position. In other words,  Heidegger (2001a), 175.  Heidegger (1984), 139. 10  However, since self-understanding is grounded in Dasein’s understanding of Being, the norm of Dasein’s existence must be dictated by Being itself, i.e., by the truth of Being. Heidegger will make this idea explicit only in the 1930s. I will address it in Part III of the book. 8 9

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Dasein is not primarily a “place” where things are given, but rather it opens up a “there” by enacting itself, by discovering and encountering itself.11 Just as the relational aspect of the givenness of phenomena in the early Freiburg lectures depends on the performative sense of Dasein’s self-­ actualization, disclosedness is always shaped by self-disclosedness. Dasein’s self-disclosedness is the way in which Dasein understands itself in terms of its possibilities for being (in the highest sense of praxis). Consequently, the world, as an element of Dasein’s transcendence, is shaped through such existential self-understanding. Dasein assigns itself to an “in order to,”12 that is, to a structure wherein “lies the reference of something to something.”13 We have already encountered this idea in the analysis of the “world.” However, now we need to delve deeper into how Dasein’s existence shapes the world. In the previous chapter, I explained how beings manifest as individual entities, deriving their intelligibility (itself-ness, identity etc.) from the projection of the “for me” character of Being-in-the-world. Now, I want to emphasize the performative nature of this transcendental world-formation. The light in which entities first become available as beings is described by Heidegger as a certain vision, a circumspective look (Umsicht).14 Beings do not exist initially as something neutral to Dasein’s circumspection, but rather circumspection determines a priori the terms of in-order-to, so that beings could show themselves in these terms. It is worth noting that the a priori status of circumspection does not imply that it is beyond factual experience or phenomenologically inaccessible. While the assignments of “in order to” are mostly not consciously observed but instead arise in a way that allows the totality of the world to present itself, one can catch a glimpse of the orientation implied by the assignment, especially when it encounters obstacles. As I mentioned earlier, there is no transcendental gap in Heidegger’s framework – the a priori cannot exist in a realm separate from Dasein’s factual existence. Indeed, what determines the worldliness of the world is a tangible and experientially grounded direction of Dasein’s circumspective concern. This ontological role of existence perplexes many readers of Heidegger’s work. For example, Cristina Lafont attempts to resolve the paradox of the  Tugendhat (1970), 269.  Heidegger (1962), 119. 13  Ibid., 97. 14  Ibid., 98. 11 12

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a priori in Heidegger as shaping the a posteriori experience and yet being historical, that is, dependent on the contingencies of the historical changes.15 However, this problem only arises as long as a transcendental gap is upheld between a priori activities and the factual existence of Dasein, meaning as long as a sub-jectum is posited. A metaphysical sub-jectum, whether located in consciousness, Being, or God, serves as a static foundation for all intelligibility and is inherently opposed to the historicity of empirical experience. In Kant, the a priori categories establish the sub-­ jectum as separate from historical existence, but in Heidegger, Dasein’s very existence is such that entities are released to be. In other words, no a priori structures are present in Dasein, but rather Dasein’s performative opening of the “there” a priori determines the projection of the world. Furthermore, the limitations of projection are not universal norms inherently ingrained in cognition, but are determined by the potential modes of existence, namely, its existentialia.16 This implies that the changes in historical projection reflect modifications in Dasein’s way of Being, which always precede new ways of perceiving nature, for example. The sense of the a priori nature of the circumspective gaze does not imply the existence of pre-established a priori schemas that change whenever concerns change, but rather that concerns themselves are already determined by one’s mode of existence (i.e., one’s way of looking). Consequently, contingent changes in concerns that do not express a modification in one’s mode of existence do not determine one’s understanding, but rather occur within the context of the prevailing understanding. Dasein’s understanding of itself as already assigned to its objectives is the framework through which entities are encountered. The existential and the existentiell are not two separable regions. Existential notions are formal indications of the way existentiell comportments achieve what they achieve. Paraphrasing Merleau Ponty, the existentiell is an isolated and implicit fact, while existential is the same fact understood, made explicit, and followed through into all the consequences of its latent logic.17 In this perspective, a specific interpretation of an existentiell projection is merely  Lafont (2007).  “Existentialia, being nothing other than the very meaning and essence of directly observable human behavior, cannot very well be assumed also to exist in some other way, detached from human existence. Most certainly they do not float in some metaphysical realm of their own.” Boss (1982), 40. 17  Merleau Ponty (2013), 257. 15 16

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the surface-level manifestation, the most readily available configuration of a much larger and less accessible happening of existence. By renouncing the transcendental gap, Heidegger resolves the problem that is present according to Rachel Zuckert in Kant’s notion of the act of synthesis.18 The act of synthesis does not occur on a separate timeline or entirely outside of time, yet it is not a psychological activity in the manner conceived by empiricists. These may seem like the only options because the transcendental nature of Dasein’s Being as transcendence has not been clarified. Nonetheless, the world encompasses both the structural whole of Dasein’s self-understanding and the self-revelation of phenomena. This unity of Being-in-the-world results from the submission of Dasein’s self-­ understanding to the understanding of Being, which, however  – as the disclosedness of beings  – is constantly co-determined by Dasein’s self-­ understanding (self-disclosedness). Moreover, Dasein’s self only becomes concrete “in the service of each possible totality,”19 or, in other words, by serving as the prism of a possible ontological intelligibility of the itself-ness of things, in terms of which they can form a totality of the world. Understanding Being does not entail reaching a predetermined configuration of what beings are; that would be a passive model of theoretical cognition in which Dasein’s existence has no influence on the way beings exist. However, understanding Being is also not a voluntary determination of the Being of beings, as that would imply a radically subjectivistic model where beings have no voice of their own. Factical willing, Heidegger writes, as a willing-of-something presupposes that beings are given to willing. Moreover, it presupposes the disclosedness of the for-the-sake-of, that is, of the larger scope of Dasein’s self-understanding as being able to be in specific ways.20 Indeed, for-the-­ sake-of is the direction of Dasein’s existence, of which any conscious awareness can, in principle, be absent. In this context, understanding of Being should be seen as an ontological reciprocity between Dasein and the Being of beings, where Dasein is absorbed in beings and cannot actively choose the way beings have already affected its understanding. Nevertheless, Dasein’s self-directedness still sets the terms through which beings manifest in the world. Thus, the circularity of existence surpasses the activity-­ passivity schema inherent in the traditional subject-object distinction.  Zuckert (2007).  Heidegger (1984), 140. 20  Heidegger (1962), 239. 18 19

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After all, to transcend towards Being means to enact a particular variation of the way beings can manifest, not as a direct choice of the projected terms but as an indirect echoing of one’s already decided concerns. Understanding the “for-the-sake-of” as the driving force behind Dasein’s ontological performativity (world-shaping) prevents subjective interpretations of existence and allows for a genuine comprehension of Heidegger’s identification of existence with transcendence. However, the central element of Heidegger’s early philosophy that highlights the sense of transcendence surpassing the spontaneity-passivity dichotomy, as well as the dichotomy between subjective condition and conditioned objectivity, is the notion of Dasein’s thrownness

3  Thrownness and the Transcendental Dimension of Will In the previous section, I briefly discussed the transcendental recursion of Dasein’s purposiveness, which entails the reciprocal determination between Dasein’s mode of concern and the impact that beings have already had on it. Factual willing was described as occurring within the context of already disclosed beings, taking on the sense of a will to be and manifesting the agility of existence. However, there must also exist a transcendental dimension of will that is not dependent on the already disclosed intelligibility of beings but instead influences the mode of disclosure itself. It is important to clarify that I am not suggesting the presence of two distinct types of will within us, but rather that factual will is merely a specific expression of a more fundamental practical element that is constantly active within existence, rather than being “used” based on apparent circumstances. Only by conceiving will in this way can existence be characterized by selfhood and understood as an ontologically performative self-realization. However, this transcendental dimension of will cannot autonomously impose itself on Dasein’s existence; instead, it must operate within its facticity as a self-regulation of the modes of Dasein’s thrownness. As emphasized by Heidegger, Dasein is always “delivered over” to itself as its own facticity, that is, as thrown. According to Heidegger, thrownness is an integral aspect of transcendence21 and it forms its basic character.22 As we delve further, we will explore how the notion of  Heidegger (2001a), 329.  Ibid.

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t­hrownness is inseparable from the transcendental dimension of will in Dasein’s existence. However, what exactly does thrownness entail? In Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event), Heidegger expresses his disappointment with the fact that many have interpreted thrownness “in the sense of the mere accidental occurrence of the human being among other beings.”23 This interpretation reduces thrownness to the contingency of one’s situation, where one finds themselves in circumstances they did not intentionally choose, facing various existential, physical, social, and psychological conditions. However, this understanding contradicts Heidegger’s earlier words that thrownness is the fundamental nature of transcendence. Indeed, in Being and Time, Heidegger stresses that Dasein’s “openness to the world is constituted existentially by the attunement of a state-of-mind.”24 The world is primarily disclosed in “bare mood.”25 Disposition (state-of-mind), attunement, and mood all characterize thrownness, and hence the basic character of transcendence. Accordingly, all understanding of Being has its mood. The misinterpretation of Heidegger’s thrownness can take an ontological form as it does in Sheehan. “Thrown-openness,” writes Sheehan, “entails that we can and must make sense of whatever we meet.”26 However, the problem lies in Sheehan’s understanding of “making sense.” Although Heidegger explains human understanding in terms of the “as-­ structure,” it does not imply that understanding a chair, for example, as something to sit on and later as something to reach a high shelf with, captures the ontological meaning of thrown understanding. The “’as’ of something-as,” says Sheehan, “is what human λόγoς brings to the phenomenon in order to let it ‘become’ what it is.”27 While this is partially correct, two issues arise that obscure the transcendental nature of thrownness. Firstly, Sheehan assumes that the sense of “something” is given and only needs to be filled with significance. However, for something to become what “it is,” there must be a sense of its itself-ness prior to any significance for human beings. Secondly, what “human λόγoς” brings forth must belong to Being and be projected by human beings. Thus, contrary to Sheehan’s perspective, the meaning of “aletheia” encompasses both  Heidegger (2012), 251.  Heidegger (1962), 176. 25  Ibid., 177. 26  Sheehan (2014). 105. 27  Ibid., 87. 23 24

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truth and openness to meaning, as meaning must be understood ontologically, not merely as the ontic intelligibility of a tool, but as the intelligibility of the sense of its individual manifestation, enabling it to appear as a tool at all. As Heidegger stresses, the shift from ready-at-hand to present-to-hand is a modification of the as-structure.28 However, the as-structure is grounded ontologically in the temporality of understanding,29 and therefore any modification is also grounded in it. In essence, understanding of Being is not a determination of an ontic dynamism concerning the “as-what” of experienced beings, but a determination of the ontological mode of the as-­ structure. The potential modes of the as-structure (and hence all interpretations of beings) belong to Being and must be understood a priori in each event of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. Although the as-structure is indeed part of what Heidegger refers to as the world, the world is not solely what designates the “that-as-which” a thing appears, as Sheehan suggests.30 Instead, as emphasized in Chap. 4, the world is an ongoing event (of worlding) in which the mode of beings’ itself-ness/identity is determined, allowing beings as a whole to manifest as constituting an intelligible structural whole. Ontologically speaking, moods are not subjective additions to objective realities, nor are they mere psychological inclinations that help us discern what is important in a given situation. Rather, moods reveal the state of the “there.” Heidegger emphasizes that it is a phenomenological fact that beings cannot exist without evoking feelings of threat, calmness, indifference, and so on. Human beings can be psychologically influenced by specific moods precisely because the nature of beings necessitates it – understanding of Being always carries its own mood.31 In other words, Dasein can only perceive possibilities through the lens of a particular mood. According to Medard Boss, our emotional states are not located “within” us or “somewhere outside" of us; instead, we are inseparable from our emotional states themselves.32 The state of attunement, Boss continues, simultaneously represents the specific manner in which we exist as open to the world in each given moment.33 In Being and Time,  Heidegger (1962), 200.  Ibid., 411. 30  Sheehan (2014), 87. 31  Ibid., 190. 32  Boss (1982), 113. 33  Ibid., 114. 28 29

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Heidegger explains that the “there” of phenomena, as a revealing space of possibilities for manifestation, is determined by Dasein’s projection of its own potentiality-for-Being, which is always influenced by Dasein’s thrownness in the “there” and encountered as a factual condition through a mood Heidegger underscores that attunement, or mood, is a fundamental aspect of our existence as Dasein. 34 It is through attunement that beings-­ as-­ a-whole are disclosed. This “as-a-whole,” Heidegger says in the Introduction to Philosophy, belongs essentially to transcendence: What does this mean “as a whole” that belongs to transcendence? It is that towards which the surpassing of beings is enacted, that which transcendence transcends to, and accordingly that from which Dasein in relation to beings comes back to it. We call that towards which the essentially transcending Dasein transcends, the world. In the surpassing, however, Dasein does not rise out of itself in such a way that it leaves itself behind, as it were, but it not only remains itself, but precisely becomes itself. To transcend means to be in the world.35

This passage highlights the unique nature of Dasein’s transcendence. As a being thrown into existence, Dasein is constantly returning to the realm of surpassed beings. This process of coming back and dwelling among beings is central to Heidegger’s understanding of transcendence. Dasein does not simply surpass beings; it also always already returns to beings, bearing the weight of being essentially concerned with its dwelling among them. The movement of transcendence does not follow a linear path from point A to point B, as there are no such discrete points in the present moment before transcendence occurs. Once again, Being is not an external force that acts upon beings. This is precisely what Heidegger means by “primary” in his discussion of primary transcendence. It signifies the original perspective in which Dasein exists, ontologically intertwined with beings, unable to separate itself as an immanent subjectivity and condition beings without being conditioned by them. Indeed, the primary transcendence of Being-in-the-world indicates that understanding and disposition constitute a distinct openness in which Dasein always already finds itself. Dasein becomes itself by surpassing beings as a whole, yet it never severs its connection with beings. In surpassing, Dasein encounters the surpassed realm in a particular mood.  Heidegger (2001b), 182.  Heidegger (2001a), 307.

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Thrownness embodies the experiential aspect of experience, as experiencing something entails not only perceiving its significance but also being bound by beings in one’s destiny and surrendering to them. As its own “there,” Dasein is “existentially surrendered to thrownness.”36 As argued in Chap. 4, we can only experience beings because “to experience” means to be open in a way that allows the existential significance of beings to influence our mode of existence – the how of our existence is inseparable from the weight of beings (i.e., beings matter). Furthermore, the fundamental experiential sense of the sheer fact of the manifestation of beings as a whole is not merely an ontic significance or presence, but the intrusive burden it imposes. The inner logic of moods revolves around Dasein’s attitude toward its burdensome nature. While certain moods may bring a sense of relief (while still assuming the background of burden), in a balanced mood, Being explicitly manifests as a burden.37 Human Dasein always finds itself already within an event of its existence; it does not establish the foundation of its potentiality-for-Being and yet rests in the weight of it.38 To understand the thrown character of transcendence, we need to examine more closely what “burden” means here and the specific “weight” that Dasein carries. Heidegger states that we cannot know why Being must manifest as a burden because “the possibilities of disclosure which belong to cognition reach far too short a way compared with the primordial disclosure belonging to moods, in which Dasein is brought before its Being as ‘there’.”39 However, I believe that Heidegger is simply highlighting the inadequacy of any attempt to analyze the burdensome nature of Dasein based on experiential factors. Nevertheless, within the framework of fundamental ontology, that is, in terms of the transcendental logic of Dasein, we can better comprehend the nature of existence as burdened. When we merely say, as Sheehan does, that Dasein’s burden is to make sense of things with no founding of a final reason,40 it is not immediately evident why such a task must be burdensome. “Burden” is a strong word, and Heidegger intentionally chose it. In a later footnote, Heidegger clarifies that burden must be understood as “that which is to be carried out  Heidegger (1962), 184.  Ibid., 173. 38  Ibid., 330. 39  Ibid., 173. 40  Sheehan (2014), 163. 36 37

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(das Zu-tragende).” To carry, he says, is to take over from belonging to Being itself. This definition is clearly related to transcendence. Transcendence turns out to be a burden because the projection of the understanding of Being is not effortless; it is something that must be carried out. This point is crucial for distinguishing Heidegger’s conception of transcendence from previous transcendental notions. Transcendental consciousness does not need to carry anything out; it is more like a feature of the sub-jectum, a philosophical description of a ground that is always already there with no need for anyone’s empirical existence. Transcendental consciousness does not require carrying anything out; it is more akin to a characteristic of the sub-jectum, a philosophical description of a ground that is always already present without the need for anyone’s empirical existence. Those who imagine that the world would remain the same without Dasein implicitly assume the existence of a metaphysical sub-jectum underlying a fixed intelligibility of what it means for a world to be. However, if Being is conceived as an unfathomable potential for various modes of the intelligibility of what it means for a being to be (i.e., to own itself ), the very possibility of an event in which one of these modes becomes “actual” necessitates an investigation into the how of this event and, contrary to Heidegger’s earlier statement, a comprehension of the reason for the burdensome character of Dasein. The clues for such comprehension can be found in Being and Time. A mood, says Heidegger, makes manifest “how one is.”41 This “how one is” brings Dasein to its “there.” The fact that there is a pre-reflective awareness of the “how one is” forms the basis of the experiential nature of human experience. “How one is” is not a psychological description, although genuine psychological descriptions are rooted in it. It is not an internal or immanent ontic quality of the human psyche Focusing solely on the ontic aspect of moods prevents us from grasping their transcendental role. However, Dasein is delivered to its “there” by the “how it is.” The “how it is” is a historically unfolding existential state of human beings; it represents a concrete mode of enactment in which one finds oneself each time. As emphasized in Chap. 2, enactment is not something we consciously “do,” but rather an event in which we somehow participate. This “participation” does not occur directly, as if we were choosing the mode of enactment in the same way we choose to sit or stand. Nevertheless, the way Being manifests in beings in a specific form depends on the “how it  Heidegger (1962), 173.

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is” of the “there” of Dasein. Therefore, the potential modes of Being are contingent upon what constitutes the “how it is” of existence and the way existence confronts itself in its “how it is.” In The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Heidegger relates thrownness to what is overwhelming,42 which serves as the fundamental indication of how existence is experienced. Being overwhelms by the weight of its essence, functioning as the origin of ontological plurality. Any specific “there” must confront this overwhelming potential of Being to allow a particular mode of existential intelligibility to prevail. The overwhelming nature of Being is extraordinarily radical because it is not an overwhelming of individual beings, but of what allows the overwhelmed Dasein to exist as itself. In other words, if Dasein could not withstand the overwhelming force of Being, its own essence and individuality would dissipate into nothingness. As an existing being, Dasein cannot avoid withstanding Being since the intelligibility of its own selfhood arises within this confrontation. While Sheehan is correct in asserting that Dasein must make sense, the burdensome nature of this “must” only becomes apparent when we accurately understand how transcendence functions in Heidegger’s philosophy. This “must” leaves no room for appeals because Dasein’s existence is entwined with the overwhelming pressure of Being, deriving its own individuality from it. As stated in the cited footnote, Dasein must carry what belongs to Being itself. However, recognizing the inevitability of withstanding Being is insufficient to fully comprehend the burdensome character of thrownness. Yes, Dasein always finds itself in a situation where it must be who it is— it did not choose to understand Being, nor did it choose the particular historical configuration of its concrete understanding. Nonetheless, to grasp why this is burdensome, we need to delve deeper into the inescapable threat that constitutes existence in its ontological role of withstanding the overwhelming pressure of Being. Merely having a sense of obligation or necessity to do something is not equivalent to a burden. A burden entails a sense of unrelenting tension. In fact, one of the meanings of the German word “Last” is “strain.” When dealing with a physical burden, one’s muscles become strained or tensed. In a broader psychological sense, a burden manifests as tension, even when one is attempting to rest—the weight of the burden continuously strains something that is never at rest. Instead of viewing Dasein as an overly spoiled being that perceives its own existence  Heidegger (1984), 11.

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as burdensome simply because it is an unavoidable fact (“poor me, I must make sense of things”), we should interpret Heidegger’s concept as pointing to the existence of essential tension that constitutes the “how it is” of existence. This tension originates from Dasein’s ontological makeup, which necessitates the inevitable carrying of what belongs to Being itself. So, where does this tension come from? Kierkegaard teaches us that hiddenness is the factor that creates tension in dramatic life.43 The dramatic hero cannot reveal the truth and carries it as a burden. We can apply this principle to everyday life as well. The tension between two people (e.g., sexual tension) is a state in which something is indeed hidden, something that does not reveal itself but is actively operative in the situation. However, for Kierkegaard, the heaviest burden would be a hiddenness that cannot be disclosed or expressed because it cannot be universally understood. It is the burden of the absurd that shapes one’s existence in faith. Existentialists do perceive existence as absurd and burdensome, and some readers of Heidegger too quickly attribute this absurdity to Dasein. Yet, all such interpretations are quasi-psychological and have little to do with Heidegger’s ontology. For Heidegger, the hiddenness is indeed the source of tension. However, it is the hiddenness of the concealed. As a “there,” Dasein is confronted with the immense pressure of the concealed, which is necessary to allow the process of unconcealment and the manifestation of Being in a specific manner. The concealed is not a being but rather a non-entity, a nothingness. Dasein’s existence, its “that it is,” is veiled in terms of its origin and destination because it finds itself thrown into a state of being surrounded and overwhelmed by this nothingness. This nothingness represents the potentiality of Being that is either no longer something intelligible or not yet something intelligible. Thrownness, rather than merely indicating the contingency of one’s situation, characterizes Dasein’s relationship with this nothingness as a boundary that limits existence. As Heidegger expresses in the Introduction to Philosophy, Insofar as understanding is part of the essence of existence, this means: Dasein constantly exists along the edge of not. This means that being in front of yourself with regard to your own possibilities always shows a possibility of non-being. This ‘not’ is by no means something that lies outside of Dasein and is only spoken to it, but this non-character belongs to the essence  Kierkegaard (1983), 83.

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of its Being. It has this non-character, is determined by this not, a “nullity”; but “nullity” does not mean “nothing” here, but the other way around: this null, which is by no means exhaustive by what has been said, is the most positive thing that can belong to the transcendence of Dasein; yes, precisely in this original determination, the will and the thrownness go together.

In Part III of the book, I will delve into the detailed ontological significance of Dasein’s relationship with nothingness in both its authentic and inauthentic modes. However, at this point, it is important to emphasize that the possibility of non-being as a nullity constitutes the underlying hidden aspect that generates existential tension. In order to serve as the ”there” for the event of understanding Being, existence must be connected to the not-yet understood Being; the boundary between what is intelligible and what is not must exist within existence to enable the transition of intelligibility within the event of Being-in-the-world. This nullity of non-Being is not an empty space but rather an enigmatic abyss, the origin of Being. Heidegger states that it is the most positive element in Dasein’s transcendence as it enables the determination of beings, not only as what is actual but also as what is possible, necessary, accidental, and even as the “nothing” in the ordinary sense.44 In short, it reveals the intelligibility of beings in their own right by carrying what belongs to Being. However, due to being thrown on the edge of nothingness, Dasein inevitably experiences this throw as a burden, a tension inherent in its existence. Similar to Kierkegaard, the hiddenness cannot be eradicated as it opposes the intelligibility of the unhidden. In Contributions, Heidegger emphasizes this sense of thrownness in contrast to its common misinterpretation as situational contingency. Thrownness can only be experienced from the perspective of the truth of Being, the self-concealing principle by which Being allows beings to be in the “there” of Dasein’s understanding. The terms on which Dasein’s understanding takes place belong to Being itself. Understanding is attuned in the sense that it is thrown by Being. Significantly, Heidegger asserts that in this original determination, will and thrownness are intertwined. Indeed, in thrownness, we find the solution to the problem encountered in Chap. 2. The event of enactment is not caused or reflectively determined by human beings, yet there is a guiding principle in it that enables life to be genuinely enacted to a greater or lesser degree. There is a space for Dasein to move, to have a role in  Heidegger (2012), 59.

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shaping how the event of unconcealment unfolds. The existential burden only becomes burdensome when what is hidden within it, or rather the hiddenness itself, becomes an operative factor that one must confront in one way or another. The “how it is” of existence is primarily constituted by its orientation towards or away from the burdensome character of Dasein.45 Indeed, the fundamental tension of existence is often experienced as an ongoing endeavor to evade the nullity of Being. Although it may not be consciously recognized, it represents an inherent effort that can only be replaced by a different type of effort, one that consciously withstands the nullity. The inescapable burden of existence does not lie in the fact that we must exist, but rather in the exertion of existence that is predominantly directed towards evading Being’s essential concealment. For Heidegger, the hiddenness is not absurd, but rather an enigma. We find ourselves thrown on the edge of the enigma of Being. As Heidegger states, in our comportment towards entities, there is a priori an enigma.46 Indeed, the mood brings Dasein “before the “that-it-is” of its ‘there,’ which, as such, stares it in the face with the inexorability of an enigma.”47 It is important to note that we do not engage with this enigma through speculation, blind belief, or defending a metaphysical worldview that claims to acknowledge it. Instead, we tune ourselves to it. This is the place where early Heidegger’s interpretation of the role of will can be located. The sharpness of Dasein’s will is found in the struggle48 to master one’s moods.49 The fundamentally transcendental application of will is a decision to turn towards the burdensome character of existence. Importantly, Dasein’s thrownness is not a separate or subsequent occurrence from the event of understanding. While understanding projects what belongs to Being itself, it occurs as existence and is determined by the specific mode of thrownness, namely, the attuned way in which Dasein already understands itself. The act of evasively turning away from Being is thus constitutive of its understanding. Consequently, Being manifests within the performative self-determination of existence. As the “there” of all intelligibility, transcendence occurs uniquely, each time in a mode  Heidegger (1962), 174.  Ibid., 23. 47  Ibid., 175. 48  Heidegger (2001a, b), 325. 49  Heidegger (1962), 175. 45 46

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determined by its own happening. This is the meaning of thrownness as the basic character of transcendence. As emphasized in the previous section, the historical determination of understanding is not influenced by the external observation of the contingency of human concerns, but rather by the mode of being-concerned underlying them. It is now evident that this mode is shaped by what can be described as a “transcendental dimension of human will” that always co-constitutes the event of understanding and is phenomenologically present as an inert effort to turn away from the burdensome nature of existence.

4  How Many Existences? How Many Daseins? In this final section, I will explore the concept of the manifold of human existences and its relationship to the singularity of Dasein. To understand this, we need to consider the transcendental role of Being-with. While there is much to discuss regarding the Being-with aspect, I will focus on its transcendental significance. This will demonstrate that the multiplicity of existences does not contradict the singularity of Dasein but rather confirms the de-anthropomorphized nature of human existence and Heidegger’s notion of transcendence. The first transcendental role of Being-with is its indication of how Dasein, as the openness of the “there,” can comprehend itself as Dasein. Heidegger emphasizes that Dasein’s understanding of Being already implies an understanding of others, enabling factual encounters and knowledge of fellow human beings.50 Even knowing oneself is grounded in Being-with.51 This statement does not imply that one’s self is a social construct or that knowing oneself requires language and regular communication. It only means that to know oneself is to know oneself as Dasein, and something like Dasein – be it my own or Other’s – can only be understood by someone whose Being is also a Being-with. To be concerned with my own Being includes understanding oneself as existing “on my own,” alone in the world, or essentially dedicated to Others. In either case, the

 Heidegger (1962), 161.  Ibid.

50 51

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with-­character of understanding plays a decisive role.52 In this light, Beingwith is an essential element of understanding Being and, therefore, of the structure of primordial transcendence. In each projection of the understanding of Being, Dasein unveils itself as a possible Being-with-others.53 The second transcendental role of Being-with pertains to the importance of inter-subjective accessibility of truth in language. The intelligibility of beings belongs to the transcendentally opened-up sphere of existence. That is, beings manifest in a way that anyone can discover and point out their presence to others. Furthermore, experiencing something as real has a structure of accessibility not only for oneself but also for others, even if there are currently no others in the world who possess the appropriate understanding and can witness what one witnesses. In essence, if something is a being, it is, in principle, accessible to others. This principle is central to Dasein’s existence and highlights a distinctive characteristic of Dasein’s Being-with. Heidegger develops the transcendental relation between Being-with and truth in the Introduction to Philosophy course. There Heidegger stresses that the essence of Being-there is Being-with.54 However, in the same place, Heidegger points out that Being-there is a being that breaks open the sphere of manifestness.55 Dasein forms the sphere of manifestness and defines itself qua Being-there.56Notably, the thus opened-up sphere of manifestness is characterized as a sphere of the possible neighborhood of the “there.”57 This thought, Heidegger warns, cannot be understood in the egological framework such as Husserl’s.58 An egological subject, he explains, is a sub-determined subjectivity “which causes an over-determination of the relationship from subject to subject.”59 An I-thou relation becomes a problem since each subject is understood as a 52  Medard Boss is his Psychoanalysis and Daseinanalysis brings the example of the unique importance of mother’s emotional attitude for infant’s wellbeing. Such a role of emotional relation is only possible if the infant’s relationship to the mother is one of “opening up and discovering meaning – in this case the meaning of being sheltered or loved by her.” (Boss (1982), 35) In other words, the infant is never “closed within himself” but exists in terms of the loving-sheltering attunement of his mother. 53  Luchte (2011), 52. 54  Heidegger (2001a, b), 138. 55  Ibid., 137. 56  Ibid. 57  Ibid., 138. 58  Ibid., 142. 59  Ibid., 140.

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numerically existing “there,” which, in principle, does not have to be related to other subjects but can exist egoically on its own. The fact that human beings, in many cases, exist in a way that seems to be thus separated and “ego-centered” says something about the negative possibilities of existence. Yet, it also presupposes that the Other is understood as a human, even if in the most degrading sense. Paraphrasing Derrida  – If Dasein was not recognized as Dasein, its entire alterity would collapse.60 The Being-with is always assumed in any case of I-thou relation. Ethico-­ metaphysical transcendence presupposes ontological transcendence. The fact that the Other can at all appear before me and claim anything assumes that claims as such are intelligible based on the Being of what is claimed. Indeed, for Heidegger, the transcendental necessity of Being-with lies prior to the I-thou relation, which, as any relation between concrete beings, requires a “there” in which beings can manifest in their truth. Truth, however, depends on the happening of Dasein’s transcendence: The theses ‘Dasein is in the truth’ and ‘truth exists’ do not mean a bad relativization of the truth to man, but vice versa: they place man before beings in such a way that he first of all – as an essentially disclosive being – can be guided by what has become necessary with the disclosure of its Da. Only if disclosed Dasein can be oriented towards beings as they have been discovered can it make adequate statements.61

A ”bad” relativization of truth only makes sense if Dasein is thought of as a traditional subject, having its own window through which it sees the world in terms of this window. However, such a subject would never be able to understand beings as beings since they show themselves in terms of their own Being. if we conceive of Dasein as a traditional subject that has its own limited perspective through which it views the world. However, such a subject would never truly understand beings as they reveal themselves in terms of their own Being. While it is true, as Karsten Harries observes, that Dasein cannot transcend its concrete existence within the world and is bound by what is,62 unable to attain a neutral viewpoint, Dasein has already transcended beings towards their Being and returned to beings in their truth. This truth can be formulated and expressed in a manner that other human beings can, in principle, affirm. The question  Derrida (2005).  Heidegger (2001a, b), 155. 62  Harries (2007). 60 61

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then arises: how does the individual “there” of Dasein allow beings to be co-experienced with others? How is it possible for a multitude of “theres” to be available for the same beings? At the core of this issue lies the problem of a thing’s identity, which appears to be threatened by Heidegger’s inclusion of the Other in the unfolding of world-projection. Heidegger’s response involves a transcendental interpretation of two key terms: “with” and “same.” First, the notion of “with” is to be grasped as a participation, not a mere “togetherness.”63 Moreover, Heidegger says explicitly that “’with’ is a proper way of Being (des Seins).”64 The so-called inter-subjectivity must also be de-anthropomorphized and thought of ontologically! It is vital, however, to comprehend what ontological participation means. As Heidegger puts it, If we appropriately visualize that everyone in this room is directed each to a separate object, then we exist in a certain way apart. But if we assume that each person’s being directed towards a different object constitutes one common task of describing the hall, then the coexistence of the task would make coexistence more real than before. Such a behavior of several people towards the same is a way in which being-with-each-other manifests itself; maybe it is one that is necessary for human coexistence.65

So far, I have presented Dasein as a transcendence that, is in principle, personal, not in the sense of being subjective, but as being essentially singular. The presence of other human beings exposes the inadequacy of such a singularity of the “there.” Nevertheless, a manifold of the “there” is absurd as well. Beings need a “there” to manifest in their Being – the darkness of non-being must be opened up from within by creating a sphere of illumination. This sphere cannot be conceived as a collection of separate lights; where would all these individual lights coexist? Is there an additional “there” for them? Clearly not. The “there,” then, cannot be mine in a traditionally egological sense. Moreover, to think of a multitude of Daseins, each offering itself as a “there” for beings, is a covert regression to the traditional notion of subjectivity. Instead, Heidegger asks us to imagine a group with a common task of inspecting the room, each looking in a different direction. This metaphor should make it easier to imagine  Heidegger (2001a, b), 85.  Ibid. Italics mine. 65  Ibid., 92. 63 64

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that all human beings participate in a single task of the unconcealment of truth by existing with-one-another and opening up a single “there.” That is, Heidegger’s metaphor helps understand the sense of “with” in “co-­ experiencing the same beings with others.” Second, Heidegger investigates the meaning of the “same” in the argument that we all discover the same beings. Heidegger argues that the traditional notion of sameness owes much to God’s theological image of absolute knowledge.66 Known things are conceived as lacking all relativity and change, that is, as the objects of absolute knowledge. However, Heidegger points out, to remain themselves, things do not have to be unchanged or unchangeable. Neither do they need to exist as something persisting in the diversity of its views (as a substance). Only a theological notion of transcendence assumes that some absolute ground must underly empirical contingencies. Moreover, the “same” does not mean the formal identity with itself.67 In Chap. 4, I discussed the ontological plurality of a being’s itself-ness determining the plurality of the senses of its identity. To be identical to itself (i.e., be the same) is not something that has meaning a priori before the event of Being’s self-understanding happening each time as Dasein’s understanding of Being. Instead, “identity” belongs to the enacted intelligibility of a being’s itself-ness, i.e., of the concrete way it manifests as itself within a world whose unity is determined in terms of such ontological intelligibility. In fact, an object’s being-identical to itself is essentially related to its being-graspable as such. Several people can say that they witness the same object precisely because something is being-­ grasped as the same object by them.68 More precisely, the thing itself presents itself already in a way that it can be thus grasped by the many – the thing shows itself graspable as the same by any number of people. Heidegger points out that by letting a thing be as it is, without interfering with it, we unconceal it in its truth.69 Nevertheless, the unconcealment of beings is essentially shared; the object’s identity is determined by the comportment of the several towards it, by what is common and shared by the several. And that is the truth of the being in question.70 Truth, Heidegger says, is that which we share. The great mystery of truth is how  Ibid., 94.  Ibid., 95–96. 68  Ibid., 97. 69  IBid., 104. 70  Ibid., 106. 66 67

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to understand this sharing ontologically – what is precisely shared by us? Heidegger’s answer is that human beings participate in the unconcealment of beings and, in this way, participate in Being. Truth belongs to the Being of Dasein precisely because to the Being of Dasein belongs being-with-on-another.71 Because the essence of truth becomes clear only when sharing-in-truth, and that means being together as the way of Being, becomes tangible 72

Heidegger draws this idea from his interpretation of Leibniz – a monad, he says, is not a soul. Rather a soul is only a possible modification of the monad.73 That is to say, monads are not isolated pieces, each producing a world of its own, but rather each monad presents the world from a viewpoint.74 This idea challenges our ability to imagine what world-projection means since Dasein does not enact a subjective viewpoint on an already existing common world but rather projects a viewpoint. That means that the world is both common and individual; there is no single world in the traditional theoretically numerical sense. The universe, Heidegger says, is, in a certain sense, multiplied by as many times as there are monads.75 Heidegger’s own example of a city, which is depicted differently by each individual observer, can be misleading and serves primarily as an illustration. This becomes evident in Heidegger’s subsequent explanation, where he presents monads as entities that not only lack windows but also do not require windows.76The monad is in consensus with other monads even though it apprehends only a particular perspective. Dasein’s participation in the common truth with another Dasein is a matter of a common world.77 However, the world is not a present-at-hand entity but an element of Dasein’s transcendence. Accordingly, when Dasein surpasses beings and projects a world as the structural whole of their possible manifestation, the nature of this projection cannot be represented by the theoretical singularity-­ multiplicity schema. Such a schema belongs to the theoretical thinking in which Dasein is already assumed as an individual subjectivity.  Ibid., 109.  Ibid. 73  Heidegger (1984), 91. 74  Ibid., 94–96. 75  Ibid., 97. 76  Ibid., 99. 77  Tengelyi (2015), 250. 71 72

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World-­projection, on the other hand, fulfills Dasein’s primordial transcendence as transgressing the subject-object and the subject-subject distinctions. Admittedly, world projection is not subjective, neither in the sense of being somehow internal nor in the sense of being numerically singular. Rather, Dasein, in its transcendence, surpasses the singularity of beings’ actuality and participates in a creation-projection of a multilayered structural whole, to which it then allows limited individual access. Inner-worldly beings are not determined each time differently by the billions of human beings as if each were constituting a separate world. Leibniz’s “predestined harmony” must be deconstructed from its theoretical pre-­ understanding of the universe. The harmony is not pre-destined as if its unity were determined a priori and according to a metaphysical sub-­jectum (i.e., by God, nature, transcendental consciousness, etc.) but is en-­destined through the with-character of Dasein’s transcendence, each time “anew.” Beings as such do not exist in a fixed and predetermined manner. Rather, if we could observe reality “outside” a phenomenological standpoint, we would see that beings comprise multiple layers of determinability. This means that they can be understood and accessed in various ways, corresponding to the potential modes of access that can be shared among individuals. In other words, the perceived determinacy of things is contingent upon a particular human perspective. From this perspective, we can understand that transcending the subject-subject dichotomy involves moving beyond the notion of a fixed and unchanging object set against subjectivity. Through its transcendence of beings, Dasein actively participates in projecting the possibilities of what the Being of beings can entail. The relation between Heidegger’s sense of phenomenon and the traditional notion of appearance receives here a peculiar twist. The sameness of each being is not a matter of formal self-identity, but rather a coexistence of all its potential determinations projected by all human beings in the happening of Dasein’s transcendence. Truth is constitutive for the structure of Being-together as an essential way of the Being of Dasein.78 Any accusations of truth’s relativization to the subject, Heidegger says, are based on unclarified arguments since the concept of the subject remains indefinite in them.79 Always assuming such  Heidegger (2001a, b), 110.  Ibid., 114.

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an indefinite concept of the subject, philosophers try to achieve clarity regarding what truth is. Heidegger stresses that the opposite way must be taken – one must clarify the meaning of the subject in order to grasp for the first time what truth means, and in what sense it can or cannot be “subjective.”80 Here again, the matters can only be correctly understood if Heidegger’s notion of transcendence is kept in mind. In Introduction to Philosophy, in a presentation of what subjectivity means, Heidegger stresses once again that Dasein “does not come from an immanence to other beings only in the course of its existence.”81 That is, existence is never “in a capsule,” never a subject in a bad sense.82 Dasein was never something that could be called “inner sphere.” Instead, Dasein is unconcealed qua Dasein, is itself disclosed, essentially as an openness to what is already there, as a being among other present beings.83 Primordial transcendence allows beings to be on their own as long as a “there” is opened up where they can take place. Heidegger expresses this thought as a dependence between Dasein’s self-disclosedness and its being-among-beings. Now, however, Heidegger complements this determination of Dasein’s transcendence with a no less radical idea. The unconcealment of beings, the light which allows beings to show themselves in their Being, does not belong to Dasein as an individual human being. 84 However, this should not be interpreted as suggesting that Dasein is akin to a universal consciousness where human beings are mere manifestations. Such an idealistic perspective clings to the notion of subjectivity as immanence and merely elevates it to the level of universal immanence. Though there is a shared world, co-projected by all human beings, the multiplicity of individuals is not subjected to the “domination of unity.”85 Pace Levinas, the relation to the Other is not mediated by the sameness of an impersonal Being.86 On the contrary, Being is the openness of the  Ibid., 116.  Ibid., 122. 82  Ibid. 83  Ibid., 129. 84  Ibid., 120. 85  Derrida (2005). 86  Derrida succinctly comments on this mistake. Levinas, he says, inserts the face of a faceless tyrant under the name of Being. This however has nothing to do with Being, which is radically foreign to the search of a generalizing principle (Ibid). This misunderstanding is a perfect example of the way original transcendence is misrecognized as a traditionally metaphysical transcendence towards the most general beingness of beings. See Part III. 80 81

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relation to Otherness, i.e., to alterity as such.87 The Other, in Jean-Luc Nancy’s words, is not opposed to Being but is the most proper problem of Being.88 Dasein’s transcending beyond beings is a contribution to a common space of possibilities, a democratic participation in the unconcealment of the truth of beings. The world  – and that means also Being – transgresses the ontic dichotomy of unity-manifold, same-Other so that these distinctions could be experienced in a shared world by the many before they are speculated about in philosophical treatises.89 For Heidegger, the “with” is not an ontic relation to the Other, expressing some or other way of experiencing the Other (companionship, solidarity, etc.), but an ontological determination of Dasein’s transcendence. On one hand, it enables Dasein to collaboratively project the world, and on the other hand, it facilitates the understanding of both the Other and itself as Dasein—transcending beyond all worldly beings—in a manner that their truth remains accessible to all. Though Heidegger does not treat this point sufficiently, the double function of Being-with must be taken into account in its interpretation. To not recognize Dasein as Dasein is to miss transcendence, to forget Being, and consequently to see in myself and the Other only a member of a species “human.” Heidegger’s definition of Dasein as the being for whom its own Being is an issue should not be read in the egological sense since if Being-with belongs to one’s Being and the “Da” of Dasein cannot be separated from all with whom it co-projects the world; that Being with which Dasein is concerned is every Dasein’s Being. Being an “ego” does not pertain to the essence of Dasein.90 As Heidegger says in the Zollikon seminars, in Being and Time, to be a being whose Being itself is at issue means that I am concerned with you, and you are concerned with me.91 In relation to the ontology of Dasein’s transcendence, the connection of the problem of truth to the problem of other human beings is of great  Raffoul (2015), 187.  Nancy (2000), 32. 89  The idea here is close to Nancy’s ontology of plurality without generality. As Van der Heiden stresses, such an ontology allows a genuine conflict since what is common is not a universal meaning but the very communicability of sense/Being (Van der Heiden (2014), 88). Such a conflict, however, is only possible if the Other’s position can in principle become intelligible for me. That is, prior to the factual plurality of world-projections there must be a common source of intelligibility, offering itself as sharable. 90  Heidegger (1984), 188. 91  Heidegger (2017), 835. 87 88

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importance. According to Heidegger, unconcealment has nothing to do with possession. Dasein allows beings to appear in their truth, which is never “owned” by a particular existence but comes into existence as already “given-away.”92 Dasein is so determined in its Being that it always shares the discoverable beings whether “another” Dasein is factually present or not.93 As Heidegger explains in the Introduction to Philosophy, The ‘with’ is only where there is a ‘there’. Each of the several being-by … is being-with; it is not one and the other that is present, but the mutual is a coexistence. Da-sein and Da-sein cannot be factual other than that they are ever the Da, whereby the factual spatial distance of the places of residence is completely insignificant. But each of the Da already means: giving away in the same area of disclosure.94

Dasein always shares the area of disclosure, the “there,” with another Dasein, no matter where that other is and whether it is at all. No individual human being has a privileged position regarding either truth or the beings to which it belongs. The “there” of beings is not anyone’s to claim, even though each human being exists as Dasein. The inquiry into whether Dasein is a singular or plural phenomenon only holds significance when Dasein is conceived as a conventional subject that is defined as an existing entity with a predetermined sense of identity and difference prior to the understanding of Being (thus belonging to a metaphysical sub-jectum). However, if we acknowledge that Dasein represents Being in its inherent need for self-gathering, where its specific mode is manifested in beings within a “there,” it becomes apparent that there can be multiple senses of identity, each requiring an unconcealment. The event of unconcealment cannot be confined to a specific notion of being identical or plural. Nevertheless, to be human is to exist precisely as such an event. There may be numerous human beings, but there is no multitude of Daseins, although there is no single essence named “Dasein” transcending individual human beings. The distinction between human’s multiplicity and Dasein’s non-­ multiplicity might seems to be problematic if existence is indeed the way Being happens. Namely, existence as transcendence does not allow there to be two separate levels  – one for Dasein as ungraspable in terms of  Heidegger (2001a, b), 120.  Ibid., 133. 94  Ibid., 137–138. 92 93

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multiplicity and another for physically existing human beings who clearly exist in a manifold. This dualistic transcendentalism implies the underlying assumption that actual human beings, whom we encounter daily and observe in the mirror, are still akin to Cartesian subjects defined, at the very least, by their physical bodies. However, the notion of the “body” itself is already an interpretation of our embodiment through the subject-­ object framework. The true nature of the body and its “limitations” can only be adequately discussed based on an experiential understanding of Being-in-the-world, which constitutes the fundamental characteristic of human existence. In other words, body and embodiment can only be genuinely comprehended based on Dasein’s transcendence. To share the “there,” however, does not mean to lose individuality and “merge” into some sort of bodyless mass, but to exist in a way radically different from present-to-hand entities, in a world which is both common and personal. Indeed, Heidegger’s notion of Being-with requires rethinking the identity of each human being in terms of transcendence, that is, in terms of a shared projection of the world. If I and Thou were separate in a way present-to-hand entities are, there could be no common world for us and no truly human relationship between us. Indeed, according to Heidegger, even our erroneous perception that each human being is an individual subject existing independently within the world already assumes the inherent connectedness of Being-with facilitated by transcendence: Da-sein is transcendent in the right sense of the transcendent, and just because it transcends in the basis of its essence, can there lack a distinction between what is present-to-hand and the Being of Dasein. Mythical identification presupposes transcendence.95

The other side of mythical identification with non-human beings is an understanding of human beings as the beings by-which we exist instead of with-whom we share existence. The question of the objectivity (of inter-­ subjectivity) of truth then comes up. Thus, the inter-subjectivity problem of the ontic truth of beings is intrinsically determined by a false understanding of the Being of Dasein, i.e., of the transcendental truth regarding Dasein’s Being.96 The two kinds of truth are related – the essence of the  Ibid., 208–209.  Ibid., 209.

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ontic truth of beings first gets an ontological clarification in terms of Being-with as an essential element of Dasein’s transcendence. That is to say, just as beings in general are accessible within a shared realm of ­disclosure, enabling universal scientific knowledge, the truth regarding the Being of Dasein—referred to as the “transcendental logic of Dasein” in Chap. 3—is also potentially accessible to anyone who dares to question Being. This point holds significant importance for the possibility of ontology. Without Being-with, one can only speculate about the structure of consciousness while remaining confined within their own subjective world. Although Kant and Husserl may argue that all humans experience reality in the same manner, and that their phenomenological insights possess universal validity, they both implicitly rely on Being-with, which allows access to a truth that is not subjective to an individual’s consciousness but is applicable to “every” Dasein. In other words, what was previously thought to be a deductive truth in transcendental logic is, in reality, presupposed by all such logic. Any transcendental knowledge is, in fact, knowledge grounded in its connection to the shared realm of disclosure to which the thinker always already belongs, even if they are not consciously aware of it. Consequently, they are compelled to resort to abstract assertions concerning human nature, logic, the “constitution of the other,” and so on. Thus, Being-with serves as a transcendental condition for transcendental knowledge itself. It is because Dasein, as primordial transcendence, surpasses the distinctions of theoretical subject-object and subject-subject that phenomenological ontology becomes feasible in the first place. In summary of this chapter, asserting that existence is ontologically performative and that truth is dependent on Dasein is essentially expressing the same idea. It is not an anthropological or relativistic approach to truth but rather a rejection of the metaphysical notion of a predetermined singular sense of beingness. In ontotheology, the sense of Being is assumed and separated from the concrete historical unfolding, regardless of whether it is conceptualized as permanent substances or processes. Being is reduced to a singular sense of general presence. Within this framework, we perceive other human beings as numerically distinct entities that require a special act of inter-subjective understanding. On the contrary, Heidegger reveals that existence is how Being sways. Existence is always thrown toward the edge of nullity but creatively determines its own self-understanding by turning toward or away from nullity. Existence unfolds as a burdensome event because it is inseparable from this event and must continuously strive to conceal this fact.

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By using existence as a model, we begin to grasp the meaning of Being lacking any essence apart from its swaying into the “there.” Heidegger emphasizes that the essence of Beyng is the event itself.97 This essence necessitates our existence as “there,” existing as care.98 Although Heidegger does not yet refer to Beyng and its essence as the event in the late 1920s, we can perceive existence as an ontologically performative transcendence that neither assumes a predetermined essence nor arbitrarily determines it. It should be understood as precisely such an event of Being, surpassing the metaphysical sub-jectum and de-anthropomorphizing human beings in general, along with the transcendental dimension of human will in particular.

References Boss, Medard. 1982. Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis. Da Capo Press. Derrida, Jacques. 2005. Violence and Metaphysics. In Emmanuel Levinas, ed. Claire Elise Katz and Lara Trout, 1: 88. Routledge. Harries, Karsten. 2007. The Descent of the Logos: Limit of Transcendental Reflection. In Transcendental Heidegger, ed. Steven Crowell and Jeff Malpas, 74: 93. Stanford University Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward S. Robinson. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 1984. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Trans. Michael Heim. Indiana University Press. ———. 2001a. Einleitung in die Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe 27, ed. O. Saame et I. Saame-Speidel. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2001b. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Indiana University Press. ———. 2004. Wegmarken, Gesamtausgabe 9, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2012. Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Indiana University Press. ———. 2013. The Thing. In Poetry, Language, Thought, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 161: 185. ———. 2015. The Beginning of Western Philosophy: Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz. Indiana University Press. ———. 2017. Zollikoner Seminare, Gesamtausgabe 89, ed. Peter Trawny. Klostermann, Vittorio.  Heidegger (2012), 6.  Ibid., 15.

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———. 2018. Heraclitus: The Inception of Occidental Thinking and Logic: Heraclitus’s Doctrine of the Logos. Trans. Julia Goesser Assaiante and S. Montgomery Ewegen. Bloomsbury Academic. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1983. Fear and Trembling/Repetition, Revised ed. Trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton University Press. Lafont, Christina. 2007. Heidegger and the Synthetic A Priori. In Transcendental Heidegger, ed. Steven Crowell and Jeff Malpas, 104: 109. Stanford University Press. Luchte, James. 2011. Heidegger’s Early Philosophy: The Phenomenology of Ecstatic Temporality, NIPPOD edition. Continuum. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2013. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Donald Landes, Routledge. Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2000. Being Singular Plural. Trans. Robert Richardson and Anne O’Byrne. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Sheehan, Thomas. 2014. Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Raffoul, Francois. 2015. The Question of Responsibility between Levinas and Heidegger. In Between Levinas and Heidegger, ed. John E. Drabinski and Eric S. Nelson, 175–206. State University of New York Press. Tengelyi, László. 2015. Welt und Unendlichkeit: Zum Problem Phänomenologischer Metaphysics. Verlag Karl Alber. Tugendhat, Ernst. 1970. Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger. Walter de Gruyter & Co. Van der Heiden, Gert-Jan. 2014. Ontology after Ontotheology: Plurality, Event, and Contingency in Contemporary Philosophy. Duquesne University Press. Zuckert, Rachel. 2007. Projection and Purposiveness: Heidegger’s Kant and the Temporalization of Judgement. In Transcendental Heidegger, ed. Steven Crowell and Jeff Malpas, 215: 235. Stanford University Press.

CHAPTER 6

The Temporal Structure of Transcendence

1   Introduction At the beginning of Being and Time, Heidegger presents a programmatic statement in which he asserts that any revealed structures constituting the Being of Dasein must be understood as the modes of Dasein’s temporality.1 In the preceding chapters, my focus was on demonstrating that since Dasein is fundamentally shaped by primordial transcendence, all its structures can only be genuinely interpreted in the context of Heidegger’s concept of transcendence. Likewise, transcendence itself can only be fully comprehended when considering the complete structure of Dasein’s Being. Consequently, my intention now is to illustrate how Heidegger interprets transcendence, in all its elements of meaning, as grounded in original temporality. Admittedly, Heidegger asks regarding the meaning of Being, or as he will formulate it in a few years, the truth of Being. As he clarifies in Contributions, this a question of how Being is projected so that humans are “propelled” into beings.2 Additionally, it pertains to the manifestation of Being without the traditional metaphysical sub-jectum, such as consciousness, God, or objective beingness. The essence of the meaning of Being lies in its ability to determine the intelligibility of beings without relying on this conventional sense of apriority, which does not require  Heidegger (1962), 38.  Heidegger (2012), 37.

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Dasein due to its atemporality and singular mode of existential intelligibility of beings’s itself-ness. The truth of Beyng, we read in Contributions, is neither what comes earlier nor later but what occurs as the “between” of beings themselves. Neither Being nor Beyng is an external entity to beings, resembling a metaphysical force that certain readers with theological inclinations may seek to find in Heidegger’s texts. Such a force would function as a sub-jectum since it would exist prior to the historical event of the manifestation of Being, which unfolds as the there-character of Being and is phenomenologically accessible to us through our own understanding of Being. So, the “how” of the event of Being should entail a sense of temporality that clarifies both Heidegger’s early notion of the event of experience and the later formulation of Being as the Event. The Being of Dasein, which denotes the there-character of Being itself, “functions” as temporality. It is through temporality that Being is able to manifest in one mode rather than another each time. However, as I will delve into the subject of Dasein’s authenticity in Part III of the book, I can only provide a provisional account of temporality here. Nonetheless, this account should be sufficient for conceptualizing the fundamental relationship between transcendence and time.

2  Temporality as Self-Affecting In Chap. 4, I addressed the difference between the traditional subject-­ object relation, in which the object of experience stands against or in front of me, and the Being-in relationship, in which Dasein is inseparable from beings. As Being-in Dasein transcends in a way that allows it to project the world in terms in which beings come to be. However, beings are experienced as being-already-there, ready for the experience. That is, beings manifest in the world as preceding experience, i.e., as experienceable. Indeed, it is a phenomenological fact that any experience is only “felt” as an experience of independent reality if what is experienced in it shows itself in a mode of being-already-there. It is for this reason that, for example, if I look at an object in a dark room, gradually focusing my eyes on it, the changes in my perception are experienced as changes in my own sight and not in reality itself – it is not the object that becomes clearer and more

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determinate but my sight of it.3 It is so since the experienced improvement of the clarity of what is seen does not manifest as being-already-there, but precisely as coming to be at the same time as my act of looking. If, on the other hand, an object would transform in front of my eyes, the very change in the seen scene would manifest as temporally prior to my experience. In other words, to say that something exists independently of my experience is to express the fact that it manifests as temporally prior to experience, even though it reveals itself as such during the experience. Clearly, then, the sense of the experienced priority of entities cannot be understood in the ordinary sense of appearing in experience sometimes earlier than the actual happening of experience. Still, beings’ appearance as independent of my experience, i.e., as beyond myself, is somehow dependent on the temporality of their manifestation. The transcendental determination of beings through Dasein’s world projection raises another issue related to temporality – the projection must precede the manifestation of beings in some sense. Only then can beings be directly experienced as they reveal themselves within the projected world. However, if we consider time in a traditional manner as a succession of “now” points, we encounter a paradox. This paradox arises because the intelligibility of a being’s itself-ness is not a single and eternal a priori form, as transcendental philosophies often conceive it to be. Instead, one of the possible modes of presence must be chosen and grounded as the event of Dasein’s understanding. The understanding of Being is not a static relationship, but an ongoing enactment of Dasein’s existence. Without Dasein, there would be nothing to determine the mode in which beings gather themselves as beings, and as a result, Being would not manifest at all (Being would be “too rich” to manifest in beings). However, the necessity for an ongoing event of grounding gives rise to a temporal paradox concerning the priority of projection. In other words, Dasein’s transcendence is temporally paradoxical in two ways: First, the projection of Being must occur before the manifestation of beings, yet there is no time preceding the moment of the manifestation event. Second, beings are given in experience, yet they manifest as preceding experience.

3  An alternative “cognitive” explanation according to which I experience such perceptual changes as subjective due to a felt effort of focusing on the scene cannot explain the fact that the same effect would be experienced if one took a drug that temporalty obstructs vision and waited for its effect to end while looking at some object without any effort.

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Heidegger lays the groundwork for resolving these paradoxes by discussing time in his 1925–26 lecture course, Logic: The Question of Truth: As time-characteristics, ‘already’ and ‘before’ have nothing to do with any thing that occurs ‘in time’ (that is, in its now). They do not refer to any thing that can be determined in this now according to an ‘earlier than’ or a ‘later than.’ Therefore, although care is determined by time-characteristics, it is not time-determined in the sense that it occurs, as a being, ‘within time.4

According to Heidegger, the notion of “before” in which Dasein has already projected the structure of the world and opened it up does not align with the linear succession of present moments. Understanding does not occur “prior to” the current moment of perception, yet it still precedes it. The traditional understanding of time cannot capture the phenomenological temporality of Dasein’s existence in the world. This is because the temporal determinations discussed here are not determinations of time for objectively represented beings, but rather of Being itself – the way beings gather themselves in different modes of self-identity (such as readiness-at-hand or presence-at-hand). Therefore, the first step in comprehending the temporal basis of transcendence is to recognize the relationship between time and the existential intelligibility of beings’ itself-ness. The crucial issue here is that even if we acknowledge that Dasein can project its understanding ahead of itself to encounter a pre-structured ‘world’, it remains unclear how this ‘world’ becomes intelligible. If the entities that are not yet unconcealed are completely unintelligible, attempting to impose an external schema of meaning upon them would fail to transform the unorderable manifold into something coherent. This crucial point is often overlooked in traditional metaphysics, including Kant’s idealism. When we think of the ontological difference metaphysically as a separation between beings and some abstract form of beingness, it becomes inconceivable how the two sides can come together (leading to the problem of the transcendental gap). On the other hand, if the not-yet revealed entities are intelligible to some extent, we could only discover their intelligibility through a posteriori means. Direct perception of a meaningful world becomes impossible in both cases. The problem becomes even more pressing when we consider that the focus is not solely on the intelligibility of already existing 4

 Heidegger (2010), 201.

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beings, as if beings were pre-existing entities awaiting further interpretation of their significance to us. Instead, the problem lies in understanding how Dasein can reach out to entities a priori, allowing beings to manifest themselves and appropriate what belongs to them within a specific revealed sense of identity or itself-ness. In this light  – since Being only shows itself in the understanding of Being  – the very intelligibility of Being, that is, of what it means (each time) to be, is related to the way we interpret Dasein’s stretching ahead of itself. It is evident that Dasein cannot facilitate the manifestation of beings by projecting a formal schema of beingness onto the future. Such a schema might account for the immediate categorial structure of experience but fails to explain the essence of beings—their existence within the “there” of Dasein. In Dasein’s temporal extension, no formal content is projected onto the future. Rather, it is the temporal extension itself, which underlies the understanding of Being, that distinguishes what is and what is not. What I have described in Chap. 4 as an event of understanding in which beings are positively limited as having a contour, happens as the temporalization of a time-horizon that delimits and encloses Being in a concrete mode of its intelligibility.5 Accordingly, Dasein does not project the basic forms of intelligibility temporally, as if a temporal stretch were merely a vessel, but instead projects time itself in such a way that time realizes the manifestation-potentialities of entities. For Heidegger, to let something be is foremost to offer it a temporally-structured “there”: Time is the condition of the possibility of encountering something at all. As such a condition, time has the character of an antecedent, unthematic pre-­ viewing of the infinite whole, the pure manifoldness of one-after-another. And this pre-viewing, in turn, has the structure of the subject’s being-­ affected-­by-itself. Such pre-viewing is the basic form of ‘letting something encounter oneself,’ a ‘letting’ that is generated by the pre-viewing itself.6

We have seen earlier that the primordial transcendence of Being-in-the-­ world constitutes a “there” for beings’ encounterability, which is simultaneously the “there” of thrown Dasein. The “there” is not a neutral placeholder for beings but is a sphere of Dasein’s own existence – since understanding is always attuned, to be and to matter are ontologically 5 6

 Heidegger (1984), 208.  Heidegger (2010), 285.

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related. The “there,” thus, must enable “in a single stroke” the manifestation of beings as something that can matter and in terms of which Dasein has already understood itself. That means that in experiencing beings, Dasein recursively affects itself by itself – Dasein affects itself as a who of Being-in-the-world by itself as Being-in. Performative self-affecting plays a vital role in the manifestation of beings, and Heidegger emphasizes that only time can fulfill this self-affecting function. From this perspective, the recursive nature of the performative aspect of transcendence, as discussed in the previous chapter, which involves the co-determination of projection and thrownness, is only made possible through the self-affecting nature of temporality. In other words, the inherent structure of Dasein’s Being is such that Dasein affects itself within the temporal extension in a manner that determines the pre-established temporal foundation of the world’s potentialities. This pre-determined basis allows for the orderly manifestation of these potentialities during encounters. The traditional view perceives objective reality as existing independently of experience, which must passively accommodate its being. Heidegger, however, interprets the sense of “passivity” in perception within temporal terms. The phenomenological experience of beings is characterized as a passive perception of what is independent from oneself because beings manifest as already existing. Instead of positing an ontological gap between the experiencer and the experienced, which would impede experience altogether, Heidegger adheres to the phenomenologically evident facts. He points out that perceiving something as independent, as objectively existing “against” one’s perception, means experiencing it as occupying the temporal extension of one’s Being-in, as something that already presents itself. Time, Heidegger writes in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, makes perceptible the opposition of objectivity in the act of orientation by which transcendence takes place.7 That is, the very “passivity” of the senses is determined by the temporal configuration of manifesting beings into which Dasein is thrown. Beings can only manifest themselves within the limits of Dasein’s attunement, indicating that their appearance is restricted by the way Dasein is disposed. This further reinforces my previous argument that the experience of beings would be impossible without thrownness. In terms of temporality, this implies that beings “announce themselves” as standing out in the world in terms of Dasein’s understanding which is already affected by 7

 Heidegger (1997), 113.

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the beings into which Dasein is thrown. The “already” of beings’ independent presence prior to Dasein’s experience is also the “already” of Dasein’s attunement by beings. The paradox of Dasein’s transcendental determination of beings as at the same time co-determined by beings is an expression of what Heidegger calls in the Kant-book time’s pure affection of itself8  – time acts as receptive and formative “at the same time.”9 This double character of time makes possible the circular performance of existence in which Dasein transcends beings and comes back to beings. Nevertheless, Dasein is always a self, i.e., it exists transcendentally as a selfhood. Accordingly, Dasein cannot be thought of as existing “in time,” but rather its selfhood must be ontologically determined as time, without at the same time insinuating that time is subjective. The “I think”, Heidegger tells us, is not in time (Kant was right about that) but is time itself.10 However, this requires further explicating Dasein’s temporality beyond its ability to posit beings as objectively present against experience.

3  Transcendence as Ecstatic Temporality In Being and Time, Heidegger presents the triple structure of temporality underlying the Being of Dasein. Here he emphasizes the futural moment of projection as central for an interpretation of Dasein’s understanding. However, understanding is always attuned, and Dasein is always affected in its selfhood as itself, that is, as someone who it has been. The past dimension, thus, pertains to Dasein’s disposition, in which it always finds itself. That is to say, Dasein’s thrownness implies finding oneself already as someone with a particular past, in a particular situation among beings, having enabled certain possibilities and having renounced others. This having-been is not a non-existing past perhaps accessible in memory, but a dimension of the “there”  – what has-been is never gone but rather presses itself as the foundation of all possibilities. Furthermore, as discussed in Chap. 4, the ontologically performative nature of existence lies in the fact that, within thrownness, one has already turned away from the burdensome aspects of existence. Experience is not passive; it includes an active element of withstanding or escaping the nothingness of Being. The interplay between Dasein’s having-been and future  Ibid., 194.  Ibid. 10  Heidegger (2010), 335. 8 9

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constitutes the circular nature of the transcendental dimension of will and, as will be explored in Chap. 9, constantly reconfigures the ontological comprehensibility of one’s selfhood within the framework of temporality (articulated in Being and Time as the temporality of Dasein). This circular interplay suggests that what has been continues to be, and thus must manifest itself in terms of the future projection of understanding. Indeed, Heidegger says that Dasein is its past which historizes out of its future.11 Dasein must be thought of in terms of such a hermeneutical circle – existence is always being-temporalized with respect to its self-­interpretation.12 That is to say, Dasein is stretched both ways – as its has-been and as aheadof-itself. The present is then made-present by the future in the process of having-been.13 Importantly, Heidegger stresses that time is not something subjective or immanent, but neither is it objective and transcendent.14 In fact, time can only be understood in terms of Heidegger’s own notion of primordial transcendence – time constitutes the the “regional structure” or syntax of the “there.” The fact that beings appear as already there corresponds to Dasein’s being-ahead-of-itself. In other words, beings can phenomenologically appear as already existing prior to my perception because Dasein’s understanding extends beyond the present moment. Therefore, the “already” quality of what independently manifests from me is constituted by both the “already” of my thrownness and the “ahead” of understanding. These aspects are interdependent and mutually constitutive. On one hand, without the future-oriented dimension of understanding, beings would not be able to manifest as entities with a determinate sense of their itself-ness. Consequently, there would be nothing for Dasein to be thrown into. On the other hand, without thrownness, no beings would be encountered, and thus there would be no possibility for a finite configuration of understanding (i.e., in attunement) in which alone a particular sense of the intelligibility of Being is preferred/unconcealed over possible others. Moreover, the temporal dimensions correspond to the basic elements of Dasein’s existence – the “towards-oneself,” the “back-to” and the “letting-­ oneself-­be-encountered-by.”15 These three moments are not only needed  Heidegger (1962), 41.  Luchte (2011), 148. 13  Heidegger (1962), 463. 14  Ibid., 471–472. 15  Ibid., 377. 11 12

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to enable the manifestation of beings as existing on their own but represent the existential meaning of Dasein’s ecstatic self-disclosedness: The phenomena of the ‘towards …’, the “to …” , and the ‘alongside …’ , make temporality manifest as the εκστατικόν pure and simple. Temporality is the primordial ‘outside-of-itself’ in and for itself. We therefore call the phenomena of the future, the character of having been, and the Present, the ‘ecstases’ of temporality. Temporality is not, prior to this, an entity which first emerges from itself; its essence is a process of temporalizing in the unity of the ecstases.16

Temporality makes possible transcendence in which all disclosedness of beings is accompanied by the self-disclosure of a transcendent Dasein as allowing the “there” which is inseparable from what “populates” it, i.e., is outside of itself, illuminating every being “form inside,” while at the same time happening “for itself.” As I displayed in Chap. 5, beings are open to themselves and gather themselves. This self-gathering happens along the lines of the temporal meaning of beings’ possible sense of self-identity since temporality is ecstatic and is a fabric of openness that also allows individual self-determination of a relative closedness of beings. In Chap. 4, I argued that the “in itself” of beings and the “for me” of Dasein are not separable modes of Being. Dasein’s mineness constitutes the layer of the existential intelligibility of beings’ itself-ness and is, at the same time, affected by it. We can now clarify that it is possible as the self-affecting nature of temporality, which actively temporalizes as the unity of its temporal ecstasies. The ontological performativity of existence is only possible as such a self-affecting of original temporality – Dasein is both the projector and the projected, the condition and the conditioned, never occupying a single role but existing as the unity of ecstasies underlying the performance of its double transcendental role. In other words, Dasein’s performative transcendence is not static but is a movement of existence. This movement is an ongoing event of temporal ecstasies producing a horizon of possibility in general belonging to the enacted sense of the itself-ness of beings.17 Being-in-the-world is a temporal clearing – it uncovers a topos of temporal indications of Being’s inherent datability in terms of Dasein’s having to perform as “now-when,”  Ibid.  Heidegger (1984), 208.

16 17

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“then-­ when,” and “at-the-time-when.”18 In the original temporality, Heidegger reveals the temporal aspect of transcendence, which, as Laurence Hemming writes, is metaphysically concealed in the traditional interpretation of Being as a constant presence.19 Indeed, at the beginning of Being and Time, Heidegger stresses the need to find a horizon in terms of which the meaning of Being can be grasped and fixed.20 The very aim of analyzing Dasein in Being and Time is said to serve as a preparatory procedure by which the horizon of the interpretation of Being may be laid bare.21 As I have stressed in Chap. 3, this “preparatory procedure” does not mean that Heidegger could, in principle, skip human existence and go straight to Being, but that it is a procedure of de-anthropomorphizing human existence and discovering the symmetry between human Dasein and the there-character of Being. The temporal horizon of Dasein is the sole path to approach the inquiry into Being, and any subsequent notions about Being itself hold meaning, or at least the correct meaning, only for those who engage in the “preparatory procedure” of comprehending the horizon for interpreting Being. This horizon is illuminated through Heidegger’s examination of Dasein’s existence as ontological transcendence, revealing that it can only exist on the foundation of the unified ecstatic-horizonal nature of temporality.22 In Being and Time, specifically in the section titled “The temporal problem of the transcendence of the world,” Heidegger elucidates that the temporal ecstasies signify more than Dasein being outside of itself, perpetually carried away. Instead, each instance of being carried away carries a sense-horizon, a direction of being “outside” itself.23 Heidegger calls these sense-horizons “horizonal schemas.” Hence, we may say that transcendence is rooted in the horizonal schemas, that is, in the futural schema of the for-the-sake-of, the schema of Dasein’s thrownness into already manifesting beings as the what-has-been, and the schema of in-order-to determining the sense of beings manifesting in the present.24 Consequently, the horizonal schemas constitute an interconnected realm of disclosure where Dasein and beings are ontologically interdependent. In such a  Luchte (2011), 19.  Hemming (2002), 114. 20  Heidegger (1962), 21. 21  Ibid., 38. 22  Ibid., 488. 23  Ibid, 416 24  Ibid. 18 19

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horizonal unity of temporality, we can emphasize the schema of for-the-­ sake-­of and think of Dasein as determining the Being of beings, or, on the contrary, accentuate the schema of what-has-been and think of Dasein as passive in relation to Being, or finally highlight the in-order-to schema and think Dasein’s relation to beings in strictly practical, pragmatic terms. We may thus suggest that all sorts of idealism, realism, and pragmatism are the results of such a one-sided preference for a particular temporal horizon of existence. On the contrary, Heidegger’s notion of transcendence requires thinking the unity of the three “at the same time.” Indeed, it requires us to think of Dasein’s transcendence as ecstatically horizonal. Kant’s argument that the conditions for the possibility of experience are “at the same time” the conditions for the possibility of the objects of experience can now be ontologically-existentially reinterpreted as following: Dasein, as the transcendental condition for the itself-ness of human existence is at the same time the transcendental condition for the itself-ness of beings.25 Primordial transcendence fulfills both conditions at once as original temporality. In Heidegger’s words: For what does this ‘at the same time’ signify? It expresses the essential unity of the complete structure of transcendence which lies in this: the act of orientation which lets something take up a position opposite to … forms as 25  I cannot entirely agree with Michael Zimmerman that by starting his ontological project with an analysis of the conditions of personal human existence in his early works, Heidegger ties Being too close to the ontical-existentiell features of humanity. (Zimmerman (1981), 177). Instead, I tend to agree with Ernst Tugendhat when he argues that the “relationship to oneself” does not “consists in the fact that Dasein presents itself” as a being, that is “as being so and so” but in “’that it has its Being as its own to-be.” (Tugendhat (1970), 299) I think it is important to remember that primordial transcendence constitutes a single “there” wherein the manifold of possible intelligibilities of beings’ self-identity is decided. Accordingly, Heidegger’s analysis of the possibility of Dasein’s existence illuminates what constitutes such “there.” The constitution of the “there” is determined by nothing but the requirements of Being for self-understanding (i.e., for finite gathering). Thus, existential analysis is purely ontological and Being-oriented from the very start. Cristina Lafont’s version of interpreting the symmetry of Being and Dasein is close to mine but still not radical enough. Lafont argues that Heidegger’s claim would be “the conditions of the understanding of the Being of entities are at the same time the conditions of the Being of those entities” (Lafont (2007), 106). This interpretation leaves room for an idealistic reading which Lafont indeed assumes. Understanding of Being is thought by Lafont too close to the Kantian sense of transcendental subjectivity. However, Heidegger’s notion of transcendence implies that understanding of Being characterizes the “there” of phenomena’s manifestation as beings prior to all cognition or experience; it belongs to Being itself in its there-character.

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such the horizon of objectivity in general. The going-beyond to …, which in finite knowledge is necessary in advance and at every moment, is accordingly a constant ex-position to … (Ekstasis). But this essential ex-position to … in its position forms and pro-poses to itself a horizon. Transcendence is in itself ecstatic-horizontal.26

Not just objective experience but ontological knowledge itself is possible in terms of temporality alone. Ontological knowledge, Heidegger writes, consists of “transcendental determinations of time” because transcendence is temporalized in primordial time.27 Fundamental ontology reveals that beings only exist by “entering” the world projected by Dasein, and this opportunity for beings to manifest themselves occurs when temporality temporalizes.28 Heidegger explains accordingly in the Metaphysical Foundations of Logic that world-entry has the character of a happening of history; it happens when transcendence happens, which means – when historical Dasein exists.29 That is to say, existence is essentially historical, not because it happens in history, but because it is history, i.e., the fabric of ecstatic temporality. To separate Dasein from Being would assume that Being is somehow non-temporal and non-historical. Indeed, this would entail that Being is a sub-jecum, i.e., a single a priori ground of presence in general. Consequently, to describe Dasein’s temporality as the historical occurrence of transcendence (i.e., the understanding of Being) implies that Being is Dasein-like, in the sense that it unfolds historically, revealing a particular sense of the itself-ness of beings each time. Transcendence – as historical Dasein – releases beings to show themselves as not requiring the world, that is, as independent. Such an act of releasing (or letting be) is only possible on the basis of ecstatic temporality, which enables the horizon of objectivity wherein beings can manifest in opposition to what exposes them. The mere spatial distinction between myself and an object would not suffice for such manifestation (it only seems sufficient because we usually encounter beings in the temporal

 Heidegger (1997), 123.  Ibid., 204. 28  Heidegger (1984), 193. 29  Ibid., 194. 26 27

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horizon of objectivity30). Thus, all discussed moments of Being-in-theworld are nothing but different elements of original temporality. Indeed, Heidegger stresses that projection, facticity, and thrownness are only because of the free oscillation of temporalization, of time’s reaching and contacting itself.31 Such ecstatic oscillation temporalizes itself as a particular temporality. Moreover, we experience a common (objective) time since Dasein is essentially determined by Being-with  – the temporalization is not “objective” as an impersonal region, same for everyone. However, neither is it “subjective” as an ideal egological sphere. Instead, temporality is both “the same” for everyone and “other” for each existence, i.e., it is prior to the same-other distinction since it constitutes the “there” wherein all distinctions can first manifest as a possibility. Heidegger’s exploration of temporalization lies at the core of his transcendental philosophy, as it illuminates how transcendence occurs. It reveals how the “relationship” between Dasein and Being surpasses the conventional subject-object dichotomy. Heidegger’s idea of original temporality enables us to think of transcendence per se; temporality is the archetype of openness, welcoming beings to manifest in the horizon of its ecstatic unity neither by coinciding with beings nor happening apart from beings and requiring a third term which would “connect” it to beings. In this light, the traditional notion of transcendence is derivative from this primordial opening of temporality. That is to say, the traditional understanding of Being as transcendens pure and simple determines Being in relation to that of which it is a transcendens, namely beings. Such a relation, however, is only possible in terms of Dasein’s transcendence as an independent notion, needing nothing to be contrasted to. In the understanding of Being, Dasein projects a finite manifold of possible terms of manifestation, serving as a “conductor” of what Being itself offers in terms of the ecstatic-horizonal unity of temporality. In other words, in Being and Time, Heidegger is not interested in traditional ontological structures read off beings (e.g., causality, substance, etc.) but in Being as such, as it offers itself in terms of original temporality. Heidegger stresses already in the 1927 course The Basic Problems of 30  The insufficiency of a mere spatial distance for experiencing the object as independent of myself is evident from certain aspects of schizophrenic experience. Notably, some phenomenologically oriented scholars relate schizophrenia in general to a disturbance in temporality. For example, see Fuchs (2007). 31  Heidegger (1984), 207–208.

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Phenomenology that the understanding of Being does not mean a traditional relation between beings and an eternal, ontotheological ground of beings: We confront the task not only of going forth and back from a being to its Being but, if we are inquiring into the condition of possibility of the understanding of Being as such, of inquiring even beyond Being as to that upon which Being itself, as Being, is projected.32

In Being and Time, Heidegger cautions against interpreting the illuminating force, the light that allows beings to manifest, as belonging solely to Dasein. The unconcealing illumination unveils both beings and Being. Nevertheless, Being is always unveiled as the Being of beings. Being is given in beings as the light which illuminates them, i.e., as an event of beings’ self-presensing. Such unveiling, Heidegger argues, assumes a source of light beyond a thus understood Being, that is, beyond the beingness of beings as it offers itself in beings. The “beyond” here points towards the enigmatic origin of the possible modes of existential intelligibility of beings, an origin that cannot be thought of as an a priori ground independent of the historical event of the understanding of Being. More precisely, the origin is indeed independent, yet it is not a ground but only a potential for various ontological grounds; it is nothing before it manifests as a particular historical ground of beings. Heidegger uses Plato’s allegory of the cave to illustrate the difference between an inquiry into beings and what only seems like their Being and the inquiry into Being itself, that is, the source of light, the sun outside the cave. The understanding of Being, says Heidegger, “moves in a horizon that is everywhere illuminated, giving luminous brightness.”33 To learn the distinction between the shadows and the reality, it is not helpful to merely “see more clearly” that which shows itself. Instead, one needs to leap “outside the cave” and look into the sun. Unlike Plato, however, Heidegger does not interpret the source as the highest idea, as visible and interpretable as the highest “good.” This traditional interpretation flourished in Christianity and entailed a static image of transcendence and an idea of

 Heidegger (1988), 282.  Ibid., 284.

32 33

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Being as a constant presence,34 thus losing the relation to temporality. It is Being as sub-jectum characterizing the mainstream of Western philosophy. Instead, as Heidegger explicates, the empowering source of light that enables unconcealment as such is the limit of philosophy, i.e., of the traditional metaphysics.35 And just as, in the above sensory imagery, the sun cannot be becoming, but rather grants becoming, so αγαθόν cannot be a Being, therefore also cannot be unhiddenness, but is beyond (επεκεινα), out beyond both Being and unhiddenness.36

Heidegger’s idea that the meaning of Being is given as projected upon something that cannot become but rather grants becoming points towards original temporality as that which is beyond Being. As Sheehan notices, when the later Heidegger speaks of Being itself, he indicates an “essence of Being” and thus something already beyond Being, from which something like the Being of beings comes to pass at all.37 Original temporality thus cannot be framed into any of the existing philosophical schemas – it is not time-consciousness, not objective time, not even Being, already projected and understood as a particular intelligibility of the itself-ness of beings. Instead, it indicates a direction of inquiry regarding the origin of primordial transcendence. In the first part of the book, I spoke of Heidegger’s early notion of the Origin of life as determining life’s existence and the form of all reality. In Being and Time, Heidegger briefly notes the ontological significance of the Origin-originated pair as well.38 A few years later, the notion of the Origin became central to Heidegger’s thought and was intrinsically tied to a novel concept of “Beyng,” which Heidegger differentiates from the traditionally understood Being as beingness. To avoid another version of the metaphysics of sub-jectum, such an Origin cannot be thought of apart from the interplay between the

34  Hemming (2002), 143. Hemming points out that a traditional metaphysical notion of transcendence excludes Dasein’s freedom in favor of an already transcendent God. Heidegger’s notion, as determining existence, allows Dasein to be active, to bring forth beings and let beings be discovered in their Being. Ibid., 208. 35  Heidegger (2002), 77. 36  Ibid., 78. 37  Sheehan (2014), 17. 38  Heidegger (1964), 383.

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concealment and openness of Being; such interplay is the “strokes of time” that grant Being its openness.39 In the period of Being and Time, the metaphysical essence of primordial transcendence is presented as the self-temporalizing temporality that constitutes the “there” appropriate for the appearance of Being. Namely, it is neither an exclusively human way to experience reality nor some cosmic historical process. In both cases, temporality is not taken as the how of the event of Being’s self-understanding (gathering). Beyng only becomes intelligible, i.e., occurs as the Being of beings, within the historical event of the “there.” Heidegger affirms this idea also in Contributions, speaking of the “temporal-spatial field of the ‘there.’”40 By grounding historicity in temporality, says Heidegger, fundamental ontology prepares the way to the idea of the essential occurrence of Beyng.41 Indeed, in Being and Time, Heidegger already speaks of truth as unconcealment and stresses its dependence on Dasein and hence on temporality. Considering all that was said in this and the previous chapters, I find it hard to understand how such a temporality can still be interpreted as somehow “subjective” and separable from Being as such (i.e., from Beyng as the origin of the possible modes of Being). Heidegger could, of course, be more explicit regarding the “preparatory procedure” of the phenomenology of Dasein and say, for example, that the temporality that he discovered as the how of transcendence is preparatory in the sense that it must first be comprehended as a temporality of existence, i.e., that he first had to point it out phenomenologically. Only after that can we leap beyond a so-called human perspective and realize that we have really found a thread that leads to the historicity of Beyng itself. Nevertheless, in the period of Being and Time Heidegger could not yet fully comprehend what he has revealed. The performativity of human existence is such that one only fully conquers understanding after writing a book, not before. Still, remembering that temporality is meant to explain transcendence, we can see that Heidegger’s early articulations insinuate the right direction. The fact that transcendence is ecstatic openness of temporality indicates that original temporality must temporalize as transcendence. Primordial transcendence, herewith, does not “tolerate” gaps – there cannot be another region of the source of the illumination apart from the  Heidegger (2012), 16.  Ibid., 19. 41  Ibid., 28. 39 40

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transcendental openness of the “there.” Otherwise, the whole sphere of the Being of beings would make up a closed region determined by temporality, leaving another region “beyond Being” outside as an a-temporal source of its possibility. An additional notion of transcendence would then be needed to connect the two realms. Heidegger avoids such absurdity by acknowledging very early in his thought that Being is given as projected on that which is beyond it  – the very happening of projection already reaches that which is beyond. “The unity of the ecstases is itself ecstatic. It needs no support and pillars, as does the arch of a bridge.”42 While Dasein is not the origin of illumination, transcendence knows no boundaries. Heidegger argues in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology that understanding must somehow behold that which it projects upon.43 I highlighted this point in Chap. 5 when discussing the nullity that thrown understanding must confront beyond the already intelligible sphere of Being. However, I do not believe it implies, as Stefan W.  Schmidt suggests, that the temporality of Being should “precede” the temporality of Dasein and is not exclusively connected to Dasein.44 This would be accurate if Dasein simply referred to humans or the essence of humans. If we adopt such an interpretation of Dasein, then Schmidt’s viewpoint is valid. However, I think it is more significant to emphasize that Heidegger’s indications about what lies beyond the projected Being allude to the true essence of Dasein and its transcendence as inherent to the nature of Being itself. As present human beings we are unable to perceive beyond what currently exists. However, as participants in the existential nature of Being, we can—indeed, we must. Though the distinction between the temporality of Being and Time and the later historicity of Beyng is important, it is needed only as long as we still think of Dasein as either somehow separated from Being (realism) or identical with it (idealism). For Heidegger, however, Dasein can only exist as keeping the “there” open for the light, which is neither created by the event of Dasein’s existence nor can be said to be brought from some other “place.” Indeed, Being and Time has no subjectivistic or idealistic intentions at all and is thus in perfect harmony with what comes after it, even if sometimes the details of its content were criticized and modified by Heidegger (for example, the notion of temporality had undergone  Heidegger (1984), 207.  Heidegger (1988), 284 44  Schmidt (2016), 73–74. 42 43

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significant changes). Still, the fundamental inquiry which Being and Time initiates excludes any sort of temporal idealism; instead, it offers the first presentation of a paradigmatic transformation of ontology on the basis of the notion of original temporality. Further developments only elucidate and continue this transformation. Exemplarily, In the 1935 text Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger expresses frustration regarding all the “transcendental” misinterpretations of Being and Time and stresses that by “transcendental” he did not mean any relation to subjective consciousness but only the existential-ecstatic temporality of Dasein.45 The progression of Heidegger’s thinking can be depicted schematically by utilizing Sheehan’s concept of the potential levels of transcendence-­ related inquiries that are more fundamental than the conventional question concerning the beingness of beings: We note here again the two elements of Heidegger’s own question: (1) the move “beyond being” to its “whence”—namely, the clearing; and (2) the move “beyond the clearing” to its “whence”—namely, Ereignis as the appropriation of ex-sistence. 46

The traditional question “whence beings?” is answered in terms of Being as the beingness of beings. This rank of transcendence is met, for example, in both Kant and Husserl. The second, more radical question is, “Whence Being at all?” The answer is the open clearing of existence, the “there” characterized by the event of primordial transcendence. Being and Time mostly develops the answer to this question, which is already more radical than the first one since it addresses transcendence itself for the first time and locates its site as Dasein. The third and most radical question is, “Where and how is there the ‘clearing’?” This question pertains to the essence of Being as Beyng. Being and Time initiates the direction of this question while at the same time offering a provisional answer which illuminates transcendence as original temporality, indicating that the meaning of Being is to be thought of historically. Though in Being and Time, the term “Event” is not used, it is everywhere present as the framework of thought indicated already in Heidegger’s early lectures (where he did use the term) and surpassing the traditional metaphysical thinking in terms of

 Heidegger (2000), 19–20.  Sheehan (2014), 69.

45 46

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substances and processes rooted in an unchanging, eternal ground of beingness.

4  Conclusion to Part II By challenging the subject-object division and the traditional notion of transcendence that connects subjectivity to an external realm, Heidegger develops a phenomenologically-based ontology of transcendence. In this framework, the interdependence of Dasein’s Being and the Being of beings is emphasized. Initially, understanding is approached ontologically, allowing for a conception of Being that transcends the binary of intelligibility and unintelligibility. The self-manifestation of beings as distinct and self-identical entities is not inherently evident, but rather represents an ontological plurality inherent in Being itself. Therefore, to posit that beings would exist independently of Dasein’s understanding is to reduce them to a narrow modern perspective, and likewise reduce Being to mere presence. Heidegger later terms this reductionist perspective as ontotheology, a mode of thinking that assumes a singular ground separate from the concrete and historically situated disclosure of a grounding event. Regarding the independence of Being from Dasein, it could be seen as a concealed anthropomorphism. As emphasized in both Being and Time and Heidegger’s later works, Dasein is an essential characteristic of Being itself. Being can only be understood as Being if it manifests in one way and not another, and this necessitates a “there.” Dasein signifies “there-­ Being,” denoting the inherent “there-character” of Being. The uniqueness of human beings lies in their expression of this “there-character” and their participation in the understanding of Being through their existence. However, we are not the originators of our understanding; we cannot forcibly bring about understanding. Instead, understanding occurs and unfolds through our thrown existence. Nonetheless, transcendence is performative, as we are constantly oriented towards or away from the “beyond” of Being, which is experienced as the burdensome aspect of existence. The quality of our understanding, and consequently our existence, is influenced by our relationship with the un-understandable, which manifests as mood.47

47  The more fundamental the mood, says Heidegger, the more concealed is its work (Logic as the Question concerning the Essence of Language, 108).

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What is most un-understandable is the enigma of the ontological plurality – that there is no universe in the sense of universum but only each time intelligible world that requires Dasein. Notably, human beings interpreted as present entities are not identical to Dasein. Instead, the notion of Dasein is a de-anthropomorphizing of human existence. The evident multiplicity of human beings does not entail multiple Daseins – we still understand very little of how we all co-participate in the event of unconcealment, an event which is in a sense indeed single, but not in any definite sense of self-identity, hence better thought of not as single but as unique. The various facets of transcendence in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology serve as his initial exposition of the interdependence between the uniqueness of this event and the uniqueness of human existence.

References Fuchs, Thomas. 2007. The Temporal Structure of Intentionality and Its Disturbance in Schizophrenia. Psychopathology 40 (4): 229–235. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time, trans. John MacQuarrie, Edward S: Robinson, Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 1984. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Trans. Michael Heim. Indiana University Press. ———. 1988. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Revised ed. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. Combined Academic Publications. ———. 1997. Kant and The Problem of Metaphysics. Trans. Richard Taft. Indiana University press. ———. 2000. Introduction to Metaphysics. Trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt. Yale University Press. ———. 2002. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus. Trans. Ted Sadler. UNKNO. ———. 2010. Logic: The Question of Truth. Trans. Thomas Sheehan. Indiana University Press. ———. 2012. Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Indiana University Press. Hemming, Laurence P. 2002. Heidegger’s Atheism: The Refusal of a Theological Voice. University of Notre Dame Press. Lafont, Christina. 2007. Heidegger and the Synthetic A Priori. In Transcendental Heidegger, ed. Steven Crowell and Jeff Malpas,104: 109. Stanford University Press. Luchte, James. 2011. Heidegger’s Early Philosophy: The Phenomenology of Ecstatic Temporality, NIPPOD ed. Continuum.

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Schmidt, Stefan W. 2016. Grund und Freiheit: Eine phänomenologische Untersuchung des Freiheitsbegriffs Heideggers. Springer. Sheehan, Thomas. 2014. Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Tugendhat, Ernst. 1970. Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger. Walter de Gruyter & Co. Zimmerman, Michael E. 1981. Eclipse of the Self: The Development of Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity. Ohio University Press.

PART III

Transcendental Freedom and Beyng as Event

CHAPTER 7

The Metontological Side of Transcendence

1   Introduction In the lecture course The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, which took place the year after the publication of Being and Time in 1927, Heidegger clarifies what fundamental ontology means. In particular, Heidegger warns not to take fundamental ontology as a world-view1 – the existentialist interpretation of Being and Time as an individualistic and radically atheistic doctrine is based on this mistake. Additionally, Heidegger argues against interpreting fundamental ontology as a form of idealism, asserting that such a misreading is centered on epistemology, whereas the core issue of Being has no connection to it.2 Instead, Heidegger stresses that understanding of Being forms the basic problem of metaphysics as such.3 Heidegger's purpose in referring to Being and Time is not merely to reestablish this problem, but rather to elucidate the guiding principles presented in the book and to pinpoint the problem of transcendence.4 Heidegger highlights that Dasein's analysis in Being and Time shows the possibility of transcendence. Hence, since the understanding of Being forms the problem of metaphysics as such, the problem of metaphysics and the problem of transcendence coincide in the  Heidegger (1984), 140.  Ibid., 143. 3  Ibid., 149. 4  Ibid, 141. 1 2

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1928 course. Nevertheless, since the fundamental ontology of Being and Time does not exhaust the problem of metaphysics, neither it exhausts the problem of transcendence. This is precisely what we learn in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic: In their unity, fundamental ontology and metontology constitute the concept of metaphysics. But herein is expressed the transformation of the one basic problem of philosophy itself, the one touched upon above and in the introduction under the dual conception of philosophy as πρώτη φιλοσοφία and θεολογία. And this is only the particular concretion of the ontological difference, i.e., the concretion of carrying out the understanding-of-being. In other words, philosophy is the central and total concretization of the metaphysical essence of existence.5

To fully grasp the metaphysical essence of existence and effectively explore the understanding of Being, Heidegger suggests that fundamental ontology needs to be supplemented with a concept he refers to as “metonology” (Metontologie). The question arises: what can metontology contribute to the comprehensive understanding of Being and, consequently, our comprehension of Heidegger's notion of transcendence? First and foremost, it becomes evident that Heidegger aims to broaden his examination of transcendence within the framework of the newly introduced metonology. In The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic and other seminars and articles from 1928 onwards, there is a substantial amount of discourse on transcendence, to the extent that Being and Time appears to touch upon the subject only superficially. Specifically, Being and Time solely addresses the possibility of transcendence within the realm of fundamental ontology. It elucidates “Being-in-the-world” as a unified structure wherein entities can manifest as beings. However, this might still be perceived as Dasein being a transcendental condition for beings in a conventional idealistic sense. To be sure, Being and Time does speak of Dasein’s thrownness, which, as previously demonstrated, is central to understanding the difference between Heidegger’s notion of transcendence and the idealistic condition-­ conditioned relation between subjectivity and objects. Dasein can only encounter beings and exist among them if there is no transcendental gap separating it from beings. Dasein does not “first” project the world and 5

 Ibid., 158.

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then perceive beings; rather, every projection is already attuned by the beings in its immediate surroundings. This circularity lies at the core of Heidegger's philosophy and accounts for the hermeneutic nature of transcendence. Namely, there is no pre-determined super-sensible structure called “Being” that is imposed upon beings; instead, Being is Dasein-ish; it must have a “there” wherein it manifests as an event of the world’s worldling. In Chap. 6, we have observed that temporality enables a hermeneutical understanding of transcendence that does not rely on a singular sub-­ jectum, that is, a single interpretation of what it means for beings to exist. While Heidegger employs the term “metaphysics,” his thinking in 1928 already incorporates the logic of the event, within which the existential intelligibility of beings as their own self-manifesting and self-identical entities is concretely determined. This intelligibility is rooted in the “there” character of Being, in the existential openness brought forth by existence itself. Heidegger states in Contributions that Being and Time investigates the essence of metaphysics and thus does not belong to metaphysics itself but surpasses it.6 The metaphysical language used in Being and Time implies a focus on the conditions of possibility for something, which might give the impression that Heidegger is searching for a transcendental syntax as the ultimate basis for the possibility of beings. This can be misconstrued as if Heidegger were seeking a single transcendental ground that always underlies beings, a sub-jectum. In the previous chapters, I have shown that such a transcendental ground is impossible in Heidegger’s ontological plurality – how a being is, i.e., how it manifests in the world as itself and is owning what belongs to it is not pre-determined but must be unconcealed each time. Accordingly, when Heidegger positively speaks of “metaphysics” in his own early work, he does not mean that there is a determinate “meta” to beings (physics) but questions precisely the event in which one or another ontological mode of the “meta” occurs based on Dasein’s understanding. Soon enough, Heidegger recognizes the inadequacy of the term “metaphysics” for such inquiry and restricts its usage to the critical sense of traditional ontotheology, which assumes a singular ground separate from the historical event of Beyng, wherein Being manifests itself in various ways. Ontotheology and traditional metaphysics share the same underlying 6

 Heidegger (2012), 135.

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notion of Being as self-grounding. The idea of God as Causa Sui and the concept of will to power as self-generating its own foundation are merely different facets of the same idea.7 Revisiting the mentioned excerpt, Heidegger's invocation of “theology” within the twofold nature of metaphysics should not be interpreted as necessitating the study of a supreme being. Instead, it refers back to Aristotle's conception of theology. According to Heidegger, Aristotle's theology is not concerned with proving the existence of God through causal arguments but rather aims to illuminate beings-as-a-whole.8 So, for Heidegger, metaphysics is not only interested in understanding beings in their Being, but also in that wholeness into which Dasein is already thrown and by which it is overwhelmed. The dual nature of philosophy, Heidegger says, consists in the knowledge of Being and the “knowledge of the overwhelming” 9 in the sense of Dasein’s thrownness. This dual nature constitutes the hermeneutic essence of ontology and, accordingly, of transcendence. However, within fundamental ontology, the role of beings within the circular unfolding of transcendence is not thoroughly addressed. Beings are predominantly discussed as that which is conditioned by the understanding of Being and not as an “equal” element within the happening of transcendence. In 1928, Heidegger acknowledges that this analysis falls short of being sufficiently radical. Nevertheless, it does provide a glimpse into the direction toward which its own radicalization could unfold: Since being is there only insofar as beings are already there [im Da], fundamental ontology has in it the latent tendency toward a primordial, metaphysical transformation which becomes possible only when being is understood in its whole problematic.10

To say that Being is there only insofar as beings manifest is to express the there-character of Being itself. It is to stress that “Being is there” means a particular manifestation of Being out of the mysterious plurality of other hidden possibilities of its ontological-existential intelligibility. Without such a concrete preference of one intelligibility over possible others, Being (or rather Beyng) is unintelligible, it is an Origin (Ur-Sprung)  Pöggeler (1989), 108.  Heidegger (2018), 222. 9  Heidegger (1984), 11. 10  Ibid., 156. 7 8

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from which nothing can, in principle, originate; a merely potential source of the beings’ itself-ness needing to spring so that it could be there at all.11 Such Being is senseless and useless, a mere idea (and a vague one) of Being. Being without its own there-character is nonsensical. Understanding human beings in terms of Dasein, as I argued in Chap. 3, involves de-anthropomorphizing the essence of humanity. It is an attempt to question the essence of human existence through the lens of Being, particularly its “there-character.” By asserting that there is no Being without beings already present in the “there,” Heidegger expands the significance of the “there-character” of Being. What is crucial in this character is not merely the contingent fact of the physical existence of human beings, but rather the fact that human existence, as Being-in-the-­ world, entails the factual presence of beings. As Heidegger elucidates, “the possibility that being is there in the understanding presupposes the factical existence of Dasein, and this, in turn, presupposes the factual extantness of nature.”12 Being and Time did hint at something similar, as exemplified by Heidegger's argument that “readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are ‘in themselves’ are defined ontologico-categorially,”13 while also emphasizing that the existence of ready-to-hand entities depends on the presence-at-hand.14 Steven Crowell identifies a contradiction at the core of Being and Time, which becomes explicit in the quoted paragraph from The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. The contradiction arises from how the understanding of Being presupposes the factual existence of nature, even though nature itself belongs to the ontic level conditioned by the ontological level, i.e., by the understanding of Being.15 However, I propose interpreting Heidegger's endeavor to radicalize ontology here as a subversion of the traditional concept of transcendence in its unidirectional condition-conditioned sense. To achieve this, Heidegger must address beings-as-a-whole as an essential component 11  The Origin should be thought of along the idea that Heidegger extracts from Aristotle, namely the idea of the original sense of force (dynamis) as the never-given origin of change (Heidegger (1995), 65). The “change” in Heidegger’s case is the concrete manifestation of Being. Without it, and hence without Da-sein, we would be left with a static dynamis/force (a dynamis without its poein), which is evidently a self-contradictory notion. 12  Heidegger (1984), 157. 13  Heidegger (1962), 101. 14  Ibid. 15  Crowell (2000).

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within the event of understanding Being. Thus, if transcendence, as I argue, indicates that beings cannot be seen in opposition to Dasein within the framework of subject-object distinction and are neither created nor shaped by human Dasein, then what are beings? Furthermore, how does Heidegger's notion of transcendence contribute to deconstructing the familiar understanding of beings? In my view, Heidegger's radicalization of ontology as metontology directly addresses these questions, serving as a radicalization of the concept of transcendence. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann shares this perspective, stating that among other things, transcendence in fundamental ontology establishes the framework “for the turning of fundamental ontology to metontology.” 16 Heidegger presents the necessity of metontology as follows: As a result, we need a special problematic which has for its proper theme beings as a whole. This new investigation resides in the essence of ontology itself and is the result of its overturning, its μεταβολή. I designate this set of questions metontology.17

This special problematic addressing beings-as-a-whole, Heidegger clarifies, is inseparable from his earlier ontology; it radicalizes fundamental ontology and is brought about as an overturning out of its very self: Precisely the radicalization of fundamental ontology brings about the above-­ mentioned overturning of ontology out of its very self. What we seemingly separate here, by means of “disciplines,” and provide with labels is actually one-just as the ontological difference is one, or the, primal phenomenon of human existence! To think being as the being of beings and to conceive the being problem radically and universally means, at the same time, to make beings thematic in their totality in the light of ontology.18

A metontological-existentiell inquiry aims to shed light not only on beings-as-a-whole but, given that the understanding of Being relies on beings-as-a-whole, to further elucidate Heidegger's concept of transcendence. Thus far, we have discussed transcendence as the ontological framework in which Being can manifest within beings, representing an event  von Herrmann (2001), 111–112.  Heidegger (1984), 157. 18  Ibid. 16 17

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where beings gather themselves within the world's unfolding. However, the metontological aspect of transcendence delves into how beings can manifest themselves in their truth. In Being and Time, Heidegger relates truth to the Being of beings; both are given only in existence. Metontology completes this picture by stressing that beings manifest in their truth by virtue of Dasein’s freeing them to some degree from the initial concealed state of the Nothing and that all understanding of Being presupposes this initial concealed state.

2  Transcendence and the Nothing As we have seen, in the 1928 course, Heidegger presents metontology as a complementary side of fundamental ontology needed to radicalize it and allow the metaphysics of existence. Accordingly, in the 1929 text, What is Metaphysics? we expect to see how exactly metontology contributes to the matter. Notably, one of the main novelties we meet here is a new definition of both Dasein and its transcendence: Da-Sein means being held out into the nothing. Holding itself out into the nothing, Dasein is in each case already beyond beings as a whole. Such being beyond beings we call transcendence. If in the ground of its essence Dasein were not transcending, which now means, if it were not in advance holding itself out into the nothing, then it could never adopt a stance toward beings nor even toward itself.19

The notion that Dasein surpasses beings is a concept familiar from Being and Time. In that work, we learned that Dasein, as transcendent, attains Being, resulting in Being being projected in Dasein's understanding as the very illuminating force through which beings manifest as beings. In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, we explored the idea that the projection of Being involves reaching “beyond Being.” I briefly clarified the meaning of this notion in Chap. 6. Specifically, “Being” refers to a concrete manner in which beings gather themselves in their own itself-­ ness. Beings cannot manifest as beings apart from Being  – Being and beings are inseparable and constitute a single event of Being’s self-­ understanding (factically, of human Dasein’s understanding).

 Heidegger (2010a), 91.

19

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When later Heidegger speaks about investigating not the Being of beings but Being as such it should be understood as an emphasis on the essential sway of the event of presensing irreducible to neither beingness of beings nor to any factical mode of presensing. Nevertheless, this is never a rejection of Being’s essential intimacy with beings; Being without beings is – ironically – a reification of Being into some sort of a ghostly quasi-­ being. After all, both Being and beings are given only as a particular historical emergence of intelligibility from the abyss of the ontological potentialities of Beyng. Accordingly, to transcend beings is also to transcend Being as it already manifests and to reach the Nothing (i.e., the ontological potentialities of Beyng). Accordingly, in What is Metaphysics?, it is Nothing that is beholden in transcendence. To address this apparent move from the positivity of Being to the negativity of the Nothing we must remember the nature of the metontological turn that occurs in Heidegger’s thinking during this period. Namely, metontology aims to bring our attention to beings-as-a-whole in their transcendental function. Remembering that “transcendental” always means for Heidegger “regarding transcendence,” we should look for how the theme of the Nothing contributes to understanding transcendence “from the side of beings” without contradicting its earlier definition. Indeed, we can find the initial clue in the preceding year's lecture, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, where Heidegger stresses that beings undergo nothing by entering the world. That is, beings are not created, formed, or altered in some way in Dasein’s projection of the world. Moreover, Heidegger explicates the thus projected world itself as the Nothing: The world is nothing in the sense that it is nothing that is. It is nothing that is yet something that “is there.” The “there is” [“es” of “es gibt”] which is this not-a-being is itself not being, but is the self-temporalizing temporality. And what the latter, as ecstatic unity, temporalizes is the unity of its horizon, the world. World is the nothing which temporalizes itself primordially, that which simply arises in and with temporalization. We therefore call it the nihil originarium.20

In the context of this paragraph,we can see that transcendence, defined as holding itself out into the Nothing, means the same as the transcendence of the world. The Nothing here is not absolute nihil, but only that which is not a being, i.e., not a something. Therefore, we remain with the  Heidegger (1984), 210.

20

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old definition of transcendence but meet it from a new (metontological) angle of beings, namely, as going beyond beings and projecting that which is not-a-being, and which, in terms of beings, can be called the “Nothing.” Heidegger does not speak here explicitly about the ontological potentialities of Beyng that are beyond any concrete historical manifestation of Being but seems to relate to Being alone as ontologically differentiated from beings (i.e., as no-thing). Nevertheless, Being as the “other of beings” should not be thought of as something that is separable from beings. If it were separable, it would not be “nothing.” The “es” of the “es gibt” is not some additional entity or a supersensible force but is the selftemporalizing temporality itself, i.e., is the how of the event of the worldling of the world. It is, accordingly, the how of beings’ self-gathering in terms of a particular intelligibility of their “self,” that is, of their itself-­ness. However, such a how (i.e., Being) does not become something else by manifesting in beings but remains rooted in Beyng. Hence, both Being and Beyng are Nothing and Heidegger’s definition of transcendence in terms of the Nothing indicates both the overcoming of beings and the overcoming of Being. In this light, we should reread Heidegger’s earlier statement regarding the relative independence of beings from the understanding of Being. 21 Before the event of the understanding of Being – if such a moment could really make sense – there is no Being but only Beyng as the nothingness of the possible modes of Being. But what about beings? Though beings do not vanish from the universe, their mode of self-gathering as beings is not determined.22 Heidegger’s words from Being and Time thus are only relatively accurate – without the event of the understanding of Being, beings are neither something nor nothing but are as if in a vague tension of the multiple ways in which they can appropriate a sense of itself-ness. Without the understanding of Being, beings cannot exist “in their in-themselvness.”23 This idea is symmetrically opposite to Kant’s idea of a thing in itself that has no intelligibility of its own and can only exist as itself in the sense of an extant entity that requires subjective categories of an (absolute) understanding.24 Figuratively speaking, Heidegger’s entity “before understanding” has all the possible modes of intelligibility at once, so it cannot exist  Heidegger (1962), 255.  In Über den Anfang, Heidegger will name such a state of beings „being-lessness“ and stress that such beings are “earlier” and older than Being, not however in the traditional metaphysical sense (Heidegger (2005), 121). 23  Heidegger (1984), 153. 24  Ibid., 164. 21 22

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unless a preference for one of these modes is made. It cannot exist because its potential modes of self-identity are not merely different perspectives of the same entity but rather the potential modes of what “sameness” would signify. Within this hypothetical totality of intelligibility, there is no sense of a singular identity or a unity of multiple beings. This potential totality is not a substantive entity but rather nothingness. In the early lectures we have met the idea that a pre-worldly something strives to enter a life-world. This image helps us comprehend the vague non-existence of a being that is neither nothing nor something, as an event of understanding must occur for it to appropriate a specific, concrete sense of self-identity (itself-ness).25 Metontology addresses beings precisely in this trans-ontological context, as what can be if one of the possible senses of Being is understood, not in the subjective sense of a cognitive relation to Being, but in the sense of a self-understanding of Being itself, collapsing into the factual singularity of existence (i.e., into a “there”). In the lecture course Introduction to Philosophy, from the same year as What is Metaphysics?, we hear that, as existing, Dasein un-conceals beings. 26 This “ability” to unconceal beings is shared by humans and is an essential characteristic of Being-with27 (as discussed in Chap. 5). Importantly, unconcealment is not one property among others, not cognitive ability, but belongs to the essence of what it means to exist as Dasein. Unconcealment is not a knowing-relation that sheds light upon a not-yet experienced something, but is a violence upon the concealed, a robbery; that which by its very nature hides itself is brought to light by force. “Brought to light” means it can now manifest at all as something. “Beings are generally concealed, as long as no world-entry happens as such.”28 Beings must be torn from concealment; concealment must be removed.29 25  According to Heidegger, Plato and Aristotle did not provide a good answer for the Megarians regarding the Being of capability precisely since Megarians have seen that existence of a capability entails enactment. However, before enactment, the capability is not entirely non-existent. Megarians did not understand the nature of enactment and hence could not see the dynamic nature of presence irreducible to the something-nothing dichotomy. This image helps relating to the relative non-existence of beings before their concrete enactment in the “there.” A not-yet enacted capability is quasi-present but is held back. See Heidegger (1995), 143–164. 26  Heidegger (2001), 120. 27  See Part II of the book. 28  Heidegger (1984), 217. 29  Ibid.

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The fact that force is involved indicates that beings, once have been unhidden, do not stay passively in the mode of unhiddenness. That is to say, if concealment characterizes beings-as-a-whole, they must strive to conceal themselves again. However, no illumination can make fully transparent that which actively hides itself. Thus, to any unhiddenness, Heidegger claims, already belongs concealment as an intrinsic element. “Concealment belongs essentially to unhiddenness, like valley belongs to the mountain.”30 Unconcealment, Heidegger explains in his later work, does not first come to beings insofar as we acknowledge them, but rather beings in their unconcealedness displace man into the open of unconcealedness and place him into his essence as the one who perceives beings and experiences the hidden and closed as such.31 In other words, the happening of unconcealment is not dependent on Dasein’s factual perceptual abilities at all. The opposite is rather true: Dasein’s ability to perceive (and to not perceive) is dependent on the happening of unconcealment (prior to the obvious physiological conditions). Heidegger introduces herewith a radical reform into ontology. So far, beings were apprehended as already showing themselves in the universe, i.e., as positively determined in ways that we only need to discover in experience (even if such experience must be subjectively structured by its own categories). Namely, the essentia of a thing, its reality in a Kantian sense, is something available and exposed for thinking. Existentia is then only to be “added” to the already meaningful essentia in order for the real thing to be; i.e., existentia is a mere leap from zero to one – the same essence is either factically existing or not. Heidegger’s interpretation of truth replaces this traditional independence of essence from existence by adding a new existential modality, which accounts neither for an encounterable being nor for nihil but is concealment.32 As a result, when Dasein projects a world, beings do not enter into it out of an absolute null. Nevertheless, neither do beings exist as beings prior to Dasein. In the latter case, a traditional notion of transcendence is  Heidegger (2002a), 65–66.  Heidegger (1992), 169–170. 32  Laurence Paul Hemming stresses that pre-Heideggerian metaphysics (ontotheology) is never able to proceed to a genuine articulation of non-being, because it assigns non-being to being as an opposition, rather than as disclosed in its genuine belonging to being. “Non-­ being belongs to being as, not even the shadow of necessary concomitance of being, but what being makes manifest by holding in reserve with regard to every being (Seiende) that being (das Sein) bestows and makes manifest.” (Hemming (2005), 71) 30 31

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assumed as allowing the subject-object relation. Heidegger’s notion, on the other hand, overcomes the subject-object distinction not by positing an ontic unity but by revealing an ontological co-belongingness of the experiencer and the experienced. Prior to the factual existence of the experiencer, the experienceable reality does not vanish, is not nothing at all, but is concealed. That is, the state of entities prior to Dasein is non-­existence in the sense of ontological self-concealing. The sense of hiding that Heidegger intends is not a hiding of something positive and ready to be found, but a sort of negative essence of entities, possessing qualities only in potential and determined to remain their “negative wholeness” rather than break it in favor of a finite and one-­ sided positivity. The Nothing, Heidegger says, is the potential for the manifestness of beings. Therefore, in order to maintain an ontological interpretation of Heidegger's thought, it is important to be cautious about stating, as Sheehan does, that beings are initially in a state of “concealment-­ from-­us.”33 Though this statement is correct, it overshadows a more radical thought that beings are concealed not just for us but in themselves. For example, Heidegger elucidates that the extantness of a thing is not added in the occurrence of the world – extantness has always already belonged to an extant entity. Nevertheless, this belongingness does not mean a positive determination exposed for all, rather beings must be forced to show their extantness. “World-entry and its occurrence is solely the presupposition for extant things announcing themselves in their not requiring world-­ entry regarding their own being.” 34 Heidegger's intention here is evident: although extantness fundamentally belongs to entities in themselves, it cannot manifest itself unless there is a “there” in which a being can gather itself as extant. In other words, extantness is a specific potential intrinsic to an entity, and it necessitates actualization or enactment to become an observable characteristic of a being. To imagine that beings remain the same without the event of the understanding of Being is to simplify beings to the things that we usually experience; it is to think of beings through a hidden anthropomorphic assumption. To free beings from anthropomorphism is, on the contrary, to accept that a being is much “more” than we can know about it, yet this “more” is concealed just like the knowable side would be were there no human Dasein.  Sheehan (2014), 36.  Heidegger (1984), 194.

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From this perspective, the transcendence of Dasein towards the Nothing reveals its essential involvement with concealed entities. The metontological priority of beings lies in the fact that understanding of Being is only possible because beings-as-a-whole conceal themselves, thereby allowing their Being to be unconcealed. Consequently, the ”Nothing” that beings undergo when entering the world is not a passive lack of determination, but an active negation of their concealment—an intrinsic negation of their own inherent negativity. We can now present the first metontologically-existentiell formulation of Dasein's transcendence: the transcending Dasein goes beyond towards the non-existent (concealed) beings in order to provide them with an opportunity for world-entry. 35 Any intentional relation is only possible with something that has been surpassed in this way, taken from its hiddenness. This formulation complements the one we had in fundamental ontology, as transcending towards Being, or projecting Being, simultaneously entails transcending towards concealed beings and tearing them from their concealment. Together, these two formulations elucidate the ontological difference and the transcendental role played by each “side” of this difference. The metontological definition of transcendence must indeed include the notion of the “Nothing” since it addresses beings-as-a-­ whole, in relation to which both the concealed entities and the illuminating light of Being that unconceals them are not something but rather Nothing. There is also a third sense in which the notion of the Nothing operates in relation to beings. The key idea here is that existing beings, in principle, can be negated. This possibility, too, only arises in terms of Dasein's transcendence. Heidegger's starting point in “What is Metaphysics?” is that philosophy and science both understand something existing in opposition to the Nothing—the binary relation is intrinsic to the sense of the Being of anything. Without the Nothing, sciences cannot address that which is; beings are understood as not being “nothing.” However, Heidegger argues that sciences conceive of the Nothing merely as a negation of beings, missing the point that in order to negate, they already need to think of beings as opposed to the Nothing—as something capable of being negated.36 For Heidegger, the fact that beings can be negated is something like the fact of their extantness; namely, it must first be unconcealed.  Ibid., 194–195.  Heidegger (2010a), 84.

35 36

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In other words, the realm of the concealed precedes all negation. Consequently, even the simple logical function of negation is only available based on transcendence—Dasein's surpassing of beings and reaching the realm of the concealed, the Nothing. Thus, in addition to the sense of the Nothing as not-a-being (i.e., Being) and as not-yet-a-being (i.e., a concealed entity), there is a third, familiar sense of negating a particular being as absent. All three senses are interrelated in Heidegger's understanding of transcendence in relation to the Nothing. They all shed light on beings and their potential to exist as beings. However, at the same time, and perhaps primarily, all three indicate the Being of beings. As we have observed, understanding Being presupposes the existence of a concealed realm of entities that can be partially unconcealed. Consequently, within the context of a new definition of transcendence, Heidegger's notion of the Nothing cannot be seen as opposed to beings, but rather as an intrinsic aspect of the Being of beings. Heidegger’s idea of the Being-Nothing identity is a reinterpretation of Hegel’s idea.37 While acknowledging his agreement with Hegel, Heidegger argues that the meaning of the Being-Nothing identity is entirely different for him. According to Heidegger, Being and Nothing are interconnected not due to their shared immediacy and indeterminacy as posited by Hegel, but because Being is finite and only revealed through Dasein's transcendence.38 Dasein has the capacity to reach the Nothing and enable a limited self-illumination, a finite disclosure of beings.

37  Heidegger’s interpretation of the Nothing can, in fact, be traced beyond Hegel, in Plato’s Sophist. In the 1924–1925 lectures Heidegger explains that Plato’s idea of non-being is not an opposition to beings, not an exclusion, but rather έτερον – otherness (or something other) (Heidegger(2018), 558). The Being of the “not”, Heidegger explains, stands for the relationality of beings. This idea is taken from Plato by Rickert and Lask in the heterothesis of objective determination, appropriated by Heidegger in his early lectures as a priority of relation-sense over content-sense (the mode of givenness differentiates what counts as identical and other), and radicalized in the idea of the Nothing, which is an ultimate otherness of manifest beings. In Plato Heidegger finds a “productive negation”, while in Hegel’s logic negativity is only a “transitional stage” (Ibid., 561). In the lecture course on Plato’s cave allegory Heidegger stresses that the fact “that the non-existing and the nothing are not the same is, until Plato, not at all self-evident.” (Heidegger (2002a), 196). Also, in the 1931 course on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Heidegger points out that Plato allowed including the “notness” into the essence of Being while Aristotle showed that Being could not be without including the manifoldness allowed by the “not.” (Heidegger (1995), 22). 38  Heidegger (2010a), 95.

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In Heidegger's view, the finitude of Being does not mean that something is illuminated while something else remains in darkness in a physical sense of finiteness. Instead, even in what is illuminated, concealment still operates covertly—the illumination itself is finite, and concealment continues to persist in what is unconcealed .39 The force is finite, says Heidegger, in the sense that a “not” belongs to it.40 The finitude of Being amounts to the fact that beings are always unconcealed in a “one-sided” fashion according to the historical state of Dasein’s existence. This limitation, Heidegger emphasizes, is not just quantitative but a qualitative one – Being can only be disclosed finitely, i.e., things can only manifest to some degree. From the perspective of Dasein as the there-character of Being itself, it means that the ontological plurality of the possible modes of the intelligibility of Being is not separable from the manifesting sense of Being – the factically realized mode contains the other modes as well, yet only as concealed (in Beyng). The concealed “side” does not remain uninvolved but – paradoxically – co-constitutes the unconcealed in the “there” of Being’s self-understanding.41 The inseparability of Beyng and Being will be addressed in more detail later in this chapter. Before delving into the topic, it is crucial to highlight that the complete ontological significance of the qualitative finitude of disclosure only becomes evident when explored from the perspective of beings (metontology), specifically in terms of the Nothing. Heidegger stresses that the finitude of Being can be experientially witnessed in the profound attunement of anxiety: The nothing unveils itself in anxiety – but not as a being. Just as little is it given as an object. Anxiety is no kind of grasping the nothing. All the same, the nothing becomes manifest in and through anxiety; although, to repeat, not in such a way that the nothing becomes manifest in our uncanniness quite “apart from” beings in a whole. Rather, we said that in anxiety the nothing is encountered at one with beings as a whole. What does this “at one with” mean?42  Hemming (2002), 149.  Heidegger (1995), 135. 41  “If the ‘true’ for Greeks means the unhidden, that which is free from hiddenness, then the experience of the true as unhidden must also involve experience of the hidden in its hiddenness.” Heidegger (2002a), 9. 42  Heidegger (2010a), 89–90. 39 40

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Anxiety should not be mistaken for a concrete fear but should be understood existentially as a state in which Dasein finds itself in the world, confronted with beings-as-a-whole in their unfamiliarity. As discussed in the previous section of the book, attunements or moods are factual modes of illuminating Dasein's existence. Anxiety is precisely “anxious” because it confronts the limitation of all illumination, the darkness of the Nothing, which represents the inherent self-concealing nature of beings. Heidegger emphasizes that this limitation is not experienced as another being or object; the Nothing cannot be grasped as a positive “something.” However, it belongs to beings-as-a-whole. We must remember that beings-as-a-whole is not a sum of present things but is a wholeness of the obstructiveness of beings,43 that is, the itself-­ ness of beings’ self-presentation bound with our own itself-ness through the “for me” character of Dasein (i.e., mineness) (as discussed in Chap. 4). It is important to remember that beings-as-a-whole is not merely a collection of present entities but rather the totality of obstructiveness inherent in beings-as-a-whole. It encompasses the self-identity or the itself-ness of beings' self-presentation intertwined with our own self-identity through the “for me” character of Dasein, that is, mineness (as discussed in Chap. 4). The itself-ness of beings represents the mode of their existential intelligibility, the factually preferred way for beings to gather themselves and appropriate what belongs to them within their individual existence. Therefore, in anxiety, itself-ness of beings becomes inseparable from the Nothing. Heidegger further explains that in anxiety, beings-as-a-whole appear to slip away. This slipping-away is not eerie to you or me, he continues, but “it” is characterized by such slipping-away. The “it,” or rather the itself-ness of beings, slips away. Yet, precisely in this slipping-away, it emphasizes the distinction between itself and the nothingness—the particularity of beings becomes prominent in the mood of anxiety. Importantly, beings do not vanish or transform into nothingness, and Dasein does not simply lose its capacity to make sense of beings. In fact, Dasein gains a fleeting ability to glimpse into the self-concealing tendency of beings. This is a glimpse into the very point where fundamental ontology and metontology converge, offering a glimpse of the transcendental role of beings. In anxiety, we experience the original vagueness of what it means to be a being, arising from the negation of the totality of beings, namely, the negation of the manifest singularity of ground (the  Heidegger (1995), 18.

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sub-­ jectum). We feel anxious about the essential indeterminability of beings, that is, how beings would be without Dasein. As Heidegger states, in anxiety, Dasein is brought face-to-face with beings as such.44 Particularly, beings are felt as turning away, as resisting manifestation – the Nothing, indeed, nothings.45 While the true ontological sense of anxiety remains challenging to grasp in Being and Time, it becomes evident in What Is Called Metaphysics? The Nothing is not a mere absence of something, such as meaning, but an active force of concealment that asserts its claim to the original enigma of Being as the unintelligible source from which the possible modes of Being's intelligibility arise.46 From this perspective, as Heidegger defines transcendence as reaching out into the Nothing, anxiety sheds light on the nature of transcendence as Dasein's surpassing of the manifesting nature of beings. One could argue that Dasein transcends by already being introduced to the fleeting and inherently elusive darkness of the self-concealment of beings or, equivalently, the Being of beings. In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Heidegger writes that the deepest limitation of transcendence lies in the fact that the Being of beings can be comprehended only “if Dasein on the basis of its essence holds itself into Nothing.” 47 In light of the insights we gain from What Is Metaphysics?, when Heidegger speaks of Dasein presupposing an already existing nature, he does not refer to nature as a collection of readily available and observable beings stripped from their “natural” concealment. Instead, nature signifies both the concealed entities (the Nothing) and their reluctant emergence into the world. Since there has never been a time when beings have not already revealed themselves to Dasein (as Dasein is inherently ahead of itself), what transcendence surpasses are the beings-as-a-whole that are already unconcealed, while reaching towards the Nothing, which indicates both the “natural” concealment of beings and their Being.  Ibid., 114  Ibid. 46  In the introduction to What is Metaphysics?, Heidegger points out that meaning (Sinn) is precisely the begetting of Being in its unconcealment (Heidegger (2004), 377). Accordingly, the concealed origin of the possible modes of such begetting is essentially meaning-less, not in a sense of lacking any relation to meaning but as pre-meaningful, exceeding any particular determination of meaning and truth. The meaning of Being is the truth of Being, says Heidegger. Beyng is thus the origin of the truth of Being without itself reducible to any particular mode of truth. See further. 47  Heidegger (1997), 246. 44 45

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Metaphorically speaking, Dasein always stands with one foot among the unconcealed beings and with another foot in the concealed realm. Freedom, as existence, involves exposure to both unconcealment and concealment. Heidegger will soon develop the concept of the earth-world strife to conceptualize this duality between the concealed and the unconcealed. The earth represents the underlying “coming-forth-concealing” that forms the basis of any openness in the world—an undiscoverable shelter from which entities emerge and to which they ultimately return.48 Dasein's position between earth and world, that is, between the concealed and the unconcealed, is crucial for understanding its freedom. In the metontological texts, this dynamism is not yet fully explored, but the notion of the world extends beyond its definition as Dasein's existential structure in Being and Time. The worlding of the world refers to the event through which beings-as-a-whole (nature) come into Being. Metontology addresses beings as inseparable from their Being, even if the “natural” relationship between beings and Being is a “negative” one (as implied by the negative notion of unconcealment). This relationship allows for a more original understanding of “nature” than the familiar scientific one. The concept of nature that aligns with the Greek notion of truth as aletheia (unconcealment) is another Greek concept of physis. The relation between nature and truth (unconcealment) is presented in Introduction to Metaphysics, where Heidegger defines physis as the happening in which the sway of beings first steps from concealment; “the sway struggles its way forth as a world.”49 As Heidegger’s reading of the Greeks points out, what is meant here is not so much a material sense of nature but a how of its extantness – the actualization of extantness as stepping out of concealment. This interpretation of nature in the 1935 course corresponds well with what we have learned about the extantness of entities in the earlier metontological lectures. Furthermore, Heidegger's emphasis on Dasein's thrownness after 1928 makes it clear that the stepping-out from concealment has already occurred, as Dasein does not first project the world and then find itself thrown into it. Indeed, original temporality reveals a circularity that is not graspable within linear terms of time. In this light, I believe the circular process of transcendence, in which Dasein surpasses beings and returns to them, can be equally represented in reverse order.  Ibid., 21.  Heidegger (2000), 64.

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There is no contradiction or transcendental realism in Dasein's dependence on existing beings, as such contradictions are only possible within the traditional “one-way” notion of transcendence, which Heidegger already criticized in his 1916 Habilitation and which maintains its unidirectionality by positing a transcendental gap between the conditioning and the conditioned.

3   Freedom as the Freedom for Ground From What is Metaphysics? we understand that even the negotiability of beings – which also means the logical principle of contradiction – is not an available characteristic separable from the unconcealing event of transcendence. Existence is beyond manifest phenomena, in touch with the concealed region out of which beings come to be as finite entities with positive characteristics, which can also not be. This capacity for negation gives rise to the questioning of “why" – the wonder of why beings exist in a particular manner and not otherwise. If Dasein were not transcendent in this way, it would be senseless to inquire about the Being of what is present, and beings would not manifest in their finite existence. Human beings would be mere animals confined to whatever the senses apprehend within their physical immanence. The question of “why” would hold no meaning. The intelligibility of negation itself must be “stolen” from the Nothing. In other words, logic itself must have some dependence on metaphysics in general and transcendence in particular. Only that which is liberated from the concealment of the Nothing can be logically comprehended in its truth. The course on The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, which took place during the same period, directly establishes a connection between truth, logic, and Dasein's transcendence. Truth resides in the essence of transcendence; it is primordially transcendental truth. But if the basic theme of logic is truth, then logic itself is metaphysics if the problem of transcendence presents in another way the fundamental theme of metaphysics, as I have tried to show.50

As discussed earlier, it is within the scope of Dasein's transcendence, which enables the opening of the “there,” that beings manifest as what we conventionally conceive as “beings” – positive entities with self-identity,  Heidegger (1984), 217.

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appearing as themselves and revealing the obstructiveness inherent in being-as-a-whole. Logic does not concern itself with any specific being or its attributes, but rather with the necessary “formal” structure of beings. Therefore, logic is primarily transcendental logic. Formal logic is derivative from the transcendental fact that this is how beings are.51 Moreover, logic is transcendental not just in the sense that it is a condition for the phenomena’s manifestation but foremost in the sense that its “home” is nowhere but in Dasein’s transcendence. Heidegger names three main principles of logic: the principle of identity, the principle of non-contradiction, and the principle of ground.52 He stresses then that if logic is radicalized towards metaphysics, the third principle is most important. This becomes evident as both identity and non-contradiction express beings in their unhiddenness. As discussed in Part II of the book, there exist various possible modes of identity that correspond to different modes of a being's itself-ness. Beings can gather themselves in diverse intelligible ways, depending on the sense of Being that manifests within the understanding of Being. Claiming that things remain identical without Dasein assumes a single mode of identity related to a singular metaphysical ground of beings. Without the historical event of understanding, the identity of beings does not disappear entirely but remains within the realm of the Nothing as the field encompassing all possible modes of Being (and beings' itself-ness). It is only within the event of unconcealment that this field is narrowed down to a concrete sense of what constitutes the “reality” of an individual thing. Consequently, to unconceal beings means to ground them, to provide beings with a literal “ground” on which they can manifest. This ”ground” takes the form of the projected world, which cannot be structured arbitrarily but is bound by the possibilities inherent to Being itself. The character of the ground for beings must correspond to what is understood within the understanding of Being and to the projection of the for-the-sake-of. If ground qua for-the-sake-of is thus the primary character of world, and if world, however, is Being, as it is understood in the understanding of Being, and if Being establishes world-entry for beings, i.e., lets beings be understood as beings, then “ground” belongs essentially to Being. From this  Emil Lask already saw the derivative nature of formal logic. See Chap. 1.  Heidegger (1984), 217–218.

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ensues the true metaphysical sense of the principle of ground. The principle states that the basic, grounding character of ground as such belongs to the essence of Being as such. And then from this the rule follows, in several phases of formulation, that making statements about beings must give grounds for itself because statements are disclosive assertions about beings.53

Metontology provides a more detailed examination of the there-­ character of Being. The problem of ground focuses on the issue of unconcealment by addressing how beings emerge as beings from their concealed state. Fundamental ontology emphasizes that the there-character of Being involves ontological plurality, assuming an event of understanding in which one of the potential modes of Being manifests and determines the intelligible unity of the world. In metontology, this event of understanding is examined from the perspective of its impact on beings – the understanding of Being is seen as a grounding event, where beings gather themselves based on an understood ground. This is the main distinction between Heidegger's ontology and traditional ontotheology, where Being is equated with ground and does not require Da-sein, being simplified to a singular notion of what it means for beings to exist. For Heidegger, asserting that the grounding character of ground belongs to Being implies that it is enacted  – or, more precisely, released into enactment  – by transcendent Dasein.54 As emphasized in Chap. 3, the transcendental logic of Dasein pertains to the logic of enactment, which should be based on the performative unfolding of existence rather than the theoretical basis of cognition. The grounding character of ground belongs to the performative happening of transcendence. The event of such grounding is the “metabole” of primordial transcendence, its inner activity that is only preliminary indicated in Being and Time. While Being and Time explored the possibility of beings manifesting in any way, metontological lectures shed light on the necessary ontic form of such manifestation; the ground of all ontic truth is fundamentally connected to Being. Thus, when we inquire about Being, we are essentially asking about the ground. 55 This questioning becomes possible based on the ontological truth of the event of unconcealment (transcendence).

 Ibid., 218.  Heidegger (1995), 188. 55  Heidegger (2001), 392. 53 54

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Traditional metaphysics does not require a grounding event since it assumes a single a priori ground, a sub-jectum found in God, consciousness, or entities themselves (i.e., in their meta-physical Being). In ontotheology/metaphysics a single atemporal ground is always there, even if the world is thought of as ever-changing and creatively unfolding. This represents the ontotheological understanding of ground: “Being appears as [the single] ground, beings as what is grounded.”56 The need for the grounding event (i.e., as releasing enactment) appears, on the other hand, when the unfolding of the world is taken as an ever-changing meaning of Being and of what it means for a being to be itself. The transcendental openness of Dasein is a grounding openness; it gives weight to beings, a contour of something belonging to a world. World projection, Heidegger stresses in Introduction to Philosophy, is ground-­ giving.57 Hence, the notion of entities' identity, which functions as a traditional logical first principle, necessitates transcendental grounding. Beings can only be identical to themselves when they are unconcealed, not because humans bestow identity upon them, but because there is no singular sense of identity inherent in Being (or rather, Beyng). Identity characterizes the manifest nature of beings, and this manifestness is only made possible through the unconcealment of beings (ontological truth), as Heidegger elucidates in On the Essence of Ground.58 Ontic and ontological truths, he explains, each pertain to beings in their Being in distinct ways. “They belong essentially together on the grounds of their relation to the distinction between Being and beings (ontological difference).”59 The fact that ontic truth is grounded in the ontological truth is something that belongs to the essence of the ontological difference. Transcendence, as the ground for the emergence of the ontological difference, enables this dual nature of truth.60 Accordingly, all truth – whether of assertions or intentional experiences – is grounded in a more fundamental, transcendental truth. Even science, Heidegger says, is only possible on the basis of transcendence.61

 Heidegger (2002b), 70.  Heidegger (2001), 196. 58  Heidegger (2010b), 103–104. 59  Ibid., 105. 60  Ibid. 61  Heidegger (2001), 213, 219. 56 57

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Yet if the essence of ground has an intrinsic relation to the essence of truth, then the problem of ground too can be housed only where the essence of truth draws its inner possibility, namely, in the essence of transcendence. The question concerning the essence of ground becomes the problem of transcendence.62

The problem of the essence of ground is a particular dimension of the problem of transcendence in Heidegger’s ontology. Heidegger reinterprets Leibniz's principle of ground, which states that “nothing is without ground,” through a transcendental lens, considering truth as unconcealment and Nothing as the concealed origin of beings. For Heidegger, the positive meaning of this principle is that all beings have a ground, an appropriate “there,” wherein they can manifest in their beingness. The negative meaning restricts the sphere of grounds  – Nothing (concealment) is, indeed, “without ground.” Moreover, as we have seen, the Nothing does not only mean the concealed beings-as-a-whole but also Being, which in terms of beings is no-­ thing. Accordingly, Being itself is without a ground precisely because it is grounding. Indeed, Being is the groundless ground of beings. However, the grounding and the grounded can only be distinguished if a distinction between Being and beings is made. That is to say, the double sense of unconcealment, in which the grounding (Being) is revealed in its ontological truth, and the grounded (beings) is revealed in its ontic truth, corresponds to the duality introduced by the ontological difference: The essence of truth in general, which is thus necessarily forked in terms of the ontic and the ontological, is possible only together with the irruption of this distinction. And if what is distinctive about Dasein indeed lies in the fact that in understanding Being it comports itself toward beings, then that potential for distinguishing in which the ontological difference becomes factical must have sunk the roots of its own possibility in the ground of the essence of Dasein. By way of anticipation, we shall call this ground of the ontological difference the transcendence of Dasein.63

The ontological difference is grounded in transcendence, Heidegger says. That means that the difference between Being and beings is not something that exists on its own but requires the event of understanding. To be  Heidegger (2010b), 106.  Ibid., 105–106.

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sure, the difference does not result from this event but is grounded in it – the event of understanding is the essence of the ontological difference. Apart from such an event, the difference would not really be ontological but would be unconsciously modeled in terms of the available intelligibility of beings. Being and beings are not two separate elements that one merely needs to distinguish. Rather, the “distinguishing” is an event in which the distinguished elements bestow intelligibility on the difference between them.64 Otherwise, we would merely witness a distinction between two beings or being-like structures, each already determined as it happens in traditional metaphysics. However, the concealed beings-as-a-whole cannot “in itself” be separated from Being since both are “Nothing.” Therefore, it is only within the event of transcendence that a meaningful “there” emerges, giving rise to the differentiation between Being and beings, as they manifest as a singular historical fact. As Heidegger argues already in 1931, “The difference occurs in the enactment of the differentiation.”65 Though enactment does not mean something like an ontic act of will, it does pertain to the transcendental dimension of will introduced in Chap. 5. Namely, if the ontological difference itself is grounded in the event of transcendence, the very distinction between “ontic” will and “ontological” grounding must be deconstructed. To do so, we need to address Heidegger’s idea of transcendental freedom and the metontological development of the notion of world. From the point of view of metontology, the world is taken not as Dasein’s existentiale – though it is still a constituent of Dasein’s existence – but as the how of beings-as-a-whole, grounding beings in their truth. As Heidegger says, world-entry is ground-giving. The metontological twist in this presentation of the world is that rather than analyzing Dasein only as the projector of the world, the dependence of the very projection is illuminated in terms of Dasein’s factical existence as a being. Heidegger presents several pieces of historical evidence that this sense is not entirely new to Western thought. Namely, in the Gospel of John, “world” means beings-as-a-whole in the sense of a decisive “how” in accordance with which Dasein “assumes a stance and maintains itself in relation to beings.”66

 I shall return to this subject in Chap. 9.  Heidegger (2002a), 28–29. 66  Heidegger (2010b),114. 64 65

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A similar existentiell notion is met in Thomas Aquinas,67 Paul,68 and Augustin.69 The existentiell sense of “world” is essentiall for metontology since it sets forth the intrinsic relation between Dasein as a free-willed being and the how of beings-as-a-whole. In Christianity, this relation was especially important since it indicated a religiously appropriate stance towards beings. Depending on Dasein’s position regarding its own life, beings are understood in one way or another. In fact, the world’s relation to Dasein’s volitional essence is anticipated already in Being and Time. There the world constitutes a net of significances determined by the in-order-to in relation to the final telos of for-the-sake-of-which, that is, of Dasein’s self-­ concerned existence. In metontological texts, Dasein is bluntly defined as world-forming in the sense that Dasein both lets the world occur and gives itself an original view that functions as a paradigmatic form of all manifestation of beings.70 I briefly addressed themetontological aspect of the world in Part II of the book when I spoke about world-entry as a happening of transcendence. However, this happening is intrinsically enabled by for-the-sake-ofwhich, which, if taken back to the existentiell level of factical existence, means nothing other than Dasein’s will. To be sure, Heidegger warns that the existentiell concept of will does not refer to one psychological activity among others but is what casts the for-the-sake-of-itself.71 Will, in this sense, conditions unconcealment, and, naturally, all psychological activities, including the particular “acts of will.” In Chap. 5, I pointed out the transcendental dimension of will as a constantly active self-positioning of Dasein in relation to the burdensome character of existence.72 Most of the time, we “actively” avoid confronting the nullity along which we find ourselves thrown, even if we do not consciously perceive this avoidance as a deliberate exercise of will. Though unconcealment happens, this happening constitutes the fundamental dimension of freedom as Dasein’s active self-transcendence. In this sense, unconcealment is something that we cannot stop doing – it is the constant practice of what I refer  Ibid.  Ibid., 113. 69  Ibid., 120. 70  Ibid., 123. 71  Ibid., 126. 72  Heidegger sees this idea in Aristotle: striving characterizes the essence of soul (Heidegger (1995), 129). 67 68

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to as the transcendental dimension of will. Our inability to directly experience this dimension highlights the superficiality of a familiar psychological understanding of will. Indeed, what psychology identifies as an act of will already represents a misunderstanding of the true phenomenon of will. For Heidegger, will shapes the “for-the-sake-of-which” even in the surpassing of beings-as-a-whole:73 Yet whatever, in accordance with its essence, casts something like the “for the sake of” projectively before it, rather than simply producing it as an occasional and additional accomplishment, is that which we call freedom. Surpassing in the direction of world is freedom itself. Accordingly, transcendence does not merely come upon the “for the sake of” as anything like a value or end that would be present at hand in itself; rather, freedom holds the ”for the sake of” toward itself, and does so as freedom. In this transcending that holds the “for the sake of” toward itself there occurs the Dasein in human beings, a such that in the essence of their existence they can be obligated to themselves, i.e., be free selves. In this, however, freedom simultaneously unveils itself as making possible something binding, indeed obligation in general. Freedom alone can let a world prevail and let it world for Dasein. World never is, but worlds.74

The transcendental will that determines turning toward or against the nullity of existence must be rethought through the ontological difference. On the ontic side, it is the concrete ability to stay open to the nullity in the periphery of what one usually experiences. On the ontological side, it modifies the already happening historical event of unconcealment. However, this later “function” could not be possible if unconcealment were not essentially related to Dasein’s freedom. Transcendence, Heidegger says, always happens as freedom. Such freedom is a transcendental freedom prior to the existential freedom of authentic Dasein. Whether Dasein chooses authentic existence or not, it is free to do so. For Heidegger, freedom means that Dasein is able, in its very essence, to be obligated, to bind itself, foremost to the unconcealed beings. That means to be bound by the truth of beings, by what is revealed in the thrown existence. We know from Being and Time that the “there” is opened up in a kind of existence that decides to be in one way or another. The decision, however, is not a free-floating unconditioned pseudo-will. Freedom,  Heidegger (2010b), 126.  Ibid.

73 74

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Heidegger says, does not mean initiation of a first cause in a series of causes.75 In The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Heidegger explains that the mystery of logic is its relation to existence – how is free Dasein bounded by the rules of logic? “What does logic have to do with the freedom of existence?“76 To be ruled by logic is an obligation, a norm that must be freely accepted; only freedom can be the source of any obligation. Therefore, the problem of the law-governedness of thinking “reveals itself to be a problem of human existence in its ground, a problem of freedom.”77 Furthermore, Heidegger points out that logic is metaphysically grounded in Dasein’s freedom because to be bounded by its laws is a particular preference. No natural or other law could force Dasein to think logically – there is no place for such a transcendental, untouchable force. Instead, Dasein must understand Being and attest to what it means for a being to be. At this point, it is not up to Dasein to choose to reject the structure of the experienceable beingness of beings, but neither can the laws of beingness force themselves on Dasein prior to the event of (pre-­ ontological) understanding. Being is understood in advance; it is the “originary nature of the understanding-of-being and (as we shall see) of freedom.”78 An ontological, Being-related, notion of freedom thus means something different from a free choice between present options. Ontological freedom does not prefer one extant thing over another but opens up the sphere of possible preference. In other words, ontic preference is only possible if the world is there, and the world worlds in terms of an ontological preference – not to be confused with a reflective ontic choice – of some particular mode of Being. In this sense, ontological freedom frees beings for their manifestation as beings. Far from entailing any sense of anthropomorphism or subjectivism, Heidegger insinuates that concealed beings are unfree since they have no single contour, i.e., are in an ontologically pre-determined state of multiple existential possibilities of being themselves. In other words, “outside” of the event of Being’s self-understanding (occurring through factual Dasein), beings are “stuck” in a mode of ontological super-position that

 Ibid., 126.  Heidegger (1984), 18. 77  Ibid., 19–20. 78  Ibid., 147. 75 76

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must collapse as the fulfillment of the there-character of Being to become free as historically determinate individual beings. The thrown character of transcendence then can be seen as the self-­ binding of the event of understanding to the ground that is being enacted in it. As fulfilling the there-character of Being, human beings are thus bound to the ground of beings and have always already accepted this bind (e.g., in terms of logic). Dasein freely gives itself to understand that to which it thus enacts a primordial commitment; it is responsible for the way it takes up what has been understood. Freedom, Heidegger says,”makes Dasein in the ground of its essence, responsible [verbindlich] to itself, or more exactly, gives itself the possibility of commitment.” 79 This boundness, however, is an open boundness characterizing the dynamics of Dasein’s transcendence. Namely, transcendental freedom is also the ability of Dasein to transcend the already conditioned beings and re-ground them anew. Notably, only a being characterized by selfhood can be committed to what is revealed in an understanding by transcending beyond itself as an already given being.80 “To be free is to understand oneself from out of own capacity to-be.”81 Consequently, freedom is both the freeing act of letting the world prevail and the free choosing of oneself. There cannot be one without the other.82 By projecting the world, Dasein holds itself in it “so that the free hold binds Dasein,” i.e., “puts Dasein in all its dimensions of transcendence” into a “possible clearance space of choice.”83 Freedom itself holds this binding opposite to itself.84 In other words, Dasein’s understanding of its own capacity to be – i.e., freedom – is dependent on Dasein’s possibility to be bound by beings. Something like a purely ontological understanding is absurd since the for-the-sake-of, as directing the projection, assumes a finiteness of the space of possibilities, which, however, can only be finite if Dasein lets itself be bound by the very beings among which it is thrown. Thrownness is not a result of beings forcing themselves on Dasein, but rather determines Dasein’s Being as such85 (as finite).  Ibid., 192.  Ibid., 190. 81  Ibid., 214. 82  This pertains to the issue of Dasein’s authenticity and transformation which will be addressed in Chap.s 8 and 9. 83  Heidegger (1984), 192. 84  Ibid. 85  Heidegger (2010b), 135. 79 80

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The finitude of Dasein and the corresponding hermeneutical notion of transcendental freedom are crucial for Heidegger’s explication of the problem of ground. According to Heidegger, there are three ways of grounding rooted in transcendental freedom – establishing (Stiften), taking up a basis (Bodennehmen), and grounding of something (Begründen).86 The three ways of grounding express the three metontological functions of transcendence. All three are dependent on Heidegger’s notion of transcendence as transcendental freedom. Heidegger argues that a traditional understanding of freedom in terms of causality relates to a specific interpretation of ground.87 According to this view, something is the way it is and not another way because it was caused to be so. The preference for one state of affairs over another implies the existence of a ground. The concept of “rather than" lies between possibility and actuality and is resolved through freedom, which determines the outcome in one way or another. In contrast, Heidegger posits that freedom is not a specific type of ground, but rather, as transcendence, it serves as the origin for the various possible modes of grounding. He states that freedom is a freedom for ground, indicating that freedom itself constitutes the foundation for grounding.88 This implies that freedom is the ground of ground, but it cannot be further grounded itself. Within Dasein, freedom becomes an abyss of ground—a fundamental aspect of Being's there-character—signifying the unique emergence of ground from the abyss of Beyng. The projection of for-the-sake-of-which is the first grounding function of establishing; beings-as-a-whole are unveiled within the projected horizon of the world. In this projection, Dasein itself already in the midst of beings: That which surpasses, in passing over and beyond and thus elevating itself, must find itself [sich befinden] as such among beings. As finding itself, Dasein is absorbed by beings in such a way that, in its belonging to beings, it is thoroughly attuned by them. Transcendence means projection of world in such a way that those beings that are surpassed also already pervade and attune that which projects.89

 Ibid., 127.  Ibid. 88  Ibid., 135. 89  Ibid., 128. 86 87

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The surpassed beings pervade and attune that which projects – there is no “one way” traditional conditioning in the real world. Instead, Dasein itself takes ground among beings – that is the second kind of grounding (taking up a basis). The two ways of grounding are but the two moments of the same transcendental projection; they belong to “a single temporality insofar as they co-constitute its temporalizing.”90 The circular unity of temporality, in which the future temporalizes only as having-been and present “at the same time,” expresses the ecstatic horizonal constitution of transcendence in its grounding-grounded function and in the hermeneutical notion of freedom as freedom for binding (for ground). To say that Dasein is absorbed in beings is to say that its mode of selfness is inseparable from the mode of beings’ itself-ness – the two co-constitute the “tune” of Being, i.e., the particular mode of ground emerging “out of” Beyng in the event of understanding/projection. Transcendence is what enables the vision of the possibilities in projection. Yet, all projection is thrown; the metontological look upon projection thus reveals that it necessarily includes a withdrawal of possibilities.91 Indeed, some possibilities have always been already withdrawn from Dasein merely through its own facticity. This withdrawal is crucial in order for Dasein to be bound by beings and absorbed by beings. “Such withdrawal,” says Heidegger, “lends precisely the binding character of what remains projected before us the power to prevail within the realm of Dasein's existence. Corresponding to these two ways of grounding, transcendence at once exceeds and withdraws.” 92 To be sure, “possibilities” should not be taken here as present-to-hand options, of which Dasein may be aware, but as the how of existence itself – thrown Dasein is surrendered to beings, is abandoned to what is.93 That is to say, there is no indifferent calculation of which possibilities are withdrawn and what one is left with. Rather, each exceeding-withdrawing projection determines the way Dasein understands itself. The resulting changes in attunement decide which configurations of beings-as-a-whole can at all be unconcealed and encountered. After all, what transcendental idealists count as a conditioning role of subjectivity is itself conditioned and grounded by whatever is always already beyond Dasein. Indeed, for Heidegger, transcendence is  Ibid.  Ibid., 128–129. 92  Ibid., 129. 93  Heidegger (2001), 326. 90 91

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characterized by finitude as abandonment.94 This finitude is explicated by Heidegger in the double nature of transcendence (i.e., freedom) as being at once exceeding and withdrawing.95 The third way of grounding (the “grounding of something”) is possible only as an element of such finite transcendence. 96 Intentionality and all ontic truth are made possible on the basis of a co-temporalization of a transcendental “grounding of something.” The ontic “why” question regarding the beings we encounter in the world is made possible by this third way of grounding. The very excess of possibilities projected in establishing allows wondering why things are so and so and not otherwise (the “otherwise” belongs to the excessive possibilities).97 Because of the double nature of transcendence as both exceeding and withdrawing, the “why” question is transcendentally necessary.98 Ontic questions regarding beings – and, accordingly, ontic truth – are exposed by metontology as ontologically grounded in transcendence.99 Ontological truth is nothing other than the grounding of beings through Dasein’s transcendence.100 That does not mean that the reasons for ontic affairs should be “blamed” on Dasein. Dasein does not decide what beings are and how they interact. In fact, beings must account for themselves by referring to other beings as causes or motivational grounds.101 Nevertheless, all such referring is dependent on the fact that beings are illuminated, i.e., that beings manifest as the beings that can interact in the relevant ways. Heidegger's notion of transcendence is notable for the fact that while ontic truth remains independent of Dasein's experiences or any specific form of experience, it only exists if there is a Dasein that can, in principle, engage with it or disregard it. In this light, the laws of Newton were not true before Newton precisely since, at that time, beings were not yet  Ibid., 328.  Heidegger (2010b), 132. 96  Ibid., 129. 97  Ibid., 130. 98  Ibid. 99  Tugendhat points out that in both “What is Metaphysics?” and “On the Essence of Ground” beings can only be revealed on the basis of transcendence even though transcendence is presented in different ways. In the former it is presented in terms of the Nothing, while in the later in terms of possibilities. Tugendhat notices that the two senses go together – a possibility is a possibility of not being so. A particular manifestation is not a necessary one but requires a justification (the why-question). Tugendhat (1970), 366. 100  Heidegger (2010b), 130. 101  Ibid. 94 95

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determined in a way that prefers a sense of their itself-ness to which a particular ground of Newtonian physics belongs. That does not mean that beings were the same as now but people simply did not think of the relations presented by Newton. Neither does it mean that (same) beings were experienced differently. Instead, it suggests that both “beings” and “experience” held different meanings that cannot be ontically compared to their present significance—a difference that lies at the ontological level, in the Being of beings. In a sense, beings could have been otherwise than what they are after Newton but, for us, this possibility is quite unintelligible since – according to the with-character of truth (discussed in Chap. 5) – we are bound by the intelligibility of beings as it has emerged in a post-­ Newtonian world. To say that beings were merely experienced differently is to mention an ontic difference assuming that beings did not require an each time finite unconcealment of their Being. What Heidegger allows us to understand is that Newton allowed a new sense of “why” regarding beings and thus afforded an appropriate transformation of what beings are. In this “why,” in whatever manner it is expressed, there also lies already a preunderstanding, albeit a preconceptual one, of what-being, how-being, and being (nothing) in general. This understanding of being first makes possible the “why.” This means, however, that it already contains the ultimate and primordial originary answer to all questioning.102

Human beings can thus affect the sense of what beings are and, accordingly, what can be asked regarding beings. For example, the moment beings are understood as objects of Newtonian physics, it is decided which questions and answers make sense. This historical transformation of beings is only possible since Dasein is not a transcendental consciousness that determines beings according to an existing metaphysical structure (which it can perhaps, as in Hegel, fulfill through history) but is a finite hermeneutical transcendence, transgressing the subject-object dichotomy and thus allowing the experiencer and the experienceable to be determined by each other simultaneously and in ways that change historically. Dasein’s ability to ground beings is freedom only if such a co-determination is possible, and it is possible only if neither Being nor concealed beings-as-a-­ whole are metaphysically pre-determined. Such a pre-determination, which, for example, limits Being to a list of objective categories, assumes 102

 Ibid., 130.

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that there is an absolute ground (i.e., a sub-jectum) on the basis of which Being is pre-determined. A traditional understanding of logic offers precisely such a ground. However, if Being is essentially groundless, allowing a free determination of grounds in transcendence alone, in the de-ciding of the ontological difference in Dasein, we face the abyss of concealment, only finitely surpassed in terms of Dasein’s essential boundness by beings. The radicality of Heidegger’s idea of transcendence as freedom for ground corresponds to the radicality of the abyssal nature of concealment itself – there is simply no single pre-determined metaphysical form of what must count as a being; the concealed is not a not-yet-revealed (single) structure, but an abyss, a Nothing. The only reason we can steal something from this abyss is that Dasein is, from the start, “inside” the temporally hermeneutical circle of thrown projection. Accordingly, all transcendental idealism must remain essentially naïve in its dream of leaving the circle and drawing a schema of beings’ dependence on some meta-­ physical transcendental structure. Indeed, there is Nothing “outside” the circle.

4  The Mystery of Concealment and the Errancy in Dasein’s Being The ontological role of freedom is further developed by Heidegger in the 1930 article “On the Essence of Truth.” This article takes off from what was achieved in “On the Essence of Ground” to further connect Heidegger’s notions of freedom and openness. Namely, it proclaims that world projection accomplishes a pre-given directedness of unconcealment only by entering freely into the open region of what is opened up. Such directedness is a binding directedness (eine bindene Richte).103 Further, since freedom is a freedom for ground, and projective grounding does not interfere with beings but merely unconceals them, freedom reveals itself as letting beings be.104 To let be, Heidegger explains, is to engage with the open region of the unconcealment and its openness.105 The freedom-­ openness relation is made clear in the article’s accentuation of the fact that in order to let beings be, Dasein must withdraw (zurücktreten) so that beings could “fill” the thus freed space and reveal themselves in respect of  Heidegger (2010c), 142.  Ibid., 144. 105  Ibid. 103 104

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what and how they are.106 In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, this ability to release beings was explained by the ecstatic structure of original temporality. Now, after the metontological working out of the question of ground, this ability can finally be named “freedom”: Letting-be, i. e., freedom, is intrinsically exposing, ek-sistent. Considered in regard to the essence of truth, the essence of freedom manifests itself as exposure to the unconcealment of beings.107

In the context of our investigation of Heidegger’s emphasis on the thrown character of transcendence in the metontological texts, the cited “exposure to the disclosedness of beings” is nothing other but Dasein’s transcendence taken existentielly. Freedom – now defined as letting-be – is once again identified with transcendence. We were familiar with this identity already from the previous year’s lectures. Now, however, Heidegger sharpens the meaning of transcendental freedom and, accordingly, of the notion of transcendence. Transcendental freedom is not a “freedom from” (negative notion) or a “freedom for” (positive notion) but is prior to both. The original sense of freedom as the engagement in the disclosure of beings as such determines the “there” of beings’ manifestation.108 Such engagement, as I have suggested in the previous section, is hermeneutical in nature and corresponds to the hermeneutical nature of transcendence. This is not a freedom of autonomous subjectivity, acting upon objects, or even a freedom to make sense of beings according to one’s projects. These notions of freedom assume the subject-object dichotomy, prioritizing the subject’s spontaneity against the passivity of beings as either already available for action or – as in transcendental idealism – available for being-constituted as objects. In both cases, there is no engagement in the disclosure but, at most, a one-directional determination of the disclosable. Heidegger’s notion of transcendence as freedom, on the other hand, indicates an engagement in which the very enactment of openness is already bound by beings and is conditioned by such boundness. Accordingly, as transcendence, freedom cannot belong to a subject but is prior to the subject-object delineation. As Heidegger tells us, letting-be is ek-sistent:  Ibid.  Ibid., 144–145. Tm. 108  Ibid., 145. 106 107

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The human being does not “possess” freedom as a property. At the most, the opposite is true: freedom, ek-sistent, unconcealing Da-sein, possesses the human being — so originally that only it establishes for humanity that distinctive relatedness to being as a whole as such which first founds all history.109

Heidegger makes explicit the difference between transcendent Dasein on the one hand and man taken as an individual subject on the other hand. As I argued in Chap. 3, Dasein is not equal to “human” but indicates a there-character of Being itself. By writing Da-sein with a hyphen, Heidegger fixes the insufficient clarity of what Dasein means – the “there” (Da) pertains to Being (sein) and is inseparable from it. It is not a place “for Being” but a character of Being itself. Freedom as the ecstatic openness that lets beings be is precisely how the there-character of Being eventuates. Human beings are “possessed” by this event. Still, human freedom cannot be seen as ontologically passive or merely accompanying the event of unconcealment. The difference between Da-sein and man amounts to the difference between freedom as casting the for-the-sake-of-which and a factical willing. The aspect of will that I referred to as the transcendental dimension in Chap. 5, which represents a deeper essence of will that is not employed intermittently but remains consistently “active” in determining the nature of unconcealment (whether one turns toward or away from Nothingness), is the kind of freedom that encompasses human existence. It is not merely a matter of choosing how to interpret and live one's life, but rather an ongoing process that occurs at the level of openness, where beings are allowed to be as they are (prior to and “beneath” any specific worldly concerns). In “On the Essence of Truth,” Heidegger explicitly states that freedom entails active engagement in the disclosure of beings. It signifies that transcendental freedom belongs to the level of Da-sein, not the level of the everyday understanding of whatever practical abilities one exercises in one’s daily life. That, however, does not mean that there are two different kinds of freedom (transcendental gap), but that in our everyday life, we use an extremely obscure notion of freedom that cannot be transferred as it is to ontology. To be sure, already in Being and Time, the projection of the for-the-sake-of-which cannot be thought of as an act of will in the traditional sense of consciously forcing one’s intention on beings. This point is made clear in “On the Essence of Ground,” where 109

 Ibid. tm.

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will is distinguished from the more original for-the-sake-of-which. Hence, I hold a different perspective from Tugendhat regarding the transformation of freedom in “On the Essence of Truth,” where Heidegger moves from the concept of willing to the notion of letting-beings-be as the “clearing of Being.”110 In my view, Heidegger does not discard will but rather delves deeper into its essence, offering a clarification that distances him from the conventional understanding of will within a subject-oriented metaphysical framework. In other words, the shift from willing to letting-be only occurs if willing did not already imply, even implicitly, something akin to letting­be prior to “On the Essence of Truth.” However, in ”On the Essence of Ground,” Heidegger establishes a connection between willing and freedom, identifying freedom with transcendence, which is illuminated as freedom for ground that is inherently bound by beings. The withdrawing nature of transcendence is a necessary condition for freedom. In “On the Essence of Truth,” Heidegger simply articulates this relationship more accurately, recognizing that what is unconcealed is equally intertwined with the occurrence of freedom. This understanding aligns with transcendence as an ontological framework that surpasses the traditional metaphysical assumption of an eternal principle governing the unfolding of the universe. While the unfolding is indeed free, freedom lacks meaning if there are no distinct possibilities that exclude one another. The event of Being's self-understanding necessitates the potential for different modes of intelligibility. Without such possibilities, transcendence becomes a static notion linking something that already exists (an a priori ground) with the contingent facts of the ontic universe. However, such a theological notion of transcendence (as Heidegger labels it) has nothing to do with freedom – if beings could manifest without Da-sein, they would not need to be freed. But then, human freedom would not be possible as well. Moreover, if there is any sense to attributing freedom to Being (in its there-character), there must also be a possibility of a mistake or an errancy: “historical human beings can, in letting beings be, also not let beings be the beings which they are and as they are.”111 Moreover, Being itself, as a force in the sense of the origin of possible

 Tugendhat (1970), 379.  Heidegger, (2010c), 146.

110 111

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changes, only makes sense if it can lapse and fail.112 An absolutely infallible force is self-contradictory. However, an ontological, non-subjective errancy is impossible in traditional metaphysics that assumes a rationalistic clarity of essence; one may not be able to see it, but – in itself – it is something clear and intelligible in the sense of a visible presence. For Heidegger, on the other hand, the essential letting be is only possible in terms of attunement. I have argued in Chap. 5 that beings-as-a-whole is the way the itself-ness of beings is pressing itself in the world. The sense of the realness of reality consists of the particular “tune” of Being, of the way beings announce themselves individually and as a meaningful whole. To be attuned to this “tune” is the happening of transcendence. Nature, in the sense of physis, that is Being, “‘determines’ man, i.e., tunes his primordial attunedness as such and such.”113 Significantly, prior to this attuned letting be, being are intrinsically concealed (not just “for us”); there is no single positive essence to beings before some or other attuned projection has determined what counts as a being, i.e., what possible mode of a being’s self-identity emerges (from the abyss of Beyng) as its factical essence. It is crucial to note that such a determination of essence is not decided by Dasein but is an event of bringing to accord between Dasein and beings, occurring as a reciprocal co-­grounding of beings and Dasein as thrown and bound by beings. This point is vital: were there a pre-determined metaphysical essence to beings, it would be meaningless to speak of concealment. While theoretical reason offers a categorial structure appropriate for an infinite linear time (e.g., Kant’s schematism), attuned understanding is the only way to let beings be on the ground of the originally hermeneutical temporality. What counts as an essence must always be historically conditioned through attunement. As engagement, Heidegger writes, freedom has already attuned all comportment to being-as-a-whole.114 In this way, all comportment is brought into accord throughout by the openness of beings-as-a-whole.115 Since attunement is integral to the very possibility of unconcealing beings, it is evident that what counts as a being, i.e., as an essence of a being, and accordingly as a truth “about” beings, is  Heidegger (1995), 140.  Heidegger (2002a), 170. 114  Heidegger (2010c), 147. 115  Ibid. 112 113

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dependent on attunement, that is, decisively finite. Finitude does not mean that something exists only for some time but that it never exists in an absolute sense of exceeding the possible modes of what might be its essence, and hence each time exists only in a particular way.116 Such a finite essence is un-concealed each time, never claiming to embody an a-temporal, eternal, pre-determined essence of what beings can be at all. Indeed, before the unconcealing event of transcendence, there is no determinate essence to beings, but only Nothing. Still, this Nothing is not a nihil, as if Dasein were each time participating in the act of essence-creation. Instead, the Nothing is the origin and the possibility of possible modes of essencing that belong to beings-as-a-whole. Accordingly, any letting beings be is also a concealment of other possible modes of their Being: Precisely because letting be always lets beings be in a particular comportment that relates to them and thus unconceals them, it conceals beings as a whole. Letting-be is intrinsically at the same time a concealing. The ek-­ sistent freedom of Da-sein is the concealedness; in it happens a concealing of beings as a whole.117

The fact of concealment of beings-as-a-whole is a direct consequence of the hermeneutical finitude of transcendence/freedom. The radicality of this idea is hard to overestimate as it puts an end to ontology in the traditional sense. Namely, beings-as-a-whole is concealed not because of the imperfection of human knowledge or experience but must be so in order for experience and knowledge to be possible at all. The concealment of beings-as-a-whole, Heidegger says, is “untruth” proper and is older than letting-be itself.118 In other words, beings-as-a-whole is abyssal; it is concealed as such, unrelated to whether there is letting-be or not. The character of “not” and “negation,” says Heidegger, plays a special role in the question of the essence of truth.119 The “not” lends to truth its power120 by allowing the 116  Nevertheless, finitude does has an essential relation to temporality since temporality is what “encloses” one possible mode of existence so that it could announce itself “in reality.” I will return to this theme in the discussion of human finitude in Chap. 9. 117  Heidegger (2010c), 148 tm. 118  Ibid., 148. 119  Heidegger (2002a), 96. 120  Ibid.

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concrete ontological truth of what is unconcealed to be differentiated from other possible modes of truth (i.e., from the concealed). Truth is not a dumb fact of “how things are,” even less of “how we think of things,” but rather constitutes the difference between the manifesting universe and the abyss of its concealed mystery before anything true can be pointed out within such universe. This is the fundamental character of Heidegger’s analysis of Being as such in contrast to traditional ontology and metaphysics. Traditional metaphysics distorts the facts “in such a way that they face us only from one side,” thus hiding the fact that there is nothing (i.e., concealment) behind it.121 Accordingly, the essence of truth is thought of in terms of such a metaphysical essence, namely as a “generality” of what belongs to the only sense of beings’ itself-ness. For Heidegger, on the other hand, the essence of truth is not generality but is “self-concealing, is unique in the unremitting history of the disclosure of the ‘meaning’ of what we call Being.“122 In other words, it is a unique existential intelligibility of Being to which also belongs the concealed origin of other possible historical modes of being-true.123 Here we also arrive at the essential character of the event of transcendence as freedom. Freedom entails that the happening of transcendence “has a say” in what beings are in themselves. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, it also entails a possibility of errancy. The errancy of the freedom of letting-be, on which the entire history of traditional metaphysics is founded, is that letting-be conceals the fact that there is concealment. The mystery of the concealment is itself concealed:124 What conserves letting-be in this relatedness to concealing? Nothing less than the concealing of what is concealed as a whole, of beings as such, i. e., the mystery; not a particular mystery regarding this or that, but rather the one mystery – that, in general, mystery (the concealing of what is concealed) as such holds sway throughout the Da-sein of human beings.125

 Ibid., 98.  Heidegger (2010c), 153. 123  Heidegger stresses that a relativistic argument against Protagoras, according to whom man is the measure of all things, assumes that truth is something valid for everyone. This assumption, says Heidegger, is without ground, and it is obscure what would it even mean to ground it (Heidegger (1995), 170). 124  Heidegger (2010c), 148. 125  Ibid. 121 122

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Notably, the fact that Dasein is, for the most part, unaware that it is surrounded by a mystery of impenetrable self-concealment of beings-as-a-­ whole is not a flaw that can be fixed, for example, by more knowledge, but pertains to Dasein’s non-essence as the non-essence of truth; it pertains to the finitude of Dasein’s transcendence. That is to say, the fact that beings only are as unconcealed pertains to human beings as well. Since there is no “blueprint” of human essence, human beings can be in various ways. This does not mean that humans can live in different, perhaps culturally determined ways, but that transcendence itself, as the fundamental structure of Being-in-the-world, can happen in different ways. It can, for example, happen in a way that allows human beings to experience themselves as objective entities, enclosed in the limits of their bodies and related to “external” beings alone. In this light, the fact that human beings cling to what is readily available and controllable even where ultimate matters are concerned126 is not determined prior to the factical existentiell mode of one’s existence. Or in other words, Dasein’s errancy is not a “build-in” transcendentally-noetic limitation. Instead, the non-essence of truth is maintained throughout one’s everyday engagement with beings (including other people) and, in this sense, conditioned by it. Indeed, the metontological turn exposes that the quality of the grounding unconcealment is co-determined by what one does (in the most general sense of “doing”) and not just the other way around. The finitude of transcendence allows one to “lose” oneself, i.e., to exist in the impoverished mode of transcendence, experiencing oneself and the world through the subject-object delineation. Accordingly, though freedom possesses man, one can unconceal one’s own Being in a mode of a total lack of freedom. Nevertheless, Heidegger points out that even the complete factical lack of freedom is an “elemental testimony to transcendence.”127 To hold fast to beings as if those were simply there (as if no transcendence were happening and not Da-sein needed) is to forget Being as the light of all manifestation. The non-essence of truth is thus related to a particular sort of untruth that points to the still unexperienced domain of the truth of Being (rather than beings).128 Namely, beings may show themselves correctly in a sense agreeable by the many, yet Being, and  Ibid., 149.  Heidegger (1984), 193. 128  Heidegger (2010c), 154. 126 127

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accordingly, transcendence, are not experienced for what they are. Such ontological errancy, Heidegger points out, belongs to the inner constitution of Dasein.129 However, why does it count as errancy? Is it not just one possible mode of human existence determined through particular attunements? If there is no “blueprint” for either beings in general or human beings in particular, what counts as a standard for existence? Heidegger seems to reveal in “On the Essence of Truth” what was implicitly present hitherto in his entire work – there is a truth that cannot be put in terms of beings, pre-determined essences, moral imperatives, existential structures, etc. Still, this truth of Being can and does function as a standard of existence and of unconcealment of beings. Considering this perspective, I must amend what I have said earlier regarding the unintelligibility of Beyng above particular historical manifestations of Being. Though both Being and beings are unintelligible unless unconcealed, Beyng – as the mysterious origin of ontological plurality – has its truth. The truth of Being as such is the truth of Beyng, yet it is beyond the intelligible-unintelligible dichotomy. Namely, it is neither a meta-intelligibility of all the possible modes of Being, i.e., is not a secret unity that makes sense as an eternal ground beyond the historical unfolding of Being (one, for example, we find in Hegel),130 nor is it a total lack of ground as chaotic nonsense “indifferent” to what originates from it. In Contributions, we read that the self-withholding of Being as the “staying away” of the ground is not a gaping hole or chasm but “the attuned disposing of the essential dis-lodgments of precisely this cleared being which allows such self-concealing to stand within it.”131 That is, Being and Beyng are inseparable – the manifesting intelligibility of Being is “in tune” with other possible but concealed modes of manifestation.132 The cleared Being  Ibid., 150.  Heidegger stresses in the 1931 Aristotle lectures that the question of the unity of Being above its ontological plurality is a question that concerns Being and Time: “Is this one Being something before all unfolding, that is, something that exists for itself, whose independence is the true essence of Being?” (Heidegger (1995), 25). “Might the unity of Being lie precisely in this imparting parting out? And also how would and could something like this happen? What holds sway in this event? (These are questions concerning Being and Time!)” (Ibid.). 131  Heidegger (2012), 301. 132  This co-belongingness is so central to Heidegger that it accompanies his thinking until the very last seminars. As Richard Capobianco stresses, in the Four Seminars, Heidegger once again emphasizes that there is “no day without night” and no “night without day.” See Capobianco (2011), 11. 129 130

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sways in the “there” as the truth of the clearing concealment, that is, as the truth of Beyng that cannot be inferred from beings. Though beings gather themselves in a mode determined by the cleared (unconcealed) Being, the intelligibility of such factical gathering is self-sufficient and – if we look at beings alone – insinuates no rank of their mode of manifestation. Nevertheless, there is such a rank as a standard of the truth of Being, a standard that determines the topology of the dis-lodgements of Being into different modes. The shifts between the possible modes of Being, however, are not intelligible in the traditional sense of a pre-observable unity of the sense of Beyng. Instead, the dis-lodgements of Being happen as an attuned disposing. The truth of Beyng cannot be represented as an intelligibility of the highest ground but is a mystery of the event’s intrinsic qualitative differentiation. The only general thing that can be said about it is that the mode of Being in which concealment co-constitutes the clearing explicitly is “truer” than the mode in which it does not. However, this difference is not the truth of Beyng but only an indication of the fact that such truth avoids positive intelligibility and must remain a mystery that, nevertheless, can be experienced. Indeed, since any mode of Being manifests only in the “there” and (human) existence is nothing but the embodiment of the there-character of Being (or rather an attempt to be such an embodiment), the truth of Beyng must also serve as the standard of human existence. In “On the Essence of Truth,” we hear that the first indication of such a truth is one’s awareness of the mystery, i.e., of the concealed nature of beings-as-a-whole and of a questionable nature of truth as correspondence (implying a pre-­ determined structure of essence). Crucially, such an awareness is not an intellectual idea but is determinative for the very mode of one’s attuned understanding, thus affecting both the way beings manifest and how one understands oneself. In Contributions, Heidegger stresses that such truth belongs to an original belief in the sense of persistence in the extreme decision.133 It is not concerned with something true – the sense of “true” transforms according to the unfolding of Beyng – but is a quality of abiding in the essence of truth.134  Heidegger (2012), 292.  Otto Pöggeler points out the Jewish-Christian origin of this concept of truth. The believer remains faithful, i.e., remains in truth throughout the changing history (Pöggeler (1989), 70). Heidegger has indeed connected truth to faith already in the early lectures. According to Heidegger, Paul relates faith to truth as the quality of enactment (Heidegger (2010d), 76–77). 133 134

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We can posit that such awareness corresponds to a distinctive and explicit mode of transcendence. Heidegger, in his 1929 course Introduction to Philosophy, delineated the disparity between indirect and explicit modes of transcendence. While I will delve into this contrast in subsequent chapters, for the time being, we can tentatively assert that the forgetting of the mystery aligns with the mere indirect mode of transcendence characterized by an enchantment with beings. This enchantment distorts the very comprehension of Being, causing beings to manifest within the framework of subject-object duality, reducible to their factual modes of appearance, and facilitating the extraction of a singular ontological structure, a sub-­ jectum, from them. Nevertheless, when viewed from a different perspective, it is this very duality that allows us to be captivated by beings. In essence, the entire hermeneutical circle of Dasein's transcendence becomes tainted. This “corrupted” transcendence tends to lose its inherent transparency and manifests as a mere relation to beings, akin to ontic intentionality. At best, it presents itself as a connection to the a priori metaphysical ground of beings, which, in truth, is derived solely from beings themselves (e.g., through transcendental deduction). Beings, rather than the mystery of concealment/Beyng, become the standard. Accordingly, the traditional notion of transcendence is not an intellectual error in the history of thinking. Rather, enchanted Dasein experiences beings as if they were positive and available on their own so that the only transcendence-relevant questions are the ones pertaining to one’s relation to beings, knowledge, and persistence throughout the manifold of experiences. The traditional notion of transcendence expresses a double forgetting as the forgetting of the mystery and the oppression of the errancy. Moreover, I suggest that Dasein can be enchanted by beings and interpret beings as structured by a priori a-temporal forms only if the finitude of unconcealment, i.e., of its own transcendence, is concealed. As I shall show in the following chapters, to witness that beings are and that their Being is most question-worthy entails a personal transformation entailing a new awareness of one’s own transcendence.

References Capobianco, Richard. 2011. Engaging Heidegger. University of Toronto Press. Crowell, Steven. 2000. Metaphysics, Metontology, and the End of Being and Time. Phenomenology and Phenomenological Research 60 (2): 307–331.

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Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward S. Robinson. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 1984. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Trans. Michael Heim. Indiana University Press. ———. 1992. Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte “Probleme” der “Logik”. Gesamtausgabe 45, ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1992. ———. 1995. Aristotle’s Metaphysics th 1-3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force. Trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek. Indiana University Press. ———. 1997. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Trans. Richard Taft. Indiana University press. ———. 2000. Introduction to Metaphysics. Trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt. Yale University Press. ———. 2001. Einleitung in die Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe 27, ed. O. Saame et I. Saame-Speidel. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2002a. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus. Trans. Ted Sadler. UNKNO. ———. 2002b. The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics. Identity and Difference 42: 75. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. University of Chicago Press. Revised edition. ———. 2004. Wegmarken, Gesamtausgabe 9, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2005. Über den Anfang, Gesamtausgabe 70, ed. Paola-Ludovika Coriando. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2010a. What is Metaphysics. In Pathmarks, 82–96. Trans. William McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2010b. On the Essence of Ground. In Pathmarks, 97–135. Trans. William McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2010c. On the Essence of Truth. In Pathmarks, 136: 155. Trans. William McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2010d. The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Indiana University Press. ———. 2012. Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Indiana University Press. ———. 2018. Platon: Sophistes. Gesamtausgabe 19. Verlag Vittorio Klostermann. Hemming, Laurence P. 2002. Heidegger’s Atheism: The Refusal of a Theological Voice. University of Notre Dame Press. ———. 2005. Postmodernity Transcending: Devaluing God. SCM Press. Pöggeler, Otto. 1989. Martin Heidegger’s Path of Thinking. Trans. Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund Barber. Humanity Books. Sheehan, Thomas. 2014. Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

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Tugendhat, Ernst. 1970. Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger. Walter de Gruyter & Co. von Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm. 2001. Contributions to Philosophy and Enowning­Historical Thinking. In Companion to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy, 105: 126. Indiana University Press.

CHAPTER 8

Authenticity as Explicit Transcendence

1   Introduction In the previous chapter we have seen that Dasein’s transcendental freedom is permeated with errancy. Dasein forgets the abyssal concealment of beings-as-a-whole and takes the way beings appear for granted as if there were a single sense of their itself-ness determined by an a priori ground. Such an ontotheological model of metaphysics is a direct consequence of the forgetfulness of concealment. In such a mode of existence, Dasein does not realize its own role of releasing the enactment of each time finite unconcealment of beings; one’s transcendental freedom is not taken over, and the very possibility of a free determination of the meaning of Being is corrupted. Now, we are in a position to address this aspect of Heidegger’s ontology; namely, the degree to which Dasein can (and for the most part does) fail in playing its ontological role. For that we need an ontological interpretation of Dasein’s inauthenticity which does not reduce it to some characteristic of an anthropological subject. I have shown that during the 1920s, Heidegger developed certain intuitions regarding the impossibility of thinking of human existence as a traditional subjectivity. That is, the notion of transcendence serves Heidegger to deconstruct several traditional assumptions regarding the need to relate to the “outside world” and represent it in consciousness. However, giving up such a need entails two things: First, Dasein belongs to the happening of Being itself as its © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Kuravsky, Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41291-2_8

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there-character. Second, human beings are not identical to the there-­ character of Being yet they exist as human beings by participating in it in a way that affects it. The question is then how Dasein’s being-inauthentic affects Being in its there-character. Namely, we need to understand the ontological meaning (i.e., regarding Being itself) of what is phenomenologically available to us foremost as the inauthentic quality of our existence. In 1931 Heidegger writes Da-sein with a hyphen and says that it possesses human beings. This “definition” expresses the meaning of Dasein much more straightforwardly than the earlier identification of Dasein with the human “kind” of Being, but I doubt anyone would understand it without the “preparatory work” of Being and Time.1 The next crucial step for Heidegger was introducing “Beyng” as the enigmatic self-concealing origin of the ontological plurality corresponding to the Nothing of beings that await their unconcealment in some released (i.e., preferred) sense of existential intelligibility (itself-ness). The understanding of Being is the eventuation of Beyng within its own there-character; it is an explosion of Beyng’s essential sway into a definite sense of Being and, at the same time, an implosion of its self-concealing staying away of ground. In short, this is the event of transcendence. The failure of existence to participate appropriately in this event cannot be thought of without first realizing the nature of Da-sein in general and the fact of its belongingness to Beyng in particular. As Heidegger puts it in the Contributions, Accordingly, to speak in the strict sense of the relation of Da-sein to beyng is misleading, inasmuch as it implies that beyng essentially occurs “for itself” and that Da-sein then takes up a relation to beyng. The relation of Da-sein to beyng pertains intrinsically to the essential occurrence of beyng itself, which could also be conveyed by saying that beyng needs Da-sein and does not at all essentially occur without this appropriation.2

To say that Beyng occurs “for itself” and that Da-sein takes up a relation to it is to think of Dasein and Beyng in terms of the subject-object relation. It is to think of Beyng ontotheologically as requiring no historical “there.” Yet, to think of the there-character of Beyng without an essential relation to something like factical human existence is to think of Beyng as an entity, an absolute supreme being/force/process that “decides” what 1  Henceforward I shall indicate the there-character of Beyng as Da-sein and the human essential relation to Da-sein as Dasein. 2  Heidegger (2012a), 200.

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potential intelligibility shall manifest. It is ontotheology as well.3 Heidegger’s challenge is precisely the fact that existence and Dasein cannot be separated, and he must articulate the belongingness of Da-sein to Beyng that also includes Dasein as an intrinsic determination of human existence. Simply identifying Dasein with human beings or rejecting the Beyng’s need for Dasein are ways to avoid facing this challenge. The inseparability of Da-sein and Beyng becomes especially significant when we turn to Dasein’s possibility of forgetting its own transcendental role and failing to take over its transcendental freedom. That such a failure leads to ontological consequences in the event of beings’ self-gathering can be seen already in Heidegger’s early thought; since Dasein exist as a happening of the “there,” the mode of this happening must affect the way anything is there. In the Contributions, Heidegger says that Beyng needs Da-sein and does not essentially occur without the explicit appropriation of its ontological role. In this light, I suggest that the appropriate and the inappropriate modes of Dasein’s existence can be analyzed in terms of either the appropriate or inappropriate mode of the happening of transcendence or, as Heidegger puts it in Introduction to Philosophy, in terms of explicit and non-explicit transcendence. That is, if, as Heidegger stresses in “On the Essence of Truth,” the oblivion of the mystery is not an incident but results from the non-essence of truth pertaining to existence as such, transcendence  – as characterizing existence  – must, for the most part, happen only “deficiently.” Indeed, it is evident when we hear Heidegger says that in everyday transcendence, Being is not explicitly reached and hence inevitably forgotten. An ontological interpretation of the inauthenticity-authenticity character of existence should then proceed by way of interpreting it in terms of the two possible modes of transcendence. In The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Heidegger says that those sections of Being and Time, which address the authenticity-related themes, are meant to serve the progressive elaboration of transcendence.4 Further, in the Introduction to Philosophy, Heidegger identifies explicit transcendence with the essentiality of Dasein on the one hand and philosophy on the other.5 Accordingly, I now turn to 3  Though it might seem that, in this case, Being is not constant presence but can be otherwise than it is, a self-deciding image of Being is nothing but a reification of Being into a (supreme) being which cannot be otherwise than it is. I address the need of Da-sein for a genuine plurality of Beyng in Chap. 9. 4  Heidegger (1984), 168. 5  Heidegger (2001a), 213.

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show that Heidegger’s idea of inauthenticity should be thought of ontologically as indirect transcendence in which Dasein does not recognize its own transcendental role and implicitly rejects the Nothing of Being.6 The concluding chapters of the book will place the idea of becoming authentic in the interpretational context I have been developing so far. That is, the current and the following chapters will not follow the chronological development of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence in the way it was done hitherto but will suggest that Heidegger’s central philosophical motivation (i.e., human transformation) becomes clearer if viewed through the prism of transcendence as anticipating the idea of Beyng as Event. Also, in the context of the intrinsic possibility of existence to be in different modes, the notion of transcendence itself will be further freed from the traditionally metaphysical prejudice of being once and for all determined “relation” or ontological structure. As I argued in Chap. 7, the idea of the truth of Beyng insinuates that the ontological plurality of Beyng is not a pile of contingent modes of intelligibility but is intrinsically ranked according to a non-generalizable standard. This standard cannot be deduced from beings or revealed in speculation. However, it can be traced in how transcendence transforms from its implicit to its explicit mode. This transformation is phenomenologically available as the transformation of human existence. The truth of Beyng constitutes the possible modes of its own there-character (Da-sein) and hence also of human existence (Dasein). Accordingly, in the current and the following chapters, I will move freely between Being and Time and later works and gather some of the things Heidegger says regarding human transformation and its relation to transcendence. For example, even though Heidegger does not employ the term transcendence in the Contribution, Heidegger’s most explicit rejection of the ontotheological metaphysics of presence and how this rejection pertains to human transformation appear in this book and is tied to earlier themes which Heidegger directly related to the explication of transcendence. Viewing earlier transcendence-related ideas through the lens of later work should allow us to see better Heidegger’s motivations beyond the limits of particular conceptuality (e.g., of Being and Time). I believe 6  “As ‘existentials’, authenticity and inauthenticity are not labels for a ‘new’ anthropology and the like, but rather the directives to the swaying of Beyng itself that attunes Da-sein for making the truth of Beyng its own and attunes Da-sein to the loss” (Heidegger (2016b), 287–288 tm.

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that such a method of interpreting Heidegger’s earlier ideas on transcendence is justified because, though Heidegger stops using the term in Contributions,7 he does stress there what transcendence meant all along in terms of Beyng: Transcendence in the sense of the ‘fundamental ontology’ of Being and Time. Here the word ‘transcendence’ receives again its original meaning: the surpassing as such, grasped as the distinctive feature of Da-sein, indicating thereby that Da-sein in each case already stands in the open realm of beings. Connected up to this one and thereby determined more precisely is ‘transcendence’ in the ‘ontological’ sense, inasmuch as the transcendence pertaining to Dasein is grasped originarily and precisely as an understanding of Being. Now, however, since understanding is in turn taken to be thrown projection, transcendence means to stand in the truth of Beyng, of course without at first knowing this or questioning it.8

Transcendence, Heidegger writes, means to stand in the truth of Beyng. Thus, even though Heidegger eventually prefers to get rid of the term, what is meant by the term all along becomes the central theme of his Beyng-historical-thinking. That is, rather than being irrelevant to the investigation of transcendence, the thought of the late 1930s sheds new light on the issue. In this light, the relations between three of Heidegger’s statements regarding transcendence need to be looked into: (1) Authenticity-related themes in Being and Time serve the progressive elaboration of transcendence. (The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic) (2) Essentiality of Dasein = explicit transcendence = philosophizing. (Introduction to Philosophy) (3) Transcendence means standing in the truth of Beyng. (Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event)) These relations, as I shall show, reveal that Heidegger’s notion of authenticity in Being and Time and the transformation of Dasein, of which he speaks in the later lectures, indicate the core of the transcendence-­ freedom identity. In particular, these relations express the task of 7  In Chap. 10 I shall address the reasons for Heidegger’s refusal to use the term “transcendence” in Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event). 8  Heidegger (2012a), 170.

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philosophy as such and prepare the way for the turn from indirect transcendence of all ontology towards the explicit transcendence that enables the thinking of Beyng. To be sure, though Heidegger stated that his analyses of anxiety, death, and conscience in Being and Time were meant to clarify transcendence, he does not explicitly speak of transcendence in the relevant sections of Being and Time. This fact is typical for what is found in Being and Time, which is only a first step in presenting a novel way of asking the question of Being and includes numerous seeds of what needs further development and radicalization. Therefore, Dermot Moran expresses a fair bewilderment regarding the lack of a clear account of how transcendence, as constituted by projection and thrownness, involves the notions of authenticity and inauthenticity.9 Stefan W. Schmidt’s claim that in the years following Being and Time, selfhood is no longer conveyed by authenticity but instead by transcendence is also understandable.10 Indeed, the relation between transcendence and authenticity eludes the reader because Being and Time includes a detailed analysis of authenticity but only preliminary indications of transcendence, while later lectures focus on transcendence and barely say a word about authenticity. However, Heidegger’s own avowal that authenticity-related chapters of Being and Time are meant to elaborate transcendence suggests that these chapters should be reread in light of the problem of transcendence. Notably, anxiety and death, which are supposed to clarify “transcendence,” appear in several lectures after Being and Time as well as in Contributions.11 This means, I believe, that anxiety and death  – as well as other authenticity-­ related notions of Being and Time – help clarify the most “original” sense of transcendence, one that is radically distanced from all traditionally metaphysical nuances, and which continues to serve Heidegger – even if implicitly – in the later thinking of Beyng.

 Moran (2015).  Schmidt (2016), 100. 11  Anxiety remains explicitly significant also in the 1940s texts such as The Event and Über den Anfang. Hence Richard Capobianco is incorrect in asserting that Angst stops playing a role of the most important disposition in Heidegger after 1929 (Capobianco (2011), 76). On the contrary, the non-public texts express Heidegger’s most intimate ideas and the appearance of Angst in them shows the importance of this concept for Beyng-historical-thinking. 9

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2   Inauthenticity as the Non-Essence of Transcendence Heidegger’s point of departure in the explication of (inauthentic) everydayness is the notion of a “they”-self. That is so since the problem of Dasein’s essentiality cannot take the form of a what-question. Instead, it first becomes available when we ask who Dasein is. That is to say, the “they” pertains to a mode of Dasein’s Being-one’s-self.12 To be sure, a corrupted mode of transcendence affects not just Dasein’s selfhood but the manifestation of Being as such and hence also the itself-ness of beings. In the Contributions, we find detailed analyses of such a corruption of beings and Being. However, the “preparatory work” of Being and Time is required to calibrate our attunement so that we could understand what such corruption means. As I argued in Chap. 4, we can only make sense of the individuality of beings because we exist as a self, characterized by mineness as the “for me” character of the worldling of the world. The unconcealment of a particular sense of the itself-ness of beings corresponds to the unconcelament of a distinct mode of our own selfhood – both are enacted within a single event of the understanding of Being. Accordingly – as argued in Chap. 7 – both are determined within the happening of transcendental will, yet mostly without the conscious participation of what we are used to viewing as our psychological volition. Transcendental freedom and Dasein’s selfhood are essentially the same – to be a self is to be bound by the unconcealed and open for the concealed. This boundness-openness dynamism constitutes the individuation of existence as such and its possible modes of being-a-self in particular. Transcendence is precisely the happening of this dynamism. Only in this surpassing, Heidegger says, Dasein comes towards “that being that it is” as “itself;”13 transcendence constitutes selfhood.14 The idea of they-self must be interpreted in this ontological context rather than approached vulgarly as anonymous partaking in practice. The issue for Heidegger is not so much that we mindlessly do what others do but the ontological reason for such mindlessness. What is central here is the mode of Dasein’s individuation since it corresponds to the essence of the there-character of Being – the whole point of the there-character of Being  Heidegger (1962), 149–150.  Heidegger (2010a), 108. 14  Ibid. 12 13

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is that Being must be “individualized” into a particular historical-factical mode without becoming separate from Beyng as such in all its possible, un-pre-thinkable variations. However, such an essential sway of Beyng entails that concealment co-constitutes even the manifesting Being. Moreover, it belongs essentially to the how of Being’s manifestation. In The Event, Heidegger explicitly stresses what was insinuated earlier in his work – self-concealment is what preserves the uniqueness of Beyng.15 Notably, uniqueness is the most radical sense of individuation, surpassing the traditional universal-particular dichotomy. Accordingly, Heidegger’s words at the beginning of Being and Time regarding the relation between transcendence and the possibility of Dasein’s radical individuation refer to the possibility of uniqueness as the mode of Dasein’s individuality. Authentic individuation can be interpreted – in light of the later works – as a state in which one is not somehow better or special in relation to others but is unique in a sense derivative from the uniqueness of Beyng itself. In inauthentic individuation, on the other hand, one understands one’s self by objectifying it as a present-to-hand entity understood through various characteristics comparable to other human beings. Inauthentically individualized Dasein requires to be distinguishable and “more human” in some sense in order to feel its own individuality. The difference here lies precisely in the opposition between the uniqueness of one’s belongingness to Beyng and the universal character of self-­ objectification resulting from one’s defensive self-enclosure against the abyss (See Chap. 5). In short, fleeing the abyss results in avoiding the principle of uniqueness of Beyng – Beyng is only unique because it conceals itself abyssaly. Without facing the abyss, one understands Beyng as a constant presence of an idea and thus plunges into all the consequences of such understanding, including the inauthentic individuation of being a particular instance of a universal essence. Inauthentic Dasein thus becomes subjected to the Other.16 In this mode of Being, rather than understanding the Other as a subject of solicitude and a co-witness to the truth of unconcealed beings, Dasein concerns itself with comparing itself to others and competing with them. In such a quality of comportment, Dasein does not surpass itself as a being with such and such ambitions and concerns  – a surpassing that amounts to facing the Nothing/concealment – but entangles into its own egoic projections and thus distances from the Other.17 However, since Dasein can never detach  Heidegger (2012b), 129.  Heidegger (1962), 164. 17  Ibid. 15 16

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itself from the for-the-sake-of-others (Being-with), this distancing is really a self-distancing; it is a distancing from the concealed uniqueness of one’s appropriate itself-ness. The projection of the world is no more enacted as a boundedness-openness (or the concealment-unconcealment) dynamism that constitutes the uniqueness of factical existence but is instead “emptied out” of individuality so that it could sustain the averageness of an understanding still available through Dasein’s Being-with.18 To be sure, by becoming radically individual (i.e., unique) Dasein achieves solitude which “does not close off or exclude, but carries and extends into that originary unity that no community ever attains.”19 Though Heidegger does emphasize that in inauthentic individuation Dasein is absorbed in the manifesting beings and their public interpretation and value,20 he does not mean that the “they” (Das Man) infers to other humans. Rather the “they”-self is a mode of Dasein’s Being in which its “who” is not oneself (man selbst)21 irrespectively of others; the others merely play a role of a factical substitute source for what must have come from one’s self. Publicness is only a way of Being of the “they”-self. We may say that “everyone is the other” results from the fact that “no one is himself.” Indeed, Dasein would be inauthentic even on a desert island. The reverse transformation is, accordingly, not so much a distancing from others but a becoming oneself. As I argued in Chap. 4, the itself-ness of Dasein (determining the character of mineness) is not a psychological, human characteristic but belongs to the event of the worldling of the world (i.e., as Being-in-the-world). As such, it is how the there-character of Being eventuates and beings come to be as themselves. Therefore, the mode of Dasein’s individuation determines the mode of freeing beings, i.e., of letting beings be themselves. As Heidegger writes, the “they”-self determines the limits of possibilities (as

18  Inauthentic Dasein is unable to connect to the Other precisely because, as R. D. Laing writes, it has no firm sense of its own autonomous identity (Laing (1965), 44). Paradoxically, it is because one lacks an ontologically genuine selfhood that one clings to other human beings, but inevitably fails to relate to them, thus fortifying the illusionary ego-structure. Indeed, in light of Being and Time, there is no such thing as an individual and healthy ego. For Heidegger, what, for example, psychoanalysis sees as psychologically healthy is just another expression of inauthenticity. In Zollikon seminars, Heidegger directly identified the psychoanalytical understanding of man, i.e. a view of man as an ego managed by drives and “objective” processes, as a glimpse from Dasein’s mode of fallenness (Heidegger (2017), 659). 19  Heidegger (2014), 207. 20  Heidegger (1962), 165. 21  Ibid., 164.

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averageness) of beings’ manifestation.22 Remembering that inauthenticity is nothing but the implicit rejection of the nullity of existence and, accordingly, of the concealment of Being, it is evident that in this mode beings cannot appear as unique entities co-determined by concealment (i.e., by the earth “side” of beings). Beings then can be said to be deprived of their Being to some extent; the forgetfulness/concealment of the mystery is not a philosophical idea but a way beings manifest in the world within a corrupted mode of the there-character of Being and lacking the possibility to manifest uniquely as such. In this light, even the ready-to-hand mode of manifestation is an inauthentic mode that can be seen as relatively subjective since despite the fact that readiness-to-hand constitutes the itself-ness of beings, the mode of beings’ itself-ness is such that beings appear as selfidentical in a sense that excludes their radically non-determinable character. In the context of equipment, a thing appears merely as a “material” and is used up. The piece of equipment, writes Heidegger, is close to human representation.23 Moving now to Heidegger’s thought on Dasein’s inauthenticity found in later work, we read in the Contributions that a more precise name for inauthenticity is “Being-away.”24 To-be-away is to press on with the closedness of the mystery of Being, to forget Being, and at the same time to be infatuated with things, lost in them.25 The term appears already in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (1929–1930 semester) and is presented as belonging to the essence of Dasein.26 Similarly, Contributions speaks of Being-away, i.e., of Dasein’s bustling about with objectively present things, as indicating the manner of Dasein’s being a “there.”27 Such being a “there,” however, is corrupted. Heidegger even expresses this corruption as Dasein’s being “there and not there.”28 The double failure of transcendence grounds such a “there”  – Dasein is away from itself (as transcending) and is away from (the there-character of) Being. Indeed, Dasein essentially fails to be a proper “there” wherein beings are genuinely unconcealed so that Being could “give itself” in all its strangeness as radically different from the objectively present, familiar beings. It  Ibid., 167.  Heidegger (2002a), 12–13. 24  Heidegger (2012a, b, c), 238. 25  Ibid. 26  Heidegger (2001b), 63. 27  Heidegger (2012a, b, c), 256. 28  Heidegger (2001b), 65. 22 23

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can be said that being-there-and-not-there stands for a failure to-be-there explicitly, i.e., to explicitly transcend beings and face the Nothing. Heidegger calls such Being-away “the completely other of the ‘there’” that nevertheless essentially belongs to the “there.”29 We can thus see that Being-away, or inauthenticity, is the non-essence of the “there” in a sense in which Heidegger uses the term “non-essence” in other places. Far from being an anthropological notion, inauthenticity indicates the non-essence of the there-character of Being itself. In Contributions, an inauthentic mode of existence is presented as a denial of the exposure of the truth of Beyng.30 That, however, does not only mean that a particular truth is denied to Dasein but that the very understanding of what truth is, is corrupted as well. Having in mind that the idea of an abyssal character of Beyng opposes the traditional ontotheological view in which Being grounds itself as an eternal sub-jectum of all beings, a rejection of concealment results in the dissolution of the abyss into some positive sense of Being as a mere shining (as in Plato).31 Such tacit forgetfulness of the concealed constitutes the core of the metaphysical interpretation of truth. The change of the essence of truth, Heidegger explains in the 1930–1931 lectures on Plato’s cave allegory, is not a mere modification of a conceptual definition but is “that comprehensive transformation of man’s Being in whose initial phase we now stand.”32 Namely, in the distortion of the essence of truth, inauthentic Dasein experiences and understands transcendence only as the subject’s relation to an object.33 The subject-object relation, in turn, founds the correspondence theory of truth.  Heidegger (2012a, b, c), 257.  Ibid., 240–241. 31  Such a positive idea of Being underlines also something like a pure urge to live, which is, according to Being and Time an inauthentic Being-ahead-of-oneself (Heidegger (1962), 240). 32  Heidegger (2002b), 229. 33  The distortion of inauthentic Dasein’s self-understanding goes beyond the schemas of modernity. Perhaps the most expressive representation of the “they”-self is found in postmodernism. As Laurence Paul Hemming writes: “My endless dissimulation into opportunities for appearing as, acting as, enacting values, the supposed ‘decentring of the subject’, is nothing other than my instrumentalization to the panopticon of opportunities to which I can be converted into an object, a thing to be taken up and effected through the choices that I think I make” (Hemming (2005), 31). Laurence’s identification of subject’s subjection to the God’s will in Aquinas and to discourses in Butler’s works can be read as a presentation of an evolving matrix of the “they” which has always already decided what one can be, but never allows to ask who is it that is thus subjugated. 29 30

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A human relation to an independent Being (Sein) is one of the possible versions of the correspondence theory of truth. Beyng, as an abyss of ground, cannot be related to, observed, reflected, or even expressed without affecting the event of its essential sway. The correspondence theory of truth always assumes a concealment-less Being that might be unavailable and “hidden” only in a much less radical sense than the one Heidegger means. The denial of the exposure to the truth of Beyng is not a denial of hearing something that speaks in general and does not need my hearing. “Both saying and hearing must be of the same origin,” says Heidegger.34 The hearing comes as much from Beyng as the saying. The fact that it is “I” who must hear it then is not a basis for a merely aesthetical experience “of” Beyng but is how the truth of Beyng is grounded in the “there.” The concealment of Beyng must be preserved in a leap of liberation from the idea that Dasein somehow stands against Beyng and that – accordingly – Beyng is somehow independent of its own there-character (Da-Sein). The roots of the metaphysical correspondence theory of truth lie precisely in this separation as the subject-object ground of the representational attitude. So, the denial of the exposure of the truth of Beyng is the denial of the kind of transcendence that beholds the concealed and, foremost, the fact of concealment as such. Inauthenticity is nothing less than this. In fact, the degradation of an understanding of truth in Western metaphysics is reflected in the degradation of Dasein’s transcendence in inauthentic existence. The history of the forgetfulness of Being, as the history of the unthought essence of transcendence, is the history of inauthenticity. While explicit transcendence is precisely openness for Being’s self-concealment, the indirect everyday transcendence only connects two areas which must first be enclosed so that later they could correspond (subject-object, man-­ God, entities-ideas, [anthropological] Dasein-Being [as shining]). As I shall further explicate, transformation into authentic existence has the sense of a de-cision as the closure of the cision between human existence and Beyng, i.e., as an overcoming of the correspondence theory of truth and submission to the great mystery of the fact that Beyng needs this

 Heidegger (2012a, b, c), 62.

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transformation to take place.35 Accordingly, when in later works Heidegger speaks of a certain “correspondence” between humans and Being, such correspondence should never be thought of as a relation between two independent elements. The human being is not the observer of Being merely echoing Being in language but a shepherd of Being, guarding its truth. It is then quite self-evident that Being, as what is shepherded, is dependent on the shepherd not absolutely but in the how of its possibilities of manifestation: the shepherd provides shelter.36 Heidegger stresses that such being-a-shepherd was already entailed in Being and Time.37

3  Anxiety: Disclosing the Possibility of Explicit Transcendence We can now move to the way Dasein can become aware of its authentic possibility of existence. No theoretical knowledge or moral code can help Dasein to disclose itself to itself since Dasein’s self-understanding precedes all such ontic affairs. We know, however, that Dasein is always brought before itself in a disposition, i.e., in some or other attunement (or mood). In Chap. 5, we have seen that the transcendental dimension of Dasein’s will constantly turns away from the burdensome character of existence. I have interpreted the burdensome character as a peculiar ontological tension arising from the fact of concealment that pervades Being-in-the-­ world. In Chap. 7, we have seen that transcendence is indeed a state of being exposed to the Nothing. The rejection of this exposedness is a tacit rejection of the transcendence of ex-sistence; it is an in-sistence. In-sisting Dasein does not consciously deny the Nothing but is attuned in a mode of 35  Far from being an “Early Heidegger’s” idea, this need is present in various forms in all Heidegger’s works. In the 1957 essay “Identity and Difference,” we hear:” Being is present and abides only as it concerns man through the claim it makes on him. For it is man, open toward Being, who alone lets Being arrive as presence. Such becoming present needs the openness of a clearing, and by this need remains appropriated to human being. This does not at all mean that Being is posited first and only by man” (Heidegger (2002c), 31). The idea here is in perfect alignment with my interpretation of Dasein as the there-­ character of Being itself, irreducible to human beings’ positing of Being but needing something like human existence to become manifest (present). That is to say, while Being is indeed independent of man as an anthropological subject, it requires existence in order to sway as a historical mode of the beings’ self-gathering. I address this issue explicitly in Chap. 9. 36  Heidegger (2012c), 132. 37  Heidegger (2010b), 252.

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turning away. That is, unlike the anthropological, psychological concept of human will, Dasein’s rejection is elusive and pre-reflective. Still, it can be phenomenologically witnessed as a subtle anxiousness that pervades existence. As Heidegger stresses, the state of Being of everyday Dasein is determined by nothing other than anxiety.38 It is crucial not to conflate anxiety with some unconscious emotion that can be explained psychologically and perhaps entirely removed. Leaving aside the familiar associations between “anxiety” and “having an unpleasant feeling,” we must see anxiety as an indication of the how of the event of Being’s self-understanding. As the tension that arises from the fact of Being’s self-concealment, anxiety is to be thought of in terms of the concealment-­ unconcealment dynamism constituting the itself-ness of beings in general and Dasein’s selfhood in particular. The fact that we “also” feel this tension as a fundamental attunement should not be too hastily reduced to a familiar psychological classification of anxiety as a “negative” emotion. In What is Metaphysics?, Heidegger speaks of a peculiar calmness (Ruhe) that belongs to anxiety.39 Later in The Event, Heidegger speaks of anxiety of steadfast Da-sein in terms of an experience of the Nothing and as arising from the pain of the question-worthiness of Being. 40 Once again, this is not “pain” in an ontic sense but an ontological origin of the intelligibility of all spiritual suffering. This origin is nothing other but the very event of Being’s departure (Abshied) from beings (i.e., self-concealment) to which also bliss belongs.41 We can then see that anxiety has a double nature, indicating the experience of the Nothing as both disclosing a great mystery (bliss, calmness) and being-shaken by the abyss that belongs to it (horror42). The English words “awesome” and “awful” express the co-­ belongingness of the sense of greatness and terror that characterizes the experience of the Nothing (as an awe). Though the experience includes both, the aspect that factically dominates is up to us. However, if we do not want to delude ourselves, we should agree with Being and Time that our default dwelling within the tension of concealment-unconcealment is pervaded by anxiety in a predominantly awful mode. That is to say, no  Heidegger (1962), 230.  Heidegger (2010c), 88. 40  Heidegger (2012b), 188–189. 41  Ibid., 144. 42  Ibid. 38 39

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matter how much we are intellectually open to the idea of the Nothing, were we to face it directly, we would be deeply shaken and scared. Still, anxiety should help us reveal our own transcendence; anxiety plays a role of a disclosive disposition. Dasein’s fallness is the fundamental evidence for the fact of hidden anxiety. Dasein is not falling and clinging to the pseudo-selfhood of the “they”-self for no reason. As I argued earlier, inauthentic individuation is nothing but the shrinking back from the uniqueness of Beyng, i.e., from concealment. There is no “motive” for such shrinking back, and it is not a contingent mistake on our side. The truth is that the very logic of Beyng as self-concealing entails a “natural” resistance to the Nothing, experienced as tacit anxiety of existence. The horror of the abyss is not a subjective evaluation of a horror-inducing phenomenon but constitutes the ontological resonance between the intelligibility of Being and the sheer un-intelligibility (impossibility of determination) of the Nothing that co-­ constitutes Being. That does not mean that we must forever experience the Nothing as awful rather than awesome. Nevertheless, the very awfulness of anxiety is inseparable from our rejection of the Nothing. Accordingly, the only way to stop anxiously fleeing our own transcendence is to face anxiety by awakening it. As Heidegger stresses in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, what is needed to facilitate the transformative effect of fundamental attunement is to awake it, i.e., to let it become awake.43 In Contributions, Heidegger speaks of an original power to say “yes” as different from a mere “optimistic bravado.” Instead, it requires a strength for experiencing the nihilating of Beyng.44 Such an experience is not subjective but is the un-settling of the experiencer into the truth of Beyng on the one hand and the un-settling of the event of appropriation on the other hand. In fact, it is a single un-settling in which appropriated Da-sein becomes steadfast “in what is unusual in relation to just any being.”45 Seen from the perspective of the “there,” this un-settling is the withdrawal of the event from all representational calculations. Namely, it is an explicit unconcealment of the concealment of Beyng as facing the refusal of Being. In The Event, Heidegger uses the paradoxical formulation “lit up concealment” as a particular configuration of the clearing of the “there” in which concealment does not merely determine Being as withdrawing but  Heidegger (2001b), 59–60.  Heidegger (2012a), 210. 45  Ibid., 370. 43 44

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lets this withdrawing (concealment) “show itself” in the “there.” Such an essential occurrence of Beyng allows beings to manifest in a mode of itself-­ ness co-constituted by concealment and hence unique and irrepresentable. One then experiences that beings are, which also means that Being is since, as unique, beings are present as “sacrificed to Being,” as fully them-selves rather than available in terms of their representable characteristics. Anxiety, says Heidegger, withstands this un-settling “inasmuch as this un-settling [Ent-setzen] occurs as negating in the original sense, i.e., de-poses [ab-­ setzt] beings as such.”46 This is a radical yes-saying since it is “an affirming of beings as such in the guise of the de-posed.” It is evident that, in Contributions, Heidegger speaks of anxiety in a positive sense of, so to say, following the tension of the concealment-­ unconcealment dynamics in order to let concealment be lit and illuminate beings as unique within a dark shining of the mystery of Beyng. In this event of un-settling, beings manifest in their itself-ness just as before. However, the mode of their itself-ness is such that it cannot be missed and neglected in favor of a representable structure which  – due to the predominance of unconcealment over concealment – is inseparable from the existential intelligibility of their manifestation. In the 1937–1938 lecture course Basic Questions of Philosophy, Heidegger stresses that the Greeks could notice the uniqueness of beings within a mood of wonder – which also includes an element of terror – but it is impossible to us now.47 Our denial of concealment became so predominant that a turn towards it has a character of a much larger shock than it was perhaps for the Greeks. In Being and Time, this side of anxiety’s effect on the manifestation of beings could not yet be expressed because elucidation of Dasein’s transformation into authenticity had to be performed first. Namely, all the talk about the uniqueness of beings’ individuation remains idle talk unless we first realize what such individuation means for us. As the there-character of Being, Da-sein must become radically individual (i.e., unique)  – Dasein’s

 Ibid., 380.  Heidegger (1994), 159.

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authentic individuation is the fundament of the de-posing of beings.48 Accordingly, already in Being and Time, we hear that “the possibility and the necessity of the most radical individuation” of Dasein is implied by its transcendence49 and that the mood of anxiety individualizes Dasein for its ownmost Being-in-the-world.50 There is no other way to light up concealment than the transformation of Dasein into authenticity by facing anxiety. Accordingly, unlike Capobianco, I do not see a sharp contrast between Heidegger’s earlier and later positions regarding anxiety51 because, in Being and Time, to-be-not-at-home is a factically more primordial phenomenon – it does not say something about an eternal essence of Dasein (that would be ontotheology) but about its current historical mode of everydayness (as the 1937–38 lectures confirm) and the essential tension between concealment and unconcealment experienced as the burdensome character of existence (as I suggested). Hölderlin-based ideas that joy is constitutive of a poet’s authentic correspondence with Being similarly indicate the historically available model of what we should achieve after facing the horror of the abyss. As the later essay “Why Poets?” clearly shows, the poets are precisely those who risked more by reaching into the abyss – the serene joy of dwelling near the Origin has its price. Is not Hölderlin’s

48  In this light I welcome Richard Capobianco’s important observation that in different texts Heidegger emphasize either the not-at-home-ness of Dasein or its being-at-home in Being. (Capobianco (2011), 57–64). Unlike Capobianco, I do not see here a significant change in Heidegger’s position. Namely, Dasein is meant to be at home in Being (it is unthinkable apart of Being) in all Heidegger’s works, yet factically it can only become explicitly at home if it faces the Nothing (as the origin of the “not” in the “not-at-home”). As it happens in many Heidegger’s texts, sometimes the emphasis is on the still-awaited essence of human existence (i.e., releasement, Da-sein, joy, being-at-home etc.) and sometimes on the current situation and the effort that needs to be done to overcome it (anxiety, leap, being-­ not-­at-home). Moreover, to be at home can mean both the authentic dwelling near the Origin and the inauthentic anxious self-enclosure within a self-posited “home.” It seems that Heidegger interpretation of Antigone shifted between these two senses of home. The crucial point here – and it seems to be confirmed by Capobianco – that to not-be-at-home never means to be absolutely expelled from Being. So, there is something “homely” even in our default inauthenticity. As I shall further show, the call of conscience is precisely such a “homely” element in the sense of calling us (to return) home. 49  Heidegger (1962), 62. 50  Ibid., 233. 51  Capobianco (2011), 78.

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own breakdown a terrifying evidence of the possible consequences of paying this price?52 Having said that, I agree with Capobianco that after Being and Time Heidegger offers a richer understanding of the complexity of one’s possible relation with the Nothing, putting more emphasis on the positive side of this relation. Anxiety, says Heidegger in 1934, is “the metaphysical proximity to what is unconditional, a proximity bestowed only to a supreme steadfastness and readiness.”53 It is the poet’s standing under God’s thunderstorms with naked head, exposed to the overwhelming power of Beyng.54 Nevertheless, this is not a reason to pick up the nicer moods from Heidegger’s texts but an indication of the possibility of transforming one’s own relation with the abyss; it tells us that we should remain optimistic despite the fact that things might be “uncanny” at first.55 In this sense, Capobianco’s “optimistic” interpretation of Heidegger has an important role. Anxiety is a necessary element without which transcendence remains indirect, theoretically postulated but not experienced. Indeed, anxiety initiates explicit transcendence by literally wresting Dasein from its absorption in the ‘world’56 and so allowing it to surpass it. In the 1941 text Über den Anfang, anxiety is named a mood which “elevates into Beyng.”57 Yet, already in What is Metaphysics? we read that “the beholdenness of existence to Nothing on the basis of hidden anxiety is the surpassing of beings as a whole, transcendence.”58 As an experience of the possibility of explicit transcendence, anxiety allows experiencing a shocking glimpse into the truth of Being. As we learn from Being and Time, this glimpse bears a radically individual character. Rather than presenting something familiar to  See Kuravsky (in press).  Heidegger (2014), 66. 54  Ibid., 30. 55  Keiji Nishinati offers the clearest interpretation of the role of anxiety in human transformation. For Nishitani, the first encounter with the Nothing is indeed nihilating and anxiety-­ inducing. Historically, this first encounter characterizes Western nihilism. During this period we experience that “everything is nothing.” The next step requires a leap into an understanding that “nothing is everything.” In such a leap we move from the nihilistic de-valuation of beings to a miraculous fact of beings a continuously emerging from/as the Nothing. This final stage, however, cannot happen without first undergoing the nihilistic stage. See Nishitani (1983). 56  Heidegger (1962), 233. 57  Heidegger (2005), 49–50. 58  Heidegger (2010c), 93. 52 53

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Dasein, it shatters it and shakes off all its possibilities to define itself as something. Though, as we read in Introduction to Philosophy, the transformation into explicit transcendence is a letting-be, a releasement, its initiation is far from being a pleasant experience. To achieve the awesome bliss of the departure, one must first face the already prevailing horror of the abyss; one must allow oneself to face honestly the awfulness of the Nothing co-constituted by one’s own denial of this awfulness. Heidegger stresses the tangibility of the individual existential dimension of transcendence in the same lecture course: The transcendence as a surpassing of beings in the understanding of being has completely lost the indifference that one is tempted to attribute to it when one develops the problem of the understanding of being in the context of traditional ontology.59

Transcendence as understanding of Being, Heidegger says, is “not a harmless knowledge of categories and observation of ideas,” but the “full sharpness of existence of Dasein.”60 In anxiety this sharpness is fully disclosed. Namely, what it means to exist as transcendent is presented in anxiety in all its uncanniness. Since the toward-which of transcendence is not a being, but the Nothing, an original “not” of Being is first revealed explicitly in Dasein’s experience of Being (anxiety). We have seen the different aspects of this “not” pertaining to the different aspects of Dasein’s transcendence. For example, it is always operative in the world-projection as determining a certain preference by grounding beings-as-a-whole in one and not another way (allowing thus the why-question). Moreover, the original “not” allows the ontological difference without posing an additional transcendental level of existence. Heidegger later stresses that the very sense of ontological difference can only be grasped in terms of Being’s self-withdrawal, yet already in Being and Time we find an indication of the possibility of experiencing Being’s self-withdrawal in the attunement of anxiety. An explicit grasp of the original “not” allows Dasein to be individualized  – the sharpness of its existence temporarily negates the “they”-self. Once again, this is not a subjective, psychological “not” but the “not” that belongs to Being itself – a shift from clinging to beings toward an explicit  Heidegger (2001a), 326.  Ibid.

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understanding of Being is an ontological shift. We may say that transcendence as such, in order to surpass the already manifesting and pressing beings, requires a “not.” Moreover, the ontological “not” also determines the juncture of transcendence’s modes by differentiating between the two. Still, a brief experience of anxiety only reveals the possibility of explicit transcendence. A single glimpse on the Nothing opens up the sphere of self-choice. For the actual transformation of Dasein to happen, the Nothing must constantly determine transcendence in its sharpness.

4  Being-mortal as the Temporal Configuration of Explicit Transcendence In light of what we learned about anxiety, it is clear that it indicates a relation to the Nothing in the sense of Being’s self-concealment. From Being and Time, we learn another important thing about anxiety: it is an anxiety of death. To avoid confusion, we must foremost stress that “death” is understood here not in an ontic sense of demise, but ontologically-­ existentially, that is, as characterizing Da-sein, i.e., the there-character of Being. Such a sense of “death” belongs to the Dasein’s being-mortal (Sein-zum-Tode), sometimes awkwardly translated as “being-toward-­ death.” Only in being-mortal, says Heidegger, do we understand death as something of the character of Dasein.61 Accordingly, death is not the observable event in which “someone” dies but has to do with the way existence plays the role of the “there,” i.e., with the event of the temporalization of Being. As I argued before, in this event, the itself-ness of beings is decided as a particular mode of their presence in correspondence with Dasein’s individuating self-understanding. The there-character of Being entails Dasein’s mineness as the “prototype” of all itself-ness not in the sense of a subjective enclosure of ego but as a thrown self-delineating finitude of understanding. In this self-delineating individualization, Dasein appears to itself as a self belonging to the event of the worldling of the world, to which also other beings belong in an appropriate mode of self-gathering identities and as a whole. The fact that death is “by definition” always mine insinuates the belongingness of the Nothing to all cases of itself-ness (though only Dasein’s itself-ness has an explicit relation to the Nothing as death). To be mortal is then a mode of existence in which this belongingness is not covered but  Heidegger (1962), 277.

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explicit; it is to be a Dasein “that incorporates the concealedness of the ‘there’ into the steadfastness of enduring the truth.”62 In other words, it is a mode of transcendence in which one’s “relation” to the Nothing is present as co-constituting the very intelligibility of existence. As Heidegger retrospectively explains in Contributions, “[the notion of ] being-towarddeath conceals the essential belonging of the ‘not’ to being as such” and is grasped in a unique sharpness within the context of Da-sein as grounding the truth of Being. “The question of death stands in an essential relation to the truth of beyng and stands only in that relation.”63 Similarly, this idea is echoed in the later work. In “The Thing,” we hear that mortals are “the presencing relation to Being as Being.”64 Still, death has for us a clear temporal meaning – we are not just finite in the sense of never being able to overcome the self-concealment of Being but also as living a temporally finite life. To relate the two sides of death, we need to remember that temporality is how different modes of Being manifest and delimit their horizons. A definite sense of Being eventuates out of the abyssal possibilities of Beyng as temporality configured in an appropriate way (as discussed in Chap. 6). Moreover, as constituting the openness of the “there,” temporality is essentially futural. This futural openness is what allows a possibility of a different world – Being can manifest otherwise than it is in the future. This intimate relation between Being and temporality determines the fundamental way in which the Nothing must “manifest” in the “there.” Namely, as the limit of the finite sway of Being the “not” of the Nothing is intelligible foremost as the not-yet. This not-yet constitutes the eschatological dimension of awaiting a different mode of Being (i.e., a different world)65 and the sense of death relevant to the experience of the “end of one’s time.”66 Therefore, there is no principal need for a physical demise in order to undergo “death” in this ontological sense; in fact, it is the sense of death that is required by Christianity in order to be reborn in Christ (to enter a religiously authentic mode of “there”) but also by Heidegger when  Heidegger (2012a), 257.  Ibid., 223. 64  Heidegger (2013), 176. 65  “The carrying out of being-toward-death is a duty incumbent only on thinkers of the other beginning, though every essential human being, among the future creative ones, can know of it.” Heidegger (2012a, b, c), 224. 66  “The essential context for the projection of death is the original futurity of Dasein within its very essence (as that essence is understood in fundamental ontology)” Ibid., 223. 62 63

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he says that death is what “is innermost to a possible complete transformation of the ‘there.’”67 In such a transformation, temporality would literally end in its current mode of temporalization as delimiting the horizon of a particular mode of Being. As Krzysztof Ziarek stresses, the meaning of mortality in Heidegger does not belong to the conceptual space of life and its end but indicates the finitude of the Event in its spatiotemporal span.68 Physical death is then only the special case of the finitude of temporality – temporality is not finite because we must eventually die, but we must die because temporality is finite. This idea can be found already in Being and Time when death is presented as belonging to existence as such rather than indicating some future point of life: The uttermost ‘not-yet’ has the character of something towards which Dasein comports itself. The end is impending for Dasein. Death is not something not yet present-at-hand, nor is it that which is ultimately still outstanding but which has been reduced to a minimum. Death is something that stands before us – something impending.69

The common-sense interpretation of this sentence is that since death is inevitable, each moment of existence should be evaluated against the imminence of death. Though this interpretation is indeed correct, it casts a shadow over a much more radical idea that can transform the common-­ sense interpretation from a somewhat banal existential directive into a sobering realization of one’s freedom and responsibility. Heidegger tells us that death is impeding in the sense that Dasein cannot “outstrip the possibility of death,”70 that it is a possibility of the “absolute impossibility of Dasein,”71 and is one’s ownmost non-relational possibility.72 The idea that the possibility of death is non-relational means that it is not dependent on any other possibilities (unlike the usual, relational sort of possibility). This already shows that Heidegger does not think of a factical demise that has to be caused by something – the “why” question applies to demise just as to any other ontic event.  Ibid. ,257.  Ziarek (2013), 18. 69  Heidegger (1962), 294. 70  Ibid. 71  Ibid. 72  Ibid., 295. 67 68

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The possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein, on the other hand, “has no why” – it breaks off all “why” and “because.” The anthropological essence of human beings as rational animals must be overcome – “rational living beings must first become mortals.”73 Indeed, the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein would belong to the structure of Dasein even if a god could make sure that Dasein would never demise. The mortals are mortals, writes Heidegger in 1950, not “because their earthly life comes to an end, but because they are capable of death as death.”74 That is, as long as Dasein exists as a potentiality-for-Being, any of its possible “can-be” is only possible against the possibility of not-being at all – the Nothing co-constitutes all possibilities as possibilities. Within each moment, there is a covered-over relation to the Nothingness.75 Every existence, Heidegger says, does not have to be but can also not be.76 From a wider phenomenologically-ontological perspective, we must understand this fact as illuminating that the contingency of existence alone allows us to make sense of the contingency of Being (since it can also not be how it is but be otherwise). So what does being-mortal mean? To be mortal does not mean to passively accept that everybody dies but to realize that death co-constitutes the horizon of the intelligibility of Being as a not-yet which can be actively awaited, not in the sense of waiting for demise, but in the sense of being-­ open to the transformation of existence entailing a more essential manifestation of Being. That is to say, since the ontological-existential meaning of “death” is the finitude of temporality as the finitude of a particular mode of Being (i.e., of the contingency of Being), “to-be-towards-death” is to be constantly determined by a futural possibility of a leap into another mode of Being, not as a physical death but as a death-like shift into a new mode of existence exposed to the mystery of Being’s self-concealment. Hence, in “Why Poets?” Heidegger says that “it is death that touches mortals in their essence and so places them on the way to the other side of life and so into the entirety of the pure attraction [of Being].”77 Yet, currently, we only scarcely know and are not capable of our own mortality.78 Still, physical death is the most fundamental case of the finitude of temporality,  Heidegger (2013), 176.  Ibid. 75  Kangas (2007), 182. 76  Heidegger (2001a), 330. 77  Heidegger (2002a), 228. 78  Ibid., 204. 73 74

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and it provides the very dimension of sense for any radical transformation. The question of whether it can be avoided or whether there is something “after physical death” misses the existential dimension of the finitude of the “there.” We may say that Dasein does not exist “in time” but exist as time or exists time-ly, playing the role of the “there” for Being but always remaining open for a dislodgement of Being into a different mode. This openness that “keeps Beyng intact” and never allows it to be reduced into some particular mode of Being detached from the abyss of the Nothing is the finitude of temporality which we know foremost as the not-yet of the imminence of death. Death, we hear in Contributions, is the highest testimony of Beyng.79 Falling, inauthentic Dasein flees the Nothing and hence does not only fear death but also anything that would threaten its artificial image of stability – we fear anything that might threaten our deepest understanding of the world and force us to leap and to become someone else. In Introduction to Philosophy, Heidegger speaks of an essential instability of transcendence and the need to hold ourselves in it. We may understand this idea in relation to the uncanniness of Being-in-the-world revealed in anxiety and as standing for the radical instability of the very execution of transcendence. Crucially, transcendental freedom requires such instability – a stable cosmos would be ontologically dead even if it was “full of life.” A universe without Da-sein would mean a single sense of Being as a sub-jectum of beings. In such a dead universe, freedom is unintelligible because everything is already supported and leaves no place for ontological shifts/decisions. This is why death makes no sense in transcendental idealism and has, at best, a very vulgar ontic sense in any monistic ontology (i.e., ontotheology). To become free for one’s death then must be related to what Heidegger expresses as holding oneself in the instability of transcendence: This holding yourself is a necessary part of transcendence, because it is essentially determined by a lack of support. Transcendence – freedom! We have tried to grasp the lack of stability and emphasized not to see it negatively. We did not take instability in the vulgar meaning of ‘unstable person’, but as the essential structure of existence, namely transcendence.80

 Heidegger (2012a), 181.  Heidegger (2001a), 341.

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To hold oneself within the instability of existence is what Heidegger expresses in Being and Time as Dasein’s need to “take over” death in each case. Such “holding oneself” and “taking over death” is Dasein’s ownmost potentiality for Being; it is taking one’s death “on board” before one actually dies.81 Rather than fleeing the Nothing, one must own it in the sense of projecting it as the constant possibility of otherness (of the finitude of “this-ness”), i.e., of freedom to be otherwise than one factically is. It is this freedom that constitutes the balanced dynamism of concealment-­ unconcealment as the foundation of authentic individualization. Nevertheless, Dasein’s individualization is not an event of self-­ determination in terms of some special (authentic) qualities but precisely a renunciation of all determinability and rational calculations; it is an active, explicit sustainment of the ontological difference as a sustainment of the openness of Being to other possible modes of its own sway (to the truth of Beyng). Authenticity, says Heidegger, is a determination that overcomes metaphysics as such.82 The instability of transcendence constitutes the possibility of such openness – what is to be understood (Being) is not pre-determined and static but actively negates the very possibility of any final determination. To be mortal is then to be thus openly transcendent, to reach into the abyss of the Nothing83 and be ready to “die” any moment to all one’s current self-determinations; it is a freedom from oneself for oneself, that is, a freedom for grounding the essence of Beyng.84 Only human beings can stand in front of death “because the human being is steadfastly in beyng.”85 In being-mortal, existence is modified so that its obstructing tendencies of self-dispersion are jostled away in a single leap of self-choice. Indeed, transcendence as freedom can only be actualized in such a leap of the (“they”-)self-renunciation. Heidegger’s idea of freedom for one’s death becomes clear in terms of such self-renunciation. In particular, what Heidegger names “anticipation” is not an awaiting of any sort but a holding-­ oneself in front of the groundlessness of existence as being-­ already-­ahead of one’s factical self-determination in a mode of constant readiness for self-renunciation. All authentic possibilities, Heidegger says,  Sheehan (2014), 167.  Heidegger (2016b), 124. 83  Heidegger (2002a), 202. 84  In the early Black Notebooks, Heidegger stresses that being-mortal must be thought in relation to the essence of Beyng and its grounding (Heidegger (2016a), 212). 85  Heidegger (2012a), 181. 81 82

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must conform to the uttermost possibility of giving itself up. 86 In such giving itself up, Dasein is authentically individualized by being appropriated by Beyng and existing uniquely in the sense of uniqueness that equally characterizes Beyng and death.87 Admittedly, by being-mortal and having this uttermost possibility “in front of one’s eyes,” one’s Being becomes explicitly the issue. In this light, explicit transcendence is self-renunciation, not, however, in an ethical sense of abasing the self, but in the sense of renouncing the sub-jectum of traditional metaphysics. Such self-renunciation opens up Da-sein as the abyssal ground.88 Becoming Da-sein (authentically) entails such a renunciation of a metaphysical assuredness in a one-way abyss-less cosmos that does not require history or Dasein in order to sway as a world. True renunciation, says Heidegger, is creative and productive; “in releasing what was previously possessed, it receives, and not as some kind of subsequent reward.”89 That is to say, the renunciation is the event of self-­ opening to which receiving the otherness of Beyng essentially belongs. Renunciation, we read in Contributions, is the highest form of possession.90 By “possessing” only the Nothing, an experience of genuine otherness becomes possible. That is why being-mortal also brings Dasein back to the essential understanding of connectedness with the Other.91 To conclude, being-mortal is an openness to the otherness of Being as such, including the awaited otherness of the world, the otherness of a fellow human being, and, ultimately, the otherness of the Nothing of death. To be mortal is then to become free for explicit transcendence as the experience of Being. Indeed, for the one who is watching the Nothing at the horizon of oneself, everything that stands in between is reduced to the narrow path towards the truth of Being.

 Heidegger (1962), 308.  Heidegger (2012a, b, c), 222. 88  Ibid., 224. 89  Heidegger (2014), 85. 90  Heidegger (2012a, b, c), 20. 91  Heidegger (1962), 309. 86 87

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5  Conscience as the Attestation of Explicit Transcendence Heidegger opens the second part of division two of Being and Time by announcing a need to show how Dasein, in its everydayness, can come upon the possibility of choosing itself, i.e., the possibility of authenticity. In short, Dasein must be ready for anxiety. Notably, the ability to choose oneself assumes responsibility and a certain autonomy of willing to choose. To think that the mood of anxiety can simply “fall from the skies” and transform Dasein is to miss the essence of Dasein’s liberation: though Dasein cannot force the disclosure of its potentiality-for-Being, it must be able to attest it as a possibility and will it. In other words, freedom can only be achieved deliberately, even if only by making oneself available for it. Thus, prior to the stage in which Dasein succeeds in being free-towards-­ death (of fully becoming a mortal), it must understand its current situation and wish to transform it. In terms of transcendence, that means that, while in anticipation Dasein is already holding to the possibility of explicit transcendence, it must first have some understanding of what it means and choose it as its objective. Crucially, such purposive self-determination cannot be thought of as a familiar case of representational will for two reasons. First, there is nothing (or rather Nothing) to represent. Seconds, to strive for explicit transcendence is to strive for being-mortal and hence to apply one’s transcendental dimension of will towards the nullity of existence (see Chap. 5). Remembering that the transcendental dimension of will is a pre-reflective self-positioning that always takes place on the level of the disclosure of beings (rather than within the already disclosed beings), the turn of this dimension cannot be initiated “when one wishes” but must happen as an event of understanding. There must be in the implicit transcendence of everyday Dasein a possibility for an understanding of the possibility of its becoming explicit  – transcendence must offer itself to Dasein’s understanding as its true self. This is the reason Heidegger lists conscience among themes that serve the “progressive elaboration of transcendence.”92 Conscience gives us ‘something’ to understand; it discloses. By characterizing this phenomenon formally in this way, we find ourselves enjoined to take it back into the disclosedness of Dasein. This disclosedness, as a basic state  Heidegger (1984), 168.

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of that entity which we ourselves are, is constituted by disposition, understanding, falling, and discourse. If we analyse conscience more penetratingly, it is revealed as a call. Calling is a mode of discourse. The call of conscience has the character of an appeal to Dasein by calling it to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self; and this is done by way of summoning it to its ownmost Being-guilty.93

If Dasein’s own inauthenticity is to become intelligible for it, it must be understood in a way that an appropriate attunement is awakened and the direction towards the truth of Being becomes intelligible in discourse. That does not necessarily mean that we must “find a word” for the difference between one’s everyday- and authentic selves, but that the differentiation must be “given” in a meaningful way that tells the one from the other. If such a telling was not belonging to Dasein’s disclosedness, there would be no way for human beings to ever attest to their own state of Being. Dasein’s essence as transcendence, however, precludes such an option. As the there-character of Being, Da-sein each time embodies a particular mode of Being inseparable from the inner standard of the harmony of concealment-unconcealment of Beyng. Hence, the telling of one’s state of Being must always be available, even if not always heard. This telling\saying of conscience, Heidegger says, is available as a call. Namely, one is constantly called to one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being. Explicit transcendence offers itself in the form of a call. Heidegger introduces another term in order to designate what it is to which Dasein is being-summoned by the call of conscience. “Guilt” or “being-guilty” is a tricky concept taken on its own, but it gains much clarity in the context of Heidegger’s ideas of anxiety, death, and the Nothing. As I have said previously, Dasein’s insubstantiality lies in the “not” which belongs to its existence. In anxiety, the “not” is manifest as beings conceal themselves and deny determinability, showing thus themselves as they “truly” are. In being-mortal, Dasein holds to the “not” of its own possibility-­ for-Being as the sobering focus of its individual existence. Moreover, an unattested “not” operates as a hidden anxiety and fuels Dasein’s fallenness. Heidegger directly expresses this idea in the context of his explication of guilt – the nullity, which belongs to care as such, “is the basis for the possibility of inauthentic Dasein in its falling.”94 The idea of  Heidegger (1962), 314.  Ibid., 331.

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guilt adds to this that Dasein is, in a sense, responsible for this nullity, is a basis of a nullity. This can be seen as a direct consequence of the fact that Dasein is groundless on the one hand and is self-grounding as establishing, i.e., as projecting the for-the-sake-of-which, on the other hand; the idea of guilt pertains to the ontological performativity of Dasein’s existence. And only because Dasein is guilty in the basis of its Being, and closes itself off from itself as something thrown and falling, is conscience possible, if indeed the call gives us this Being-guilty as something which at bottom we are to understand.95

The call of conscience gives Dasein an understanding of itself – it allows an event of understanding; it calls Dasein forth and summons it to its being-guilty, that is, to a recognition of its null-basis (thrownness) and the demand of taking it over (authentic projection). Dasein’s liberation for its essence begins by understanding the call and, therefore, choosing to have-­ a-­conscience.96 This “choice” is negative in relation to representational will as such; it does not reject this or that understood beings but transgresses the understanding-willing separation: the event of understanding (of what conscience gives to understand) and the choice to have a conscience are inseparable. The choice here is itself an event that happens on the level of Dasein’s transcendental will as the will to not turn away from the Nothing. This event-like character of choosing to have a conscience is largely missed by the readers of Being and Time who hurry to reduce the strangeness of Dasein’s transcendental freedom to the “voluntarism” of ontic representational will. Yet, the understanding of the appeal of conscience, Heidegger says, is a mode of Dasein’s Being.97 To say that Dasein has understood the appeal is not to say that it has gained some new knowledge regarding itself and can now try to “live up” to it. Instead, in understanding the call, Dasein has become something it factically was not before. That is to say, the phenomenal content of what the call of conscience attests is a modification in Dasein’s mode of existence. Wanting to have a conscience is a way in which Dasein has been disclosed.98 Thus, conscience is nothing other than the attestation of the self-transparency of transcendence in which  Ibid., 332.  Ibid., 314. 97  Ibid., 342. 98  Ibid. 95 96

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Dasein first understands the transcendental dimension of its own freedom. The choice to have a conscience has already happened when Dasein first realizes that this is indeed what it wants. Nevertheless, it did not happen passively in the regular sense but as a subtle “act” of self-renunciation enacted as a submission to the truth of what was understood and what was revealed as authentic selfhood. From this perspective, conscience provides Dasein with a pre-­ understanding of what is revealed in anxiety and becomes readiness for anxiety.99 Self-transcendence as self-renunciation only becomes possible because conscience has revealed the nullity of all Dasein’s self-­determination and has thus transformed the mode of its self-articulation into the one of reticence.100 In reticence, the desired constancy of one’s self does not imply that one remains the same – “sameness” does not belong to the self per se but to that towards which the self transcends, i.e., Being. Here again, looking into Heidegger’s later writings helps emphasize that a reticent constancy of the self is different from the traditional subjective understanding of selfhood. Namely, while in Being and Time Dasein’s individuation is already clearly set against the everyday inauthentic selfhood (i.e., against traditional subjectivity), in Contributions, the transcendent source of individuation is explicitly stated. As Heidegger writes there, it is the constancy of Beyng that bears in itself its own measure.101 Despite the different emphasizes, Being and Time aims at such a Being-­ oriented concept of the self. Moreover, Heidegger highlights that the early quasi-egological accent on the “each time mine Dasein” is the only possible way to first indicate what is proper to Da-sein.102 Without this initial delineation of the individually existential dimension of truth, all talk about Heidegger’s notion of the truth of Beyng is idle talk.103 And vice versa, constancy of the self means persistence in relation to the  Ibid.  Ibid. 101  Heidegger (2012a), 12. 102  Ibid., 54. 103  “Da-sein is always mine. What does this want to say? It wants to say that inabiding the ‘t/here’ - the renunciation of all superficiality of the ‘inner subject’ and of the “I” - can be taken over and enacted purely and only in the self. It wants to say that only when the truth of be-ing is entirely and exclusively ‘mine’ is the warrant grounded that the truth of be-ing can instantly and only be thine and yours. For how can this truth ever be if thou thyself do not take this truth seriously with your thou - if with this truth you yourself do not bring into play your enactment of your ‘most ownmost’?” (Heidegger (2016b), 292). 99

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unrepresentable intrinsic coherence of the truth of Beyng. Indeed, the very shift from Being to Beyng in the Contributions averts a conceptualization of Dasein’s ontological characteristics as somehow separable from Being/Beyng. To take hold of the instability of transcendence is to bring one’s existence in line with a transcendent measure (of Beyng). Authentic responsibility is a responsibility for such persistence. Indeed, only reticent Dasein can face the absolute impossibility of determinability characterizing beingmortal and become a self-responsible author of its finite life.104 To answer the “why-question” regarding its own choices, reticent Dasein must answer to itself in terms of Being (and hence silently); it must explicitly transcend beings. Such an explicit transcendence opens up a possibility to measure oneself by the truth of Beyng that directs one’s personal transformation foremost through the call of conscience.105 In Being and Time, we hear that “the call comes from me and yet from beyond me.”106 What can it mean if not the fact that Dasein is as far from being a traditional subject as one can express in the context of the philosophical language available to Heidegger at the time of the publishing of Being and Time? Dasein characterizes Being as such. Human existence is but the most available (for us)  Sheehan (2014), 139.  Ryan Coyne argues that the notion of guilt in Being and Time is a “watered-down” copy of Paul’s guilt presented in Heidegger’s early lectures. According to Coyne, Paul’s guilt could not be appropriated and could not give anything but rather represents the very meaning of the eschatological awaiting which extends far beyond the facticity of the individual; it relates the “having-become” of the early Christians to a source far beyond their individual thrownness. Coyne’s criticism comes down to accusing Heidegger in “existential Pelagianism”, that is in trying to ground the possibility of becoming ‘good’ by one’s own efforts without the help of the divine (Coyne (2016), 151–154). Coyne’s criticism is surprising in light of the fact that the larger parts of his Heidegger’s Confessions address Heidegger’s later thought, especially Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event). While in the context of Heidegger’s early thought one can easily misread Heidegger for a voluntarist, the later writings make clear that “appropriating” one’s being-guilty liberates one from all possibility of Pelagianism by making Dasein available for the first time to hear the call of what is radically beyond its individual facticity. Before making oneself available for the truth of Beyng, one can never really fulfill the kind of self-transcendence Coyne finds in Paul. To accept one’s being-guilty is precisely to accepts one’s limitations and finitude. If the Christian is fated to be guilty of the delay of the second arrival (since it depends on the quality of one’s faith), they accuse themselves in failing to do something that they can and must do. Heidegger’s notion of guilt, on the other hand, excludes such self-accusation to the extent to which one openly accepts one’s situation by wanting-to-have-conscience. 106  Heidegger (1962), 320. 104 105

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model of how Being sways as a “there.” The call is the call of the truth of Beyng, from which we are inseparable even if we actively deny it by fleeing anxiety. Undoubtedly, Dasein calls itself to its own transcendence, from the “beyond,” which it essentially is. The call is not planned and not voluntarily performed,107 but rather “It” calls. The “It” is nothing other but Beyng, that is Being thought in its radical non-separability from Dasein’s performative transcendence. Accordingly, the “call” appears in Contributions as well, now understood as the call of the event.108

6  Conclusion We have seen that Dasein’s inauthenticity is parallel to the idea of non-­ explicit transcendence in which the self-concealing character of Beyng is implicitly rejected, resulting in a distorted mode of individuation of the itself-ness of beings in general and of Dasein in particular. The public character of Dasein’s subjection to others is only one result of this mode of existence. Other beings also appear as particulars of a general representable beingness  – the mystery of concealment is forgotten. I have interpreted anxiety as the ontological character of the tension between the concealing and the unconcealing elements of Being in the basis of inauthenticity. Though, as transcendent, Dasein cannot stop being exposed to the Nothing, it subtly turns away from it. Yet, since concealment is what allows the ontological sense of uniqueness, an inauthentic “there” is so configured that neither the uniqueness of human existence nor the uniqueness of beings (which is also the uniqueness of Beyng) can manifest. The concrete way in which the Nothing makes sense for Dasein is the imminence of death. This is so since temporality is how Beyng sways finitely in one contingent mode (of Being) rather than another. The transformation of Being always remains a possibility in a future as the “end of times” and the “other beginning.” “Death, as the extremity of the ‘there,’ is at the same time what is innermost to a possible complete transformation of the “there.”109 By constituting the temporally phenomenological non-intelligibility of the Nothingness of Beyng as the origin of one’s inauthentic non-existence , it surmises the intrinsic relation “between the ‘away’ and the dislodging of all beings in their belonging to the “there.”110 Accordingly, death is the direct phenomenologically  Ibid.  Heidegger (2012b), 184. 109  Ibid., 257. 110  Ibid. 107 108

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available non-presence of the finitude of Being and it cannot be reduced to a physical demise (and does not, in principle, require it). Being a mortal is then a form of existence in which Dasein constantly holds to the finitude of Being in a mode of anticipating. However, the very possibility of becoming a mortal depends on an event of understanding co-constituting Dasein’s choice to have a conscience. Conscience betrays that transcendence can and must become explicit and that such a becoming belongs to the transcendental dimension of Dasein’s will determined not by ontic wanting but by a closure of the Beyng-Dasein gap. One wants to have a conscience because this is the truth of Beyng, while the essence of the truth of Beyng is first revealed (against the traditional correspondence theory of truth) as the call of the event. The call of conscience is the call of Beyng, understood as the source of Dasein’s ontological role and the measure of its individuality. To hear it is neither to receive an immediate incentive for action (a subjective interpretation of the call) nor to reveal an a priori rule expressible in universal terms (an objective interpretation of the call), but to re-discover oneself as an openness that yearns for explicit transcendence, upon which it must wait.

References Capobianco, Richard. 2011. Engaging Heidegger. University of Toronto Press. Coyne, Ryan. 2016. Heidegger’s Confessions: The Remains of Saint Augustine in “Being and Time” and Beyond. University of Chicago Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John MacQuarrie, Edward S. Robinson. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 1984. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Trans. Michael Heim. Indiana University Press. ———. 1994. Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected “Problems” of “Logic. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer. Indiana University Press. ———. 2001a. Einleitung in die Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe 27, ed. O. Saame et I. Saame-Speidel. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2001b. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Indiana University Press. ———. 2002a. Off the Beaten Track. Trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002b. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus. Trans. Ted Sadler. UNKNO. ———. 2002c. Identity and Difference. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. University of Chicago Press. ———. 2005. Über den Anfang, Gesamtausgabe 70, ed. Paola-Ludovika Coriando. Klostermann, Vittorio.

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———. 2010a. On the Essence of Ground. In Pathmarks, 97–135. Trans. William McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2010b. Letter on ‘Humanism’. In Pathmarks, 239–277. Trans. William. McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2010c. What is Metaphysics. In Pathmarks, 82–96. Trans. William. McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012a. Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Indiana University Press. ———. 2012b. The Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz. Indiana University Press. ———. 2012c. Four Seminars: Le Thor 1966, 1968, 1969, Zahringen 1973. Trans. Andrew Mitchell and Francois Raffoul. Indiana University Press. ———. 2013. The Thing. In Poetry, Language, Thought, 161: 185. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ———. 2014. Hölderlin’s Hymns “Germania” and “The Rhine”. Trans. William McNeill and Julia Ireland. Indiana University Press. ———. 2016a. Ponderings II–VI: Black Notebooks 1931–1938. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz. Indiana University Press. ———. 2016b. Mindfulness. Trans. Parvis Emad and Thomas Kalary. Bloomsbury Academic. ———. 2017. Zollikoner Seminare, Gesamtausgabe 89, ed. Peter Trawny. Klostermann, Vittorio. Hemming, Laurence P. 2005. Postmodernity Transcending: Devaluing God. SCM Press. Kangas, David J. 2007. Kierkegaard’s Instant: On Beginnings. Indiana University Press. Kuravsky, Erik. in press. Thinking and The Danger of Insanity: Two Ways of Reaching the Abyss. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, XXI. Routledge. Laing, Ronald D. 1965. The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. Penguin Books. Moran, Dermot. 2015. Dasein as Transcendence in Heidegger and the Critique of Husserl. In Heidegger in the Twenty First Century, 22: 46. Springer. Nishitani. Keiji. 1983. Religion and Nothingness. University of California Press/. Schmidt, Stefan W. 2016. Grund und Freiheit: Eine phänomenologische Untersuchung des Freiheitsbegriffs Heideggers. Springer. Sheehan, Thomas. 2014. Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ziarek, Krzysztof. 2013. Language after Heidegger. Indiana University Press.

CHAPTER 9

Transcendence as the Quasi-Agency of Beyng

1   Resolute Openness By attending to the way Heidegger’s concepts of anxiety, death, and conscience elaborate the notion of transcendence, I attempted to show that these concepts are meant to characterize Dasein’s transformation toward explicit transcendence in a sense that we meet in the Introduction to Philosophy. There Heidegger stresses that transcendence can happen either in a non-explicit everyday mode or in an explicit mode in which Being is understood as such. Importantly, to understand Being as such is not an intellectual achievement but a mode of Dasein’s free, authentic existence. This freedom is a fulfillment of Dasein’s transcendental aspect of will in which the ongoing self-positing in relation to the Nothing becomes explicit; rather than turning oneself from the Nothing and so rejecting the intrinsic openness of Being upon a possibility of becoming otherwise than it is, one actively accepts the contingency of Being by holding to one’s self-understanding as a mortal. Such explicit transcendence is, according to Heidegger, a primal act (Urhandlung) of Dasein’s freedom;1 it is the ground of genuine agency not in the ontic representational sense of acting within the limits of what one already understands but as a primal act inseparable from the event of understanding (e.g., of what conscience lets to understand). A primal act surpasses the traditional passivity-activity 1

 Heidegger (2001a), 214.

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dichotomy – understanding is something that happens to us (one cannot force understanding), yet an explicit understanding of Being happens in a way that nevertheless includes the transcendental dimension of our will; we must be ready and open for understanding, not in a passive way (like being ready for an exam) but by decisively sustaining the possibility of our openness. The inseparability of acting and understanding in explicit transcendence points towards a peculiar transparency of existence that must characterize such a mode of transcendence. We find an analysis of this transparency already in Being and Time. In particular, Dasein’s transformation towards authenticity cannot happen without Dasein’s decision and readiness to make transparent both one’s self and one’s essential Being-­ with-­Others. Importantly, transparency does not mean merely theoretical knowledge but a sight appurtenant to Dasein.2 Transparency belongs to Dasein’s understanding as such; it is its ontological determination prior to such ontic functions as thinking or intuition (sensible or categorial).3 Both thinking (traditionally understood) and intuition assume an intentional object, the beingness of which exhausts its Being and hence affords a secure relation. Ontologically-existential transparency, on the other hand, is a countermovement to Dasein’s fallenness; the decision for transparency must characterize the very way Dasein is. Namely, readiness for anxiety and wanting to have a conscience constitute an existentiell choice of a particular kind of Being-one’s-Self.4 Heidegger calls this authentic mode of existence “resolute openness.” In resolute openness, Heidegger writes, we have arrived at the most primordial authentic truth of Dasein.5 I prefer to use the term “resolute openness” for Heidegger’s Entschlossenheit (rather than “resoluteness”), because it emphasizes the relation to disclosedness (Erschlossenheit). Indeed, resolute openness expresses the very essence of disclosedness, preceding all intuition, perception, and intentional relations in general, by opening the “there” where all such relations can take place. Resolute openness is, as Sheehan writes, the authentic form of aletheia, i.e., of unconcealment6 or, in other words, of the unconcealing happening of  Heidegger (1962), 186.  Ibid., 187. 4  Ibid., 314. 5  Ibid., 349–350. 6  Sheehan (2014), 167. 2 3

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transcendence. Notably, Dasein’s openness is nothing but its thrown understanding of Being. To integrate openness and decision/resoluteness in a single concept is to overstep the traditional separation between understanding and will, a separation that receives the form of a transcendental gap in Kant. That is, in Kant, the transcendental subject’s understanding opens up the world, but it does so without any relation to one’s will. The separation of the theoretical and the practical spheres in Kant is a direct consequence of an ontotheological view of Being and human will. For ontotheology, Being is – as Pöggeler puts it – the Being rather than just Being (contingent). Accordingly, one’s existence cannot affect Being but can only act upon beings (in their only form of the Being). But this Being (Sein), says Heidegger, is never the same in every era.7 For Heidegger, the openness of the “there” determines the factical historical mode of Being out of the abyssal ground of Beyng. Resolute openness is then a particular mode of enacting the openness of the “there” that cannot be modeled according to the traditional ontotheological separation between will and understanding. Instead, it is a happening (of understanding) and an act at the same time. To better comprehend Heidegger’s notion of (explicit) transcendence, we need to look closer at this strange phenomenon. In the notion of resolute openness, we can find the seeds of a non-traditional theory of agency, which could help Heidegger prevent his later bewilderment regarding the difference between will and non-will. That is to say, my interpretation of resolute openness goes beyond what Heidegger says explicitly, even though I entirely rely on Heidegger’s words. Specifically, the transcendental aspect of human will, as I define it, is not explicitly addressed in Being and Time. Within the text, there is no explicit elucidation of how ontic will relates to the actuality of Dasein’s continual evasion of existential nothingness. Furthermore, there is no clear exposition of the connection or distinction between authentic decision to have a conscience and the conventional understanding of will. Nevertheless, we hear in Being and Time that Dasein must choose to choose and must become a master of one’s moods. The two levels of will are everywhere present but never put explicitly in relation. This is the ambiguity that Bret W. Davis points out in Being and Time as well.8 In this light, my idea of a transcendental dimension of will as a deeper layer of our acts, inseparable from our enacted mode of understanding/openness, 7 8

 Heidegger (2012), 24.  Davis (2007).

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helps reduce the ambiguities found in Heidegger. The transcendental dimension of will functions either in Dasein’s explicit transcendence determined by an explicit understanding of Being or in implicit transcendence of Dasein’s fallness; it is not something we sometimes practice (i.e., ontic will) but something in which we cannot stop participating (transcendental freedom). The idea of explicit transcendence allows bringing the event of understanding together with a specific layer of our agency (primal act). In this jointure, however, both sides must be interpreted anew without falling into traditional (ontotheological) pre-conceptions. Resolute openness indicates a particular mode of transcendence in which it is explicitly appropriated. Heidegger confirms this suggestion when he says that resolute openness is authentic Being-in-the-world.9 As I have shown in Chap. 4, for Heidegger, Being-in-the-world means primordial transcendence. Accordingly, resolute openness is precisely the authentic mode of transcendence. Understanding resolute openness should illuminate how authentic (explicit) transcendence is distinguishable from the default transcendence of everyday fallen Dasein. The essential thing we learn from Being and Time regarding resolute openness is that it is always only an openness of a factical Dasein in a particular time.10 The singularity of resolute openness corresponds to the radical individuation and “each-timeness” of Dasein. As I argued in Chap. 3, the universality of Being is higher than class and genus of entities in the sense of determining the itself-ness of individual beings. The itself-ness of beings is not reducible to the mere fact of their presence or to their general structure. It is, instead, the intelligibility of a being’s individual self-manifestation in a particular mode of Being. The Being of a being is not generalizable, yet neither is it something each time entirely different. In the former case, the itself-ness of a being would be reduced to its theoretical beingness; in the latter case, it would lack intelligibility (it would be unclear in what sense it is the “same” being). Accordingly, an explicit understanding of Being is an understanding of the uniqueness of a situation, which could not have been calculated ahead but is nevertheless transparent within the open scope of one’s already happening mode of understanding. Resolute openness, Heidegger says, does not consist in “taking up possibilities which have been proposed and recommended, and seizing hold  Heidegger (1962), 344.  Ibid.

9

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of them.”11 Instead, it is “the disclosive projection and determination of what is factically possible at the time.”12 These passages clearly indicate that resolute openness is a mode of understanding (disclosive projection) which is not general but happens each time. One can hardly force such understanding in terms of applying the familiar psychological will. Moreover, in the individuation of resolute openness, Dasein enters into the nearness of what is essential in all things.13 This last characterization should not be interpreted as merely a better knowledge of beings  – the closeness to beings changes the itself-ness of beings; through a more genuine mode of unconcealment, beings become more “beingfull.”14 The increased “beingfullness” of beings corresponds to heightened transparency of a situation, subtly transforming the very phenomenal sense of “possibility.” What Heidegger calls an “existentiell indefiniteness” of resolute openness pertains to the impossibility of knowing what is factically possible before a concrete situation becomes (each time) transparent in a resolution. The calculable possibility, one that leans on general understanding and can be found in any relevant situation, is not the “factically possible.” The factically possible pertains to a modified mode of the itself-­ ness of beings and a different kind of temporality appropriate for the uniqueness of what constitutes a situation to which I am resolutely open (rather than merely intellectually prepared). The question is, what determines each time the genuineness of our openness? Genuine unconcealment does not happen by luck, yet ontic will always finds itself in an already unconcealed situation. That is to say, the representational will operates in a mode of expecting the possible actualization of a present-to-hand possibility; it is a “leaping away from the possible and getting a foothold in the actual.”15 Such expecting is rooted in an inauthentic future determined by awaiting, i.e., by what Dasein is concerned with and waits for.16 Along existentiell indefiniteness there must also be what Heidegger calls existential definiteness.17Such definiteness is ec-static, transcendental; it is not a definiteness of having control within an enclosed sphere of what  Ibid.  Ibid. 13  Heidegger (2001b), 6. 14  Heidegger (2002a), 26. 15  Heidegger (1962), 306. 16  Ibid., 387. 17  Ibid., 345. 11 12

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is available for representational will but a definiteness of holding oneself open against the instability of transcendence. Figuratively speaking, it is holding the door open for genuine understanding to enter it in the next moment. This holding is also letting itself being-held by what is existentially definite (e.g., the call of conscience). Instead of deciding the truth of the situation, it is a decision for being-true at the moment. Unlike the metaphysical notion of truth, truth as unconcealment requires Dasein to experience its quality of being-in-truth directly at the moment, to make efforts to remain aware of its fading in the next moment and reveal the momentary demands of self-appropriation to keep open the possibility of a continuing understanding of the unique manifestation of Being. Heidegger calls such authentic presence “the moment of vision” and says that it must be understood in an active sense as an ecstasis.18 In this definition, Heidegger brings together the eventful nature of the way Dasein is “carried away to whatever possibilities and circumstances are encountered in the situation” and the active nature of the transcendental will that holds this rapture. 19 The schema of a causal sequence of the ontic will is not applicable here. One does not “first” hold the rapture to “then” be carried away to the possibilities – the primal act of explicit transcendence consists of the two happening “at the same time.” In 1934, Heidegger stresses that resoluteness is an event (Geschehnis) not in a regular sense of mere occurrence in history but as transforming our understanding in a way that does not require repeating one’s decision.20 As Heidegger further explains, resoluteness as Geschehnis determines history (Geschichte) that is not a mere historiology (Historie) but an Event (Ereignis).21 The openness of the “there” is maintained by the fact that Dasein has already decided to be in some way, even if unwillingly and inauthentically. Therefore, transcendence occurs according to the mode of Dasein’s decision-­taking, not on the ontic level of choosing one possibility among others, but according to the degree of transparency-directedness characterizing the way Dasein has already decided to be. In this light, the existential definiteness of resolute openness can be understood as the ontological clarity of transcendence as such, manifesting as transparency inherent in its  Ibid., 387–388.  Ibid., Italics mine. 20  Heidegger (2010a), 66. 21  Ibid., 74. 18 19

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explicit enactment. Resolute openness, Heidegger says, is authenticity as the object of care;22 it is explicit transcendence understood as the most definite concern. Accordingly, the authentic certainty of resolute openness is beyond the universal facts of knowledge; it pertains to the transcendental openness which allows all knowledge. It is the certainty of the truth of Being. As I have shown in Chap. 1, Heidegger knew already in 1916 that – ontologically speaking – motivation is prior to presentation. Accordingly, the truth of Being is not something presentable but manifests foremost as the motivational quality of existence, allowing Dasein to be resolutely open for genuine unconcealment. The truth of Being is never at the disposal of human beings. On the contrary, as caring for one’s own Being, Dasein – in its attempts to be-in-truth – is radically dependent on the truth of Being. As Pöggeler stresses, Heidegger’s early emphasis on individuality and “finding oneself” easily misleads one into a subjectivistic interpretation of Being and Time and distracts from the transcendent standard of the truth of Being independent from existence but requiring resolute openness in order to manifest in beings.23 Still, if we follow my interpretation of the role of Dasein’s individualization as setting the tune of the openness of the “there” for the concrete modes of the individual itself-ness of beings, the quasi-anthropological overtones of Being and Time reveal Heidegger’s still not well-articulated intentions. Namely, if the mode of self-identity of a being (including Dasein) is an expression of a particular configuration of the concealment-­ unconcealment dynamism of its self-manifestation, approaching the truth (or the meaning) of Being by way of Dasein’s radical individualization is far from being a beginner’s mistake but is actually the only way to start fathoming how the truth of Being is different from the traditional metaphysical notion of truth. In this light, Dasein’s effort to remain in truth within the temporalizing event of the manifestation of Being is an attempt to be in tune with the finiteness of Being, to be open to the otherness of concealment as an irreducible source of the uniqueness of a situation. Resolute openness, says Heidegger, is an openness towards the mystery (of Being’s self-­ concealment).24 Since in resolute openness “that to which we are resolved  Heidegger (1962), 348.  Pöggeler (1989), 139–140. 24  Heidegger (2010b), 151. 22 23

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stands constantly before us,”25 this means that the self-concealment of Being must determine the openness of Dasein as long as it holds the rapture of its ecstatic being-carried-away. In terms of What is Metaphysics?, such an explicit transcendence is precisely explicit holding oneself out into the Nothing. In terms of Being and Time, this is to be mortal as being anticipatory resolute: What if resolute openness in accordance with its own meaning, should bring itself into its authenticity only when it projects itself not upon any random possibilities which just lie closest, but upon that uttermost possibility which lies ahead of every factical potentiality-for-Being of Dasein, and, as such, enters more or less undisguisedly into every potentiality-for-Being of which Dasein factically takes hold? What if it is only in the anticipation of death that resolute openness, as Dasein’s authentic truth, has reached the authentic certainty which belongs to it?26

Earlier, I interpreted being-mortal as the mode of existence in which Dasein takes up its insubstantiality so that its Being explicitly becomes an issue. In this radical individuation, Dasein shakes off all acquired self-­ determinations and becomes free from the need to “be someone” in favor of the choice to be itself, that is, to be the transcendence that it is. Such freedom entails a decision for a radical self-transparency of resolute openness. It is crucial to see that all of Dasein’s possibilities are random unless these are the possibilities of being explicitly transcendent and sheltering the truth of Being. Namely, despite the event-nature of an understanding that might open the situation authentically, the happening of this event is inseparable from an active mode of “reception” on Dasein’s side, which is able to let the self-concealment of Being to come forth as the basis of its uniqueness. Anticipatory openness of being-mortal is such an “active mode of reception”; it is readiness for the uniqueness of Being based on the clear distinguishability of one’s itself-ness as ontologically differentiated from the contingent contents of one’s self-world. The sharpness of the difference between one’s mortality and the significance of any random possibility is the basis for the experience of Being, i.e., of the ontological difference. We can look at this from another angle. Resolute openness is anticipatory since death signifies the ultimate closedness, not a mere enclosure,  Heidegger (2010a), 66.  Heidegger (1962), 349–350.

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but an occurrence of closing-in – death is closing in on Dasein and negates the possibility of openness, i.e., a possibility of transcendence. Only by standing against the closing-in darkness of death does Dasein realize itself as a need for openness – openness is never a static being-open but a struggle against concealment. That is to say, the need for openness is experienced not as one necessity among others but as what gives essence to necessity as such – death is the concealed essence of necessity, hence of the Being of necessity, and, consequently, of the necessity of Beyng. In other words, the notion of death helps us understand the origin of all necessities as the necessary belongingness of Da-sein to Being. On the one hand, only the limit of existence corresponding to the finitude of Being is an archetype of necessity (any other “necessity” is only relative to Dasein’s factical existence). On the other hand, this proto-necessity does not express something about Dasein alone, as if, for example, it was simply pointing towards human physical mortality, but is phenomenological evidence, available in principle to all, that Beyng needs Dasein as an openness of its sway. Beyng is given to Dasein foremost as an implicit finitude of existence. The intimation of Beyng is not gained from beings, Heidegger writes in the Contributions, but from the Nothingness.27 Death is “the highest and ultimate attestation of Beyng,”28 but “it can be known only by one who is capable of experiencing and co-grounding Da-sein in the authenticity of selfhood.”29 Thus, when in Being and Time the central indications of Dasein’s transformation into authenticity are related to some form of encountering the Nothingness and the null (anxiety, death, Being-guilty), it is not, as Sheehan writes, because Dasein embraces the absurdity of its existence,30 but because it first reveals the sense of intimation with Beyng.31 Otherwise, what could it mean that in anxiety/begin-mortal Dasein realizes itself as a possibility? How is it different from the common understanding of a human subject who has possibilities? The difference is precisely in the movement from an ontic to an ontological level. Namely, to be a possibility is to be a possibility of Being, to belong to Being as the possibility of its manifestation. The active character of resolute openness then signifies the need for an explicit acknowledgment of Dasein as the  Heidegger (2012), 193.  Ibid., 223. 29  Ibid. 30  Sheehan (2014), 176. 31  Heidegger never said that existence was absurd. Such projection of Kierkegaard upon Heidegger is an invention of secondary scholarship. 27 28

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there-character of Being itself, not intellectually but existentially, by facing the nullity of existence and hence transcending explicitly. Transcendence, as the essence of ground, when viewed not in terms of Dasein’s “relation to Being” but as being this relation itself, and accordingly needing no “relation,” can only happen as Dasein’s abyssal freedom which experiences its belongingness to Beyng in the tangibility of death.

2  Transcendence as Standing in the Truth of Beyng It can be said that, for Heidegger, inauthentic Dasein never really lives but is merely alive. Such Dasein, according to Heidegger’s 1932 amendments to the term “existence,” does not exist.32 Existing Dasein has undergone a transformation; it is freed for existence. We may call it explicit existence since, in it, Dasein discloses itself to itself resolutely as Dasein. At the same time, the essence of resolute openness lies in the unconcealment of Dasein for the clearing of Being.33 Indeed, Dasein’s transcendence lies in this symmetry of disclosure. Remembering the direct equation Heidegger makes between Dasein, Being-in-the-world and original transcendence, it is easy to conclude that, in resolute openness of explicit existence, Dasein first discloses itself as transcendence. However, how can Dasein experience the urgency to decide between Being and non-Being if, in fact, it seems to live – maybe even enjoy life – without making such a decision? That is to say, how can Dasein experience that it is not really existing? Dasein cannot notice that something is “wrong” with its existence in terms of its own “they”-self. As we remember from early lectures, life is, in principle, self-sufficient. Whatever feelings of unhomeliness Dasein might feel, these are interpreted in terms of one’s life/existence rather than as an indication of one’s non-existence. In Being and Time, this question is only preliminary answered by the call of conscience. In the Contributions, the call is a call into the belongingness to the Event and it enables the experience of the plight of the

32  Heidegger comes back to the original definition of existence from the early Freiburg period. Existence is only an authentic mode of Being of human beings. Heidegger points out at the 1932 course on the beginnings of Western philosophy that in Being and Time “existence” is not yet clearly defined. (Heidegger (2015), 64). 33  Heidegger (2000), 22–23.

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abandonment by Being.34 Accordingly, what is understood through the call in Being and Time as the discrepancy between Dasein’s authentic self and the self which hears the call, is reinterpreted in the Contributions as a lack in one’s relation to Being, that is, as a failure to be transcendent (though Heidegger does not use the term at this stage). Resoluteness then grows out of the openness to the fact of such failure. In this light, Contributions make clear that Dasein’s failure to be explicitly transcendent and the fact of the abandonment by Being are two sides of the same coin. This symmetry, however, should also be evident to the readers of Being and Time who take seriously that Dasein is the “there” wherein Being can occur and that Dasein’s fallenness cannot be detached from the way and the “degree” to which Being comes to manifest in beings. In other words, the understanding of Being should never be thought of as a “relation” to something “outside” Dasein but as a fulfillment of Dasein’s essential belongingness to Being. Accordingly, the authentic self is not a traditional I-consciousness, discovered in some way, but the ground of belonging to Beyng.35 Attesting to the possibility of authentic selfhood does not discover something that is already there (past), but faces the need for a decision to ground Dasein (future) as the truth of Beyng, which Dasein has so far only understood in its untruth. Both Being and Time and Contributions extensively explore the contrast between the transcendent-ecstatic concept of selfhood and the conventional understanding of it. In Being and Time, for example, Heidegger stresses that the existentiality of Dasein’s self is revealed in the ontological structure of resolute openness.36 And further, we read in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic and in “On the Essence of Ground” that transcendence constitutes selfhood. Combining the two indications helps clarify that transcendence cannot be thought of traditionally as connecting two shores or surpassing something definite (immanence) but is openness. Moreover, the openness of transcendence is resolute; that is, its being-open is decided upon in the Being of Dasein as a selfhood. Finally, this openness is anticipatory – Dasein, as transcendence, is the “between” of Being and beings and is, therefore, the basis of the nullity of the ontological difference, temporalizing itself finitely on the edge of the Nothing.

 Heidegger (2012), 326.  Ibid., 251. 36  Heidegger (1962), 369. 34 35

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The liberation of Dasein to its essence is not a subjective transformation but an appropriation of its transcendence as openness. In the language of Contributions, this transformation is an appropriation of the belonging to the call and a grounding of Dasein in the truth of Beyng.37 The very possibility of this de-centralized view after the “turn” is anticipated by the fact that in Being and Time and in following lectures, Heidegger already understands selfhood as transcendence and, therefore, as a relation to, or, in a more holistic language, as belonging to Being. Such a self is transcendent and includes a moment of radical unfamiliarity. This unique unfamiliarity and the impossibility of a calculative, gradual movement towards it is anticipated already in Being and Time in the affective language of Heidegger’s descriptions of uncanniness, anxiety, death, guilt, and finally the radicality of a decision to be open – not for something particular – but for whatever truth I discover on the way. In this light, to interpret resolute openness as a sort of decisionism or voluntarism38 is quite odd, considering that one can neither decide to be anxious nor to have a conscience. Resolute openness, we read in Contributions, is the resoluteness for extreme meditation arising “out of openness for the necessity that makes unavoidable the experience of the plight of the abandonment by being.”39 The confusion arises from Being and Time’s lack of a clear delineation between the familiar, ontic side of will and the deeper transcendental dimension of the same will responsible for the “turn” towards the Nothing. Rather than merely rejecting representational will, we need to deconstruct it and see, foremost, that it is not entirely representational. Then we can also notice that there is a constant object-less willing happening on the subtle level of our existence as either a will to protect oneself against the abyss or a will for understanding which can, for example, take the form of wanting to have a conscience. The hardest thing for us to grasp is that both modes of transcendental will participate in the event of understanding and are inseparable from it. Though both the ancient Greeks and the modern rationalists saw that understanding some truth is the same as wishing to act in accordance with it, we typically interpret both understanding and will ontically and hence see this identity as an expression of quite naïve and dubious psychology which can only be saved if we add something like a non-psychological  Heidegger (2012), 54.  Zimmerman (1981), 41. 39  Heidegger (2012), 315. 37 38

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willing to be an ethical or rational person. However, the sort of understanding that happens when one understands the call of conscience is the understanding of Being; rather than understanding something disclosed, it determines the mode of disclosure. The paradoxical thing about transcendental will is then that it is inseparable from understanding – it does not will to have a conscience after understanding its call but as such understanding. The decision to strive for conscience is not reducible to ontic will but co-constitutes one’s understanding of Being.40 And vice versa – the event of understanding (of Being) co-constitutes the decision; the decision here is an event. This is the paradoxicality of explicit transcendence. Yet, how can understanding of Being include a “striving”? The understanding takes place in Dasein as the there-character of Being, and hence it is an understanding that belongs to Being as an event of its gathering enacted by Dasein but not reducible to it. The fact that understanding can reveal the necessity of striving entails that striving belongs to the necessity of Being itself. More precisely, it belongs to the truth of Beyng as determining the preference of a particular mode of the manifestation of Being. The strangest thing about the truth of Beyng, however, is that it is not a propositional truth corresponding to reality, and not even the reality itself as determining the epistemic standard of a proposition but indicates the standard to which Beyng itself strives. Namely, all that is “real” in the region of beings can only be said to be relatively “true,” not because it can be “more” or “less” true depending on the context, but because the very sense of “true” changes according to the “degree” of Beyng’s achievement of its own truth. In this light, we can see that Beyng is different from beings foremost in the sense that, unlike beings, it is not simply “true” but rather can occur in various ways, including a way which is its truth.41 Such a “defrosting” of Beyng, however, raises hard questions. Where would all such possibilities of Beyng reside if not in Beyng itself? And how can we even think the difference between the different ways in which Beyng can occur without positing another Beyng of Beyng? Traditional modalities take us astray when speaking about Beyng itself. In particular, Beyng is not a storage of 40  As Otto Pöggeler writes, wanting-to-have-a-conscience is a mindfulness on the history of Being (Pöggeler (1989), 149). 41  “This truth of beyng is indeed nothing distinct from beyng but rather is the most proper essence of beyng. Therefore it depends on the history of beyng as to whether beyng bestows or refuses this truth and itself and thus genuinely brings into its history for the first time the abyssal” (Heidegger (2012), 74).

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Platonic ideas, that is, of already determined possibilities, among which there is a hierarchy including the “truth of Beyng” as the highest idea. Heidegger stresses that such an understanding of “possibility” prioritize actuality.42 Instead, the different ways of the occurrence of Beyng should be thought of as Beyng’s inceptual capacities.43 To be sure, these capacities do not stand for a multiplicity of “states of Beyng,” distinguishable prior to the very occurrence of Beyng, but indicate that in Beyng, “there essentially occurs a fissure into the highest uniqueness and the flattest commonality.”44 That is to say, Beyng is neither fully determined in a way we think the essence of a being, nor is it an “indeterminate sea of determinability”45 of beings. Such an indeterminate Beyng would be a tranquil abstraction needing nothing and nobody, indeed a lifeless object of philosopher’s contemplation. Rather, the fissure of Beyng, as a plurality within its happening,46 is the foundation of Beyng’s essential unrest  – Beyng trembles and oscillates “between” its own truth and un-truth (I expand on this subject in Section 3). Such an unrestful “between” assumes an “either-or” in the heart of Beyng itself. In Contributions, Heidegger asks, “whence the either-or” and “whence the only this or only that?”47 That is, whence in Beyng a possibility of distinction at all, namely one that could distinguish not some being or other but the truth of Beyng itself? Heidegger then points out that, since any distinction is a negation, there is an implicit nothingness in Beyng itself – the either-or receives its sharpness and its origin from the nothingness belonging to Beyng. Namely, a “fissure” can only belong to Beyng’s essence if there is a sense of a “not” intrinsic to it. Nevertheless, Beyng is not split by this “not” but remains in an unrestful trembling and must include a mediating moment wherein its inceptual capacity and its “not” could take place as the “either-or”: The essential negativity of being (turning) entails that being requires and needs that which shows itself in terms of Da-sein as an either-or, the one or the other, and only these.48  Ibid., 221.  Ibid. 44  Ibid., 50. (my italics). 45  Ibid., 186. 46  Polt (2006), 151. 47  Heidegger (2012), 80. 48  Ibid. 42 43

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We may see that Beyng needs Da-sein foremost as an element of its own occurrence, unrelated in principle to humanity or beings in general. Namely, Da-sein characterizes Beyng itself just as fissure and nothingness do. However, in order not to mistake Beyng for an abstract principle, we must not think as if Da-sein were needed merely in order to complete a dialectical nature of Beyng as “encompassing” both truth and untruth – Beyng “encompasses” neither. Instead, Beyng needs Da-sein as the sphere of either-or in order for its truth to be grounded for the first time. If Da-sein’s sole purpose in Beyng was to prevent contradiction, we would be unable to assert that it is also “necessary” for Beyng unless Beyng itself had a requirement to avoid contradictions. That is to say, a merely logical “need” assumes the priority of beings as dictating what Beyng may or may not require. For Heidegger, on the other hand, things go the opposite way – something like logic can at all have power if it is empowered by Beyng and by whatever it needs to accomplish the grounding of its truth. All logic, Heidegger writes, stands under the power of Beyng.49 In this light, not only is Da-sein not a logical requirement for the coherence of Beyng, but also any sense of “coherence” already assumes the need of Beyng as an urgent strive for the truth of its essential occurrence. All sense of coherence assumes that Beyng, so to say, has an agenda. Beyng, says Heidegger, is not a “will-less, unknowing progression amid the perpetual unfolding of some impassive fatality within the totality of beings that remain enveloped within themselves.”50 From this perspective, we may revisit the transcendental dimension of Dasein’s will as the event of agency constituted by the agenda of Beyng, that is, as the sphere where the either-or is constantly taking place: either turning towards the concealment of Beyng or away from it. Rather than being a sign of hidden voluntarism in Heidegger’ thought, it expresses the fissure of explicit transcendence, that is, a fissure of Beyng itself. The paradoxical nature of transcendental will corresponds to the paradoxical nature of the truth of Beyng: it is will as an event of understanding, yet not without an intentional, striving element determined by the truth of Beyng and experienced as the very mode of motivation that underlies one’s concrete decisions. Indeed, the very notion of decision in Heidegger reflects this dual nature of understanding as both event and choice. The term itself is  Ibid, 63.  Heidegger (2014), 158.

49 50

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taken from the language of beings but is used to say something of the essence of Beyng itself. 51 Rather than “anthropomorphizing” Beyng, this re-inscription of meaning reflects a de- anthropomorphizing of Dasein which starts already in Being and Time. This becomes evident when we hear in Contributions that the genuine sense of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence is nothing but “to stand in the truth of Beyng.”52 To stand in the truth of Beyng is a primal act of explicit transcendence; it forces us to think agency in a new way beyond representational ontic will but without losing the active sense of resolute openness. Remembering that Heidegger saw both freedom and resoluteness as possessing man, we may arrive at the ontological notion of human agency as possessing Dasein’s transcendental will. In such “possessing,” the active essence of will is not annulled but shown in its original relation to the truth of Beyng. The detachment from any “personal” domain, which Heidegger stresses in Contributions,53 was seen as the essential characteristic of (free) will already by Kant. Nevertheless, for Kant, such a detachment only follows the logic of beingness. Heidegger, on the other hand, speaks of a will and knowledge of bearing silence that is not exhausted by such logic.54The relation between (transcendental) will and silence reminds us of the unity of will and understanding in wanting-to-have-a-conscience – conscience speaks silently because what is understood in it is co-constituted by the Nothing. Understanding, says Heidegger, “lets what is inexplicable stand as such”; it releases “the enigma as that concerning which and with regard to which we have no known counsel in the sense of our everyday, calculative means of disposal.”55 What is understood is open; it eventuates in Beyng as its truth. The silence of the truth of Beyng “expresses” the instability of transcendence and of Beyng itself and hence needs the “active” element of the transcendental will that can hold the rapture by sheltering the mystery of Beyng’s self-concealment and let it be lit up. As we know already from Being and Time, Dasein’s fundamental ability to turn toward or away from the Nothing pertains to the level of attunement. On this level, we cannot  Heidegger (2012), 62.  Ibid., 170. 53  Ibid., 6. 54  Ibid., 63. 55  Heidegger (2014), 224. 51 52

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speak of a representational will since “attunement does not represent something or set it before us.”56 Instead, Dasein’s transcendental will happens as the event of participating in the either-or of Beyng (in Beyng’s “agenda”) co-constituted by Dasein’s basic disposition “as the mood of the attuned knowing will of the event.”57 The “knowing will” expresses a similar unity of will and understanding as “resolute openness” does. As a knowing will of the event, it opens up the self-concealing of Beyng as a shock that is joined by restraint as our most proper will.58 Indeed, we miss the transcendental dimension of will and hurry to reject all will as being necessarily representational and hence self-­centered59 since we overlook the “negative” nature of will as a capacity that foremost allows openness as withholding of the inert self-closedness and self-forgetfulness of Beyng that – as Heraclitus said – loves to conceal itself. Moreover, we overlook the naturalness of such restraint as belonging to the “agenda” of Beyng itself, which, as Heidegger expresses it in 1946, draws and attracts us to itself. Genuine will is then negative only in relation to what obstructs this attraction of Beyng; it is the will of the resolute ones “no longer shut in departure against the will by which being wills beings.”60 It does not mean “restricting ourselves by way of renunciation to a limited, calculative action.”61 Instead, it is a creative self-restriction in which we let ourselves become prepared for the event of genuine will/understanding. Such a preparation is not a “making” or a “doing” in the familiar sense but is “only a readiness that, secure in itself, grows and yet remains inconspicuous to itself.”62 Still, in such explicit transcendence, we experience the “agenda of Being” as our own destiny into which we were sent, and in knowing it, we will it63 (again, the two are inseparable). Dasein then  Ibid., 123.  Heidegger (2012), 314. 58  Ibid., 14. 59  Even Heidegger seems to reduce will to such a metaphysical notion as his later criticism of will-to-will show. Namely, I don’t agree that Heidegger’s later notion of non-will entails something sharply different from what he insinuates in Contributions. An overcoming of what Heidegger later calls “the domain of will” and arriving to the “totally other than willing” entails a rejection of the traditional notion of will as determining the essence of Dasein/ thinking but not a rejection of genuine will co-constitutive of the self-regulative (truth-­ oriented) moment in the event of Being and eventuating as Dasein’s transcendental will. 60  Heidegger (2002b), 239. 61  Heidegger (2014), 188. 62  Ibid., 156. 63  Ibid., 160. 56 57

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becomes disciplined not in a Nietzschean sense of a self-enhancing will-to-­ power but as freeing “the excessive will of the origin” (i.e., of Beyng).64 Heidegger finds such authentic will in Hölderlin’s description of the demigods, who do not represent something that they wish but do not know what they will and whether they will due to their excess of vocation.65 Heidegger’s poietic theory of will must be developed along these lines of the event of will in which one knows/understand the truth of Beyng without an image and without the familiar sense of wishing and representing what one wishes. It is an agency that can be equally said to belong to Beyng itself (“poetizing is the fundamental event of beyng”66); however, not without an explicitly transcendent Da-sein as the there-­ character of Beyng.67

3  Transcendence as Grounding the truth of Beyng Crucially, by speaking of Dasein’s transcendental will or the transcendental dimension of will, I do not intend to aggrandize the common notion of will to a level of transcendentality but, instead, to stress that will as such should be thought of in terms of Dasein’s transcendence. Since transcendence is a historical happening, an event of the worldling of the world as Being-in-the-world, the origin of human will should also be seen as belonging to this event. Moreover, rather than negating will without proposing any concrete alternative, we can “distill” it and, so to say, bracket the familiar representational claims of will for autonomy, so that we could distinguish an agency-like element within Beyng itself. As Heidegger writes in Mindfulness, the struggle of human existence is an “all too human” formulation of the appropriating character of Being itself.68 This agency-like element characterizes the event of Beyng as an “intrinsic” striving to unfold essentially and to be grounded, but it has no reality

 Ibid., 222.  Ibid., 190. 66  Ibid., 233. 67  Since Heidegger surely wouldn’t want to say that, after all, even Hölderlin – the most futural poet – only thinks in terms of will-to-will, a Heidegger-based theory of will should separate the poietic notion of what I called here authentic transcendental will from the traditional notion of will emphatically rejected by Heidegger in the later works. 68  Heidegger (2016), 11. 64 65

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besides the ways the there-character of Being unfolds historically in human existence and as the transcendental dimension of “human” will. The idea that such will happens inseparably from understanding expresses its belongingness to Beyng on the one hand (it is an understanding of Being) and to human existence on the other hand. The ontologically-­ existential meaning of one’s life makes sense within the sphere of intelligibility laid out by the agency-like character of existence, that is, by one’s never-ending self-positing in relation to the concealment-­ unconcealment dynamism of attuned understanding. Transcendence is something active in this sense, something that we “do.” As Heidegger says, it is a primary act.69 Rather than deciding on performing or not performing the primal act, we are it and can only choose how to participate in it. I presented this performative nature of transcendence in Chap. 5. It is important to remember that we are talking about an ontological performance. Dasein’s active role in determining Being always assumes this performative sense of activity that can be as well characterized as Beyng’s agency-like element (without ever assuming that Beyng in itself is an “agent”). It can also be characterized as non-activity, as something that Dasein undergoes, i.e., as an event. Still, the event is not merely a mechanical, self-sufficient process but requires a historical “agent” to let transcendence happen explicitly.70 So, neither the strictly active nor the strictly passive characterization catches the nature of the event and of Dasein’s agency. Accordingly, what I presented first as the transcendental dimension of Dasein’s will and then as the quasi-agency of Beyng itself must be

69  However, we can also see humans as the “effortless ones” (Ibid., 253) since our “efforts” are never in a simple opposition to a state of non-effort. Transcendental will is always “active,” hence we can “rest” in it after turning ourselves towards Beyng’s self-concealment. We are then as if flowing within the agency-like flow of Beyng, never however in a traditional sense of passively drifting along it. Such an equally adequate formulation brings Heidegger close to Eastern philosophies and allows thinking genuine will as releasement and non-will. For Heidegger’s relations to the Eastern thought see Parkes (1987) and May and Parkes (1996). 70  We call “mechanical” something that occurs according to laws that are not determined by this occurrence. If Being was happening “mechanically,” that would mean that it unfolds according to some principle external to it. The most familiar opposite to the heteronomy of the mechanical is the autonomy of the will that enacts its own law. However, the notion of will’s autonomy remains merely negative (rejecting any external law) unless it is andlyzes in its abyssal performativity which, after all, cannot be autonomous in the traditional ontic sense but must, as I argue, entail Beyng itself in its action-like (rather than image-like) essence.

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thought of as an event-like agency corresponding to Heidegger’s notion of the truth of Beyng that never simply is but needs grounding. We see the seeds of this idea in Being and Time. Resolute openness has an ontological structure of a decision to distinguish essential possibilities from accidental ones, to make distinct the direction of the truth of Being (i.e., of the call) from the immediate claim of beings. Importantly, the decision of resolute openness does not choose what has already been but creates and grounds in light of its ability for ontological discernment. The discernment is possible because a standard other than beings is reached. Having only beings as a standard is exemplified in Heidegger’s reading of Plato’s cave allegory, where the prisoners are unable to discern light from the darkness.71 The possibility of discernment is thus related to reaching Being itself, i.e., transcending. Accordingly, just as Heidegger’s notion of transcendental freedom, resolute openness is “bigger than me” – I does not possess resolute openness, but rather it possesses me.72 Yet, something can possess me and allow me to discern myself as myself only in terms of the structure of transcendence. The happening of transcendence then also needs to be thought of not as connecting but as separating, i.e., as introducing a fissure, grounding an ontological difference, so that an open realm of the “there” could exist and the wholeness of what is to be separated could be available in the decisive discernment of resolute Dasein. Heidegger stressed already in 1929 that transcendence is the ground of the ontological difference. Considering that he means Dasein’s transcendence, it is evident that Being itself – as one of the “elements” differentiated in the ontological difference  – cannot be independent of Dasein. Before making any anthropomorphic conclusions, we must remember that Dasein (or rather Da-sein) is precisely the there-character of Being itself. Transcendence then characterizes Being itself as the ground of its own differentiation from beings in its own there-character. Now, if we also keep in mind that the very need for a “there-character” stems from the non-metaphysical, ontologically plural, historical essence of Beyng, we can conclude that the ontological difference (and hence transcendence) is something that belongs to the very eventuation of Being as Being, each time as some intelligible way in which beings gather themselves in the clearing of the “there.”

 Heidegger (2002a), 21.  Heidegger (2001b), 95.

71 72

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As Heidegger writes in Über den Anfang, the difference is eventual (ereignischaft).73 As the ground of the difference, transcendence is, then, foremost, an event of differentiation. What we call the ontological difference is an idea that stems from an original distinction (Untescheidung). Heidegger’s term Underscheidung bears an active emphasis – the distinction is not something “built-in” in some cosmic order but an event that happens “within” Beyng itself.74 Beyng itself distinguishes itself.75 Still, the difference (Unterschied) is inseparable from the event of Beyng’s self-­ distinction, i.e., it is not a result of such an event. Instead, it is the essence of the self-distinctive event of Beyng as the departure (Abschied) of Beyng from beings.76 Consequentially, Dasein’s transcendence should not be thought of as somehow “connecting” or “relating” human beings to Being but should be seen as expressing the eventual nature of the fissure of Beyng. The fact that there are two modes of transcendence (implicit and explicit) reveals that the difference between authentic and inauthentic existence is an expression of the original distinction (of the event of departure). Moreover, even the difference between the different historical modes of Being is rooted in the same original distinction. As Heidegger explains, the happening of the original self-distinction in which Beyng differentiates itself from beings entails the either-or between Being and beings and founds the essence of truth.77 That is, as an event, the distinction determines the concrete historical way Beyng comes to manifest as Being. Moreover, it determines what “ways” can there, in principle, be and what distinguishes one “way” from another. The decision comes from Beyng itself – either Beyng is predominant within its own self-distinction and hence manifests as the truth of Being, or beings become predominant, and the truth of Being remains concealed in various ways across history. Beyng’s ontological plurality lies in this alone – it is not a contingent collection of possible modes of Being but a region of intelligibility of the truth of Beyng, which can eventuate as a beginning (i.e., of the “Western” history). Accordingly, resolute openness shows us the way of the truth of Being always in relation to one’s historical situation and the predominant  Heidegger (2005), 35.  Ibid., 70. 75  Ibid., 71. 76  Ibid.,72–73. 77  Ibid., 73. 73 74

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understanding of Being. Explicit transcendence is not an intensification of one’s “relation” to Being but a mode of existence in which the fissure of transcendence becomes explicit as the fissure of Beyng itself. Attunement, or disposition, as the distinguishing characteristic of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence, “is the diffusion of the trembling of beyng as event in Da-sein.”78 It is the “preservation of the spark in the sense of the clearing of the ‘there’ according to the full fissure of beyng.”79 Being explicitly transcendent is then to experience one’s own proper will on the level of attunement, overcoming the metaphysical separation between being an agent and being-thrown by Beyng. To be appropriated by Beyng, says Heidegger, is to experience oneself as thrown by it.80 However, to be thus thrown is already to enact one’s own existence through the disposition of restraint, that is, to will properly. What one wills then is the imageless sustainment of the clearing for Beyng’s self-concealment. Indeed, explicit transcendence as resolute openness steps over the inauthentic separation between understanding the ontological difference and willing to sustain it. The turning that happens in Dasein’s transcendental will is an “act” of sustaining oneself in the understanding that the truth of Beyng is the truth of the departure of Beyng ,and it needs to be sheltered since it entails Beyng’s self-forgetfulness (untruth). In Contributions, Heidegger retrospectively explains that after Being and Time, it was important to comprehend the unity underlying the ontological difference. 81 Crucially it led Heidegger to abandon the language of the “condition of possibility” which he used earlier and which still confuses scholars into thinking of Being as a (transcendental) condition of beings. Yet, Heidegger stresses that Beyng is not something “earlier,” existing “in itself, for itself.”82 The essence of Beyng and of the truth of Beyng does not lie on the one side of the difference as conditioning the other – that would be metaphysics/ontotheology – but in the origin of the difference, i.e., in the Event. Indeed, to say that a difference has an “origin” is to say that it originates (quasi-actively). However, the quasi-­ active dimension assumes a possibility of failure as long as this “activity” is determined by some standard, i.e., by the truth of Beyng. What Heidegger  Heidegger (2012), 19.  Ibid. 80  Ibid., 188. 81  Ibid., 197. 82  Ibid., 13. 78 79

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calls the event-full nature of the distinction is then the source of the possibility of Beyng’s self-forgetfulness, i.e., of an un-truth-full eventuation of the difference. Moreover, only by addressing the origin of the ontological difference can we grasp anything at all regarding the question-worthiness of Beyng.83 The ontological difference is a passageway beyond the metaphysically static distinction between Being and beings. Such a static, un-event-­like distinction is at the basis of ontotheology and sub-jectum metaphysics. There is no need for Dasein in ontotheology since the distinction simply is, and Being requires no concrete historical enactment of its agency-like character (in the Event). The end of metaphysics pertains precisely to the questioning of the ontological difference, to revealing the event-like character of the difference, and first attending to the role of Da-sein in the origination of the distinction and the possible sheltering/grounding of the truth of Beyng that belongs to it. The ontological difference says Heidegger, “must be clarified in its belonging to Da-sein.”84 When Heidegger already speaks in “On the Essence of Ground” that transcendence is the ground of the ontological difference, he insinuates that we cannot think of transcendence as a surpassing of beings and reaching Being. As transcendent, Dasein does not need to reach Being by surpassing beings since Dasein itself is the ground of the distinction between the two. Still, the distinction is not something “subjective” or merely thought but belongs to the Event of Beyng. Accordingly, Dasein’s (explicit) transcendence should not be thought of in terms of surpassing – as if Dasein was separable from Being  – but in terms of the Event of Beyng’s self-distinction, directed by the transcendental agency-like character of the Event enacted by concrete human beings as the way they “choose” to understand Being. Accordingly, we read in Contributions: Therefore, the task is not to surpass beings (transcendence) but, instead, to leap over this distinction and consequently over transcendence and to question inceptually out of beyng and truth. In transitional thinking, however, we must withstand this discrepancy: first, to bring this distinction to an initial clarity, and then to leap over that very distinction. Yet such leaping over occurs only through the leap as the creative grounding of the ground of the

 Ibid., 366.  Ibid., 369.

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truth of beyng, i.e., through the leap into the event of the appropriation of Da-sein.85

I will say more about Heidegger’s renunciation of the term “transcendence” in the book’s final chapter. However, we can already see the main “topological” reason here. Namely, the very landscape of Beyng, beings, and Da-sein is represented inaccurately by the notion of transcendence as assuming the ontological difference. To get to the origin of the difference is then to “leap over transcendence.” First, however, the distinction must be brought to clarity. This step is sometimes missed by Heidegger scholars who hurry to talk about Beyng itself. Heidegger did not just abandon beings (and the Being of beings) in favor of Beyng itself but leaped over the ontological difference into its origin in Beyng as Event. Accordingly, the late Heidegger’s notion of the Event arises out of this leap and only after it became clear to Heidegger that Being is not separable from beings a priori as some independent metaphysical process/structure but only sways as Being out of the original Event of its self-differentiation historically channeled as transcendence, i.e., as Dasein’s primal act. The Event is indeed the event of (self-)appropriation since it is determined by an active, agency-like performative element in which the self-­ forgetfulness of Beyng is overcome by a “counter-effort”86 against the original self-forgetting “impulse”87 through Dasein’s becoming who it is – a there-character of Beyng itself and the means by which the truth of Beyng becomes grounded. In such grounding, Da-sein becomes the “between” that overcomes the separation of Being and beings, not by “slinging a bridge” between the two but by transforming both into their simultaneity.88 Such simultaneity of Beyng and beings excludes both the ontotheological predominance of Being over beings and the ontic-like independence of Beyng. Heidegger’s early ideas that truth only is if Dasein  Ibid., 197.  “What has purely sprung forth must, for the sake of its having sprung forth, will the origin. This will becomes a counter-will against the powers of the origin, who will the vocation of having sprung forth” (Heidegger (2014), 242). We may see the original vocation of having sprung forth as the non-essence of the event, in which Beyng tends to self-forgetting by “springing” into beings and positing a static ontological difference, thus forgetting itself as the origin of the difference. 87  “By unfolding as will, being demonstrates (although this is not yet recognized) that the condition for the forgetfulness of being lies within being itself” (Heidegger (2018), 287). 88  Heidegger (2012), 13–14. 85 86

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is, that Being depends on the understanding of Being, and that, in general, transcendence is the ground of the ontological difference entail some sort of dependence of Beyng on Dasein. In Contributions, Heidegger addresses this dependence explicitly: Beyng needs humans in order to occur essentially, and humans belong to beyng so that they might fulfill their ultimate destiny as Da-sein. Does beyng not become dependent on an other, if this needing constitutes its very essence and is not a mere concomitant of that essence? Yet how can we speak of de-pendency [Ab-hängigkeit] here, in view of the fact that this needing radically recreates what is needed and forces it to its self? Conversely, how can human beings bring beyng under their domination if they must precisely give up their lostness in beings so as to become ap-propriated to beyng, belonging to beyng?89

It seems to me that scholars who deny Beyng’s need for Da-sein do not only miss the answer to Heidegger’s perplexity but do not even respect the question, projecting their own ontotheological intuitions about Being’s independence and read Heidegger selectively in order to “ground” their intuition in Heidegger’s work. These intuitions are – in essence – not different from those of the scholars who “subjectivize” Being and interpret it anthropomorphically as a distinctively human reality (i.e., as meaning). Both sides might even use the term “Event” but never say it, that is, never realize that the notion of the Event changes everything  – it is not just another name for Being but a radical leap beyond traditional intuitions about Being. In truth, we cannot talk about either dependence or independence here. As Heidegger shows by putting a hyphen in Ab-hängigkeit, the state of de-pendence can be portrayed as hanging on something (the English term also stems from the Old French root pendu, meaning “hanged”). Such a hanging-on condition makes sense only if there are two separable elements between which the dependency relation could be posited. Yet, in the case of Beyng, the “needing” radically recreates the “needed” and forces it to its self. The very itself-ness of human beings is something that still needs to be achieved and appropriated as the event of the sway of Beyng. Such an itself-ness, however, is precisely Da-sein, the there-character of Beyng itself in its grounded mode of ontological self-distinction.  Ibid., 198.

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The need on which Heidegger still insists is the need of Beyng to become grounded since it “forgets itself” and distorts its own self-­ distinction from beings. However, both the forgetfulness and the grounding (remembering) of the truth of Beyng happen as existence, as the history of human attempts to become authentic. Beyng needs Da-sein in two senses: First, independently of human beings, there must eventuate a there-character of Beyng in which one or another mode of Beyng could manifest as Being (in beings). However, second – the there-character of Beyng is neither an abstract characteristic (existing only for thinking) nor a metaphysically real attribute of Beyng (existing on its own). Instead, it is the temporal, historical determination of human existence, a standard of existence that transcends any concrete human life and constitutes a non-­ representable direction for its self-appropriation, happening as the event of human transcendental will/understanding. Accordingly, Heidegger rejects that Beyng is dependent on anything external to it but keeps stressing the need for human beings even in his latest works. Beyng needs human beings not because we are human in the familiar sense of a physical, psychological, social, anthropological, or transcendental subject but because all these “characteristics” only make sense due to our belongingness to Beyng even if only in a mode of being abandoned by Beyng and needing to overcome the “human” in order to become Da-sein (to which, in truth, all the “highest” values of being-human belong). “The grounding of the truth of be-ing does not belong to the extant and ‘living’ man, but to Dasein for inabiding, wherein at times being human must transform itself.“90 Only by losing sight of the strangeness and uniqueness of the essence of Da-sein – and that also means forgetting the uniqueness of Beyng – can we think of Beyng through the subject-object relation, in terms of which Beyng can either be dependent or independent from human beings. As Heidegger stresses in Über den Anfang, every calculation of dependencies “that have already tacitly assumed an existing ‘human being’ and a ‘Being in itself’ and now either prefers one or the other” has no support here since it belongs to the metaphysical (i.e., ontotheological) thinking.91 Furthemore, even the dependence of beings on Being is ontotheology/metaphysics as it thinks of Being (unconsciously) as a being. The real turn in Heidegger’s thinking is not a turn away from beings or from  Heidegger (2016), 69.  Heidegger (2005), 30.

90 91

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Dasein to Beyng – all such “turns” are projections of a metaphysical interpretation of the ontological difference – but a turn into the origin of the difference, i.e., into the Event of its origination. As Heidegger stresses in the 1943 course on Heraclitus (this is the period of Heidegger’s late “Event-writings”), the relation of Being to the essence of the human is “something that surpasses being and the human in their relatedness: for, prior to them both, the event [Ereignis] eventuates into truth as the securing of concealment and its essencing.”92 The Event is defined in Contributions as the essencing of Beyng in which, whenever beings appear, Beyng has appropriated those who ground the truth of Beyng.93 The need for such truth-grounding mortals belongs to the essence of Beyng as Event. Remembering that Event is the origin of the ontological difference (the difference eventuates), we better understand the role of Da-sein and of human beings as assigned to Da-sein. Namely, humans are only what they are by serving as the “there” of the Event and participating in the discharge of the ontological difference. Such a need of humans is, in fact, Beyngs self-need; it is a need to differentiate itself ontologically so that the magnificence of the truth of Beyng could first become distinct as what is to be sheltered in existence. That is also why Beyng needs beings. Beings, on the other hand, do not need Beyng.94 Namely, we can speak about a “need” only in relation to truth as the standard of Beyng that determines who and what is needed for its grounding. The “need” corresponds to the agency-like character of Beyng, to its “intrinsic” topology that constitutes a “form” of a strive for grounding its own truth. As we read in Contributions, “the resonating of beyng seeks to bring back beyng in its full essential occurrence as event.”95 We, as human beings, find ourselves within this strive the way we find ourselves “within” our souls. The need of Beyng is also, and essentially so, our own fundamental need for explicit transcendence, i.e., for being appropriated by the Event. Accordingly, Beyng depends on human beings means: “the sway of [Beyng] reaches unto itself and falls into the loss of the ownmost depending on whether man’s ownmost – man’s relation to being – is fundamental

 Heidegger (2018), 284. Italics mine.  Heidegger (2012), 8. 94  Ibid., 26. 95  Ibid., 92. Italics mine. 92 93

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to man and is the ground of ‘humanity.’”96 Though Heidegger’s turn to Beyng as Event is best seen in Heidegger’s “Event-writings” of the late 1930s and the 1940s, it is anticipated already in his elucidations of transcendence as the ground of the ontological difference in “On the Essence of Ground” and other texts from this period. Moreover, already in Being and Time (and even before), we find the seeds of the transcendental dimension of human will that oversteps the subject-object view on Dasein-­ Being relation and insinuates the original performative sense of human agency inseparable from the event of the understanding of Being. This “agency-like” nature of transcendence is crucial for investigating Heidegger’s notion of the Event and its essential need of human beings.

References Davis, Bret W. 2007. Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit. Northwestern University Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward S. Robinson. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 2000. Introduction to Metaphysics. Trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt. Yale University Press. ———. 2001a. Einleitung in die Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe 27, ed. O. Saame et I. Saame-Speidel. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———.2001b. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Indiana University Press. ———.2002a. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus. Trans. Ted Sadler. UNKNO. ———.2002b. Off the Beaten Track. Trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge University Press. ———.2005. Über den Anfang, Gesamtausgabe 70, ed. Paola-Ludovika Coriando. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———.2010a. Logic: The Question of Truth. Trans. Thomas Sheehan. Indiana University Press. ———. 2010b. On the Essence of Truth. In Pathmarks, 136: 155. Trans. William McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012.Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Indiana University Press. ———. 2014. Hölderlin’s Hymns “Germania” and “The Rhine”. Trans. William McNeill and Julia Ireland. Indiana University Press.

 Heidegger (2016), 119. Italics mine.

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———. 2015. The Beginning of Western Philosophy: Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz. Indiana University Press. ———. 2016. Mindfulness. Trans. Parvis Emad and Thomas Kalary. Bloomsbury Academic. ———. 2018. Heraclitus: The Inception of Occidental Thinking and Logic: Heraclitus’s Doctrine of the Logos. Trans. Julia Goesser Assaiante and S. Montgomery Ewegen. Bloomsbury Academic. May, Reinhard, and Graham Parkes. 1996. Heidegger’s Hidden Sources: East-Asian Influences on his Work. Routledge. Parkes, Graham. 1987. Heidegger and Asian Thought. University of Hawaii Press. Pöggeler, Otto. 1989. Martin Heidegger’s Path of Thinking. Trans. Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund Barber. Humanity Books. Polt, Richard. 2006. The Emergency of Being: On Heidegger’s “contributions to Philosophy”. Cornell University Press. Sheehan, Thomas. 2014. Making Sense of Heidegger: A Paradigm Shift. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Zimmerman, Michael E. 1981. Eclipse of the Self: The Development of Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity. Ohio University Press.

CHAPTER 10

Transcendence as the Task of Philosophy

1   Introduction: Philosophy as Explicit Transcendence In the previous chapter, I displayed the role of human beings in sheltering Beyng based on the analysis of the origin of the ontological difference and the embeddedness of human agency in the agency-like character of Beyng. I stressed that Heidegger’s notion of Being as Event is a result of his investigation of the origin of the difference  – the difference eventuates as a self-distinction of Beyng, a departure that is “prior” to what is distinguished in it. Accordingly, the there-character of Beyng, needed for the strife between the actively self-concealing and revealing “sides” of Beyng, constitutes the core of the Event-like nature of Beyng. In contrast to metaphysics, the difference is not something given but is continuously attained. Namely, there are no two separate realms for Being and for beings, but rather the difference constitutes the sphere of intelligibility within which the abyss of Beyng surrenders its “independence” so that it could manifest as the itself-ness of beings within the temporal-spatial clearing of its own “there.” The Event is a recursive happening in which Beyng initiates history in which it is no more “in control” of the difference while still shaping the existential dimension of human life, giving it a “form” of a claim (or a call) that might be explicitly appropriated and dislodge humans into Da-sein so that the truth of Beyng could be sheltered. The

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sheltering is needed because the truth of Beyng (and that also means the difference) is neither static nor “controlled” by Beyng. Transcendence as the ground of the ontological difference becomes explicit when this ground becomes explicit as the Event to which human beings belong as the carriers of Beyng’s thrown projection. To become the explicit carriers of projection or the shepherds of Beyng, we must become aware of the transcendental dimension of our agency, i.e., of the fact that our existence is not transcendent in the sense of being related to something “beyond” ourselves but in the sense of standing in the truth of Beyng. While “standing” might sound like a passive posture, it is – like the common physical posture of standing  – an active with-standing of the strife between the forces (physical or ontological) that manifest through this very standing. Such standing in the truth of Beyng, however, characterizes only the explicit mode of transcendence. To become explicitly transcendent is then to become genuine agents of Beyng in the double sense of becoming explicitly ontological actors whose proper will co-constitutes the event of the understanding of Being and becoming the carriers of Beyng’s quasi-agenda so that Beyng could use us for the need of compensating its groundlessness by actively sheltering and grounding its truth. In this last chapter of the book, I want to address the role of philosophy in the transformation of human beings into Da-sein and, accordingly, in grounding the truth of Beyng. In the 1929 lecture course Introduction to Philosophy, Heidegger presents philosophy as explicit transcendence distinguished from the indirect, implicit transcendence of everyday existence. Namely, philosophy is not a study of the “problem of transcendence” or of the “question of Being” to which “transcendence” also belongs but is itself (explicit) transcendence. Though I have already displayed the ontologically-­performative nature of transcendence both in the context of the inter-dependence between existence and the manifestation of Being (Chaps. 5 and 7) and in the concrete analysis of Dasein’s transformation into authenticity (Chap. 8), the particular role of philosophy was not addressed. However, this role is central for Heidegger and, as I shall show, inseparable from his notion of transcendence and from the idea of the Event that arises out of it. A clarification of the role of philosophy is crucial not just for “explaining” why Heidegger identifies it with transcendence but, foremost, for making explicit what Heidegger himself is attempting to do in his thinking, that is, how Heidegger’s own work helps us achieving that to which he “shows us the way.” Finally, it should offer a

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possibility of self-reflection for philosophers who read Heidegger and, especially, for those who write about his work.

2  Are We Still Not Thinking? When Heidegger announces in the opening lecture of the 1923 winter semester that philosophy is at its end and that his motivations have nothing to do with what we know as philosophy,1 one may wonder if this is merely a rhetorical statement meant to underly the novelty of what Heidegger has to say. This statement, however, is not detached from Heidegger’s statements on philosophy in the years before that. In fact, the very first lecture course he taught in 1919 addressed the idea of philosophy and attempted the initial steps toward its definition. Considering the number of courses dedicated to the theme of philosophy/ metaphysics/thinking which came after 1919, we may say that the question “what is philosophy” can be counted as one of the most important themes of Heidegger’s thought. In the 1919 course Heidegger indicates that, on the one hand, philosophy is a cultivation of thinking free from all dogmas,2 and, on the other hand, all great philosophy is metaphysics.3 The question is, of course, whether these two characteristics factically co-exist, that is, whether the existing metaphysical corpus of philosophy is free from all dogmas. If that is not the case – as Heidegger will keep explicating in years to come  – all existing philosophy fails to fulfill what is essential about it. However, who can answer this question? Only philosophy itself, Heidegger says. Philosophy, he teaches us, by its very nature, is self-­ grounding and hence includes an essential circularity.4 All individual sciences, Heidegger says, lead back to philosophy as its origin (Ursprung).5 It is this very ability of the existing philosophy to freely ground beings that Heidegger questions in 1919. Though the transcendental formulation of fundamental ontology will see the light only a few years later, already at the very beginning, Heidegger proclaims that philosophy has come to a

 Heidegger (2005), 1.  Heidegger (2008), 6. 3  Ibid., 7. 4  Ibid., 14. 5  Ibid., 25. 1 2

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crossroad and can only avoid its death by a leap (Sprung) beyond the traditional focus on beings/things. We stand at the methodical crossroad, which decides about life or death of philosophy at all, on an abyss: either into nothing, i.e. absolute reification, or the leap into another world, or more precisely: in the world in the first place.6

The leap into the world is a leap into the original essence of philosophy and away from reifying theoretical thinking. As I have shown in the first part of the book, theoretical thinking expresses a particular mode of existence determined through a subject-object distinction and hides the non-­ numerical identity of the experiencer and the experienced. Namely, it characterizes representational cognition that is blind to the event of the worldling of the world and hence only sees what corresponds to consciousness, i.e., what is present as independent, wholly positive entities. A leap away from this reification is a leap back into the world, but it is not a “theoretical” leap in the sense of a merely intellectual acceptance of something “non-theoretical.” A renewal of philosophy, says Heidegger, can only happen through genuine life and its radical actualization.7 After all, the leap into the essence of philosophy (the Origin) is an actualization of genuine life. Philosophy then can only disclose itself through the ontological difference as such an actualization. A year later, Heidegger adds that such actualization is an enactment of a “turning,” a genuine transformation of the path of factical life.8 Looking back to Heidegger’s earliest indications of the essence of philosophy helps us grasp the genuine meaning of the “transcendental philosophy” of Being and Time. We saw that Heidegger’s philosophy is essentially a philosophy of transcendence in two senses – it addresses original transcendence as the core notion through which all philosophical questions are to be re-interpreted and, at the same time, it is meant to facilitate the transformation of Dasein to being-explicitly-transcendent. In the latter sense, Heidegger’s philosophy belongs to transcendence as the means by which transcendence is to become explicit. In this light, if Being and Time is indeed intended to initiate human transformation, it must  Ibid., 53.  Heidegger (2013), 17. 8  Heidegger (2010a), 8. 6 7

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incorporate the very task of philosophy as a means for Dasein’s becoming essential. Hence, it must be intrinsically tied to the essence of Dasein. Heidegger starts his Introduction to Philosophy with an explication of these ties: But we are not ‘outside’ of philosophy at all, and not because we may have some knowledge of philosophy. Even if we expressly know nothing about philosophy, we are already in philosophy because philosophy is in us and belongs to ourselves, in the sense that we have always been philosophizing. We philosophize even when we don’t know anything about it, even when we don’t ‘practice philosophy’. We do not philosophize now and then, but constantly and necessary, provided that we exist as human beings. Being there as a person means philosophizing.9

To exist as a human being is to philosophize. This evidently refers not to philosophy as a grounded origin of all sciences but to that characteristic of being-human that allows such a grounding, i.e., an ability to philosophize as such. As Heidegger claims, humans use this ability whether they know about it or not. People stand differently in philosophy – philosophy can be hidden and manifest itself in a myth, religion, poetry, and sciences, without ever recognized as philosophy.10 Why is then needed an “introduction” to philosophy? Not for introducing something external, Heidegger says, but for initiating philosophizing.11 The role of introduction to philosophy is performative. Through such a performative initiation, philosophy must become free in us as an inner necessity of human existence.12 Heidegger’s words regarding the “first philosophical step” in Being and Time help us realize what Being and Time attempts to initiate. The first philosophical step is not to tell stories in the sense of “defining entities as entities by tracing them back in their origin to some other entities.”13 To be sure, Heidegger does not just mean explaining a given physical object in terms of subtle material processes but something much more radical; he tries to prevent us from thinking of Being as something independent, separable from the given beings and conceived “in the concepts  Heidegger (2001a), 3.  Ibid., 3-4. 11  Ibid., 4. 12  Ibid., 5. 13  Heidegger (1962), 25-26. 9

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in which entities acquire their determinate signification.” Indeed, concepts like “independent” or “separable” are two of the most fundamental concepts in which we determine beings. Accordingly, at this stage of Being and Time, we have no idea what to make of Being but only know that we must suspend our familiar (ontotheological) “story-telling.” Furthermore, if Being is the central theme of philosophy, we also do not understand what philosophizing is. This self-restraint is central to the performative unfolding of Being and Time, and it is the fundamental directive of the notion of transcendence as a leap beyond the ontotheological thinking in terms of beings. In Introduction to Philosophy, Heidegger ties transcendence – as a leap beyond beings-oriented thinking - to philosophizing as such. Explicit transcendence means explicit questioning of Being.14 Remembering that the appropriate mode of questioning is not the familiar way we ask about beings and their beingness, an explicit questioning of Being must originate from the experience of such inappropriateness. Moreover, since, according to Introduction to Philosophy, what happens in the appropriate, explicit mode of questioning Being is nothing less than “the essentially transcending Dasein becomes essential,” the experience of the inappropriateness of the traditional mode of questioning should lead to the experience of the questioning of one’s essence. We know from the early lectures that Heidegger sees questionability as the central character of genuine human existence. It has nothing to do with skepticism but rather with the uncompromisable courage to question one’s own existence. In such questioning, as Heidegger saw already in the works of Augustine, one does not merely utter a question for the sake of an intellectual understanding but instead puts oneself under question, resolutely transforming thus the state of one’s Being into a particular mode of openness. A so achieved openness affirms the transcendental nature of self-questioning. Since selfhood is transcendent (i.e., is determined as a possibility of grounding Da-sein), by becoming a question for oneself, one is brought inevitably to the question of Being as such. The appropriate sense of philosophical questioning (a “transcendental” mode presented in Chap. 3) is a self-questioning mode of Dasein’s Being. To be sure, philosophizing is not a psychological self-analysis but a revelation of the self as transcendent and, accordingly, as already belonging to Being. Transcendence becomes explicit precisely in such a revelation, which is not merely a cognitive insight but an event of appropriation of the  Ibid., 213.

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questioner. The term “explicit,” in explicit transcendence and the explicit questioning of Being means “appropriated.” Far from being a merely intellectual investigation of Being, philosophizing allows explicit/appropriated transcendence by appropriating its transcendental call (of conscience/Beyng/the Event). Such an appropriation, however, is a transformation of the questioner; hence it raises the question of the ownership of the act of philosophizing. Namely, if the self is experienced as belonging to the Event rather than existing as a present-at-hand entity, must not the movement of the revelation/appropriation of this belongingness also be event-like, i.e., belong to the logic of the Event rather than brought forth by the philosopher’s intention? As Heidegger writes in Contributions, the coming to one’s self that happens in appropriation is not a reaching to something that was already there but in its “assignment to the belonging becomes at once a consignment into the event.”15 The intrinsically conjoined assignment and consignment express the futural essence of Da-sein as a performative appropriation of one’s self within an act/event that – as long as it is sustained – constitutes the essence of what is thus appropriated. While Heidegger’s notion of the assignment to the belonging seems to emphasize resolute openness on the part of the thinker, the consignment into the event expresses what I have called in the last chapter the “quasi-­ agenda” of Beyng itself. Only by considering the two together can we view the essence of philosophizing in relation to the primal act of founding genuine agency in which the event of understanding is inseparable from the proper will of restraint. The activity of such agency is hard to express in the familiarly metaphysical language with its strict passive-active separation, delineating (active) ontic willing and (passive) happening of the understanding of Being. What is currently relevant for us is that, as a primal act, philosophizing is not something that we “do” in the traditionally representational sense of a consciously controllable act but is something that can be initiated as an event of thinking. Speaking of “one’s own initiative,” says Heidegger, is superficial and illusory.16 In light of the extensive discussion on transcendence presented in this book, it becomes necessary to reconsider the nature of philosophy and thinking itself when we equate philosophizing with explicit transcendence. This implies that philosophy, and consequently thinking, unfolds as an  Heidegger (2012a), 253.  Ibid., 254.

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event that is mutually shaped by our active participation in allowing it to occur. Heidegger speaks of philosophy as “allowing transcendence to happen” (Geschehenlassen der Transzendenz). However, this act of “allowing” is not a mundane act of volition but rather corresponds precisely to what I have characterized as the transcendental aspect of will as an event. Heidegger elucidates this act in his Introduction to Philosophy, describing it as a particular attentiveness towards things, a mode of encounter characterized by letting-be. In this encounter, he emphasizes, there is no sense of something external or internal to us. We do not initiate the encounter, nor do we apprehend something as objectively distinct. Instead, this encounter “is spontaneity, but one that intentionally has the character of acceptance, which is receptive.”17 Such an active receptance is a “lettingbe of beings” (Seinlassen des Seienden) that requires a special effort ­ (Anstrengung) of contemplative lingering.18 According to Heidegger, the essence of releasement (Gelassenheit) arises from this fundamental act of authentic freedom.19 I would like to emphasize the parallelism between these two occurrences: the commencement of philosophy paves the way for the event of philosophizing, while the primary act enables releasement as the act of allowing beings to be. Heidegger explicitly unites these two phenomena by stating that “in letting transcendence happen as philosophizing lies the original serenity (Gelassenheit) of existence.” This “letting” is precisely the receptive spontaneity of genuine agency I discussed in the last chapter. Thus, it can be comprehended that philosophy is an undertaking through which we enable authentic agency or, in simpler terms, permit the occurrence of an explicit understanding of Being as an event (of philosophizing) that cannot be detached from our own intention and willingness to undergo transformation. While being human inherently involves philosophizing and transcending, the concept of “philosophy” represents our endeavor to initiate an event of explicit philosophizing and transcendence. In this light, purely intellectual interest in philosophy can never lead to the event of philosophizing since it lacks the primal, non-causal act of letting ourselves become explicitly transcendent, which in the language of Contributions means to “be appropriated over to the appropriating

 Heidegger (2001a), 74.  Ibid., 184. 19  Ibid., 214. 17 18

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event.”20 The event of genuine agency and philosophizing, cannot be attained by merely studying philosophy or following a method. The issue, says Heidegger, is no longer “about” something.21 Indeed, philosophy is not “about anything” at all but is “only” a way to initiate the “transformation of the human being: from ‘rational animal’ (animal rationale) to Da-sein.”22 As allowing explicit transcendence, philosophy seeks to ground and open up the temporal-spatial playing field of the truth of beyng.23 For Heidegger, philosophy does it by questioning Beyng, yet it is not at all self-evident what such questioning means. The unavoidable failure of ontotheological metaphysics consists not of a theoretical mistake of thinking Being as a substance. Merely saying that, after all, Being must be something else (e.g., a process, physis, Logos, event) is to remain within metaphysics. As Heidegger stresses in the introduction to “What is Metaphysics?”, the overcoming of metaphysics is needed not because philosophy requires a more solid foundation24 (perhaps by means of a better “definition” of Being). Instead, what is needed is that Being itself comes to pass in a relation appropriate to the essence of human beings “in such a way as to bring human beings into a belonging to Being.”25 Since we know that, implicitly, human beings cannot but belong to Being, what is needed is to make this belongingness explicit, not as a knowledge of the belongingness but as a happening of explicit transcendence; that is, as a transformation of human essence into Da-sein. The task of philosophy to bring us into the belongingness to Being entails that we cannot philosophize as we do math or cook, i.e., that philosophizing is an event that can happen to us within the receptive act of genuine agency. To question Being is then such a receptive (or primal) act. Heidegger calls it the “leap into Beyng.”26 Rephrasing St. Paul, Heidegger calls philosophy “foolishness” as long as it excludes us from the experience of Being by not paying attention to what has concealed itself.27 The impossibility of “doing philosophy” is directly related to the fact that it must – unlike metaphysics – pay attention  Heidegger (2012a), 5.  Ibid. 22  Ibid. 23  Ibid., 6. 24  Heidegger (2010b), 280. 25  Ibid. 26  Heidegger (2012a), 11. 27  Ibid., 288. 20 21

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to the concealed. Indeed, already in Introduction to Philosophy and What is Metaphysics?, philosophy as explicit transcendence had to be enacted as an explicit holding onto the Nothing, or, at least, as what allows such an explicit holding. An explicit hold onto the Nothing and one’s being-ready for it are precisely what I elucidated in Chap. 8 as being-mortal and wanting-to-­ have-conscience. Importantly, these are not “philosophical positions” but modes of Dasein’s existence. As Heidegger stresses in Contributions, philosophy does not consist of the activities of proving propositions by staying outside the represented content and remaining the same.28 Philosophy does not aim at some scholarly “result” that requires a changed mode of representation but instead, already in its first steps, “sets in motion a transformation of the one who understands.”29 The role of philosophy is strictly performative because to “pay attention to the concealed” is to enact a primary receptive act that might lead to the event of understanding in which the concealed (or the Nothing) becomes in some way explicitly co-constitutive of who I am and how I experience my Being-in-the-world. The “attention to the concealed” is not a voluntary act of agreeing with Heidegger (or the pre-­ Socratics) on the importance of the concealed but is itself an event, which is, however, obstructed by metaphysics. Such an event of thinking is something we still do not understand, as Heidegger emphatically claims in the later work What is Called Thinking? Throughout the course upon which this book is founded, Heidegger repeatedly emphasizes to his students that their collective endeavor is an endeavor to cultivate the capacity for genuine thinking. However, Heidegger refrains from providing a definitive procedure or a conclusive formula for what thinking entails. Instead, he explores various avenues of thought and continually interrogates their ultimate destinations. He says right at the beginning of the course: “We come to know what it means to think when we ourselves try to think.”30 Namely, throughout the course, Heidegger offers possibilities for a peculiar effort of a contemplative dwelling in the regions of thought that he elaborates; Heidegger attempts to initiate thinking as an event of philosophizing that might occur. Thought, he says, has the gift of thinking

 Ibid., 13.  Ibid. 30  Heidegger (1976), 1. 28 29

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back because we incline toward it.31 This inclining is what was earlier named a primal act, a letting-be, and what I analyze in terms of the genuine will as an event of understanding. The “thinking back” of a thought is the “result” of a receptive letting-encounter; it is a happening, a gift; the thinking back of a thought is an event of the thinker’s transformation rather than a merely new idea, even though a new saying can indeed arise out of it. Nevertheless, Heidegger says that we are still not thinking since the thing to be thought turns away from us, and we do not turn sufficiently toward it.32 To say, as Heidegger does, that it is the leap alone that takes us into the neighborhood where thinking resides is to acknowledge that thinking is an event. It is to understand that the essence of philosophy is an attempt to initiate an event of thinking not by intending an achievement of new scholarly findings, a repudiation of some doctrine, a more solid foundation of philosophy, or even a “better understanding of Heidegger,” but foremost, by seeking Beyng in the sense of seeking one’s own transformation as an event of saying that might also contribute to the transformation of those who will hear it and, only secondarily, to the aforementioned list of possible achievement. An attempt to think is then essentially an attempt to contribute to the philosophy of the Event (belonging to the Event) by letting oneself become appropriated by it within an event of self-­ transformative philosophizing.

3   Philosophizing as Contemplative Recollecting In Contributions, Heidegger starts calling that which can bring about the event of thinking -Besinnung, usually translated to English as mindfulness or meditation. Since both terms have historical associations that might indeed be related to the Heideggerian sense of human transformation but require a thorough analysis of such a possible relation, I offer to translate Besinnung as “contemplative recollecting.” In the notion of contemplative recollecting, we hear a resonance of a historical aspect of Besinnung, its (re)gathering character, and the attentive focus of an open contemplation. Contemplative recollecting indicates the receptive spontaneity of the primal act, restraint, and the paradoxical structure of an “effort” of letting-­ be. It is an evolution of the idea of philosophizing as explicit  Ibid., 4.  Ibid., 6-7.

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transcendence. The familiar associations that arrive with the word “philosophy,” namely as a rational analysis resulting in propositions and systems of thought, are suspended here by emphasizing a state of being-in-question rather than a purely cognitive relation to the matter. This difference echoes the difference between the traditional notion of transcendence as reaching beyond myself towards an object (of thought, experience, etc.) and Heidegger’s notion of Dasein’s transcendence as expressing Dasein’s belongingness to Being and its performative nature of existence. Contemplative recollecting is the seeking of the truth of Beyng in the special sense of asking regarding one’s belongingness to Being as Event.33 The asking is not a theoretical wondering but is a setting of the intention of an open contemplation upon the experience of belonging to Being. Listening to Heidegger’s characterization of contemplative recollecting, we can see that it encompasses the fundamental traits of transcendence I discussed throughout the book. Namely, the questioning of our belongingness to Beyng expresses the sense of this belongingness as the need of Beyng to ground its truth, a need that de-anthropomorphizes human existence and opens up an understanding of who we are beyond our merely objective presence. The need of Beyng is the questioning of our belonging to it; it is the Beyng-historical essence of being a human, of embodying the either-or of Beyng itself as the either-or of the possible modes of transcendence/existence. The “transcendental” (i.e., transcendence-­grounding) nature of contemplative recollecting lies in that it is both the recollecting of Beyng and the recollecting of the self. Heidegger identifies philosophy with contemplative recollecting precisely on this point – philosophy is the recollecting of the self and the recollecting of Beyng.34 In Chap. 4, I interpreted the symmetry of Dasein’s mineness and the mode of the itself-ness of beings as the fundamental principle of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence. In the strictly phenomenological sense, this symmetry expresses the fact that what we usually take for granted as the intelligibility of a being’s individual presence, i.e., of how beings announce themselves as existing before and above their general structure, only makes sense to us because the event of the worldling of the world is essentially co-determined by the “for me.” That is to say, Dasein’s  Heidegger (2012a), 36.  Ibid., 39.tm.

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mineness is not a merely subjective dimension of experiencing what already exists in-itself but arises within the worldling of the world and co-­ configures the intelligibility of what it means for anything to be an “individual” being. In the ontological sense, this symmetry expresses the inseparability of existence from the Being of beings – Dasein is bound in its destiny to beings because its own selfhood (including the sense of Dasein’s mineness) is bound by the way Being already manifests in beings and attunes all understanding. The sense of Dasein’s self’s transcendence then lies precisely in that it is not a self-certain ego-pole that might contemplate Beyng as something external to it but that it can only contemplate Beyng by contemplatively recollecting its own belongingness to the Event. Contemplating the self is the same as contemplating Beyng, however, not in the sense of a psychological self-reflection but in the sense of ontological self-grounding. I referred to this performative aspect of transcendence in Chap. 5. Accordingly, in contemplative recollecting of the self, we do not seek to gain certain knowledge of what we already are; the gap between one’s selfhood “before” and “after” the event of philosophizing is not merely epistemic. The question “who we are,” says Heidegger, includes the question of whether we are.35 The questioning that characterizes contemplative recollecting is an abyssal questioning as it goes under our self-identity and illuminates that we are not, thus first making intelligible what it would mean for us to be. Thus opened-up intelligibility is, however, the intelligibility of a decision and a need for a leap; the selfhood, says Heidegger, “must first be brought up for decision.”36 To be sure, the decision is in no way a subjective one but is an answer to the call of Beyng. The either-or revealed in contemplative recollecting must be experienced as belonging to that which surpasses anything subjectively personal, even though the call is unique in a way that constitutes the very sense of the individuality of one’s existence. The decision must be thought of here in terms of what I presented in Chap. 5 and elaborated in Chap. 8 as the event of spontaneity co-constituting the event of understanding. As I further expanded in Chap. 9, this is an event of genuine human agency “used” by the quasi-agency of Beyng’s strive for historical self-grounding. The need of Beyng does not “control” genuine agency but constitutes it – a decision for genuine selfhood is the expression of freedom in the most  Ibid., 41.  Ibid., 42.

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fundamental sense of freeing human essence as Da-sein. Yet, this decision is itself an event of understanding initiated (though never “caused”) by contemplative recollecting. The decision is the decision on the essence of truth; hence it cannot be thought of as merely a decision for one’s “true self.” An event of such a decision transforms who I am by transforming the very sense of “am” and re-configuring what the “I” means. “I” do not decide because the decision occurs on the level that constitutes the sense of the “I-ness” of the “I.” The decision closes the gap (it de-cides) between Beyng and its own there-character (Da-sein) by re-assigning Dasein to my existence and so transforming the sense of this “mineness.” The event of such transformation is then spontaneous in the most radical sense: “the openness and grounding of the self arise out of, and as, the truth of beyng.”37

4   Philosophy as a Historically Performative Self-Recollection Speaking about the spontaneity of the self’s grounding, I have emphasized the difference between the traditionally “active” sense of doing philosophy and the performative event of philosophizing as an event of explicit transcendence. Nevertheless, Heidegger says in Introduction to Philosophy that philosophy is also a preparation for explicit transcendence.38 We must ask then what it means to “prepare” oneself for the event of being appropriated by Beyng. Namely, what should we do concretely, and how such a “doing” is related to the possible initiation of the leap? Perhaps an even more challenging question is how such a step can be spoken of if not in terms of what we already know about beings. Can we even speak of steps here? In other words, can the gap between the inauthentic mode of understanding, modeled on an average interpretation of beings, and the explicit appropriation of the most unfamiliar and unique call of Beyng, be gradually closed? To ask regarding the possibility of a gradual disclosure of Beyng is tantamount to asking whether the shift to explicit transcendence is graspable before it is made and hence to think of philosophy in representational terms. Though the shift must be somehow anticipated so that one can prepare itself for it, the whereto of the shift cannot be known ahead. In  Ibid., 54.  Heidegger (2001a), 219.

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other words, no metaphysical story-telling can prepare one for the transformation. Admittedly, Heidegger does not offer in Being and Time a set of prescriptions that could perhaps lead human beings, step by step, to the explicit fulfillment of transcendence. To prove that by accentuating some aspect of human existence  – be it God, the Other, reason, or anything else  – one can achieve the needed transformation is to care about the already known, that is, to assume a temporalization of existence out of an implicit interpretation of human beings as reasonable, egoistic, sinful, etc. There is indeed something comforting in accepting a story in which one is told that to be reasonable or nice to others is all that matters. Though these intuitions can be prevalent (and even quasi-obvious) since they echo something essentially true, the inauthentic temporalization of what is echoed in these intuitions gives birth to the manifold of familiar ontological and ethical trends. Ontotheology then closes the window of transcendence even tighter, keeping the uncanniness of Dasein’s nullity and death out, not, however, without a positive psychological effect on its adepts – genuine inauthenticity is factically “better” than a non-genuine one. Dasein is then still thought of as some sort of immanence, which, however, experiences itself more essentially when a pseudo-transcendence towards the Other, the divine entity (including independent Being), or the rational structure of beings, is enacted. After all, such philosophies can induce “positive” changes for human well-being and social security, but they inevitably prevent the only thing that matters – becoming essentially human at all. In Contributions, Heidegger writes that all ideas of transformation in terms of the traditional model of transcendence assume humans as “already fixed in their determinability instead of being determined as what must be dis-lodged out of a previous fixity so as to be first attuned toward a determinability.”39 That is to say, human essence is, in principle, determined a priori, and only through the relation to something beyond it can it become genuinely human. Heidegger, on the other hand, defines human essence as what must be dis-lodged.40 The question is, of course, what is the difference between the two definitions? Is not human essence pre-­ determined by Heidegger as Dasein and requiring an explicit transcendence to Beyng? How is it not a fulfillment of an a priori-determined essence?  Heidegger (2012a), 22.  For an anlysis of Heidegger’s notion of ‘dislodgement’ see Kuravsky (2022).

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The difference cannot be understood as long as we cling to the ontotheological framework of thinking that assumes a sub-jectum that grounds itself in a single and exclusive sense of ground. For example, the metaphysical notion of Being is the self-grounding condition of beings. Accordingly, in metaphysics, there cannot be a plight of the abandonment by Being, no Nothingness, and no either-or. Being “is” just what it “is” and cannot be otherwise. The only gap that might separate human existence from the truth of Being is an epistemological one, even though this gap may affect many areas of human life. Accordingly, human essence is a priori fixed in ontotheology not because humans cannot change but because all such changes assume an ontologically fixed sense of “essence” and “truth” determined within the security of a self-grounding Being. Defining human essence as what must be dis-lodged, on the other hand, is to determine it futurally as belonging to the either-or of Beyng wherein the meaning of truth and essence is yet to be determined. The necessity of the “must” here echoes the need of Beyng itself. As I stressed before, the “other shore” of transcendence cannot be fixed since the moment we introduce any fixation into the universe, we collapse into an ontotheological worldview that secretly assumes the logic of such fixation and makes a “God” of it. Moreover, clinging to secret fixations obstructs the turn towards the Nothing and hence prevents the dis-lodgement of human essence. Metaphysics thus oscillates between the possibility of achieving transcendence by the representational activities of ontic will and the possibility of a similarly intentional act of God. Nevertheless, for Heidegger, dis-lodgement is an event.41 This point must be further emphasized. The problem with the relation between human transformation and the sense of preparing ourselves for it is not merely that we must choose between active transcendence, its passive happening, or some combination of the two, but that what Heidegger calls transcendence is the ground of the ontological difference and hence points toward the Event-nature of Beyng, which, however, determines what active and passive mean, not in theory, but as the ontologically-­ phenomenological space of human existence. One’s dis-lodgement is not a surpassing of beings, not even of oneself as a human being, but a leap over transcendence as a leap over the ontological difference. As long as one merely experiences oneself as a being related to Being, one cannot experience oneself as belonging to Beyng. Namely, already in “On the  Ibid., 22-23.

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Essence of Ground,” when transcendence is said to be the ground of the ontological difference, it becomes a paradoxical notion indicating a fissure and a separation rather than a relation or a connection between something a priori separated. I elaborated on this point in the last chapter. Now we should try to understand how such a leap beyond the difference can be prepared by philosophy. According to Heidegger’s 1929-1930 lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, philosophy “can only lead us to the brink and always remains something penultimate in this respect.”42 This “leading to the bring” is nevertheless crucial; it is the preparation for the leap of a de-­ cision. Philosophy as the contemplative recollecting of the self is such preparation for decision. “To know the essence of beyng as the event,” we read in Contributions, “means not only to be aware of the danger of refusal, but also to be prepared for overcoming it.”43 To be prepared is already to exist differently, to be mortal and resolutely open to the decision. Out task, says Heidegger, is not to bring new representations to cognitions (not even representations of “what Being is really like”) but to prepare the grounding of human being in the truth of Beyng.44 What is needed is a decision about the decision that already knows the Event.45 Being and Time was, according to Contributions, “the self-preparing beginning of the essential occurrence of beyng itself.”46 Once again, we return to the recursive agency-like nature of Beyng, determining human agency as the primal act of explicit transcendence. The preparing is Beyng’s self-preparing that takes the form of philosophical thinking. Still, Being and Time only may sway as Beyng’s self-preparation if it initiates the transformative event of philosophizing. I think that many readers of Being and Time experienced this “effect” on them, not necessarily as a drastic change but as a drawing power of Beyng that spoke through the experience of the personal resonance felt as one reads. This preparatory effect is already an event of philosophizing, a spark of contemplative recollecting, showing the direction of what it would mean to become prepared for the dis-lodgment of one’s essence into the explicit appropriation by the Event. Accordingly, when Heidegger speaks in Being  Heidegger (2001b), 173.  Heidegger (2012a), 9. 44  Ibid., 68. 45  Ibid., 81. 46  Ibid., 191. Italics mine. 42 43

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and Time of a preparatory work of analyzing the Being of Dasein, this is not a simply methodological preparation for some more important philosophical ideas that come later, but Beyng’s self-preparing as calling us to the path of the decision of the essence of truth, i.e., to the path of contemplative recollecting of the self. The decision about the decision already knows the Event. The mortals who are attuned by restraint in front of the mystery of Beyng “already know the Event” and hence are explicitly transcendent even though the very term “transcendence” with its epistemological and ontotheological associations becomes inappropriate for expressing their belongingness to Beyng. Indeed, philosophy does not provide knowledge about something beyond our existence but offers historically relevant triggers that may prepare its readers and listeners for undergoing an experience of renunciation. As Heidegger stresses in Mindfulness, contemplative recollecting (Besinnung) “only prepares the decision.”47 To prepare the decision, it must know the event, yet such knowledge is non-knowledge; it has no image of a bridge that should connect the present state of human existence to its futural essence as Da-sein. The only “access” thinking has to the Event is the fact of its own event-like historical nature, i.e., of its belongingness to the Event. Philosophy is then a contemplative recollecting of itself, or, as Heidegger puts it, is the “inceptual self-mindfulness of philosophy.”48 Heidegger’s analysis of the history of philosophy as the history of Beyng expresses precisely such a philosophical self-recollection. It is crucial, however, to stress that such an analysis does not aim at elucidation of past philosophy but at the possibility of the happening of the event of philosophizing. To question more inceptually, says Heidegger, means both to raise what “remained fundamentally unquestioned (the truth of be-ing, not of beings)” and “to leap into the hitherto hidden history of be-ing.”49 The act of questioning then inserts one into the historical essence of Beyng by initiating a leap. The thought, explicit content of philosophy serves as a handrail on the way into the darkness of the unthought. The transition towards the unthought seeks to recollect the original event of philosophizing as the ground of the (past) thinker’s explicit words. In this movement, we go under the content of philosophy  Heidegger (2016), 18.  Ibid., 18-19. 49  Ibid., 19. 47 48

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and become near to the event of thinking irreducible to anything that was expressed in words. We then discover the sheltered truth and reground it in a new saying. What is important in this inceptual re-grounding is not a “new doctrine” or a “proof” of our philosophical agenda, but the Event itself, in its historical re-assignment towards those who will attempt to reach the trace of its self-refusal in what is still unthought in the saying of the futural thinker. Such a saying is not “conceptual” but is an epitome (Inbegriff ) of the “knowledge that derives from being steadfast in and that takes the intimacy of the turning and raises it into the clearing-­ concealment.”50 The knowledge that derives from being steadfast is the imageless, experiential knowledge of the Event (Beyng is without image). Such “knowledge” constitutes one’s mode of existence as the experienced serenity of philosophy.51 To be sure, the unthought is not a missing present-at-hand piece of “information” that we can cleverly fill. Instead, the unthought is the un-­ thought as the self-concealing component of the thought. The fundamentally unquestioned truth of Beyng of the un-thought is not opposed to the thought in the same way it is opposed to the truth of beings. The ontological difference obstructs the meaning of contemplative recollecting since both the thought and the un-thought express Being by means of beings (i.e., in language) and are not separable from them. The strife between the thought and the un-thought is better to be seen as the strife between the earth and the world. The un-thought carriers the formal, contentless, self-concealing historicity of Beyng while the thought explicitly founds the world of philosophy. Each element is what it is only within the strife with the other. A thinker then attempts to recollect the unthought by contemplating on the thought so that the earth element of thinking could give new fruit. In this way, the Event is thought inventively. Heidegger calls such thinking “inceptual” and says that it prepares the other beginning by confronting the first one.52 Indeed, contemplative recollecting is an inceptual re-collection. Though it seems to go back to what is thought, it is an essentially futural act of self-transformation in the sense of being appropriated by the Event and dis-lodged from the very mode of inauthentic temporality of the a priori enclosedness of Being.  Heidegger (2012a), 52.  “To philosophy, says Heidegger, belongs the serenity of the imageless knowledge” (Heidegger (2016), 42). 52  Heidegger (2012a), 26. 50 51

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Such futural thinking does not predict ontic events but “grounds the time-space in its structure of transporting and captivating and penetrates the fissure of beyng in the uniqueness, freedom, contingency, necessity, possibility, and actuality of the essential occurrence of beyng.”53 The transporting-­captivating character of time-space is the very how of the Event’s inner dynamism; it is the inceptual essence of the Event,54 an ontological fabric of the agency-like strive of Beyng into the other beginning in the sense of a historical unfolding of Beyng dominated by its truth. As contemplative re-collecting of the un-thought, inceptual thinking bears the silence of the Event.55 Accordingly, contemplative re-collecting attempts to initiate an event of inceptual thinking not in order to bring forth new representations of Being but in order to sacrifice oneself to the “future invisible ground,” leaving the familiar measure of thinking behind and becoming a stranger to it.56 Such an estranging event of philosophizing is essentially performative. The “future invisible ground” belongs to the saying of a futural thinker only to the degree that the thinker becomes who she is by bearing the silence of the Event in her existence. The “content” of such a saying and the necessity of its “influence” on the future are determined within the initial event of (inceptual) philosophizing. The temporal distance between the event of the thinker’s saying and the “life” of her work is radically irrelevant. In a sense, the very event of saying is itself only a re-collection of its own futural destiny.

5  Concluding: Transcendence of Heidegger’s Early Thought Philosophy plays the role of an existentially performative exercise, an ontological instrument that does not need to go beyond beings but seeks the origin of the ontological difference by allowing a shift in one’s attention toward the subtle gap “between” an already prevailing meaning of Being and the still un-decided abyss of the future ground of Da-sein. By leaping into this “between,” one can experience Beyng in a way that is not  Ibid., 187.  Ibid., 304. 55  Ibid., 313. 56  “Philosophy, understood here exclusively as thoughtful meditation on truth, i.e., on the question-worthiness of beyng, and not as historiological and ‘system’-building erudition, does not have a place in ‘universities’ and certainly not in the business establishments they will become.” Ibid., 122. 53 54

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separable from beings but is, instead, allowing thinking beings out of this experience.57 We need the ontological difference – not theoretically but as a guide for the contemplative recollecting of the self – only as long as this “between” is missed and Being collapses into a single, independent, eternal sense of the Being, thus losing its inner dynamism of self-distinction from beings and becoming experienceable only as the general condition of beings. Though this “between” was anticipated by the notion of Dasein’s transcendence, the moment we surpass the metaphysical independence of the ontological difference, this notion becomes inappropriate: This ‘between,’ however, is not a ‘transcendence’ in relation to the human being; it is, on the contrary, that open realm to which the human being pertains as the one who grounds and preserves inasmuch as this being, qua Da-sein, is appropriated by Beyng itself, which essentially occurs as nothing other than event.58

In Contributions, Heidegger addresses the traditional notion of transcendence early on in order to point out its polysemic nature, which always assumes surpassing the objective world and reaching a region separable from human beings and thus requiring a special relation to it.59 In particular, the God of Christianity is thought of as transcendent, but also the “idea,” the “value,” the “meaning,” and even more frequently the mixture of the religious and the axiological. As I pointed out earlier, Heidegger’s main issue with transcendence is its temporal mode assuming some fixity of essence. This fixity pertains to human essence and to Being itself, and hence to the essence of truth as the truth of essence. Though Heidegger stresses that his own notion stands apart from any traditional meaning of transcendence and means, foremost, standing in the truth of Beyng, the very term seems to invite associations that obstruct an understanding of what Heidegger is trying to say by it. Still, we must appreciate the role of the term transcendence in what Heidegger calls transitional thinking. Moreover, remembering that reading Heidegger – just like any other thinker – should be a performative attempt at self-transformation, Heidegger’s early thought might initiate transcendence in the reader. With that in mind, I aim to conclude by briefly examining the p ­ erformative  Ibid., 195.  Ibid., 22-23. 59  Ibid., 21. 57 58

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function of Heidegger’s early thought in its capacity to initiate transcendence through its articulation. In the protocols to the 1944 seminar, Heidegger mentions “transcendence” as the way-founding (wegweisend) term used to access Being.60 That is, Heidegger used the term transcendence not in order to represent something about Being or our relation to it but as a formal indication showing the possible direction to Being. What Heidegger names “formal indications” should thus be interpreted in the sense of content-less directives. The initial definition of transcendence as surpassing beings is a directive for the readers of Heidegger’s early work to distance themselves from the immediacy of beings and the familiar ways of questioning them. In particular, the fact that transcendence foremost characterizes the understanding of Being (by surpassing beings) and the fact that Being is said to be dependent on such an understanding invites the reader to experience a brief moment of losing one’s ground in the performative circularity of one’s own existence. It forces an event of self-questioning that is somehow different from the familiar self-interpretation in terms of beings and their beingness. Transcendence of the world as the primary transcendence of Being-in-the-world – if one contemplatively recollects it – assails the sense of one’s subjective autonomy and offers a leeway of experiencing one’s Being-in-the-world as a participation in the larger event of the world’s worldling. Whether one finds here scholarly connections to what Husserl or Kant say is, at best, of a secondary value. The whole point of a directive is that it is only fulfilled if followed. A formal indication is a sign that needs to be read by letting it re-gather the reader. Accordingly, even the initial explications of transcendence already lead toward the imageless knowledge of the event. As I tried to show in Part One of the book, a thorough analysis of the theoretical structure of beings already points toward the question of the contingency of Being and its relation to the various modes of life’s self-­ enactment. The notion of transcendence encompasses the directives of phenomenology in its absolute sympathy with life by binding the question of the Origin of life’s self-understanding to the question of Being. By turning our attention towards the primacy of understanding and the fact that Being lacks an ontotheological limit that would offer an independent ground existing “in itself” prior to the event of its self-understanding, Heidegger sets traditional ontology on fire and mercilessly waits to see if  Heidegger (2012b), 463.

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we realize that this fire has already left behind a burned world of the all-­ too-­ human reliance on the already dead God of metaphysical self-assurance. Transcendence, as the ecstatic nature of existence, initiates an experience of extreme humbleness of being thrown and unable to become one’s own ground, but it also shatters the fake humbleness of having no responsibility for the way Being is. The symmetrical co-emergence of Dasein’s itself-ness and the itself-ness of beings in the worlding of the world that I have displayed in Chap. 4 is an invitation to step out of one’s dogmatic pre-conception that what it means for something to be itself, i.e., to manifest as a being among other beings, has “in itself” a single sense independent from human existence. The way beings manifest only seems to be determinate “in itself” and needing no event of understanding, not because it must make sense “for us,” but because what we call “for us” (the so-called subjective perspective) belongs to the worldling of the world and, rather than resulting from our subjective experience, constitutes its various modes of being-mine. In this light, recollecting Heidegger’s thoughts on transcendence as Being-in-the-world might initiate a dis-­ lodgment of one’s self-understanding as a rational animal whose existence is merely a spectacle on the cosmic stage of Being in the direction of the enigma of Being’s need of human existence as the (transcendentally) active en-staging of the stage for the historical sway of the Event. Heidegger’s analyses of the temporality of transcendence aim at the event of understanding in which one can become suspicious of one’s typical pre-reflective interpretation of how life “happens” in time. Namely, if the apparent synchroneity of all that seems to happen in the universe on its own is not a pre-destined harmony, unfolding in a single rhythm of an objective watch-mechanism set a priori by whatever ontotheological entity or principle one believes in, but is en-destined in a way that each existence temporalizes in a mode of temporality determined by its state of Being, many – if not all – of the countless ways in which we experience our self-­ identity in relation to other human beings, social norms, history, and even our own projections of who we are and what should we do, collapse. We might then experience the futurality of authentic openness as a momentary remembrance of the enigmatic nature of the world closing on us as the finitude of temporality. As Merab Mamardashvili brilliantly noticed, to human phenomenology pertains an essential element of experiencing the world as if it began with my existence and will end with it. The challenging thing, however, he continues, is to accept that this element says something

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essentially true.61 Far from intending some anthropological solipsism, Mamardashvili speaks of something that we might also experience by recollecting Heidegger’s thinking, namely that there is a difference  – an ontological one – between what we take to be the present-at-hand objective human self and the origin of the absolute sense of selfhood, common to all human beings and surpassing (as discussed in Chap. 5) the manifoldness of factical existences. In Contributions, we read that “the self is not a property of an objectively present human being, and only semblantly is the self given with Iconsciousness.”62 That is to say, when I experience that the cessation of my selfhood entails the cessation of the world, “my” does not indicate a present-­ at-hand trait of an objective human being but the mineness-­ character of Beyng stemming from the concealment-unconcealment dynamism and manifesting uniquely in each and every existence. ”Selfhood is the trembling of the countering of the strife in the fissuring.”63 Accordingly, “mineness” is an indication of the happening of en-owning, of gathering beings in one or another mode of ownness as harmonizing the dis-owning tendency of the fissure (the self-forgetfulness of Beyng). En-owning thus constitutes identity by clearing a “there” for the itself-ness of beings as a thrown projection of the need for the enactment of Dasein’s genuine selfhood in the “togetherness” of its assignment to the belonging and consignment into the Event. The phenomenologically given absoluteness of mineness (at first experienced as the absoluteness of the “I”) is then indeed a window into the transcendence of existence. A radically de-anthropomorphized existence is the model of Beyng itself, and we experience the intimacy and the unobstructiveness of a direct, emphatic understanding with other human beings when we experience the co-belongingness of our selfhood with the selfhood of the other within the single transcendence of existence. Similarly, the radical individuation first occurring in the mood of anxiety does not just cut off everything foreign to me but liberates the very sense of mineness from its ontically anthropomorphic disguise. Mineness, as the “with-­ itself” of selfhood, occurs essentially as steadfast taking-over (Über-nahme) of the appropriation.64 Anxiety is then a transcendentally disclosive mood;  Mamardashvili (2014), 165.  Heidegger (2012a), 253. 63  Ibid., 254. 64  Ibid.tm. 61 62

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it reveals the possibility of explicit transcendence not by individuating my Being through a merely intellectual rejection of an average interpretation of beings but by propelling me into the insubstantiality of beings as it is experienced on the level of the very event of the ontological difference. This is the level of the concealment-unconcealment dynamism in the basis of the uniqueness of what makes up individuality and mineness as such. Heidegger’s thinking in general, and the notion of Dasein’s transcendence in particular, cannot help formulate a more precise psychological concept of selfhood or serve as a model for what a true, authentic life might be like; even less it is a guide of how to deal with one’s fear of death. It can, however, serve as a handrail for going under the subtle self-­ evidentiality of how one pre-reflectively interprets the ongoing fact of one’s self-aware existence. It can then initiate a transformative experience, an event of understanding the mystery of one’s belongingness to Beyng without rejecting its mysterious character or feeling the need to “explain” it. To understand Heidegger is not to just be able to speak of his ideas but to become mortal in the sense I explicated in Chap. 8. Indeed, the phenomenologically available finitude of existence is not a representational awareness of the fact of one’s approaching demise but an experience of the essential necessity of existence to eventuate within a topological space of ontological maturation. Within such topological space, one normally turns away from its demand for a futurally-determined self-renunciation and hence suffers it as a burden of meaninglessness and a fear of death that one tries silencing by indulging in whatever sustains one’s sense of inauthentic individuality. Alternatively, one can let oneself undergo an event of philosophizing and – as the notion of transcendence directs – follow the call of Beyng and let its maturation happen as a growing tranquility of one’s resolute openness. The temporal configuration of such an experience is co-determined by the awe of being-aware that the fruit of Beyng’s maturation is not known even by God; indeed, it is the ultimate not-yet of a decision for the essence of future divinity. As discussed in the previous chapter, the topology of existence as either falling or maturing is a fulfillment of the “there” of Beyng’s strive for an essential occurrence of the truth of Beyng. Namely, human agency is not an ontic phenomenon that can be understood by psychology (even less by neurology) but is an incorporation of the original Event of Beyng’s self-­ distinction as a departure from beings in which the strife of earth and world happens and the free space of the history of Beyng as the history of its possible ontological determinations is opened up. What we still naively

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interpret as a central feature of representational rationality and a functional feature of a human organism is, in truth, a fractal-like event of transcendence holding “within” the secret of the spontaneity of Beyng’s inception. The rational interpretation of human agency as determined by an ability for reason-giving is an echo of the fact that Dasein’s transcendence means standing in the truth of Beyng by grounding it. Though I tried throughout the book to bring up the unthought dimension of Heidegger’s notion of transcendence precisely in relation to the problem of agency as an event of transcendental will within the contexts of the contingency of Being and Dasein’s role in the necessity of Beyng, it remains a task for the future readers of Heidegger’s work to contemplatively recollect this dimension once again so that it could be experienced as what has always already constituted their own agency and as delineating the very event of this recollection.

References Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward S. Robinson. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ———. 1976. What is called Thinking? Trans. J. Glen Gray. Harper Perennial. ———. 2001a. Einleitung in die Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe 27, ed. O. Saame et I. Saame-Speidel. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2001b. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Indiana University Press. ———. 2005. Introduction to Phenomenological Research. Trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Indiana University Press. ———. 2008. Towards the Definition of Philosophy (Continuum Impacts, 49). Trans. Ted Sadler. Continuum. ———. 2010a. The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Indiana University Press. ———. 2010b. Pathmarks. Trans. William McNeil. Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012a. Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela Vallega-Neu. Indiana University Press. ———. 2012b. Seminare. Platon – Aristoteles – Augustinus, Gesamtausgabe 83, ed. Mark Michalski. Klostermann, Vittorio. ———. 2013. Basic Problems of Phenomenology: Winter Semester 1919/1920. Trans. Scott M. Campbell. Bloomsbury Academic. ———. 2016. Mindfulness. Trans. Parvis Emad and Thomas Kalary. Bloomsbury Academic.

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Kuravsky, Erik. 2022. Dislodged Experience as an Overcoming of Reason: Towards a Phenomenology of Beyng. Research in Phenomenology 52 (3): 375–398. Mamardashvili, Merab. 2014. Psyhologicheskaya Topologiya Puti.. Fond Meraba Mamardashvili.

Index1

A Absolute knowledge, 131 Abyss, 172, 193, 197, 201, 203, 218, 221, 222, 224, 225, 227–229, 234–236 Action, 113 Actualization, 27, 42 Agency, 245, 247, 248, 259, 260, 262, 263, 263n69, 267, 268, 271, 272, 275, 276, 281–283, 287, 291, 294, 299 Analogy, 20, 21 Anthropomorphic, 176 Anthropomorphism, 176, 191 Anticipatory, 252 Anxiety, 179, 180, 216, 224–230, 227n48, 228n55, 234, 237, 238, 240, 242, 245, 246, 253, 256 Appropriate, 83, 84, 89, 100, 101 Appropriating, 90

A priori, 64, 66, 68, 71, 73, 75n67, 79, 112, 114, 115, 119, 126, 131, 133 Assignment to the belonging, 281, 298 As-structure, 90, 100, 101, 118, 119 Attunement, 118, 119, 128n52, 179, 194, 201, 217, 223–225, 229, 238 Authentic, 245–248, 250–252, 254n32, 255, 262, 262n67, 265, 270 Authenticity, 213, 214n6, 215, 216, 226, 235, 237 B Being/Beings, 5, 7n8, 9, 11, 13, 19, 25, 28, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46–48, 46n56, 53–70, 54n4,

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Kuravsky, Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41291-2

303

304 

INDEX

55n7, 59n22, 59n23, 68n49, 72–75, 75n66, 75n67, 76n72, 77–80, 83–106, 84n3, 85n6, 90n28, 92n30, 95n36, 96n38, 103n52, 109–112, 113n10, 114–116, 118–139, 134n86, 135n89, 141–150, 151n25, 152–159, 155n34, 165–207, 169n11, 173n22, 174n25, 178n37, 181n46, 195n99, 205n130, 211–242, 219n18, 221n31, 223n35, 227n48, 241n105 Being-already-there, 142 Being and Time, 53–56, 58, 61, 62, 69, 70, 75n66, 77, 78, 80 Being-away, 220 Being-in, 83–97, 90n28, 99, 101–103, 106 Being-in-the-world, 85, 86, 91–94, 96, 97, 99, 102, 103, 106, 109, 114, 116, 166, 169, 204 Being-mortal, 230, 233, 235–238, 235n84, 241 Beingness, 56, 57, 110, 134n86, 138, 141, 144, 145, 154, 155, 158 Beings as a whole/beings-as-a-whole, 119, 120, 168–170, 172, 175, 177, 180–182, 187–190, 193, 194, 196, 201, 202, 204, 206 Being-with, 127, 128, 135, 137, 138 Belongingness to Being, 255 Belongingness to Beyng, 286, 292, 299 Beyng, 56, 59n23, 80, 142, 155–158, 163, 167, 168, 172, 173, 179, 181n46, 186, 193, 194, 201, 205–207, 212–216, 212n1, 214n6, 216n11, 218, 221, 222, 225, 226, 228, 231, 234–236, 235n84, 238, 240–243, 241n105 Boundness, 192, 197, 198

Burden, 121, 123–126 Burdensome, 121, 123, 124, 126, 127, 138 C Call of conscience, 227n48, 238, 239, 241, 243 Categorial intuition, 14, 15 Categories, 12, 14–17, 15n23, 17n27, 19 Circularity, 167, 182 Circumspection, 114 Concealed, 124 Concealing, 176, 180, 182, 202, 203, 205 Concealment, 156, 174–177, 179, 181–183, 187, 197, 201–204, 206, 207, 211, 218, 220–227, 230, 231, 233, 235, 238, 242 Conscience, 237–243, 245–247, 250, 254, 256, 257, 257n40, 260 Consciousness, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14–19, 23–25, 59, 63, 64, 66, 67, 73, 75n67, 77, 79, 85, 89, 92, 94, 95, 99, 211 Consignment into the event, 281 Constitution, 5, 7, 12–14, 18, 20 Contemplative recollecting, 285–287, 291–293, 295 Correspondence theory of truth, 221, 222, 243 D Dasein/da-sein, 28, 43, 46, 53–62, 55n7, 64, 67, 69, 72–74, 78–80, 84–88, 84n3, 90n28, 91–106, 92n30, 95n36, 96n38, 103n52, 109, 111–138, 113n10, 141–154, 151n25, 155n34, 156–160, 169–172, 169n11,

 INDEX 

174, 180–207, 192n82, 211–215, 212n1, 214n6, 217–243, 219n18, 221n33, 223n35, 227n48, 231n66, 240n103, 241n105, 253, 258, 259, 262, 264, 266–271, 275, 276, 280, 281, 283, 288, 292, 294, 295 De-anthropomorphizing, 54, 73, 169 Death, 216, 230–238, 231n65, 231n66, 242, 245, 252, 253, 256 Decentralization/de-centralization, 7, 19, 25, 73, 74 Decision, 287, 288, 291, 292, 299 Departure, 217, 224, 229 Dependence, 269, 270 Differentiation, 264, 265, 268 Disclosedness, 114, 116, 134 Disclosure, 113, 117, 121, 129, 136, 138 Dis-lodgement, 290 Disposition, 216n11, 223, 225, 238 E Earth, 182 Ecstasies, 149, 150 Ecstatic-horizonal, 150, 153 Enactment, 63, 64, 66, 67, 72, 75n67, 76, 79, 80, 84, 102, 109, 111–113, 122, 125, 143, 211, 240n103, 278, 296, 298 Enactment-sense, 32, 35, 39, 42–44, 48, 49 Encounter, 6, 7, 7n8, 11, 13, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24 Encounterability, 98, 99 Encounterable, 97–99 Enigma, 126 Environment, 33, 35, 42 Errancy, 200, 201, 203–205, 207

305

Essence, 27, 28, 30, 30n5, 32–36, 38, 41–45, 47, 48, 54–57, 55n7, 59–62, 64, 65, 67–70, 72, 77, 78 Essence of truth, 213, 221 Event, 254, 266–269, 271, 272, 275, 276, 281, 285–287, 290–294, 297–299 Existence, 27, 28, 32–39, 41–48, 54–62, 64, 66–69, 73, 74, 76–80, 76n72, 83–97, 84n3, 85n6, 90n28, 99, 101–106, 109–117, 113n10, 115n16, 119–129, 131, 134, 136–139, 142, 143, 145, 149, 154, 156–160, 166–176, 174n25, 178–180, 182–194, 199–206, 202n116, 205n130, 211–214, 217, 219–230, 223n35, 227n48, 232–239, 241–243, 245, 248, 250–252, 256, 257, 259, 261–263, 261n59, 265–272, 268n86 Existentia, 175 Existential, 28, 38, 41, 43–48, 54, 57, 58, 60, 63, 64, 67, 68, 72, 73, 75n67, 76n72, 78–80, 109–111, 114, 115, 118, 121–123, 125, 126, 167, 168, 175, 180, 182, 190, 191, 203, 205 Existential-ecstatic, 158 Existentiell, 115 Experience, 83, 95, 109, 110, 114, 115, 121, 122, 138, 142, 143, 143n3, 145, 146, 151–153, 151n25, 153n30, 156 Experienceable, 142 “Experienceable as such,” 36 Explicit transcendence, 213, 216, 222, 228, 230, 237, 241, 243, 245, 248, 251, 260, 266, 275–277 Extantness, 93, 104, 169, 176, 177, 182 External world problem, 34

306 

INDEX

F Facticity, 41, 45, 93, 94 Familiarity, 92–94, 96 Finitude, 179, 193, 195, 202, 202n116, 204, 207, 230, 232, 233, 235, 241n105, 243 Fissure, 258, 259, 264–266 Formal indication, 78, 296 For-the-sake-of, 112, 116 For-the-sake-of-which, 102, 106, 189, 190, 193, 199 Freedom, 182, 188–204, 211, 213, 215, 217, 232, 234, 235, 237, 239, 245, 248, 252, 254, 260, 264, 282, 287, 294 Freedom is a fulfillment of Dasein’s transcendental aspect of will, 245 Fundamental ontology, 61, 62, 71, 71n60, 156, 160, 165, 166, 168, 170, 171, 177, 180 Future, 145, 147–149 G Gathering, 104, 105, 111, 136, 149, 151n25, 156 Givenness, 30, 34, 84, 86 Ground, 167, 171, 180, 184–188, 191–194, 196, 197, 200, 201, 203n123, 205–207 Grounding, 262–272 H Habilitation, 4, 6, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20–22, 24 Having-been, 147 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 67, 68 Hermeneutic, 167, 168 Hermeneutical, 60 Hiddenness, 124–126

Historical, 110, 115, 123, 127, 138, 142, 152, 154, 156 History of Beyng, 292, 299 Horizon, 145, 149, 150, 152–154 Husserl, Edmund, 4–6, 8–10, 14–16, 19, 20, 24, 62, 63, 68, 71–79, 71n60, 75n67, 76n72, 76n73, 77n75, 78n80, 110, 111, 128, 138 I Idealism, 34, 165, 197, 198 Idealistic, 166 Identity, 16–22, 25, 27, 30–32, 35–38, 44, 47, 89–91, 95, 114, 119, 130, 131, 133, 136, 137, 145, 174, 178, 180, 183, 184, 186, 198, 201 Imagination, 70, 71 Immanence, 6, 15, 19 Inauthentic, 212, 217–222, 221n31, 221n33, 225, 227n48, 234, 238, 240, 242 Inauthenticity, 211, 213, 214n6, 216, 219n18, 220, 222, 227n48, 238, 242 In-between, 112 Inceptual, 292–294 Inceptually, 292 Individuality, 55, 112, 123, 137 Individuation, 53, 55, 57, 217–219, 225, 226, 240, 242, 248, 249, 252 In order to, 110, 114, 118, 134 Intelligibility, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 27, 29, 38, 39, 41–45, 48, 54, 58–60, 59n23, 62, 66–69, 73–76, 75n67, 78, 87, 88, 93–95, 97, 102, 104, 109–112, 114–117, 119, 122, 123, 125, 126, 128, 131, 135n89, 141, 143–145,

 INDEX 

148, 149, 154, 155, 159, 167, 168, 172, 173, 179–181, 183, 188, 196, 200, 203, 205, 206, 212–214, 224–226, 231, 233, 242 Intentionality, 5–7, 12–14, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 76, 77n75, 86, 86n9, 87 Interpretation, 85, 85n6, 93, 95n36, 96, 96n38, 105 Introduction to Philosophy, 65 Intuition, 57, 71, 74–76, 76n72 I think, 89 Itself-ness, 4, 5, 11, 13, 16–18, 21, 22, 27, 28, 31, 36, 38, 47, 56, 57, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93–95, 97, 100, 103, 104, 106, 109, 111, 114, 116, 118, 119, 131, 142–145, 148, 149, 151, 152, 155, 169, 171, 173, 174, 180, 184, 194, 196, 201, 203, 211, 212, 217, 219, 224, 226, 230, 242, 248, 249, 251, 252, 269, 275, 286, 297, 298 K Kant, Immanuel, 4, 9, 10n15, 14, 17n27, 27, 28, 39, 57, 62, 63, 66, 66n42, 67, 69–79, 71n60, 75n67, 76n72, 89, 98, 100, 102, 106, 110, 115, 116, 138, 144, 146, 147, 151, 158 Kierkegaard, Søren, 55, 55n6, 67 L Language, 20, 23–25 Lask, Emil, 4, 6, 6n5, 7, 13–21, 15n23, 17n27, 18n30, 23, 24, 31, 33n14, 35, 47 Leap, 31, 34, 278, 280, 283, 285, 287, 288, 290–292 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 87, 89

307

Letting-be, 152, 198, 200, 202, 203, 282, 285 Letting beings be, 197, 200, 202 Life, 28, 29, 31–46, 46n56, 48, 54, 57, 59, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 73, 77–79 Lived experience, 83 M Mamardashvili, Merab, 297, 298n61 Manifestation, 86, 91, 94, 95, 98, 101, 103, 103n52, 106 Maturation, 299 Metaphysics, 68n48, 70–72, 76n72, 144, 155, 165–168, 171, 175n32, 183, 184, 186, 188, 201, 203 Metonology, 166 Metontological, 170, 172, 173, 177, 182, 185, 188, 189, 193, 194, 198, 204 Mineness, 85, 85n6, 87, 87n14, 89–91, 94, 109, 217, 219, 230, 286, 288, 298 Moment of vision, 250 Monad, 111, 132 Mood, 118–122, 126 Mortal, 230–237, 243, 245, 252, 253 Motivation, 8, 10–13, 22, 38, 39, 251, 259 Mystery, 191, 203, 204, 206, 207 N Negation, 177, 178n37, 180, 183, 202 Neo-Kantian, 3–5, 7n8, 8, 13, 20, 23–25 Non-essence, 213, 221 Nothing, 171–184, 178n37, 187, 188, 195n99, 197, 202, 203, 212, 214, 218, 221, 223–225,

308 

INDEX

227n48, 228–231, 228n55, 233–236, 238, 239, 242, 245, 252, 255, 256, 260, 284 Nothingness, 123–125 Nullity, 125, 126, 138, 189, 190 O Objectivity, 9, 13–17, 20, 24 Obstructiveness, 103, 180, 184 Ontological, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60, 62, 67, 69, 71, 75n67, 79, 80 Ontological difference, 55, 58, 80, 110, 166, 170, 177, 186–188, 190, 197, 229, 235, 252, 255, 264–269, 268n86, 271, 272, 275, 276, 278, 290, 293, 294, 299 Ontological gap, 146 Ontological plurality, 28, 38, 47, 48, 64, 100, 110, 123, 131, 159, 160, 167, 179, 185, 205, 212, 214, 265 Ontotheological, 64, 69, 211, 214, 221, 247, 248, 268–270, 280, 283, 290, 292, 296, 297 Ontotheology, 64, 167, 175n32, 185, 186, 213, 227, 234, 247, 266, 267, 270, 289 Openness, 167, 182, 186, 197–199, 201, 245–252, 254–256, 261, 264, 266 Origin, 36–48, 40n38, 46n56, 155 Other, 127, 129, 130, 134, 135, 135n89 Otherness, 135 P Passivity, 112, 116, 146 Performance, 147, 149

Performative, 112–115, 117, 126, 138, 139, 146, 147, 149, 159, 263, 268, 272, 276, 279–281, 284, 286–288, 294–296 Performativity, 79, 112, 117 Phenomena, 87, 96, 97, 104 Phenomenology, 28, 31, 32, 37, 39, 40, 48, 51, 60, 63, 64, 71n60, 74, 75n66, 75n67, 76, 77 Phenomenon, 57, 60, 69, 72, 74–77, 76n73, 84, 87, 90, 93, 100, 104, 106 Philosophize, 279, 283 Philosophizing, 279–285, 287, 288, 291, 292, 294, 299 Philosophy, 276–286, 288, 291–293, 293n51 Physis, 182, 201 Plato, 154 Plurality, 22, 24 Practical, 10, 25, 112, 113, 117 Practice, 102 Predestined harmony, 133 Preference, 110, 112 Pre-objective, 29 Preparation, 288, 291 Presence, 29, 31, 35, 36, 38, 47, 48, 56, 57, 66, 69, 72, 73, 76n72 Present, 144, 147, 148, 150, 157, 158, 160 Present-at-hand, 91, 93, 96, 99, 101, 104 Pre-theoretical, 19, 21, 22, 27, 29–31, 33n14, 35 Pre-worldly, 36, 38, 48 Primal act, 245, 248, 250, 260, 263, 268, 281, 285, 291 Primary something, 36–38 Principle of material determination, 15, 22, 28, 47, 66 Principle of sufficient reason, 110

 INDEX 

Problem of encounter, 6, 7, 13, 18, 20, 27 Projection, 143, 146–148, 153, 157, 167, 171, 172, 184, 186, 188, 192–194, 197, 199, 201 Q Quasi-agenda, 276, 281 Questionability, 46 R Ready-to-hand, 90, 91, 93, 96, 99, 101, 102 Realism, 27, 34 Reality, 3–5, 7, 9–14, 19–23 Receptive spontaneity, 282 Reciprocity, 116 Recursive, 112, 113, 275, 291 Recursively, 146 Reflexive category, 16–18, 18n29 Relation-sense, 30, 30n5, 34–37, 42, 47, 48 Releasement, 282 Renunciation, 235, 236, 240, 240n103 Resolute openness, 246–256, 260, 261, 264, 265 Restraint, 280, 281, 285, 292 Rickert, Henrich, 3–5, 3n1, 8–13, 9n10, 10n14, 10n15, 10n17, 15n23, 20, 24 S St. Paul, 45 Same-Other, 135 Schema, 144, 145, 150 Scotus, Duns, 20, 21 The self, 280, 286–288, 290–293, 295, 298 Self-affecting, 146, 149

309

Self-appropriation, 89, 91 Selfhood, 109, 117, 123, 147, 148, 216, 217, 219n18, 224, 225, 240, 280, 287, 298, 299 Self-identity, 30, 35, 37, 56, 87, 90, 91, 144, 149, 151n25, 160, 180 Self-regulation, 38, 45 Self-regulative, 39, 41, 43 Sheltering, 252, 260, 267, 275, 276 Simultaneity, 268 Something in general, 16–18, 23, 35, 36 Spontaneity, 112, 117, 282, 285, 287, 288, 300 Structural whole, 100, 101, 103, 104 Subject, 60, 61n30, 65–69, 71–73, 75 Sub-jecticity, 68, 80 Subjectivity, 27, 28, 32, 37, 38, 41, 47, 61, 68, 68n48, 69, 71, 72, 120, 128, 130, 132–134, 137, 211, 240 Subject-object, 16, 19, 22, 24, 25, 84, 85, 95n36, 106, 112, 116, 133, 137, 138, 142, 153, 159, 170, 176, 196, 198, 204, 207, 212, 221, 222 Subjectum/sub-jectum, 68, 68n48, 75n67, 92, 94, 99, 102, 104, 110, 113, 115, 122, 133, 136, 139, 141, 155, 167, 181, 186, 197, 207, 267, 290 Surrendering, 18 T Task of philosophy, 279, 283 Temporal extension, 145, 146 Temporality, 46, 56, 70, 71, 141–144, 146–153, 153n30, 155–158, 167, 172, 173, 182, 194, 198, 201, 202n116, 231–233, 242, 249, 293, 297 Temporalization, 145, 153

310 

INDEX

Theoretical, 27, 29–35, 33n14, 39, 41 There-character, 58, 62, 78, 142, 150, 151n25, 159, 168, 169, 179, 185, 192, 193, 199, 200, 206, 212, 212n1, 214, 217, 219, 220, 222, 223n35, 226, 230, 238, 254, 257, 262–264, 268–270, 275, 288 “They,” 217, 219, 221n33, 225, 229, 235 Thinghood, 31 Thing-in-itself, 4 Thinking, 276–278, 281, 284, 285, 291–295, 298, 299 Thrownness, 117, 118, 120, 121, 123, 125, 126, 146–148, 150, 153 Time, 142–153, 151n25, 155, 158, 160 Transcendence, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9–11, 15, 19, 23–25, 28, 32–34, 37, 39, 40, 44, 47, 48, 53–55, 58, 61–80, 68n49, 76n73, 77n75, 84, 84n2, 85n6, 86–89, 86n9, 91, 92, 94–100, 103, 103n50, 103n52, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 113, 116–118, 120–123, 125–127, 129–139, 134n86, 141–146, 148–160, 151n25, 155n34, 165–172, 175, 177, 178, 181–190, 192–198, 195n99, 200–204, 207, 211–218, 215n7, 220–223, 225, 227–231, 234–243, 241n105, 245–248, 250, 252–257, 259–269, 271, 272, 276, 280, 294–300 Transcendens, 153 Transcendental, 4, 6–8, 7n8, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 51, 53, 54, 62–80, 71n60, 75n67, 109–111, 113–118, 121, 122, 126–128, 130, 133, 137, 139,

166, 167, 172, 177, 180, 183–187, 189–199, 207 aspect of will, 282 dimension of will, 117, 188–190 ego, 110, 111 gap, 144, 166, 183, 199, 247 philosophy, 62–80, 75n67 will, 217, 239, 250, 256, 257, 259, 260, 261n59, 262, 262n67, 266, 270 Transcendental logic of enactment, 66 Transcending, 91, 92n30, 98, 99, 120, 133, 135, 136 Transcends, 142, 147, 159, 181 Transformation, 214, 215, 219, 221, 222, 226, 228n55, 229, 230, 232–234, 241, 242, 245, 246, 253, 254, 256, 276, 278, 281–285, 288–290, 293, 295 Transparency, 246 Truth, 4, 9–11, 13, 22, 24, 25, 111, 113n10, 119, 124, 125, 128, 129, 131–133, 135–138 Truth of Being, 181n46, 204, 205, 251, 252, 264, 265 Truth of Beyng, 205, 206, 214, 214n6, 222, 225, 241, 243, 255–260, 262–272, 275, 276, 286, 291, 293, 295, 299 Tugendhat, Ernst, 6, 6n6 U Unconcealment, 124, 126, 131, 134–136, 155, 156, 160, 174, 175, 181n46, 182, 184–187, 189, 190, 196–199, 204, 205, 207, 211, 212, 217, 219, 224–227, 235, 238, 246, 249–251, 254, 263 Understanding, 54, 57–62, 64–69, 68n48, 72, 74–77, 76n72, 79,

 INDEX 

109, 110, 113, 113n10, 115, 116, 118–120, 122–128, 131, 133, 135–138 Understanding of Being, 142, 145, 151n25, 152–154, 159, 165, 166, 168–170, 173, 174, 176, 177, 184, 185, 212, 215, 230 Unhiddenness, 175, 184 Uniqueness, 218, 219, 225, 226, 236, 242 The unthought, 292, 293, 300 V Value, 8–13, 22–24

311

W Will, 117 Willing, 116, 117, 199, 200 World, 30n5, 33–35, 33n14, 37, 38, 41, 42, 48, 83–87, 89, 90n28, 91, 92n30, 93–106, 103n52, 109, 111, 114–116, 118–120, 122, 125, 127–129, 131–135, 135n89, 137, 138, 142–146, 149, 150, 152, 160, 165–167, 171, 172, 174–177, 180–182, 184–186, 188–197, 201, 204 World-entry, 105, 106 Worldhood, 100, 102, 104–106 Worlding, 297 Worldling, 91, 93, 104, 106, 111