In either case, could you point me in the direction of where either or both were said/where I can find these? And/or other referenced denials? — Kevin

At the beginning of section #9 of Being and Time, Heidegger makes a nice word game between essentia, existenze, existentia, being, being-present-hand and others that may end your patience. If you resist stoically you will come to know that existence is said and not said of the being of the Dasein because it is not the same existence as the other existence. Well, more or less.

Said in a more natural language, the concept of existence can be related to two types of being, the "being present at hand" of the objects whose being consists in the essence and the one of the human beings Dasein, whose being consists in the possibility of giving itself a kind of existence or another one. Which are those that are properly in the ontological sense because the others are but are not ontologically of the whole. They are ontically that it is a way to be that is not Being.
Well, more or less.

In another part of this book it says that the Dasein is the only being in which his being consists of the existence.
Well, more or less.

If I've said something nonsensical, I can always blame the translation. Or say that I translate as I want and it suits me, which is what Heidegger said about his way to translate from ancient Greek. If it was good for him, why wouldn't it be good for me?

At the very beginning of B&T, Sartre famously quotes him in the intro to his Being and Nothingness. I don't remember where he denied it, but it was commonly discussed among students of his. I clearly remember the matter coming up in class, over fifty years ago. The response from the instructor was "he made a mistake." — Gary M Washburn

I seem to recall a note in BT in which he says Sartre misunderstood him in "existentia precedes essentia" or "existence precedes essence" but that such a formulation is appropriate for something like existentialism - or something to that effect but would have to look it up. I may be off a bit.

We do not fear being dead. [...] "Idle talk" is far more genuinely what language really is. — Gary M Washburn

There seems to be a couple of things going on here - I'm not entirely sure whether this is all posed contra Heidegger, an interpretation or re-appropriation, or a bit of both, but it seems as though it could be teased out/unpacked in a few different ways..

I seem to recall a note in BT in which he says Sartre misunderstood him in "existentia precedes essentia" or "existence precedes essence" — Kevin

Where's the difference?
In my opinion Heidegger realized that Sartre was drawing his own conclusions from existentialism, which he found unbearable. Sartre was probably using the concepts in his own way. I don't see anything wrong with that. Rather, I find Sartre far more digestible than Heidegger (Leaving Critique of Dialectical Reason aside).

Where's the difference? — David Mo

Difference between what?

In my opinion Heidegger realized that Sartre was drawing his own conclusions from existentialism, which he found unbearable. Sartre was probably using the concepts in his own way. I don't see anything wrong with that. Rather, I find Sartre far more digestible than Heidegger (Leaving Critique of Dialectical Reason aside). — David Mo

I don't see anything wrong with it either. From what I've read of Sartre, I'll agree on the digestion as well.

At the beginning of section #9 of Being and Time, Heidegger makes a nice word game between essentia, existenze, existentia, being, being-present-hand and others that may end your patience. If you resist — David Mo

"2. That Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being, is in each case mine. Thus Dasein is never to be taken ontologically as an instance or special case of some genus of entities as things that are present-at-hand. To entities such as these, their Being is 'a matter of indifference'; or more precisely, they 'are' such that their Being can be neither a matter of indifference to them, nor the opposite. Because Dasein has in each case mineness [Jemeinigkeit], one must always use a personal pronoun when one addresses it : 'I am', 'you are'.

Furthermore, in each case Dasein is mine to be in one way or another. Dasein has always made some sort of decision as to the way in which it is in each case mine [je meines]"

p. 42 (in #9 The Theme of the Analytic of Dasein)


For Heidegger being seems to be radically individualized. Dasein/Existence can't be logically subsumed under a genus. It is interesting to note that Husserl's starting point was individual "targets" (Gegendstand) or intentional objects. In plain "passive" perception there is individual homogenous figures. These are already somewhat familiar and arouse certain expectations. When an experience of this individual object proceeds these prior expectations are fulfilled or not and experience is accordingly revised. Vaguely figurative or known object becomes "explicated" to its determinations. Throughout the explication the appearing determinations are "hold" or maintained in respect to the current object under consideration. They continually individualize or "enrich" the current object. On the other hand, determinations can be viewed also with respect to ontological typifications (this would be the generalizing aspect here). What Husserl describes is the intuitive "pre-predicative" experience prior any "purely" logical operations, that is generalizations, predications, inductions, deductions etc. How Heidegger relates to this? Is Heidegger's point of view that scientifical-logical operations can't be applied to Dasein/Existence at all? Dasein can't be ontologically typified? In this passage (and in the whole B&T) Heidegger is redefining Husserl's conception of the intuitive pre-predicative field of experience? He is interpreting Husserl's basically "epistemological" (theory of knowledge) stance from the perspective of Life philosophy? (Then the explications/determinations don't appear along with the ("kinaesthetically") "moving" or proceeding contemplative analysis (at the object) but along with the moving "living" whereby these determinations become functional significations i.e. they become something that matters or cares us? That is, predicates become non-logical, non-theoretical expressions.)

(I am currently reading Husserl's Experience and judgement which might affect these my "interpretations" (which actually are more like study notes).)

Difference between what? — Kevin

Existentia/ essentia vs. existence/essence.

Furthermore, in each case Dasein is mine to be in one way or another. — waarala

Excuse me. Apart from the fact that I don't know what "indifference" means in your Heidegger quote, I also don't see what it has to do with the paragraph I mentioned.

For the rest of your "explanation". If we start explaining Heidegger with paraphrases of his lexical inventions and without getting out of his jargon I am afraid we do not clarify much. Heidegger is confusing enough to have to read other interventions as confusing as his texts. I had mentioned the problem of the various verbal games with the concept of "existence" and "essence" and you don't even mention them. Where are we going?

I hope you enjoy Husserl. I have an Oedipal problem with him and I cannot read a single line from him. I've tried, though.

I see no difference - just can't recall the exact wording of the quote/note.

I stand, mildly, corrected. I hate the clerical side of these debates. I'm not a clerk or scribe. Essence is ideal, existence is real. I've been assiduously not reading him for some decades now, but think Heidegger's critique of Sartre's phrasing would be that it is “ontic”. But since the ontological is fallacious (an internal contradiction) it's not much of a criticism. Essence is what is left when all mere attributes are eliminated as identifiers. But since “dasein” is neither here nor there, we must look elsewhere for who and what we are. Certainly not to Heidegger!

Life is the articulation of the worth of time. That worth is unendurable. There is nothing enduring it is. It is momentousness (as Socrates tries to get Parmenides to recognize). Duration is a space or time or term attenuating moment like a reduction to essence. But when the space of time or term is measured out its full course there is nothing within, and, most assuredly, there is nothing at all akin to its beginning its end is. Only what is of no duration whatever can encompass the sweep of time. Presence is never what that encompassing moment is. But what the ends of time is is a contrariety between the markers of the space of time (conventionally referred to as beginning and end, or some such). But since those markers contradict each other and so cannot be part of the same duration, only the contrariety they share, as much to that duration (epoch, or space of time or term) as to each other, is the encompassing term. But opposites so enjoined in the encompassing moment contrary to the duration term or epochal (would-be) structure of time cannot be identified by any attributes shared within that duration, nor by the contrariety either alone is to it. Person, then, of which “dasein” is a deliberate distortion and neither here nor there, is a dynamic between contraries to the march of time. We are not alone. We need each other, and no god can help us in this save as a straw man supporting the conceit that we are alone and that the aloneness in the 'presence' of that straw man is who we are. But that conceit cannot endure the moment of contrariety we can only together, though always in a contrariety inimitably our own, bring to that conceit.

In the dawn of time, I asked my instructor what “ownmost” meant. His one word response was “crowded”.

I had mentioned the problem of the various verbal games with the concept of "existence" and "essence" and you don't even mention them. Where are we going? — David Mo

Commenting Heidegger's "verbal games" (p. 42): In the traditional metaphysics there is an important basic distinction between essence (what) and existence ("that"). This distinction can't be applied to Dasein (living subject). Dasein's "essence" is its "to be"* i.e. its essence seems to be its existence. But here existence can't be understood traditionally as present-at-hand because this type of being doesn't apply to Dasein's (living subject) being. So, Dasein's existence is Existence and non-Dasein's existence is present-at-hand. Now, Dasein's essence lies in this kind of being i.e. in Existence (not in existence i.e. in present-at-hand). Dasein's ("essential") characteristics are not (perceived and contemplated) properties of the existence or some existing "thing". (Essential) characteristics of the Existence are its possible ways "to be". So, with regard to Dasein there is no "static" distinction between properties (essence) and existence (thing) but instead "ways to be" which somehow "dynamically" "unifies" essence and existence.

* Translation in Macquarrie: "The 'essence' ["Wesen"] of this entity lies in its "to be" [Zu-sein] ."
Original German text "Zu-sein" is translated as "to be". "To be" would actually be in German "zu sein"? "Zu-sein" stresses the preposition "zu" which has certain directness or the sense of towardness or preposition "to". So, "to be" would have certain "intentionality" (or "ways"). Zu-sein is "to be t o (= preposition)".

The whole passage which is in question here (Stambaugh translation would be better):

"The 'essence' ["Wesen"] of this entity lies in its "to be" [Zu-sein] . Its Being-what-it-is [Was-sein] (essentia) must, so far as we can speak of it at all, be conceived in terms of its Being (existentia) . But here our ontological task is to show that when we choose to designate the Being of this entity as "existence" [Existenz], this term does not and cannot have the onto­logical signification of the traditional term "existentia" ; ontologically, existentia is tantamount to Being-present-at-hand, a kind of Being which is essentially inappropriate to entities of Dasein's character. To avoid getting bewildered, we shall always use the Interpretative expression "presence-at-hand" for the term "existentia", while the term "existence", as a designation of Being, will be allotted solely to Dasein.

The essence of Dasein lies in its existence. Accordingly those characteristics which can be exhibited in this entity are not 'properties' present-at-hand of some entity which 'looks' so and so and is itself present-at-hand ; they are in each case possible ways for it to be, and no more than that. All the Being-as-it-is [So-sein] which this entity possesses is primarily Being. So when we designate this entity with the term 'Dasein', we are expressing not its "what" (as if it were a table, house or tree) but its Being. " p.42

Not mumbo-jumbo? Logic makes the distinction between “orders” of attribution. Pierce gives his bizarre ranking of first thirds and second firsts, or..., whatever. Not mumbo-jumbo? Maybe, but what it is is hierarchy. But existence is not hierarchical. And whatever actor or agency the here may be, it is material. The rest is conceit. A living organism is not reading from a blueprint, with no apologies whatever to genetics. Genetics can only explain replication, not differentiation. And it is clearly something to how each cell in the body differentiates from all others that generates an organism as a whole. Aside from genetics, lots of views conspire to entrench within us the view that life is in some sense created. This is untenable. Because each cell finds its own place in the organism as a whole by differntiation, and only by some mystery we have yet to become mature enough in our perceptions to recognize, is nevertheless recognized by and as the organism each of us is. Organisms, of course, create mechanistic systems to reduce the burden upon the whole of constantly revising and revisiting the constant differentiation of its constituents. But a simple experiment will show that such mechanistic systems are only a framework within which to continually adapt to the condition of the dynamic between differentiating cells and the enigmatic recognition of the whole of its constitution as that differentiation. All you need is a finger clip. If you put one on and watch the two figures, as the oxygen level rises a bit the heart rate slows, just a bit. Then the oxygen level drops, just a bit, and the pulse increases, just a bit. And so the two figures oscillate, in response to each other. Now, take a few deep breaths. The oxygen level will rise a little, and the pulse slow, maybe a lot. But the changes registered by the clip will appear as fast as the thing is capable of doing so (it must record several pulses before it can register a rate). But if the pulse changes faster than it is possible to calculate a heart rate, then that heart rate is just a convenient framework which the heart is constantly adjusting. That is to say, each beat of the heart is in response to the immediate needs of the body. If the body is that finely attuned to its entire community of cells, and the organism as a whole is the contribution of each cell by differentiating itself from all the others, then organic mechanisms are not like a watch or computer or DNA reader, but something like and army in which each soldier is marching to a different drummer, and yet smoothly adapting to every change in every participant's tempo. Organically. We just have to grow up a bit to recognize this, even if it might take quite a lot of evolution before we understand it fully. Heidegger's Being, being, Beyng, or whatever the hell he landed on in the end, is just a reflection of his expectation of having some vacuous right to be the drummer. A close analysis of the crazy behavior of matter at the nuclear level clearly shows something similar, and at the cosmic level too. And a recognition of the dynamic value we are to each other, and of how that dynamism operates to make us a community, even if we are still too immature to see this, or at least not fully, should teach us how much we need each other, and realize our world through that need, as the differentiation each is of it. But this means time is difference, not continuity. The continuity of our perceptions is only a convenience to limit the strain upon us of continual change and adaptation. But in our systems of calculating the tempo of time we always valorize continuity over change, creating a hierarchy in which the mechanism or established pattern is given pride of place, and change is relegated to some condition of insignificance, or corruption. Conceit, all is conceit.

The individual is not an isolated entity. It is the dynamic that at once differentiates us and enjoins us in a rebellion against the continuity of time that would trap us in patterns that cannot be ours together. The individualism that would isolate each one in the face of the oneness of it all is a trope to force submission. Each alone, we cannot effectively thwart the hierarchical distinction between “Being” and beings. But the reality of it is, there is very little such a distinction can do to arrest our participating in the discontinuity time really is.

nor his general thinking the ultimate Truth. — Xtrix

Do you feel it leads you toward it or away from it? Not much more you can ask for these days really.

But Heidegger doesn't think of it as "perverted" or "wrong."
— Xtrix

What kind of question is this? — David Mo

It's not a question.

Heidegger repeatedly accuses Western philosophy with negative concepts that imply falsity in many ways, — David Mo

"Falsity" in the sense of being concealed, covering-over, and forgetting.

The term "misinterpretation" applied to Western philosophy appears from the first pages (7/10) and throughout the work. — David Mo

"Applied to"...mainly in the context of how words are translated (and thus interpreted), yes.

Heidegger understands truth as aletheia. He describes it with various words that refer to a revelation or unveiling of the concealed. (Very poetic). Cf. Being and Time (223/265). That's what I'm talking about. I don't know what other sense you're talking about. — David Mo

No, that's correct. But if you know that, then how can you be interpreting "falsity" or "wrong" as anything other than a concealment and hiddenness?

But as I said before, I'll gladly capitulate: maybe Heidegger was "negative" about the Western tradition. He says repeatedly he does not mean to sound like he's making a condemnation, but regardless -- I'm not particularly interested in this line of discussion, as I said from the beginning I think it a fairly nit-picky type point. You've chosen to focus in on this point almost exclusively at this point. I think that itself is telling.

Exactly. Philosophers of the last 2,500 are right within the scope of "presencing."
— Xtrix
I don't know what scope that is. What do you mean by "presence"? — David Mo

That's a great question. There's plenty to talk about there. He has a lot to say in Being and Time about the "present-at-hand" relations to things in the world. This is the "mode" in which he believes nearly all philosophy has dwelled -- by seeing things as present before us, as substances or objects. This is the connection to the "time" part of the title -- that Being gets "interpreted" from the perspective of time. (Namely, the present.)

Heidegger is explicitly referring to the realm of that mysterious stuff called Being. At least it can be said that this Being is universal. He says so. He does not mention a restricted scope, — David Mo

Yes, but I didn't say that "Being" is restricted (it is indeed everything), but that the interpretation of Being certainly is. And that interpretation has been taken for granted for a long time. This is the entire thesis.

Heidegger is explicitly referring to the realm of that mysterious stuff called Being. — David Mo

Again, I don't think "realm" or "stuff" are appropriate here. Being isn't a being, and it isn't in some mysterious "realm." It's any being whatsoever. It's the "is-ness" of any thing. What "is it" apart from any individual being? This is the question: the meaning of "Being." Heidegger wants to re-awaken that question.

nor his general thinking the ultimate Truth.
— Xtrix

Do you feel it leads you toward it or away from it? Not much more you can ask for these days really. — Outlander

Neither -- because I don't think there is an "ultimate truth."

You think. Enough to share it. Therefore there is. For you at least.

I see no difference - just can't recall the exact wording of the quote/note. — Kevin

It is not in Being and Time, but in Letter on Humanism (trans. Franck Capucci, online)

By way of contrast, Sartre expresses the basic tenet of existentialism in this way: Existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which from Plato's time on has said that essenria precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement — Heideger, Ibid, p. 250

I understand Sartre and Plato perfectly, but I do not understand what other meanings these words have in Heidegger.

I'm afraid waraala's attempt is not very helpful.

Commenting Heidegger's "verbal games" (p. 42): In the traditional metaphysics there is an important basic distinction between essence (what) and existence ("that"). This distinction can't be applied to Dasein (living subject). Dasein's "essence" is its "to be"* i.e. its essence seems to be its existence. But here existence can't be understood traditionally as present-at-hand because this type of being doesn't apply to Dasein's (living subject) being. So, Dasein's existence is Existence and non-Dasein's existence is present-at-hand. — waarala

I'm afraid you still haven't explained what the terms existence and essence in Heidegger mean. You vaguely allude to the meanings in traditional metaphysics such as what and that. That can mean anything. I think I understand it because I know something about traditional metaphysics. In traditional metaphysics the essence is the being of something, which makes it what it is. Existence is the absolute position of the thing among other things, that is, in the world. But in Heidegger?

It is not useful that you derive the question towards the Dasein (human being) if before we have not clarified the concept of existence and essence in Heidegger. Neither it clarifies anything that mysterious "to be present at hand" that does not apply to the human being.

Either we clarify the previous concepts or everything becomes a mere verbal game. I put terms poetically expressed and each one thinks about what he wants.

Are you for that task? Or do you prefer to keep repeating Heideggerian jargon? Because if it's the latter, this discussion isn't very interesting.

"Falsity" in the sense of being concealed, covering-over, and forgetting. — Xtrix

And all the examples I gave you? Have you read them?

Deteriorated, dogmatic, concealment, misinterpretation, deformation, to destroy our genuine relation to things.

These are Heidegger's words. Are not these terms implying error or falsehood? It seems to me that when you don't want to understand a thing you decide not to understand it. Because if you are not able to contemplate the being of something because it is concealed and you think you know the truth about it, you are not wrong? Isn't false your belief? I don't know any other way to say so.

Being isn't a being, and it isn't in some mysterious "realm." It's any being whatsoever. It's the "is-ness" of any thing. — Xtrix

You yourself are saying that the term being applies to all things. Therefore it is universal and we cannot find a "scope" that is restrictive. It is not the same as Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, which apply to different fields of reality. The metaphysical error will always be an error about the totality and we cannot say that it is an error for a certain field of objects, but not for another one. Metaphysics is the science of being as being. At least in its ontological sense, which is the one followed by Heidegger.

Thanks for the source/correction.

I'm afraid you still haven't explained what the terms existence and essence in Heidegger mean. You vaguely allude to the meanings in traditional metaphysics such as what and that. That can mean anything — David Mo

For Heidegger essence/existence is an historical distinction which has to be "destructed". Destruction means the critical presentation of the historical genesis and evolution of this distinction.

As an extremely general context for Heidegger's approach to this here follows a sketch that I wrote for this thread about a month ago (I added emphasis in bold):

Just read a treatise from Heidegger entitled "Metaphysics as the History of being" (1941) published in Nietzsche II (1961). Good, fairly short exposition of H:s view on the history of metaphysics.

Timeline of the history (of the transformations) of Being: Beginning of metaphysics (Platon - Idea, Aristoteles - Energeia). Medieval metaphysics (Energeia becomes Actuality, existence; idea becomes essence). Beginning of the modern metaphysics (Descartes - Re-presentation; "Subietity" (Hypokeimenon) becomes subjectivity and appears as human subjectivity which replaces medieval god. Truth becomes certainity for subject). Beginning of the completion of metaphysics (Leibniz - Perception, appetition, force, will). (Heidegger dedicates many pages of this treatise to Leibniz.) Completion of metaphysics (Hegel, System). Ultimate completion (= "self-destruction"?) of metaphysics (Nietzsche - Will to power). (Kant was mentioned as "discovering" the concept of object as the "counterpart" to subject. Heidegger discusses Kant more thoroughly in a treatise called "Sketches for a History of Being as Metaphysics" (1941) which can be found also in "Nietzsche"; Key term there is reflection.)

So, quite a story i.e. Being is a complex historical "phenomenon". Being has various ways of be-ing or "essencing" (Wesen, be-ing as verb). Basic distinction in metaphysics is between "whatness-being" ("appearance", idea, eidos) and "thatness-being" (existence, energeia). Being as metaphysics is various combinations of existence and essence or this originally "misunderstood" distinction. However both in relation to hypokeimenon as "subietity" (Heidegger constructs a new term). Before that distinction Being was physis and aletheia (Parmenides - Noein; Heraclit - Logos). Being was something primary and beings something secondary. Truth was still unconcealedness (aletheia). Being was not relative (constitutively) to beings. Was there "beings" at all in the original Being? Heidegger also uses the expression "Bergung" of beings. Beings "are" "recovered" in aletheia (in original Being). - Metaphysics can't think Being because the distinction essence-existence and all constructions based on it "hides" Being (through/in these constructions). Being remains evasive for metaphysics. Only thinking metaphysics as a whole in its historical becoming makes it possible to go beyond metaphysics.

Being is an historically variable complex structure. For example, Enframing (Gestell) is the Being of our modern time. And it should be not forgotten that certain being has always its own truth.

Thanks for this.

German is ambiguous about what "da" means. "Being" is that little word we put between subject and predicate in order to count one of the other. Or, maybe better, to count “that” one is by “what” the other is. “Being” is the abstracted qualifier. That is, the qualifier so abstracted as to become a quantifier. Very convenient for logicians, who don't really want to know anything or take part in the real world, and useful to ideologues who, like Heidegger, need to put the quantifier between subject and predicate to isolate either from participating in the meaning of the other. In most speech, as we actually speak it, the verb is not a quantifier, but a qualifier, tendering a participation between the other parts of speech intimating a dynamic in all meanings that can never in truth be so isolating as any written word tends to force upon them. There is nothing so isolating to time as “Being” is. That is why ontology is a contradiction in terms. The only law of being is participation in the articulation of the worth of time life is. And no term of it is alone and unchanging. But if the very conviction that there is a “logos”, a law of meaning, and that reasoning is the extension of an antecedent term that preserves it, actually alters the meaning of all antecedent terms, and if it does so in the face of most rigorous application of the forms of reason, then the resulting dynamic changes to all terms intimates just how much more real that dynamic is than the terms of that conviction. And intimates, too, the part of each term, and each person, in that realness. Derrida says “there is nothing outside the text”. Quite the contrary. Everything real is most fully intimated in our recognizing, or rendering recognizable, there is nothing within it. The text really is neither here nor there, what matters is the response of recognition the final term of conviction is in losing its continuity to that conviction.

I was lucky enough to be introduced both to Plato and Heidegger at more or less the same time. I was intrigued by Heidegger's call for a “psychology of mood”, and, more or less in my school days, found the answer to one in the works of the other. Plato was not a metaphysician or an ontologist. He was a dramatist. Scholars universally miss this. Oh, some pay lip-service to the dramatic form, but not to the dramatic content. What he is doing is portraying the intimation of human character in the dynamics of convictions under the scrutiny of a masterful guide. That human character is the engine of meaning. What our conviction invariably does is to reduce to its least term any changes in the character of that conviction. But if that least change is the most rigorous term of our character in that conviction, and it can only come to recognition under the critique of a careful examination, then that least term of change is who we most really are. And yet, of course, there are no perfect guides, and so we wrangle against each other's convictions, and maybe never recognize any changes in them, and yet what is ultimately undeniable is there is a change in their terms. And that change is the property of neither participant. It becomes ours, and even if no more capable of conserving the terms of our convictions, by becoming ours in the face of a rigorous effort to fend them off, we are intimated the character, and so the person, each is. Time is intimation, not explication.

Physics confronts phenomena that has no discernible pattern. This should be evidence that everything in this glorious universe is unique. Every particle. But only become a calculable or “known” quantity can we engage in the dynamic of conviction and changing character in that conviction. Physics achieves this by reducing the unquantifiable to its least term. It applies calculus, first to round off, and then to zero-out, the very term it claims is its goal to understand. It amounts to keeping the bath-water and throwing out the baby. In the life sciences, random mutations simply cannot explain evolution. Sure, it's a factor, but what life does with those changes is not only crucial, but clearly has an essential impact on the trajectory of species change and development. But we may never have recognized this if the science hadn't got out of the labs full of dead specimens and observed life as it is lived. Philosophy, on the other hand, is still isolating all its terms in a system guaranteed to prevent understanding. But the least term of change rigorously untraceable to antecedent conviction is all we should need to recognize the unique character of person each of us is in the drama of it. Heidegger, of course, is lost in a wilderness of his own convictions and resistance to recognizing any changes in them.

You think. Enough to share it. Therefore there is. For you at least. — Outlander

No, there isn't. There's plenty of things I believe are true. "Ultimate truth" is meaningless.

Deteriorated, dogmatic, concealment, misinterpretation, deformation, to destroy our genuine relation to things.

These are Heidegger's words. — David Mo

And without context, just that -- words. As I mentioned, from my reading these statements are almost always made in reference to translations of words and how the question of "Being" has been lost. I'd go through each one, but it's really not that interesting. You're taking a stand on this one narrow issue because you apparently have nothing left to discuss.

Being isn't a being, and it isn't in some mysterious "realm." It's any being whatsoever. It's the "is-ness" of any thing.
— Xtrix
You yourself are saying that the term being applies to all things. Therefore it is universal and we cannot find a "scope" that is restrictive. — David Mo

Substance. Or God. Or nature. All interpretations of Being, and all restrictive in their interpretations.

Being itself isn't restricted to any class of entities.

Heidegger has an entire chapter on this, titled "The Restriction of Being." He goes through four of them: being and becoming, being and seeming, being and thinking, being and the ought. This is how being has been historically interpreted and "set apart" from something else. Being "and not", etc.

Plato was not a metaphysician or an ontologist. He was a dramatist. Scholars universally miss this. — Gary M Washburn

Plato was all of those things, and more.

To say he was merely a dramatist is at best an understatement.

I think Heidegger is suggesting that we cannot think of essence and existence in the same way when applied to humans as when thinking about things/objects/concepts. — Kevin

Almost all philosophy, except for the most dogmatic positivist, distinguishes between the mode of existence of beings in general and that of the human being. (For example, the existence-essence opposition appears in authors as diverse as Nietzsche, Dilthey, Unamuno, Bergson, Simmel, James, Marcel, Jaspers, Ortega). Sartre: for example, he distinguishes between being in-itself and being for-itself. The way of being for-itself is radically different from the way of being in-itself. In the for-itself existence precedes essence. With this formula Sartre says practically the same thing as Heidegger, who also uses a similar formula several times in Being and Time ("The substance of man is existence," or similar p. 117, 212, 314. Sartre means that for-itself is not determined to be by a permanent essence, but is permanently open to all its possibilities and obliged to pursue his project towards the future. This is the same as saying that he is free. This freedom is radical because what guides for-itself is his project of transcending his present being. In this way freedom is his way of being. It can be said that he is in a constant process of projecting himself into the future without ever being able to stop in any way of being essential. This is the exact opposite of being in-itself.


Therefore, Heidegger misinterpret the famous Sartrean sentence. Most probably he had been too quick to criticize Sartre without having read carefully what he has written.

Metaphysics can't think Being because the distinction essence-existence and all constructions based on it "hides" Being (through/in these constructions). Being remains evasive for metaphysics. — waarala

As I said above, Heidegger also uses the distinction between essence and existence in a very similar way to Sartre. What differentiates his concepts of existence and essence from Sartre's? Nothing. That is, only one thing: the more than nebulous assertion that Sartre, to whom he endorses by decree the same concept as Plato, cannot reveal Being. Of course, neither can Heidegger. All that he says of the Being are metaphors of the type "the clearing of being", "to shepherd being", "the destiny of being", "throw of being", "advent of being", "the house of being", "presuposition of the sacred"... But, in spite of being unable to say clearly what he is talking about, he dedicates himself to disqualifying others because they do not understand the same thing that he does not understand... or is unable to express.


I won't qualify that procedure. I clearly don't like it.

And without context, just that -- words. As I mentioned, from my reading these statements are almost always made in reference to translations of words and how the question of "Being" has been lost. — Xtrix

Can you clarify some of what you're saying?

Which translation changes the meaning of misinterpretation or concealment? Because the ones I have in Spanish translate exactly the same.

When Heidegger says that metaphysics has lost the question of Being, what context can change the meaning of being wrong way? If you want to go to Barcelona and take the plane to Singapore, is there a context that explains that you have not been wrong?

And without context, just that -- words. — Xtrix

We have shown at the outset (Section 1) not only that the question of the meaning of Being is one that has not been attended to and one that has been inadequately formulated, but that it has become quite forgotten in spite of all our interest in 'metaphysics'. Greek ontology and its history which, in their numerous filiations and distortions, determine the conceptual character of philosophy even today-prove that when Dasein understands either itself or Being in general, it does so in terms of the 'world', and that the ontology which has thus arisen has deteriorated [ verfallt] to a tradition in which it gets reduced to something self-evident -merely material for reworking, as it was for Hegel. In the Middle Ages this uprooted Greek ontology became a fixed body of doctrine. Its systematics, however, is by no means a mere joining together of traditional pieces into a single edifice. Though its basic conceptions of Being have been taken over dogmatically from the Greeks, a great deal of unpretentious work has been carried on further within these limits. With the peculiar character which the Scholastics gave it, Greek ontology has, in its essentials, travelled the path that leads through the Disputationes metaphysicae of Suarez to the 'metaphysics' and transcendental philosophy of modern times, determining even the foundations and the aims of Hegel's 'logic'. In the course of this history certain distinctive domains of Being have come into view and have served as the primary guides for subsequent problematics : the ego cogito of Descartes, the subject, the "I", reason, spirit, person. But these all remain uninterrogated as to their Being and its structure, in accordance with the thoroughgoing way in which the question of Being has been neglected. It is rather the case that the categorial content of the traditional ontology has been carried over to these entities with corresponding formalizations and purely negative restrictions, or else dialectic has been called in for the purpose of interpreting the substantiality of the subject ontologically.

If the question of Being is to have its own history made transparent, then this hardened tradition must be loosened up, and the concealments which it has brought about must be dissolved. We understand this task as one in which by taking the question of Being as our clue, we are to destroy the traditional content of ancient ontology until we arrive at those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being-the ways which have guided us ever since. — Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 22/43-44

Let us pass to a specific context. We can analyze this text of Heidegger and you would have the opportunity to explain that Heidegger doesn't say that Western metaphysics is wrong ant that we shouldn't "destroy" it to regain the true way of Being. (Bold added; italics are Heidegger's).

Do you want?

In the traditional metaphysics there is an important basic distinction between essence (what) and existence ("that"). This distinction can't be applied to Dasein (living subject). Dasein's "essence" is its "to be"*
[...]
"The 'essence' ["Wesen"] of this entity lies in its "to be" [Zu-sein] . Its Being-what-it-is [Was-sein] (essentia) must, so far as we can speak of it at all, be conceived in terms of its Being (existentia) .
[...]
The essence of Dasein lies in its existence. Accordingly those characteristics which can be exhibited in this entity are not 'properties' present-at-hand of some entity which 'looks' so and so and is itself present-at-hand ; they are in each case possible ways for it to be, and no more than that." — waarala

I'm afraid waraala's attempt is not very helpful. — David No

I think Heidegger is suggesting that we cannot think of essence and existence in the same way when applied to humans as when thinking about things/objects/concepts.


When he says the essence of a person lies in his/her "to be," he is referring to possibilities for being, possibilities which are already determined and possibilities that, as some are realized, others are closed off - new possibilities are re-determined.


It's become clear I will never be a basketball player, but that was sort of clear when I was a kid. — Kevin

Almost all philosophy, except for the most dogmatic positivist, distinguishes between the mode of existence of beings in general and that of the human being. — David Mo

This last does not seem to me to bear on the foregoing in any direction. In particular, I am not understanding how H's distinguishing between Dasein "as its 'to be'" versus beings present-at-hand elicits the trouble in understanding him/referenced passages because (?) "almost all philosophy, except for the most dogmatic positivist, distinguishes between the mode of existence of beings in general and that of the human being.".


A comparison with Sartre would be interesting, but at a glance I get the impression that, for Heidegger, Sartre is still making the distinction between essence and existence, "taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning" in the statement "existence precedes essence," whereas for Heidegger, "this distinction can't be applied to Dasein (living subject)." Whether or not H misinterprets S, I don't know.