MARTIN
HEIDEGGER (1889-1976)
The Question of the Meaning of Being: Introduction to Being and Time
A. The
Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being
1. The Necessity of an Explicit Retrieve of the Question
of Being
a.) Being
as a thematic question of actual investigation has been forgotten or fallen into
oblivion (Ger., Vergessenheit)
b.)
Aristotle’s Metaphysics:
1. Inquiry into being itself (autos), being as being, being as
such
2. Ontological distinction between substance and accidental attribute
3. Ontological primacy of substance (Gr., ousia)
4. Categories of substance in general: quality, quantity, relation,
place, time, action, affection, possession,
position
c.) Three
traditional prejudices pointing to the necessity of an explicit retrieve (Ger.,
Wiederholung)
of the question of Being:
1. “Being” is the most “universal” concept
2. The concept of “being” is indefinable
3. “Being” is the self-evident concept: pre-ontological understanding
and ontological obscurity (Being and the question of being
2. The Formal Structure of the Question of Being
a) The nature of a
question in general
b) Average
and vague understanding of Being
c) The Being
of beings
d) Ontotheology:
structural mistake of traditional ontology
e) Manifold
senses of Being: thatness, whatness, reality, objective presence of things
(Ger., Vorhandenheit), subsistence, validity, existence (Da-sein),
etc.
f) Da-sein:
the being through whom the meaning of being is disclosed
g) The
hermeneutical circle: concrete understanding (“always already”)
distinguished from conceptual comprehension
3. The Ontological Priority of the Question of Being
a) Fundamental
ontology distinguished from regional ontologies (positive sciences)
b) The
question of being as the “most basic and at the same time most concrete
question…”
4. The Ontic Priority of the Question of Being
a) Ontological difference: Ontological and ontic dimensions of
Being (existential and existentiell as synonyms)
b) Uniqueness
of Da-sein:
1)
Pre-ontological understanding of Being as constitutive of Da-sein
2) Essence
and existence (Existenz)
3)
Existentiell self-understanding as an ontic “affair”
4) Priority
of Da-sein: ontic, ontological, ontic-ontological
c) The
question of Being as the radicalization of the essential tendency-toward-Being
(Ger., Seinstendenz) that belongs to Da-sein itself, namely, of the pre-ontological understanding of being.
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