Did you already say the idea came from Heidegger via Husserl? If so, my apologies I missed it. I'm not aware of that idea deriving from Husserl, but in any case it is abundantly clear in Heidegger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_already — Janus

In Logical Investigations (1901) Husserl notices that when we hear a word we are i n the meaning i.e. we are living in the meaning and not in the hearing the sound of the word. We are always already (i.e. a priori) interpreting (Deuten) or apperceiving the physical. Similarly, we are always already interpreting the sensually given things around us. Sensations' function is to present to us something that is understood. They serve the intentionality, as the active directedness, of the experience. For Husserl these significations or noemas were more like given ideal ("logical") senses, he didn't examine their "worldhood" like Heidegger did. In fact, for Heidegger the a priori structure of the experience is "always-already-ahead" (note the temporality). Through this structure Dasein as a signifying comportment returns or comes back and encounters the being as something. The moment of returning in or from the "always-already-ahead" is "disclosing" (Erschlossenheit). (cf. Heidegger's 1925/26 lectures to which referred to in one of his posts). I think that Heidegger tries to here give an original sense of the "(transcendental) a priori"?

The difference I see with Heidegger is that Heidegger takes pragmatic awareness as a totality of relevance that unifies our total past as background ‘framing’ of every disclosure of a ready to hand thing. Husserl begins instead with the perceptual object that only indirectly links back to a larger totality of our past experience. — Joshs

For Heidegger there is no perception of the corporeal things at all? Everything is "had" as significations in circumspection (Umsicht). Dasein is in relations i.e references and "sees" only these i.e. the as-articulations that make up or compose the world.

For Husserl the live experience of the perceived thing was the basic foundation. For example, a valued thing (cultural artifact) had always the basic layer of being perceived which founded the layer of being valued, willed etc.

Where does Heidegger say being is a “happening”? Or that being is anything at all? — Xtrix

The ‘is’ is a happening, and the ‘is’ is another word for being.

“ As a seeking, questioning needs prior guidance from what it seeks. The meaning of being must therefore already be available to us in a certain way. We intimated that we are always already involved in an understanding of being. From this grows the explicit question of the
meaning of being and the tendency toward its concept. We do not know what "being" means. But already when we ask, "What is being'?" we stand in an understanding of the "is" without being able to determine conceptually what the "is" means. We do not even know the horizon upon which we are supposed to grasp and pin down the meaning. This average and vague understanding of being is a fact.

No matter how much this understanding of being wavers and fades and borders on mere verbal knowledge, this indefiniteness of the under­standing of being that is always already available is itself a positive phe­nomenon which needs elucidation. However, an investigation of the meaning of being will not wish to provide this at the outset. The inter­pretation of the average understanding of being attains its necessary guideline only with the developed concept of being. From the clarity of that concept and the appropriate manner of its explicit understanding we shall be able to discern what the obscure or not yet elucidated under­standing of being means, what kinds of obfuscation or hindrance of an explicit elucidation of the meaning of being are possible and necessary. “


“ The question to be formulated is about the meaning of being.”“Hence what is to be ascertained, the meaning of being, will require its own conceptualization, which again is essentially distinct from the concepts in which beings receive their determination of meaning.”

“ If the question of being is to be explicitly formulated and brought to complete clarity concerning itself, then the elaboration of this ques­tion requires, in accord with what has been elucidated up to now, expli­cation of the ways of regarding being and of understanding and con­ceptually grasping its meaning, preparation of the possibility of the right choice of the exemplary being, and elaboration of the genuine mode of access to this being.”

Occurrence, so far as I’ve read, is another term for the present at hand. That’d be like saying Heidegger agrees with the western tradition. — Xtrix

“...projection is an occurrence which, as raising us away and casting us ahead, takes apart as it were;-in that apartness of a raising away, yet as we saw, precisely in such a way that in this process there occurs an intrinsic turning toward on the part of whatever has been projected, such that that which has been projected is that which binds and binds together. Projection is that originarily simple occurrence which-in terms of formal logic-intrinsically unites contradictory things: binding together and separating. Yet-as the forming of the distinction between possible and actual in its making-possible, and as irruption into the distinction between being and beings, or more precisely as the irrupting of this 'between'-this projection is also that relating in which the 'as' springs forth.“

“Man is that inability to remain and is yet unable to leave his place. In projecting, the Da-sein in him constantly throws him into possibilities and thereby keeps him subjected to what is actual. Thus thrown in this throw, man is a transition, transition as the fundamental essence of occurrence.”

“Temporalizing does not mean a "succession" of the ecstasies. The future is not later than the having-been, and the having-been is not earlier than the present. “Dasein "occurs out of its future"."Da-sein, as existing, always already comes toward itself, that is, is futural in its being in general.”

notice that the account of being given in the tradition of Frege, Russell, Quine and so on does not depend on time.
— Banno

This is like saying it doesn’t depend on human being. But Frege and Russell were indeed human beings. — Xtrix

This is like saying it doesn't depend on German, but both Husserl and Heidegger arranged their arguments in German. — Banno

An account of being doesn't depend on German either, it depends on the human being -- and Frege, Russell, and Quine were human beings.

I also find it tiresome when I’m told he makes more sense when you’ve read his earlier work. If so why can’t anyone explain what he meant? — I like sushi

I have done so multiple times. I'm happy to do so again -- I'll even give references. I'm also interested in criticism -- because maybe there's something I've missed. But when you or others come to this thread with conventional views about Heidegger, which in my view amounts to little more than a dismissive hand wave, and want to post nothing more than your feelings about his often unclear and difficult style, there's very little I can do with that.

With regard to the awkwardness and 'inelegance' of expression in the analyses to come, we may remark that it is one thing to give a report in which we tell about entities, but another to grasp entities in their Being. For the latter task we lack not only most of the words but, above all, the 'grammar'. If we may allude to some earlier researchers on the analysis of Being, incomparable on their own level, we may compare the onto­logical sections of Plato's Parmenides or the fourth chapter of the seventh book of Aristotle's Metaphysics with a narrative section from Thucydides; we can then see the altogether unprecedented character of those formulations which were imposed upon the Greeks by their philosophers. And where our powers are essentially weaker, and where moreover the area of Being to be disclosed is ontologically far more difficult than that which was presented to the Greeks, the harshness of our expression will be enhanced, and so will the minuteness of detail with which our concepts are formed.

-- Heidegger himself, emphasis mine

Where does Heidegger say being is a “happening”? Or that being is anything at all? — Xtrix

I wanted to add a comment on the Heidegger quotes I took from the introduction to Being and Time. He begins the book saying his aim is to answer the question of the meaning of being in general. But by the end of the book, he says he still hasn’t quite answered it.

Instead he leaves us with the following questions:

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

Personally , I don’t need to know the meaning of being in general, although I believe that it is closely linked with temporality, as his 1962 book, On Time and Being suggests.

In the 1972 work he writes “ Time, which is addressed as the meaning of Being in Being and Time, is itself not an answer, not a last prop for questioning, but rather itself the naming of a question. The name "time" is a preliminary word for what was later called "the truth of Being." “ Being and Time is on the way toward finding a concept of time, toward that which belongs most of all to time, in terms of which "Being" gives itself as presencing. This is accomplished on the path of the tempo­rality of Dasein in the interpretation of Being as temporality.”

I am satisfied with knowing Dasein’s kind of being ( the ontological difference , the in-between , happening , occurrence , the ‘as’ structure , projection).

“ Something like "being" has been disclosed in the understanding of being that belongs to existing Da-sein as a way in which it understands.”

The ontological difference is the distinction between being and beings— it is not a description or claim about being itself. — Xtrix

It is a claim about Dasein’s kind of being.

With regard to the awkwardness and 'inelegance' of expression in the analyses to come, we may remark that it is one thing to give a report in which we tell about entities, but another to grasp entities in their Being. For the latter task we lack not only most of the words but, above all, the 'grammar'. — Xtrix

I can add to that :

If we were to be shown right now two pictures by Paul Klee, in the original, which he painted in the year of his death-the watercolor "Saints from a Window," and "Death and Fire," tempera on burlap -we should want to stand before them for a long while-and should abandon any claim that they be immediately intelligible.
If it were possible right now to have Georg Trakl's poem "Septet of Death'· recited to us, perhaps even by the poet himself, we should want to hear it often, and should abandon any claim that it be immediately intelligible.
If Werner Heisenberg right now were to present some of his thoughts in theoretical physics, moving in the direction of the cosmic formula for which he is searching, two or three people in the audi­ence, at most, would be able to follow him, while the rest of us would, without protest, abandon any claim that he be immediately
intelligible.
Not so with the thinking that is called philosophy. That think­ing is supposed to offer "worldly wisdom" and perhaps even be a "Way to the Blessed Life." But it might be that this kind of thinking is today placed in a position which demands of it reflection that are far removed from any useful, practical wisdom. It
might be that a kind of thinking has become necessary which must give thought to matters from which even the painting and the poetry which we have mentioned and the theory of math·ematical physics receive their determination. Here, too, we should then have to abandon any claim to immediate intelligibil­ity. However, we should still have to· listen, because we must
think what is inevitable, but preliminary.”(Time and Being, Heidegger)

You’ve tried to define dasein before and failed. Not surprising as Heidegger failed too. That is my point.

You’ve tried to define dasein before and failed. Not surprising as Heidegger failed too. That is my point. — I like sushi

A weak point. Xtrix and I have differing readings of Heidegger , but they’re not that different. We both grasp in our different ways what makes Heidegger’s work an important advance over what came before it. Both of us were able read read and grasp Being and Time without too much difficulty , probably because we already had the background ideas. There are large communities of Heidegger scholars who , despite their disagreements , reach a general consensus over the most remarkable ideas in his work. Why dont you find one of these communities and enroll in a class so you can get the background and method for making your way through his work , as many others have done?

Btw, Dasein is the relation of a self to its world before we make a split between subject and object.

Personally , I don’t need to know the meaning of being in general, although I believe that it is closely linked with temporality, as his 1962 book, On Time and Being suggests. I am satisfied with knowing Dasein’s kind of being ( the ontological difference , the in-between , happening , occurrence , the ‘as’ structure , projection). — Joshs

Dasein is temporality. Being "here" (da-sein) is being the present moment, but only if we don't define the present exclusively as a present-at-hand now-point (that is, thought abstractly) -- but instead as the experience from which all time tenses arise. That's my understanding. So dasein (its being) is temporality, and dasein is the being that cares about, questions, and interprets being.

I think the quote below justifies the views above.

We have already intimated that Dasein has a pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state. Dasein is in such a way as to be something which understands something like Being. Keeping this inter­ connection firmly in mind, we shall show that whenever Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light-and genuinely conceived-as the horizon for all understanding of Being and for anyway of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of Dasein, which understands Being.

B&T, p. 39 (18) Macquarrie/Robinson translation -- emphasis is Heidegger's.

You’ve tried to define dasein before and failed. Not surprising as Heidegger failed too. That is my point. — I like sushi

Dasein is temporality. I can't be more concise than that. If that's a failure, then indeed his entire project is a failure. But explain to me where it fails.

It's saying something very similar to Kant, in my view. Where Heidegger thinks Kant failed was in (1) not asking about our being and (2) in still holding to a traditional view of time.

Dasein is temporality. Being "here" (da-sein) is being the present moment, but only if we don't define the present exclusively as a present-at-hand now-point (that is, thought abstractly) -- but instead as the experience from which all time tenses arise. That's my understanding. — Xtrix

Mine too.

Then dasein is defined by dasein. That is okay because he already made ‘clear’ :D how what he says isn’t ‘circular’ though right.

So Division Two should read ‘Da-sein and Da-sein’ rather than ‘Da-sein and Temporality’?

Other garbled language like this:

Being "here" (da-sein) is being the present moment, but only if we don't define the present exclusively as a present-at-hand now-point (that is, thought abstractly) -- but instead as the experience from which all time tenses arise. — Xtrix

Why not just say Time isn’t something we can readily atomise? The ‘Now’ is merely a way of framing time appreciation just like a second is a measure of physical time a ‘moment’ is merely a human reference to unregulated and vague demarcation of felt time.

Why not just say Time isn’t something we can readily atomise? The ‘Now’ is merely a way of framing time appreciation just like a second is a measure of physical time a ‘moment’ is merely a human reference to unregulated and vague demarcation of felt time. — I like sushi

Now that’s what I call garbled. It’s garbled but I can still recognize the traditional notion of time dating back to Aristotle in it. This is what Heidegger calls the vulgar concept of time and Husserl calls constituted or objective time.

Heidegger, in a move similar to Husserl, traces the origin of the mathematical and of empirical science to the concept of enduring objective presence undergirding constituted time (what Heidegger calls the vulgar concept of time).

“What does it mean to be "in time"? This "being-in-time" is very familiar to us from the way it is represented in natural science. In natural science all processes of nature are calculated as processes which happen "in time." Everyday common sense also finds processes and things enduring "in time," persisting and disappearing "in time." When we talk about "being-in-time," everything depends on the interpretation of this "in." In order to see this more clearly, we ask simply if the glass on the table in front of me is in time or not. In any case, the glass is already present-at-hand and remains there even when I do not look at it. How long it has been there and how long it will remain are of no importance. If it is already present-at-hand and remains so in the future, then that means that it continues through a certain time and thus is "in" it. Any kind of continuation obviously has to do with time.”(Zollikon)

“Thus what can be shown to have the character of constantly remaining, as remanens capax mutationem, constitutes the true being of beings which can be experienced in the world. What enduringly remains truly is. This is the sort of thing that mathematics knows. What mathematics makes accessible in beings constitutes their being.

Heidegger explains that the fundamentally undiscussed ontological foundations of empirical science since Descartes are based on his formulation of objective presence.

“Thus the being of the "world" is, so to speak, dictated to it in terms of a definite idea of being which is embedded in the concept of substantiality and in terms of an idea of knowledge which cognizes beings in this way. Descartes does not allow the kind of being of innerworldly beings to
present itself, but rather prescribes to the world, so to speak, its "true" being on the basis of an idea of being (being = constant objective presence) the source of which has not been revealed and the justification of which has not been demonstrated.

Thus it is not primarily his dependence upon a science, mathematics, which just happens to be especially esteemed, that determines his ontology of the world, rather his ontology is determined by a basic ontological orientation toward being as constant objective presence, which mathematical knowledge is exceptionally well suited to grasp.”(Being and Time)

Heidegger shows how the common notion of time dates back to Aristotle’s derivation of time from motion.

“The thoughts of motion, continuity, extension—and in the case of change of place, place—are interwoven with the experience of time.”(basic problems of phenomenology) “ So far as time is kineseos ti, something connected with motion, this means that in thinking time, motion or rest is always thought along with it. In Aristotelian language, time follows, is in succession to, motion.” “Because the now is transition it always measures a from-to, it measures a how-long, a
duration Time is making present according to Aristotle, (the present at hand) and in so doing is a counting
of time as now, now, now. “And thus time shows itself for the vulgar understanding as a succession of constantly "objectively present" nows that pass away and arrive at the same time. Time is understood as a sequence, as the "flux" of nows, as the "course of time.”(Being and
Time).

“The succession of nows is interpreted as something somehow objectively present; for it itself moves "in time." We say that in every now it is now, in every now it already disappears. The now is now in every now, thus constantly present as the same, even if in every now another may be disappearing as it arrives. Yet it does show at the same time the constant presence of
itself as this changing thing.”

Compare this to Husserl on time and objective presence:

Husserl, Heidegger and Gendlin have shown in different ways that a quantifiable, mathematizable nature presupposes the kind of time which consists of self-presences transitioning from future to present to past in sequential movement (existing ‘in’ time).

The consideration of the conditions in principle of the possibility of something identical that gives itself (harmoniously) in flowing and subjectively changing manners of appearance leads to the mathematization of the appearances as a necessity which is immanent in them.”

“A true object in the sense of logic is an object which is absolutely identical "with itself," that is, which is, absolutely identically, what it is; or, to express it in another way: an object is through its determinations, its quiddities [Weisheiten], its predicates, and it is identical if these quiddities are identical as belonging to it or when their belonging absolutely excludes their not belonging.”
“ “Every thingly being is temporally extended; it has its duration, and with its duration it is fit within Objective time in a strict manner.”

The time of constituting subjectivity corresponds to a more primordial time that consists not of self-identical objects which endure for a ‘period of time’ but a flow of qualitative change that forms no process of continuous succession. Without the concept of continuous succession to ground them, notions like ‘faster’ and ‘slower’ lose their sense. It is never precisely the same noematic object that is filling out the temporal duration from moment to moment. The meant sense is that of an enduringly identical tone because of the noetic idealizing unification of the varying sensations that it encompasses.
For Husserl, primary sense data represents a more fundamental form of temporality than adumbrated ‘real’ spatial objects . Notions of nowness as a countable duration occurring IN time, occupying a moment of time, correspond to Husserl’s apperceived time of real spatial
objects, but underlying this level of constitution is a more primordial temporality.

If he does something for you he does something for you. I'm certainly not the only one who doesn't find any value in his writing beyond a few instances of expressing Intentionality in a more manageable way than Husserl. Other than that he's a damn good punching bag ;)

The problem I see is that he deep dives into language whilst losing sight of the phenomenological act - hence Hermeneutical Phenomenology.

I still recommend Heidegger to people who seem to be more attuned to his lingo.

Now that’s what I call garbled. It’s garbled but I can still recognize the traditional notion of time dating back to Aristotle in it. This is what Heidegger calls the vulgar concept of time and Husserl calls constituted or objective time.

Heidegger, in a move similar to Husserl, traces the origin of the mathematical and of empirical science to the concept of enduring objective presence undergirding constituted time (what Heidegger calls the vulgar concept of time). — Joshs

I believe the separation between what you call "the vulgar conception of time", and the modern conception of time, is initiated by Hegel. He's the one who firmly rejected Aristotelian principles, offering an alternative starting point.

Aristotle maintained a categorical separation between being and becoming, commonly presented to modern philosophers as the ontologies of Parmenides and Heraclitus. He demonstrated a fundamental incompatibility between the two, which was elucidated by Plato. This was represented as the incompatibility between 'points' of being, and a 'continuous' line of becoming. The incompatibility was manifested as Zen's paradoxes.

Hegel dissolves the separation by allowing that 'being', along with 'not-being', might be subsumed within the category of becoming. And modern mathematics allows an infinity of points within a continuity. This also provides the foundation for Heidegger and phenomenologists to portray 'being', and consequently 'beings', as forms of becoming. For Aristotle, becoming is neither being nor not- being (apparent violation of the law of excluded middle). For Hegel, becoming is both being and not-being (apparent violation of the law of non-contradiction)

In one sense, Banno represents this correctly

Asking "what is being?" is asking "How do we use the word 'being'?" — Banno

To know what "being" is is to know what is referred to with "being". But when the uses of "being" are distinctly divergent, then no amount of endless analysis of use will determine what "being" is. The word refers to distinct things (or conceptions). Then we must turn to something other than use (which only leads us into confusion), to determine what being is. And in this sense Banno is clearly incorrect

I am suggesting that an examination of the language of being looks more productive than musings about time. — Banno

The problem with Banno's perspective is that it has become evident that any attempt to understand the nature of becoming, will lead one into the realm of the unknown, and the unintelligible, as what violates the fundamentals of logic, and consequently the principles of what can be said. However, this does not lead to the conclusion, as some believe, that these things cannot be talked about, it leads to the conclusion that the principles of what can be said are wrong, and need to be altered.

Since the human understanding of time is infantile, the principles we hold as to what can be said, in relation to time, are very crude and immature.

Then dasein is defined by dasein. That is okay because he already made ‘clear’ :D how what he says isn’t ‘circular’ though right. — I like sushi

Fixed i.e. reliable definitions are needed as parts when constructing reliable or persisting machines. Heidegger's discourse is not a machine. :wink:

1. What is the difference between a sweet, juicy, red apple and a sweet, juicy red apple that exists? The difference between a red apple and a green apple, or a sweet apple and a sour apple, is pretty clear. But explaining clearly what is added to an apple by existing...? — Banno

What is the difference between how I relate to a real apple, how I comport myself toward it, and how I relate to an imaginary apple?

I can, for instance, juggle three apples a little, but not for long and no more than three. Imaginary apples? I can juggle as many of those as I like for as long as I like.

Your way of approaching the question treats the being of the apple as a category, analogous to ‘green’ or ‘sweet’, and you quickly find there’s nothing much to say about ‘being’ as a category. But that’s not to say there’s no criterion of being here, because the criteria are implicit in our behavior.

I'd say the real apple is an apple that reveals itself as an apple whereas the imaginary apple is an apple that reveals itself as imagination.

Why not just say Time isn’t something we can readily atomise? The ‘Now’ is merely a way of framing time appreciation just like a second is a measure of physical time a ‘moment’ is merely a human reference to unregulated and vague demarcation of felt time. — I like sushi

That’s fine, but it’s not that we can’t atomize it— we can and do. It’s that we don’t want to mistake this for “lived” or “felt” time.

That’s fine, but it’s not that we can’t atomize it— we can and do. It’s that we don’t wanted to mistake this for “lived” or “felt” time. — Xtrix

I'd rather say the point is that time is the measure of change, not the other way around.

I believe the separation between what you call "the vulgar conception of time", and the modern conception of time, is initiated by Hegel. He's the one who firmly rejected Aristotelian principles, offering an alternative starting point. — Metaphysician Undercover

One doesnt have to accept Heidegger’s reading , but his analysis of Hegel’s model of time concludes that:

“Hegel's con­cept of time presents the most radical way in which the vulgar under­standing of time has been given form conceptually…”

modern mathematics allows an infinity of points within a continuity. This also provides the foundation for Heidegger and phenomenologists to portray 'being', and consequently 'beings', as forms of becoming. — Metaphysician Undercover

Husserl and Heidegger derive mathematical continuity from the idea of enduring objective presence, on which the vulgar concept of time is based. They deconstruct the idea of objective presence and determine that authentic time can’t be likened to a mathematical continuity.

the real apple is an apple that reveals itself as an apple — Heiko

I'm good with that, but I'm not sure it provides a 'way in' for someone starting from a 'categorical' understanding. If you think categorically, then you can still say, a real apple is an apple and an imaginary apple isn't; a real apple can be sweet or tart, crisp or mushy, but an imaginary apple can't be. And then you're just puzzled, because imagination is puzzling, and now you're thinking about that instead of being. The whole approach of taking a 'complete' description of an object, as a collection of properties, and just adding or subtracting instantiation, checking the 'exists' box or not -- it's not that that doesn't lead anywhere, but it leads you in the wrong direction.

You can instead, in a vaguely Wittgensteinian way, see that juggling apples and pretending to juggle apples are different language-games. It's not a difference that can be summed up by saying that the apples being juggled go in the 'exists' box or not. (Juggling invisible apples might look exactly the same as pretending to juggle apples, but it would be a lot harder. That's an example of 'subtracting a property'.)

You can instead, in a vaguely Wittgensteinian way, see that juggling apples and pretending to juggle apples are different language-games. It's not a difference that can be summed up by saying that the apples being juggled are in the 'exists' box or not. — Srap Tasmaner

Here’s a phenomenological way of putting it:

“ “Equipment is “in order to.” This proposition has an ontological and not merely an ontical meaning; a being is not what and how it is, for example, a hammer, and then in addition something “with which to hammer.” Rather, what and how it is as this entity, its whatness and howness, is constituted by this in-order-to as such, by its functionality. A being of the nature of equipment is thus encountered as the being that it is in itself if and when we understand beforehand the following: functionality, functionality relations, functionality totality. In dealing with equipment we can use it as equipment only if we have already beforehand projected this entity upon functionality relation.”(Heidegger, Basic Problems of phenomenology 1927)

I'm good with that, but I'm not sure it provides a 'way in' for someone starting from a 'categorical' understanding. If you think categorically, then you can still say, a real apple is an apple and an imaginary apple isn't; a real apple can be sweet or tart, crisp or mushy, but an imaginary apple can't be. And then you're just puzzled, because imagination is puzzling, and now you're thinking about that instead of being. The whole approach of taking a 'complete' description of an object, as a collection of properties, and just adding or subtracting instantiation, checking the 'exists' box or not -- it's not that that doesn't lead anywhere, but it leads you in the wrong direction. — Srap Tasmaner

But wasn't the point of existentialism that the categorial understanding follows the apple's existence?
An apple is stating itself as an apple - all we can ever say about it would be a reflective category, that is, a negation. The apple asserts it's own existence which is why a language game can never create apples but can distinguish if a given thing is an apple or some other fruit.
We can refecively think about apples but not the apple itself.

Here’s a phenomenological way of putting it:

“ “Equipment is “in order to.” This proposition has an ontological and not merely an ontical meaning; a being is not what and how it is, for example, a hammer, and then in addition something “with which to hammer.” Rather, what and how it is as this entity, its whatness and howness, is constituted by this in-order-to as such, by its functionality. A being of the nature of equipment is thus encountered as the being that it is in itself if and when we understand beforehand the following: functionality, functionality relations, functionality totality. In dealing with equipment we can use it as equipment only if we have already beforehand projected this entity upon functionality relation.”(Basic Problems of phenomenology 1927) — Joshs

I take this to mean that the hammer was manufactured with a certain, known intention and therefor it's being is in-itself when we understand that intention. But note that this happened in an act of human work and is different to a mere revelation of being in that the hammer was invented by reflecting over use, need and purpose.

take this to mean that the hammer was manufactured with a certain, known intention and therefor it's being is in-itself when we understand that intention. But note that this happened in an act of human work and is different to a mere relevation of being in that the hammer was invented by reflecting over use, need and purpose. — Heiko

One doesn’t have to know why it was manufactured or for what purpose. Heidegger’s larger point is that , not only when we use something as a tool , but when we simply see something like an apple , our seeing of it occurs in the context of an ongoing relevance and significance it has for us in relation to our goal-oriented activities. He is saying that the identification of the apple as what it is is derivative of a more primary role that the apple plays for us in relation to our ongoing concerns , and this is the fundamental meaning of the apple for us.

“ The most immediate state of affairs is, in fact, that we simply see and take things as they are: board, bench, house, policeman. Yes, of course. However, this taking is always a taking within the context of dealing-with something, and therefore is always a taking-as, but in such a way that the as-character does not become explicit in the act. The non-explicitness of this “as” is precisely what constitutes the act's so-called directness. Yes, the thing that is understood can be apprehended directly as it is in itself. But this directness regarding the thing apprehended does not inhibit the act from having a developed structure. Moreover, what is structural and necessary in the act of [direct] understanding need not be found, or co-apprehended, or expressly named in the thing understood. I repeat: The [primary] as-structure does not belong to something thematically understood.

It certainly can be understood, but not directly in the process of focally understanding a table, a chair, or the like. Acts of directly taking something, having something, dealing with it “as something,” are so original that trying to understand anything without employing the “as” requires (if it's possible at all) a peculiar inversion of the natural order. Understanding something without the “as”—in a pure sensation, for example—can be carried out only “reductively,” by “pulling back” from an as-structured experience. And we must say: far from being primordial, we have to designate it as an artificially worked-up act. Most important, such an experience is per se possible only as the privation of an as-structured experience. It occurs only within an as-structured experience and by prescinding from the “as”— which is the same as admitting that as-structured experience is primary, since it is what one must first of all prescind from.” (Logic,The Question of Truth,p.122)

In Being and Time he states

The Greeks had an appropriate term for 'Things': 1rpayp.a-ra-that is
to say, that which one has to do with in one's concernful dealings
But ontologically, the specifically 'pragmatic' character of the 1rpayJLa-ra is just what the Greeks left in obscurity ; they thought of these 'proximally' as 'mere Things'. We shall call those entities which we encounter in concern "equipment". In our dealings we come across
equipment fo r writing, sewing, working, transportation, measurement.
The kind of Being which equipment possesses must be exhibited. The
clue for doing this lies in our first defining what makes an item of equip­ment - namely, its equipmentality.
Taken strictly, there 'is' no such thing as an equipment. To the Being
of any equipment there always belongs a totality of equipment, in which
it can be this equipment that it is. Equipment is essentially 'something
in-order-to . . . A totality of equipment is constituted by various ways of the 'in-order-to', such as serviceability, conduciveness, usability, manipulability. In the 'in-order-to' as a structure there lies an assignment or referernce of something to something.

Emphasis mine - sorry for bad copy&paste.

In German, the formulation is somewhat stronger

Ein Zeug »ist« strenggenommen nie.

Equipment, taken strictly, never "is".

I take this passage to mean that Heidegger really does make such a distinction. A speculative reason is given above.

I take this passage to mean that Heidegger really does make such a distinction. A speculative reason is given above. — Heiko

Yes, he makes the distinction between the ready to hand and the present to hand ( objectively present ). But he derives the present to hand from the ready to hand as an extreme modification of it. His discussion of the statement and subject-predicate logic shows how a thing which just ‘is’ is derived from the hermeneutic structure of concernful dealings, rather than use and value being attributes just added onto an objectively present thing.

“The kind of being of these beings is "handiness" (Zuhandenheit). But it must not be understood as a mere characteristic of interpreta­tion,* as if such "aspects" were discursively forced upon "beings" which we initially encounter, as if an initially objectively present world-stuff were "subjectively colored" in this way. Such an interpretation overlooks the fact that in that case beings would have to be understood before­hand and discovered as purely objectively present, and would thus have priority and take the lead in the order of discovering and appropriating association with the "world." But this already goes against the ontological
meaning of the cognition which we showed to be a founded mode of being-in-the-world. To expose what is merely objectively present, cogni­tion must first penetrate beyond things at hand being taken care of. Hand­iness is the ontological categorial definition of beings as they are "in themselves. "

To know what "being" is is to know what is referred to with "being". But when the uses of "being" are distinctly divergent, then no amount of endless analysis of use will determine what "being" is. The word refers to distinct things (or conceptions). Then we must turn to something other than use (which only leads us into confusion), to determine what being is. And in this sense Banno is clearly incorrect — Metaphysician Undercover

The OP is about the question, "What is being?"

When we say, in our modern world, that everything consists of forces acting on matter, as in the field of physics, then this is one possible answer. It determines what things are, and implies an interpretation of being -- in this case, ultimately a naturalistic/materialist ontological view (being = material, substance, the empirical, etc).

By asking the question I'm not necessarily looking for a definition, any more than I'd ask "What is God?" Many different definitions and interpretations of that word as well, represented by many sects of Christianity.

Rather, we're asking "Whereon is every answer to the question about beings based?" This is similar to the Kantian move, because the answer is basically the same: human beings. But Kant's conception of being, human being, and time, are still all within a Cartesian and Aristotelian framework -- one with a particular view about "truth," a deep concern for epistemology, and a modification of dualism of the world as "subject and object," where objects become representations for the subject.

Where Heidegger is interesting here is in the same way as Nietzsche is interesting when discussing values and morality. He's going beyond the tradition, questioning things that have been either forbidden to question, taken as self-evident, or totally forgotten altogether (as "God" was at one point).

So I'm not looking for a definition, really -- I'm looking into how we've interpreted being (and most importantly ourselves) in the ways in which we have, and why. Can we ask this question without already imposing an ontological interpretation? Can we look at things anew? That's the purpose.