Your emphatic insistence notwithstanding, Heidegger defines being as ". . . that on the basis of which entities are already understood." — Arne

I’m not sure that qualifies as a ‘definition’ of Being in the sense of revealing the meaning of Being. Understanding Being in terms of temporality comes closer to the mark, but even here, Heidegger is not satisfied that a final ‘definition’ of Being has been achieved.

“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.”( On Time and Being)

And even if you want to stand on that, people who wish to understand Being and Time should still be aware that what is labeled as an introduction is clearly intended to be an introduction to a larger body of work. Surely you can see that? — Arne

Of course. But who doesn't see that? Is anyone out there thinking that because there's an introduction to the entire outline, that therefore every part of that outline was finished? All one has to do is look at the table of contents to realize that it's an unfinished work.

I still fail to see how referring to the introduction is a mistake. Perhaps you mean to say that people really aren't aware that Being and Time is an unfinished work...in which case, perhaps you're right, but again I don't see that as a major problem. They will quickly realize it's unfinished.

Mozart left some work unfinished as well. So what?

Most of Being and Time, including the parts not finished, were eventually published in different works and were an outgrowth of lecture courses Heidegger gave in the 1920s. So both before and after 1927, you have plenty of material.

So it's not quite that simple, no. — Xtrix

We are clearly not going to agree. I find The History of the Concept of Time (pre) and The Problems of Phenomenology (post) to be useful in understanding Being and Time.

Mulholland also argues that Heidegger's complete body of work is sufficient to consider the project complete. Taylor Carmen leans that way. I do not disagree.

We are clearly not going to agree. I find The History of the Concept of Time (pre) and The Problems of Phenomenology (post) to be useful in understanding Being and Time. — Arne

Well we agree on that at least. :ok:

Well we agree on that at least. :ok: — Xtrix

I am right and you are wrong and I can live with that.

:smile:

Mulholland also argues that Heidegger's complete body of work is sufficient to consider the project complete. Taylor Carmen leans that way. I do not disagree. — Arne

As you know , some argue that Heidegger’s ‘Kehre’ in the 1930’s was a decisive break with the direction of thinking Being and Time represents. For those writers the completion of his project amounts to a renouncement of his 1920’s approach. Others, such as Derrida, see a continuity between his earlier and later writings. For my part, I see the later writings as clarifications and further articulations of the earlier project , but found little additional enlightenment in Heidegger’s post-Being and Time work.

Of course. But who doesn't see that? Is anyone out there thinking that because there's an introduction to the entire outline — Xtrix

Undergrads by the thousands are unable to tell you that the primary goal of the only 2 divisions of which Being and Time is comprised are about the fundamental analysis of Dasein and Dasein and Temporality and that is in part because the introduction written for a 6 part treatise of which the entire contents of Being and Time comprises just 2 parts repeatedly sets the goal at the revelation of the meaning of being.

And besides, if you agreed with me, then all you had to do was say so and we could have been doing other things.

And besides, if you agreed with me, then all you had to do was say so and we could have been doing other things. — Arne

I would have, but I don't agree with the statement about the introduction. It is not a mistake to refer to it as such. I hope you now concede that.

You're quite right that to refer to Being and Time as a completed work is incorrect.

For my part, I see the later writings as clarifications and further articulations of the earlier project , but found little additional enlightenment in Heidegger’s post-Being and Time work. — Joshs

I agree. I am not a Heidegger disciple. It would matter not to me if Heidegger unequivocally renounced Being and Time. I would still read at least 10 pages a day as I have done for many years now. Had Heidegger not published Being and Time, we wouldn't even know who he was.

I would have, but I don't agree with the statement about the introduction. It is not a mistake to refer to it as such. I hope you now concede that. — Xtrix

I absolutely do not concede that. I suspect that if Heidegger had continued with the work, the next publication would not have been called Being and Time with any sort of suffix and would likely have been called Time and Being.

It is not as if the binding or the cover page of Being and Time as published reads Being and Time, Divisions 1 and 2. How could the publications of subsequent divisions have the same title without further compounding the confusion?

He submitted a manuscript entitled Being and Time with two divisions and no introduction. He was told he needed to write an introduction and he used the opportunity to point beyond the submitted manuscript. Thereafter, the publisher adjusted table of content headings accordingly. Had he not been required to write an introduction to an already submitted manuscript, then we would not be having this discussion.

Heidegger published what he needed to publish to get what he wanted to get. Had he not been forced to publish and under hurried circumstances, we would not even know his name. It is sloppy and students of Heidegger deserve better.

Going forward, our time would be better spent on substantive discussions of Being and Time. I greatly appreciate your knowledge of the subject matter. It is difficult finding people who have such knowledge. After all, this ain't Europe.

Few American universities teach Heidegger and those I attended did not. All knowledge I have of Heidegger and his work was acquired post-formal education and out of desire. I read Heidegger and then I listen to lectures by Dreyfus, Kelly, or Carmen and then I read Heidegger and then I listen to lectures by Dreyfus, Kelly, or Carmen and then I read Heidegger. . .

Until our paths cross again. . .

I absolutely do not concede that. I suspect that if Heidegger had continued with the work, the next publication would not have been called Being and Time with any sort of suffix and would likely have been called Time and Being. — Arne

But that has nothing whatsoever to do with accurately calling the introduction an introduction. Come on man.

Heidegger published what he needed to publish to get what he wanted to get. Had he not been forced to publish and under hurried circumstances, we would not even know his name. It is sloppy and students of Heidegger deserve better. — Arne

He was a pretty big deal even prior to publishing this book, so that claim is at best speculative. But yes, I agree it was written in haste.

I read Heidegger and then I listen to lectures by Dreyfus, Kelly, or Carmen and then I read Heidegger and then I listen to lectures by Dreyfus, Kelly, or Carmen and then I read Heidegger. . . — Arne

That was me for two years. Minus Carmen. Mostly I just read Heidegger. Dreyfus is extremely helpful and I love his lectures.

A lot of H's philosophy is similar to what Buddhism is. Just as people like John Searle have been canceled by the me-too movement, I think eventually H can be canceled as well.

But my all time favorite orienting mantra is being is that on the basis of which being is already understood.

I have wasted many a fine summer hour smoking a cigar while trying to understand what the hell that means. — Arne

That's a rich and circular line.

Dasein is history.
...
Dasein, whiling away its own time in each case, is at the same time always a generation. So a specific interpretedness precedes every Dasein in the shape of the generation itself. What is preserved in the generation is itself the outcome of earlier views and disputes, earlier interpretations and past concerns.
...
The wellspring of such persistent elements lies in the past, but they continue to have such an impact in the present that their dominance is taken for granted and their development forgotten. Such a forgotten past is inherent in the prevailing interpretedness of being-together-with-one-another. To the extent that Dasein lives from (cares about) this past, it is this past itself.
...
The world with which we are concerned and being-in itself are both interpreted within the parameters of a particular framework of intelligibility.
...
One has a timeworn conceptuality at one's disposal. It provides the fore-concept for the interpretation. The interpretedness of a 'time' is strictly determined by these structural factors and the variable forms of their realization. And it is precisely the unobtrusiveness of these factors --the fact that one is not aware of them -- which gives public interpretedness its taken-for-granted character. However, the 'fore'-character in the structure of interpretedness shows us that it is none other than what has already been that jumps ahead, as it were, of a present time pervaded by interpretedness. Guided by its interpretedness, expectant concern lives its own past. — Heidegger, first draft B & T, chap. 4, quotes in order

'Being is that on the basis of which being is already understood.'

That's a tough one. Given the quote above, I think of us as self-interpreting interpreters acting upon and thinking from inconspicuously automatic and therefore unquestionable interpretations of ourselves and the world. One might say that, with especially automatic ('unconscious') interpretations, culture is mistaken for nature, the contingent for the necessary.

That is good stuff. It would be great to have a citation if it is easily available. I am not asking you to go and track it down. But I like it. — Arne

source

Seems to be from Contributions, which I haven't looked at. But it's on the theme that I find central to Heidegger. A little more from that source, to amplify my previous post:

A definite sense of being guides every natural interpretation of beings. This sense does not need to be made catergorially explicit, and precisely when it is not, it possesses its genuine being and its authority…Precisely by its being inexplicit, it possesses a peculiar stubbornness...

The fundamental way of the being-there of the world, namely, having the world there with one another, is speaking…In the manner in which being-there in its world speaks about its way of dealing with its world, a self-interpretation of being-there is also given. It states how being-there specifically understands itself, what it takes itself to be...

Being is measured with time (lifespan, shelf life) because (pace Parmenides) Unbeing (death, destruction, demolition, annihilation, and so on) is accepted as part of reality and Unbeing is understood with a temporal bias.

One simple reason for that is if two beings wish to meet up, they have to be at around the same time (contemporary/coeval). If they're not, either would forthwith realize that a meeting is impossible. Of course, if they were being (alive) at different places on earth, that too would preclude any kind of encounter. However, we have 6 degrees of freedom in space (up, down, front, back, left, right) and only 1 (forward) in time. Thus, it makes sense to view Being in time; hence, Being and Time.

One simple reason for that is if two beings wish to meet up, they have to be at around the same time (contemporary/coeval). — Agent Smith

I think this is on the right track. We are beings who care about things, tend to the things. We survive by working together, by synchronizing our activity (you do this part, while I do that part). Most of us get up in the morning and not at midnight because the sun makes it easier to see. So the sunrise comes to symbolize the time to get up and work. Even if I'm the exception who works the graveyard shift, I do that against a background of 'one [usually] gets up in the morning,' (and perhaps I enjoy myself as an exception.) In this sense time is 'there' in the world as a being, as the sun as a triggering signification.

Thus, it makes sense to view Being in time; hence, Being and Time — Agent Smith

In this sense time is 'there' in the world as a being, as the sun as a triggering signification. — ajar

This would be the vulgar concept of time for Heidegger, time as measurement of things which take place ‘within’ time, which appear and disappear as an endless sequence of before, now and later. Authentic or primordial time( What Being and Time is about) , by contrast, doesn’t have to do with things that occur ‘in’ time, but with temporality as transcendence and relevance.

“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”.” (Heidegger)

temporality as transcendence and relevance. — Joshs

Explain.

temporality as transcendence and relevance.
— Joshs

Explain. — Agent Smith

From a paper I’m writing:

Eugene Gendlin writes:

“I propose an expanded model of time. Time does not consist only of nows.” Linear time consists merely of positions on an observer's time line. The positions are supposed to be external and independent of what happens. Linear time is an empty frame.““ The linear unit model of successive self-identical times is generated from the more intricate model of time.” (Gendlin
2012)
As Gendlin(1997b) argues,
‘The continuity of time cannot first be made by things next to each other, because such a continuity is passive; each bit IS alone, and must depend on some other continuity to relate it to what is next to it...”(p.71)

Comparing Gendlin’s model of temporality with Heidegger’s, we see that for Heidegger also , the past,
present and future don’t operate as sequential modes which mark distinct states of objects. They interpenetrate each other so completely that they together form a single unitary event of occurrence.

“Because my being is such that I am out ahead of myself, I must, in order to understand something I encounter, come back from this being-out-ahead to the thing I encounter. Here we can already see an immanent structure of direct understanding qua as-structured comportment [my experience of something ‘as’ something], and on closer analysis it turns out to be time. And this being-ahead-of-myself as a returning is a peculiar kind of movement that time itself constantly makes, if I may put it this way.”(Heidegger 2010b)
The returning from a totality of relevance in the act of understanding something constitutes temporality not as a present object happening IN time but as temporalization.

“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." Having-been arises from the future in such a way that the future that has-been (or better, is
in the process of having-been) releases the present from itself. We call the unified phenomenon of the future that makes present in the process of having been temporality.”(Heidegger 2010)

Gendlin(1997b) echoes Heidegger’s unification of the components of time.
“The future that is present now is not a time-position, not what will be past later. The future that is here now is the implying that is here now. The past is not an earlier position but the now implicitly functioning past.”“......the past functions to "interpret" the present,...the past is changed by so functioning. This needs to be put even more strongly: The past functions not as itself, but as already changed by what it functions in”(p.37

I'm ambivalent about Heidegger. There's the stuff that seems both clear and good, and there's the stuff that comes off as confused spirituality. The challenge is finding honest English when possible for some of the insights...or in letting go of the attachment to some blurry promise that never quite materializes.

Also, I find 'temporalization' to be an extremely ugly word. There must be a better way.

Here's an edit of what I quoted above.

The world with which we are concerned and being-in itself are both interpreted within the parameters of a particular framework of intelligibility.
...
One has a timeworn conceptuality at one's disposal. It provides the fore-concept for the interpretation. The interpretedness of a 'time' is strictly determined by these structural factors...And it is precisely the unobtrusiveness of these factors --the fact that one is not aware of them -- which gives public interpretedness its taken-for-granted character...The 'fore'-character in the structure of interpretedness shows us that it is none other than what has already been that jumps ahead, as it were, of a present time pervaded by interpretedness.

Guided by its interpretedness, expectant concern lives its own past. — Heidegger

I find this echoed and developed in your quote.

The past is not an earlier position but the now implicitly functioning past....the past functions to "interpret" the present,...the past is changed by so functioning. — Gendlin

Once a thinker becomes aware of this, history is a nightmare from which he is trying to awake. He himself is this history awake from his own blinding, imprisoning past --the one that governs his dreams of the future and his interpretation of the present.

This explains how philosophy personified could be trapped by ancient decisions that were never questioned since but experienced rather as 'obvious' necessity. I imagine fish seeing objects in the water, not the water itself. Heidegger tells me to look for the water, the unquestioned inherited framing of the situation that only becomes questionable and editable when foregrounded, made 'visible.'

Here's an edit of what I quoted above.

The world with which we are concerned and being-in itself are both interpreted within the parameters of a particular framework of intelligibility. — ajar

Heidegger is talking about the inauthentic understanding of the future. But even here, frameworks of intelligibility aren’t stagnant. When I interpret a new experience by reference to such a frame , the frame is developed and articulated. That constitutes a kind of change within the frame , and of the frame. A variation within a theme is a kind of modification of the theme. This is crucial to understand with respect to Heidegger, because his entire project uniting affect and intentionality rests on the idea that the past that frames my present comes already altered by that present. That is what feeling is. That is also what understanding is. This is what Gendlin is arguing. In Gendlin’s work, there is no such thing as a past that just sits there influencing my present.

If inauthentic interpretation. is a plodding kind of self-transformation, Heidegger nevertheless considers this sort of change subordinate and derivative of authentic time.

“Discoverture’s authentic way of being is uncanniness , while the most common everyday mode of discoverture is concealment.”
"Uncanniness is the fundamental kind of being-in-the-world, although it is covered over in everydayness. Tranquillized, familiar being-in-the-world is a mode of the uncanniness of Dasein, not the other way around. Not-being-at-home must be conceived existentially and
ontologically as the more primordial phenomenon." "The publicness of the they suppresses everything unfamiliar.” (Heidegger 2010)

“Thus thrown in this throw, man is a transition, transition as the fundamental essence of occurrence...Man is enraptured in this transition and therefore essentially 'absent'. Absent in a fundamental sense-never simply at hand, but absent in his essence, in his essentially being away, removed into essential having been and future-essentially absencing and never at hand, yet existent in
his essential absence. Transposed into the possible, he must constantly be mistaken concerning what is actual. And only because he is thus mistaken and transposed can he become seized by terror. And only where there is the perilousness of being seized by terror do we find the bliss of astonishment -being torn away in that wakeful manner that is the breath of all philosophizing.” (Heidegger 1995)

“The essence of something is not at all to be discovered simply like a fact; on the contrary, it must be brought forth. To bring forth is a kind of making, and so there resides in all grasping and positing of the essence something creative…. To bring forth means to bring out into the light, to bring something in sight which was up to then not seen at all, and specifically such that the seeing of it is not simply a gaping at something already lying there but a seeing which, in seeing, first brings forth what is to be seen, i.e., a productive seeing. "(Heidegger 1994)

That beings (essences) are produced by Dasein in the act of taking something as something is
not to be understood as intentional activity that ‘takes for granted’ a world constituting space of experiential possibilities that is not itself changed in the act of intending objects. For Heidegger the condition of possibility for Befindlichkeit , for a world constituting
space of possibilities, is that this totality of relevance be modified anew each moment in an act of bringing forth. Beings can only be produced because the foundation of their being is created anew as a ‘ground-laying’ every time we see something as something. The creative re-making of the ground is a pre-condition for the productive seeing of an intentional object.

“Every “foundation” in the sense we discussed comes too late with regard to the positing of the essence, because the productive seeing of the essence is itself a productive seeing of that in which the essence has its ground—a productive seeing of what its ground is. Knowledge of the essence is in itself a ground-laying. It is the positing of what lies under as ground“(Heidegger 1994)

history is a nightmare from which he is trying to awake. — ajar

Sounds rather like a description of karma.

frameworks of intelligibility aren’t stagnant. — Joshs

If they were, we'd have a framework rather than frameworks.

When I interpret a new experience by reference to such a frame , the frame is developed and articulated. — Joshs

Sure, the way we approach things ('mentally' or physically, individually or as a community) is modified as we go.

the past that frames my present comes already altered by that present. — Joshs

:up:

I think most would agree with this.

Uncanniness is the fundamental kind of being-in-the-world, although it is covered over in everydayness. Tranquillized, familiar being-in-the-world is a mode of the uncanniness of Dasein, not the other way around. Not-being-at-home must be conceived existentially and
ontologically as the more primordial phenomenon. — Heidegger

Yeah, I've seen that. I'm not sure there's a reason to believe it. The game of 'more primordial' seems to touch on the quasi-religion that Heidegger sometimes seems to be brewing. His talk about death is fascinating but eventually frustrating. I get the impression that he himself didn't quite know what he meant, that it was more of a feeling-clump than a thesis. Perhaps you can make a case, but I expect you'll want to venture outside the familiar jargon, else it's just repetition and not exegesis.

Sounds rather like a description of karma. — Wayfarer

I don't know much about karma, but I like the theme, so I encourage you to share more on this.

It's rather a digression in this particular thread, but see this post I made previously.

The essence of something is not at all to be discovered simply like a fact; on the contrary, it must be brought forth. To bring forth is a kind of making, and so there resides in all grasping and positing of the essence something creative…. To bring forth means to bring out into the light, to bring something in sight which was up to then not seen at all, and specifically such that the seeing of it is not simply a gaping at something already lying there but a seeing which, in seeing, first brings forth what is to be seen, i.e., a productive seeing. — Heidegger

In other words, ποίησις (poesis) is central. :up:

To see X as Y (metaphor, analogy) is primary and even creates the culture. Dead poems stack up until rivers have mouths but no teeth. The tree stump is a chair. The stone is a hammer.

Heidegger himself is subject to an unpredictable taking-as.

I should note that 'nightmare' is more negative than necessary (but allowed me to connect Heidegger and Joyce.) Another way to talk about this is in terms of a snake trying to slide out of its dead skin.

'I am the prison and the prisoner.' Today's escapee is tomorrow's warden.

[The] point is that in as much as tradition serves as the condition of one’s knowledge, the background that instigates all inquiry, one can never start from a tradition-free place. A tradition is what gives one a question or interest to begin with. Second, all successful efforts to enliven a tradition require changing it so as to make it relevant for the current context. To embrace a tradition is to make it one’s own by altering it. A passive acknowledgment of a tradition does not allow one to live within it. One must apply the tradition as one’s own. In other words, the importance of the terms, “prejudice” and “tradition,” for Gadamer’s hermeneutics lies in the way they indicate the active nature of understanding that produces something new. Tradition hands down certain interests, prejudices, questions, and problems, that incite knowledge. Tradition is less a conserving force than a provocative one. Even a revolution, Gadamer notes, is a response to the tradition that nonetheless makes use of that very same tradition.
...
Just as the literal horizon delimits one’s visual field, the epistemic horizon frames one’s situation in terms of what lies behind (that is, tradition, history), around (that is, present culture and society), and before (that is, expectations directed at the future) one. The concept of horizon thus connotes the way in which a located, perspectival knowing is yet a fecund one: without the limitation of a horizon there would be no seeing.

https://iep.utm.edu/gadamer/#SH4c

His talk about death is fascinating but eventually frustrating. I get the impression that he himself didn't quite know what he meant, that it was more of a feeling-clump than a thesis. — ajar

Some find his account of being for death the most
valuable feature of his ontology, but I agree with you. I find it muddled and unconvincing. Derrida did a great deconstruction of it. I like the idea his model of
temporality implies, that each moment is finite and so the passage from moment to moment is its own kind of death and re-birth. He should have focused on that instead.

My background is in comparative religion and Buddhist studies, from which perspective I feel no particular urge to engage with Heidegger. I can't help but gesture towards the Eastern understanding of liberation, mokṣa, which represents the stepping outside of or the cessation of the whole vast stream of history and fate. A particularly profound verse from the early Buddhist texts puts it thus:

I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering and distress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception and intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos. — The Buddha, Rohitassa Sutta

The problem is that it is nearly always interpreted as nihilism, as a literal nothingness, although I really don't think it is. It is just the ending or stepping outside the 'nightmare of history' that is being talked about. My view is that there's a shadow, in the sense intended by Jung, in the Western psyche, around this question, as a consequence of the particular religious history of the West, but that is a big argument.