I just finished reading “An Introduction to Metaphysics” by Martin Heidegger, which cleared up a lot of misunderstandings and provided much insight into Being and Time. I was always confused before as to the capitalization of the word Being. I knew that it did not refer to a transcendent Being or God, but I was not sure what it refered to. After reading this, I think the phrase “The Being of beings” has provided meaning based on context. It seems safe to assert that Being is used in the sense of a verb - or rather, the mode in which beings ‘are’. But is this mode simply the ready-to-hand? Heidegger did not explicitly make it clear, but can I translate “the Being of beings” simply as 'the Being as that which lies in the ready-to-hand of the beings which lie in the present-at-hand. being, with a lowercase b, would simply refer to entities as present-at-hand, and the Being of those beings as that which employs those beings as Being this or that. Any remarks? Anyone familiar with Heidegger? Am I correct in saying this?
I don´t think the Being of beings is ready-to-hand. Although and because everything essentially takes part in or has Being, as the most abstract and universal concept of all, it is the hardest to consider, least of all grasp at hand. So beings are instances of Being - the extent to which or form in which we encounter the manifestation of Being. I think at first Heidegger says beings depend on Being, but during Being and Time changes his mind, saying that Being depends on beings (to manifest). A little confusing to say the least, and I´m unsure of the finer aspects.
As far as I know, Being is synonymous with reality, which everyone within shares - the utlimate classification. It may not be the case that Being is exhausted in the reality we take part in - our reality represents the extent to which we can participate or be in contact with Being. But then again, all Being could well be how we view it: temporal, nothing more. Hence the above above reversal, where Being exists exhaustively within the beings which it takes part in it. But how can they take part in something which only exists through those entities themselves? This, I haven´t a clue.
But hey you may well be right about the ready-to-hand/present-at-hand distinction. I´ve forgotten their definitions.
I think to figure out which case is true, whether Being depends on being or being depends on Being, we would have to refer to the ready-to-hand/present-at-hand distinction, no? Or at least I would to make it intelligible. It is all a matter of which is primordial. To think of it in RTH/PAH terms, I would have to say that it is beings that depend on Being. The present-at-hand, if it refers to beings as self-sufficent entities, then is simply the state in which those beings are without reference to their equipmental properties. An apple is simply an apple, with the properties of depth, weight, color without reference to a totality that is not inherent in itself - i.e. its function as an edible fruit. The ready-to-hand, if it refers to a holistic equipmental totality, would then refer to the apple as being a fruit - that is, edible. The Being of the being - the apple - would then be its function as a fruit (not to say that Being is categorical, but this is just the preliminary thinking). This is why I think Being refers to the ready-to-hand. To say which one is dependent upon the other, then, I think we would have to refer to this distinction, to see which one is primordial. Maybe this is where Heidegger came into problems. Is the RTH primordial or the PAT? I think, for me, it seems easier to say the ready-to-hand is primordial. All entities were engaged in a totality, where in service to their functions, before man came along to reduce them to presence-at-hand, to make the Being of beings thinkable. Here, I could see why Heidegger would go back and forth in this claim. Just because man was not there to make being thinkable, does that mean these entities did not exist as present-at-hand? Just because all nature was in flux, the phusis was in a constant state of becoming into being, then that surely must not contradict the existence of beings before this time. This would call for a more subtle, more precise, definition of the present-at-hand, and ITM is vague. I wonder what Heidegger’s thoughts on evolution are. I hope this is not a horrible misinterpretation. If it is, I don’t care - these are the thoughts which have been inspired in me.
aaaahhhh. No. Maybe that is faulty. Perhaps Being refers to the mode in which entities, or beings, in the present-at-hand are self-sufficient, are a totality in themselves, a unified whole with seemingly differentiated properties. But here, we could not think of either as dependent upon the other- I mean, it would not make sense to say that one is primordial. This is where I get confused.
But if we were to think of Being as reality, as a temporal reality, then how could we not think of Being as the primordial ready-to-hand? If I were to answer your question, though, then I would have to think of Being as the Being of beings in the present-at-hand, as self sufficient entities. Here, I am commensurate - how to answer this question, I haven’t a clue.
Any thoughts?
I think I’m following you: that beings are, despite necessarily having Being, a manifestation which, as you say, is self-sufficient and thus not less fundamental. But despite being self-sufficient, if it only came to be in virtue of this Being concept, I can´t see how beings can ever be said to be more fundamental than Being. Self-sufficiency wouldn’t negate or override its origin/source. I guess if Being only exists insofar as there are beings, this wouldn’t be a problem; in the least they would be equally co-dependent. Yet, in this case, why add or require Being to all beings?
As for giving entities properties, and thereby slotting them into classes or groups by fixing their nature (a human imposition, in some degree arbitrary, and necessary for scienctific (ontical) investigation), I remember Heidegger saying that crises emerge when these categories are unable to accomodate observed events of particular entities, i.e. when they behave contrary to expectations, in virtue of their “fixed” nature. The example he gave was when light seemed strangely to have properties of matter and energy. In turned out to be both (a wave), therefore requiring category modification. Once again, I’m not really sure what bearing this has on RTH and PAT, if any. Perhaps in such scientific crises what was RTH becomes PAT, and we are forced to consider things on a deeper level - ultimately ontologically. Our creative efforts must first flow into the RTH, with a (self-)pre-determined end in sight (obviously using the PAT). Yet, if we are, as Heidegger loves to encourage, to reflect on the deeper ontological level, we must revert back to the raw ingredients, the PAT, and investigate how there was ever RTH (which implies understanding of some kind) in the first place. That’s similar, I think, to the way in which our day-to-day activites are (increasingly) absorbed in the practical, not underlying, and the ontical, not ontological, aspects of our world. We get wrapped up in our abritrary concepts and categories instead of seeking to elucidate the structures implicit in this very understanding/manner of Being, hence his goal of elucidating the “meaning of Being”.
But as I’ve said I’m a little sketchy on the RTH and PAT thing, nor have I read ITM yet.
Unless I´m getting things mixed up, I think the PAT to be more fundamental, with RTH as a mere human invention. PAT does not depend on our existence, or, more acurrately, our particular mode of Being, Dasein, to be. (Didn´t Heidegger even say we ourselves are PAT but not RTH?) However, the funny thing is that our Being which entails interaction with RTH could always be said to have existed (dormantly) as a potential manifestation of Being, depending on the Being of us, Dasein! So in a strange sense, couldn´t we just say the PAT and RTH are both modes of Being? I don´t know if Heidegger would regard the simplicity or sheer prevalence of the PAT, compared to the RTH, as making it more primordial. Aren´t they both simply hitherto manifestations of Being, devoid of any intrinsic hierarchy of dependence?
Well, no, I agree on some level. I think Being to be more fundamental than beings, for beings could not come into being, be phusis, without Being. It is only Being that allows for us to make the claim that ‘being is’ or ‘beings are.’ Here, in ITM Heidegger makes a polemical argument, that in the case of language, this being must imply a predicate – that is, the ready-to-hand. Self-sufficiency would not necessarily override the source – rather, it would affirm it by the confirmation of universals. I think it is important to see Heidegger as a follow up to Hegel. These entities are comprised of properties that do not necessarily complement one another, as they are not self sufficient; but the entity in itself, as a universal of aggregate contradictory properties, implies a universality by referring to a totality inhering in itself. But I can’t see Being and beings as simply co-dependent without a primordial source – this source is the task of metaphysics, at least in Heidegger’s sense. To say that Being only exists insofar as there are beings is paradoxical, because beings simply would not be if it were not for Being to allow them the possession of Being – for beings ‘to be.’ It is all a matter of in what sense beings are RTH.
I think it is rather the PAH and the RTH that are co-dependent. I haven’t read Being and Time in four years except for reading the Intro just last week, so I am not sure if I remember how he refers to Dasein when he uses these terms, but it seems as if Dasein is the synthesis of these two modes; but I do think, if I remember correctly, that Heidegger explicitly states that Dasein is never present-at-hand. The RTH state of Dasein is rather the existential analytic of Dasein: being-in-the-world, being-with-others, being-one’s own. I think on the most basic level, the RTH simply refers to engagement. In these senses of the existential analytic, Dasein is RTH I think. Just thinking about it – being-in-the-world must imply a sort of engagement with something outside of Dasein, with Being itself. Even the literal translation of Dasein as ‘being-there’ almost implies the RTH, as engaging with one’s self. This is what I think Heidegger calls mineness – Dasein is in each case one’s own. For how would Dasein ‘be there’ if there were not a being to make it ‘there’ by raising the question of its own being? This is why I think Dasein is synthetic. The ‘being-there’ implies a RTH entity contemplating the existential analytic – that is, the PAH. But maybe you are correct, maybe it is not appropriate to use the term RTH, but rather ontological. I’m not sure how he shifts the meaning of these terms. But to refer to Dasein as PAT would not be refering to Dasein at all I think, but rather, Da-sein – ‘being-here.’ This is why I think Dasein in the RTH is ontological and Da-sein as ontic, so long as it is merely present. Well, I am trying to draw a fundamental equivalence between dichotomies : PAH/RTH, ontological/ontic, being/Being, but that is skewing the meaning when we bring Dasein on the scene. My bad.
But there is a sense in which for Dasein the RTH is ontological for itself, the PAH the ontic. But in another sense, when regarding Dasein’s relation to other entities that are not like Dasein, to beings, it is these entities that are either PAH or RTH for Dasein. With regard to Being-in-the-world, the RTH is rather ontic and the PAH ontological, so long as these are modes of beings, of entities that are not Dasein. So maybe it is best to just see it as a triad, without synthesis, even though I do remember Heidegger talking about Dasein as RTH and PAH.
But thinking about what sense the RTH is primordial again, I am almost inclined to think of Being as a transcendent being, as the absolute universal totality. I am just hung up on thinking about Being before Dasein arrived on the scene. The problem with the meaning of being lies in the fact of a predicate. The fact that an apple is an edible fruit is to steer away from the meaning of Being. Here, I think Heidegger wants to transcend the limits of language. In a pre-Dasein era, an apple stems from the bough in the tree, shakes with the violent trembling of the wind, falls to the ground, is gnawed at by a worm in the grass. The totality of the RTH would simply be all that which has an effect – the apple itself is engaged with the wind, then falls prey to its force, embraces the ground with a thump. I think the RTH in this case would simply be the laws of space, time and causality.
But I think this is the point at which the RTH becomes, or rather reverts, to the PAH mode. This is why I see them as co-dependent in a sense.
Well, I am getting out of bounds, but hell, that’s what philosophy books are supposed to make you do – to think. Anyway, thanks for the comments. I appreciate it. It will be interesting to see if Being and Time will make sense the way I want it to after this.
But maybe you are right about Dasein being PAT. It is just a matter of how Dasein is PAH as distinguished from other entities that are PAH.
I hope I answered some of your questions in there. If not, I will be back. Just a bit sketchy. Trying to clear an understanding of terminology.