Beings and being

Beings and being

I’ve been reading Martin Heidegger’s The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (translation, introduction, and lexicon by Albert Hofstadter; revised edition. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana: UP, 1982). A course of lectures from 1927 and first published in German in 1975, it constitutes a sequel to Being and Time. It is easier to read for the non-German speaker since Heidegger is here at pains to relate his thinking to the terminology and texts of earlier philosophers, including the Scholastics.

“This concept of existence, Dasein, corresponds in Kant to the Scholastic term existentia. Kant therefore often uses the expression “Existenz,” “actuality” [“Wirklichkeit”], instead of “Dasein.” . . .For what Kant calls existence, using either Dasein or Existenz, and what Scholasticism calls existentia, we employ the terms “Vorhandensein,”“being-extant,” “being-at-hand,” or “Vorhandenheit,” “extantness.” . . For us, in contrast, the word “Dasein” does not designate, as it does for Kant, the way of being of natural things. It does not designate a way of being at all, but rather a specific being which we ourselves are, the human Dasein.” (p.28)

Heidegger reserves “Existenz,” ”existence,” to designate the way of being of Dasein. “Therefore, we might, for example, say ‘A body does not exist; it is rather, extant.’ In contrast, we ourselves, are not extant; Dasein exists. But the Dasein and bodies as respectively existent or extant at each time are.” (p.28)

Note that final “are” which is italicized. That “are” escapes the specificity of mode that Heidegger finds (or imposes) in “exists” or “is at hand.” I would argue that this is the “are” that metaphysics is about.

Let us consider some simple distinctions in English usage.

1. ”Being” (being1) that keeps its verb side dominant, as in “The retreat master recommended being rather than doing.” “Existing” is a near equivalent, with the (philosophic) advantage of being distinguishable from the abstract noun form “existence”. “Being” is used in both ways, as “existing” and “existence”.

2. So we have “being” (being2), that is to being1 as “existence” is to “existing”.

3. “Being” (being3) holds itself to the noun or substantive side. It admits of singular and plural---“a being,” ”those beings.” So those beings3, all of whom have being2, are the ones who set themselves to obey the retreat master with regard to ”being1 rather than doing.”

Basically then we have things (including persons) which exist, and both the things and their existing are named from being (being1). A further distinction arises on the “thing” side. This is mostly a distinction that answers a philosopher’s question. When they asked themselves about the “what” of the being (thing) that exists, they found the need to distinguish what it essentially is from what it only happens to be. So what a thing essentially is (“always, already”) is said to be the being4 of the being3.

4. ”Being” (being4) is the “constitution, nature, essence” (Concise OED) of a being3. So the whole being3 who is Joe has a being4 which is his essence as a man and leaves aside the inessentials such as his height or hair colour. Being4 is that whereby the being3 is what it is essentially.

Heidegger consistently uses “Dasein” as a substantive, the subject of human actions, being3. "Sein" the German verb "to be" is also used in German as a neuter substantive for "being" "existence" and "essence". Until Heidegger, "Dasein" was used as a substantive to mean "existence" or "life."