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HEIDEGGER"5 AANALPSTS aF TRUTH IN BErNG AND TIHE
B.A. (Hans,), Simon Fraser University, 1989
THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMEMT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
WASTER OF ARTS
i n the Department
Acq-isith~ and Qirectkw bes =cqGsi!ms et 81Mqrmc SeSenrFces Brarbch cks services biM'iraphiques
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autorisation.
1 herecy 2rafi$ += S i r a n ;rase:' Ufi ~ V ~ T S i f y ?nne r . ~ T . I *,: :Z;I;~
- y +hes;s, c rc jec t sf exsended essay ( t h e t i + f e of k 2 i c h I - - sharri p e i p w \
-:ngle copies only for suck users or i n r e s w n s e to 3 reque:,t i rcn ;ne
-l;rary of any oSher university, or ot-kar eGuca+ t ~ w ! i r , ~ + i TL;? i ~ r a , , , ~ : i
i + s own behalf o r for one of i t s r;ssrs, I fl;r-*her aq;.?e ThaJ p~rmis.;irrrr
d m multipte copying sf this work f a r s c 5 ~ l a r l y uurposes s p y On granted
z r publication of this uclrft for fzr3r?lal gain ~, ' ;a) ! t.p ,? i i ~ ~ ~ ~ l
without my writtec permission.
Being and T i m e contrasting it witb the traditional theories
such as correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories
(afthough Weideggergs own account is similar to certain
modern coherence-pragmatist theories such as Davidson*~),
Neideqger argues that the dominant traditional theories of
truth depend on an ontology originating in ancient Greece
that does not adequately capture the nature of human
- existence and its relevance to truth. I also discuss
Weideqger ? s o m ontofogy, centered on his conception of
nDasein,n arguing that it provides a more adequate and
fundamental account of human existence. Finally, 1 discuss
the view of truth emerging from Heidegger's ontology. For
Heidegger we discover truths about entities within the
world, but we are not ourselves such "entities." The truths
w e discover axe not absolute, however; they are relative to
what he describes as the adisclosuxeM of the world, a
paradigm-creating series of events determfning the way the
warld is understood, Any theory of truth, for Heidegger,
depends on activity and he uses this thesis, articulated as
RSeing-in-the-wr)rIdR in Being and T i m e , +,a criticize the
tendency of the traditional theories of truth to emphasize
passive representation, subject/object metaphysics, and the
search for abso2utes.
iii
. * . ABSTRACT ................................. . . . . s A . . + . . . * * * e > ~ ~
TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i k r
7 G' Notes for the Introduction ............................... L 2
CHAPTER ONE: HEfDEGGER AND REALISM ....................... 2 7 '7 1.1: The Origins of SubjectfObject Metaphysics ...........,
1.2. Heidegger's Objectians to Cartesianism .............. 3 5 1.3. The Occurrent and the Available ..................... 4 1 1.4. Heidegger" View o f Language ........................ 4ft Nates for Chapter One ................................... - 5 7
.......................... CHAPTER TWO: BEIWG-IN-THE-WORLD 6 0 2.1. The Nature of Dasein ................................ 61 2.2. Being-in ............................................ 64
..... 2 . 3 . The World ..............................*.... *I 1 2 . 4 . Care .. ................*.............................. 7 5 2.5. The Nature of Reality ............................... 7 8
. Wotes f o r Chap te r Two ............................... U 6
CHAPTER THREE: HEIDEGGER ON TRUTH ....................... '0-/ 3.1. The Shift from A l e t h e i a to Truth .................... 8 7 3.2. Traditional Theories of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2 3.3. The Nature o f Assertion and Truth as Uncovering ..... 96 3.4. Truth as Disclosure ................................. 301 3.5. The Shift from Uncovering to Agreement .............. 1 0 5 3 . 6 . The Nature and Presupposition of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0 8 N o t e s f o r Chapter Three .................................. 115
............................................... CONCLUSfON 3 1 6 ................................. Notes %or the Conclusion 121
............................................... REFERENCES 122
iv
TEITRODUCTION --- -
r n t h i s thesis, I attempt to explicate Heidegger's
conception of truth as it appears in sections 43 and 44
Being and Time.r My aim is primarily exegetical rather
tkan criticaf, Heidegger's concern in B e i n g and Time is
not with epistemological theories of justification
regarding whether w e can know what is true, nox is he
concerned with genealogical theories of knowledge regarding
how we come to know what is true. Rather, his concern is
with the ontological foundations of truth itself. The
relevant question, therefore, is not: given the truth that
p, what justification could be provided for X's belief that
p is true? Nor is it the question: given the truth that p,
how did X come to believe that p is true? Rather, the
relevant questions are: what conditions must be satisfied
in order fox there to be such a thing as truth or
knowledge? Are these conditions absolute? What sorts of
entities, if any, are suitable bearers of truth? What is
the ontoloqical status of such truth bearers? What
conditions identify the things we ordinarily call true
(such as propositions, judgements, and beliefs) --
correspondence with objective reality (e.g., facts or
states of affairs); internal coherence among, for example,
judgements, beliefs, or pact ices; use•’ ulness in or
consequences fcr our everyday fives; or something
altogether different?
Page - 1
To answer these questions our ~ Q G U S m u s t be on
a n t o l o g y rather than an epistemoiogy; Heidegqer believes
ontology determines how we undensta~d ourselves, the w o x i d ,
and the relationship between ourselves and the world.
Thus, ontofogy dekermines trow we understand such key
concepts as truth, knowledge, and reality; antology
explains the o s i q P n s of these concepts in our deepest
understartding of t h e nakure of reality. Indeed, Heideqqer
Believes the epistemological enterprise as a whole f i . e . ,
the assumption that it is intelligible to ask whether and
how we can know anything at all] grows out of our
commitment to a specific ontology. If he is correct, then,
although epistemology and ontology axe dialectically
Interdependent, investigatkons into the nature of the
ontology of truth in Western philosophy are logically prior
to episternofoqicaf enquiry: all questions about
justification and knowledge acquisition will already
presuppose some understanding of our own nature, of the
nature of the world, and of our mode of access to the world
inherent in this particular ontology, Furtherrnora,
Weldeggex believes the ontology enabling us to make sense
of epistemologicaf issues also underlLes all traditional - -
theories of truth, Thus, any investigation into the nature
of truth must also begin with ontology.
According to the ontology of truth assumed by most
Western philosophers, Heidegger argues, the world hasi an
objective structure that is in the sense of
Page - 2
';
.ndependent of human interpretation or activity. Human
beings represent for Nre-presenttr) this struct~re in
propositions, mental images, beliefs, or theories. This
vaguely dualistic metaphysical picture makes it possible
for us to see truth as a relation between our
representations of the world and the world as it is in
itself, and to see philosophy as the discipline whose job
it is to describe the nature of this relation. To see how
Heidegqer supports the claim that traditional theories of
truth rely on this ontology, let us consider the
traditionally dominant types of theories: correspondence
theories, pragmatic theories, and coherence theories.
According to correspondence theories, truth is a
relation between something representational (such as a
pxoposition, mental image, judgement, or even a theory) and
an objective, independent reality (objects, facts, and
states of affairs as they are in themselves). According to
early versions of pragmatic theories, such as those offered
by William Janes and the early John Dewey,= truth is a
relation between something mental or intentional (such as
an idea, belief, or hypothesis) and its consequences or
uses in an objectively xeal world. Thus correspondence
theories and early pragmatic theories rely on the
ontological distinction between representatiens of reality
and reality itself lor between the mental and the
of things that could either correspond u r f a i l ta
correspond or, i n the case ef pragmatic theories, one t y p e
of entity whose truth i s depezdent an its consequences for
another type cT entity,
Heideggex believes ~Zassical (ideafist? coherence
theories also rely on this distinction, though it is less
obvious how they do s o . 9 Classical coherence t h e o r i e s m a k e
truth a reiatioc among various tokens of one type of
representation -- for example, logical consistency [or
mutual support) among all propositions, all mental images,
all ideas, or all theories -- without making reference to
an independent, objective world. An obvious objection to -
coherence theories is they lead to the counter-intuitive
conclusion that a proposition, for example, "aboutf* an
objective fact may be *trueH fi.e., meet the test of
coherence) without there actually beinq any such objective
fact. HeideggerEs objection, however, is more subtle. It
is that coherence theories depend on the existence of at
least one side of the traditional representation/reallty
distinction. That is, while coherence theories avoid the
need to account for any connection between representations
and reality, they still rely upon there being a self-
ccntained realm of representation by means of which t r u t h
is defined and reality characterized. Our common-sense
intuition that truth must be tied to the abjectlve world
simply reintroduces the other h a l f of the underlying
ontology, namely the assumption that there Is an
Page - 4
obiectiveIy real arid mind-independent world that t r u t h is
about, Coherence theories, t h e n , re jec t t h e need for
finkage between representations and xeality, while holding
onto the idea of agreement among representations as the
best characterization o f truth, whatever the connection
Between experience and reality.
Kith both coherence and correspondence theories, then,
we have true representations (propositions, beliefs,
judgements, theories}, and in both cases the question of
truth concerns the relationship either among
representat ions (coherence! or between representations and
objective reality fconrespondence). The main difference
between the two is simply that for coherence theories the
relation exists between tokens of one type of entity while
far correspondence theories the relation exists between
tokens of two types of entities. Therefore, both coherence
and correspondence theorists must ask the same question:
what is the nature of this truth-relation? For Heidegger,
then, cohezence and ccrtespondence theories share the same
ontology: both involve a relation between things, and both
understand the nature af that relation as something to be
discovered . Weideqqer 's own view is that correspondence,
pragmatic, and coherence theories of truth are HprivativeH
or Eerivcd f r o m a deeper, maze "pnrfim~riiial*~ understanding
of truth, an understanding devoid of the ontological
distinctions and commitments underlying traditional
Page - 5
conceptions cf tr7:th. Poliowing H e i d e g g e x , 1 w r i l oaf:
t h i s more fundament31 understanding ?f t r u t h " t r u t h as
d i s c l a s ~ r e , ~ ~ I t is a sense cf truth closely zc*nnez+efl
w i t h wh3t Heideqyer calls " t h e being of e n t i t i e s f ' hecause
the being of entities [ h o w entities are a s t-tpposcid t o w A i ~ t
entities are] ks what is d i s c l o s e d by human activity.
According to Weidegqer, d i s c l o s u x e is the a c t i v i t . y ~ j f
pzoducing underlying frameworks, ontologies, and r o o t
metaphors- T h e framework underlyiny the Western w c ~ r l d vicw
is that the world has an objective structure, indcpeniler~t:
of human activity and i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , Thks undez l y i n g
framework has fed variously ta the ontt;f uqies c;.;tf
materialism [the view that reality consists c n t i r c l y of.
properties inhering in portions of extended matter:,
ideal i s m Ithe view that reality consists e n t i r e l y af. nori-
extended i d e a l oz mental entitiesf, and d u a l ism f the v i e w
that reality consists af a combinat i o n of ment.al e n t i t it:;
and physical entitles). While these untnloqies differ in
detail, all three share the vicw t h a t reality c Q n s i c ; t s nf
static, o c c ~ ~ r e n t ~ things unaltered in t h e i r fur ,damentd~l
nature by human activity and interpretation: ~3bje r t s a r e
mental entities; reality always consists exclucivaly ~ t f
L r l E one, exclusively af t h e other, o r of a c m n t i n a t i ~ n ~f " " -
two a ~h~ ---C r v i L -A+- m=r=ph~+ emerging from our underlyixg
f r a a e ~ a r k casts knowing as a type of Rbeho2dinya: the v i e w
that knowledge is gained primarily by autonomous,
Page. - f,
individual representexs engaging in detached observation or
contemplation of reality, The underlying Eramework, out of
which var fous ontologies and root metaphors grow, allows
entities to emerge as entities of a certain sort -- in the
predominant modern view of reality, as self-contained,
material things governed by abstract causal principles --
and sa makes i t possible to discover how things are in the
world by discezning the principles underlying the structure
and behavior of these occurrent things,
Discoverfnq how things are in the world involves
ascribing some determination to entities through providing
descriptions of them based on the overall framework and
Intelligible only within the overall framework. Science,
far example, is a mechanism of discovery, describing
reality in term of mass, energy, molecular structure,
causal laws, etc., expressed in certain mathematical
formulae. This description relies on the disclosure of
entities as isolable, substantial, quantifiable things.
Hefdegger maintains that traditional theories of truth are
also mechanisms of discovery made possible by the
dfselosure o f the world as an objectively structured
reality consisting of occurrent things. Thus, while
tfaditlsnaf theorfes of t ruth m y make intexesting and
L --A, w a r a n t &, c o n t r i l m t i t n s to auz understanding of how things
are fn the wf:rXS, they are nevertheless sugerven3ent,
thtoaeticd constructs pzesupposing the specific disclosure
of the world that des of discovery poss ibf e .
Page - 7
In his own discussion of truth, Heideqqer attempts to
disclose the natuxe of traditional theoxies as mechanisms
of discovery based on a disclosure. That is, Heidegger
does not himself present a theory of truth. Rather, he
attempts to outline the origins and limitations of
traditional theories of truth, arguing that they cannot
characterize reality at its deepest level, and so have no
valid claim to absolute authority. He argues further that
all theory is rooted in interpretation, and so the concept
of truth should be seen as evolutionary and hermeneutical,
rather than as fixed or absolute,
Heidegger maintains t h a t our understanding of t r u t h as
correspondence is based on a momentous disclosure, centered
on the early Greek notion of aletheia, While the Greek
word @aletheiae? is ordinarily translated as "truth, "
Heidegger maintains that a f e t f i e i a did not originally mean
what we mean by "truth-" Rather, for the pre-Socratics, it
meant the "unhiddennessH of entities or t h e "clearing"
within which entities "showed themselves." Ale the ia ,
Heidegger argues, contained no distinction between the
knower and the known, and hence no distinction between
representations and reality, The notion of truth as
correspondence arose out of the Parmenidean/Platonic
ontological distinction between universal and particular,
- -2 auuc Zater on, the wistoteLian qrarmatical distinction
between subject and predfcate that was built into the
eariiez distinction, As a result of these distinctions,
t r u t h came +a be associated with revealing the general
attribuees ef particufar entities ! i . e , , discovering
univexsality in pariicalars) and with a beholding subject
who accomplishes this revealing through some mode of
representatisn C l . e . , characterizing universality in
p a r t i c u l a r s > . Thus, while Aristotle never speaks of
represeneations and Plato does so only fleetingly, they
nevertheless made the fundamental distinctions out of which
the view of knowledge as representation and the view of
truth as correspondence were to emerge. After Plato and
Arfstotie, accuracy of mental or linguistic representation
gradually became the hallmark of truth.
In chapter three of this thesis, I discuss the
derivation of truth from a le the ia and contrast Heideggerts
notion of disclosure with the traditional view of truth as
correspondence. Little time is spent discussing the
details or various formulations of the classical theories
of truth, not because they are uninteresting or unimportant
but because, once again, Heidegger believes that all such
theonies share the same fundamental characteristic, namely,
the ontological separation of representation and reality.
Coherence and pragmatic theories of truth will be mentioned
onZy in passing because, as Bernd Magnus points out in
Heldegger3s Metahistory of Philosophy:
Heidegger would probably collapse all such distinctions [as those between correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories of truth1 as derivative. We is not unaware of possible
Page - 9
objections which could be raised by historians o f philosophy. I t is simply that Heidegger uses the concept of agreement,..,, in a broader sense, which includes all kinds o f t'ag~eementw; idea to thing, thing to consistently related ideas, and ideas to their verifiable (or discernible) consequences.'
For the most part, then, in this thesis only the phrase
ticorrespondence theoryv will be used. This should,
however, be understood to include a l l the other traditional
theories of truth as well.
As we have seen, Heidegger traces the origins of our
fundamental framework back to ancient Greece. Because he
believes that this framework has largely determined the
subsequent history of Western philosophy, he finds i t
necessary to approach his conception of truth via a
discussion of the origins of traditional ontology. In
other words, because Heidegger believes tha t our
philosophical interests and commitments are determlned, or
at least greatly influenced, by the tradition we have
inherited from our ancestors, he says it is necessary to
understand the ontology of this tradition before any real
progress can be made on questions concerning t h e nature of
reality or the nature of truth as they have been discussed
within it. In giving an example of the profound influence
of the traditional framework on our world-view, Heidegger
says the Parmenidean interpretation of Beings as
objectively determinate reaiity was adopted by F i a t o and
Aristotle and ''has, in its essentials, travelled the path
that leads through the Dlsputationes metapfiysicae of Suarez
to the smetaghysics' and transcendental philosophy of
modern timesn € 2 2 3 . Such an interpretation, once original
and controversial, has become an integral part of our own
world-view.
Furthermore, Heidegger notes that when a world-view
becomes firmly entrenched, as ours undoubtedly has, certain
possibilities of thought are precluded. One set of
beliefs, even if a variable set, takes on the character of
virtual self-evidence and becomes the foundation for our
understanding of the world and ourselves. He says that
Wthe ontology which has thus arisen [from the Greek
interpretation of Being] has deteriorated to a tradition in
whfch it gets reduced to something self-evident -- merely
material for reworkingti 1221. As a result, we neglect to
question the assumptions behind the wfoundationsw of our
knowledge, and so are repeatedly stuck with the problems
that grow out of our world-view, problems which remain
unsolvable from within our set of presuppositions.
Heideggex asks, *Is it accidental that no headway has been
made with this problem [of correspondence1 in over two
thousand years?" 1216-71,
Because Heidegger believes the entrenchment of a
world-view precludes original possibilities of thought, he
says i t is necessary to @destroyn the tradition oE ontology
before any new metaphors can take hold. To destroy the
tradition, f n Heidegger's sense, is to loosen the hold it
has over us, to come to understand it as the source of our
Page - 11
philosophical view point, and to recapture some of its
original "positive possibilitiesH f221 now lost to us.
Heidegger believes that if we are able to do this, we will
be able to make explicit at least some of the
presuppositions implicit in our ontological commitments,
begin to free ourselves from the grip of subject/object
ontol~gy,~ and ultimately to understand correspondence
theories of truth as mechanisms of discovery.
In Being and Time, Heidegger goes beyond the
destruction of the tradition. He also presents a positive,
alternative ontology -- that of being-in-the-world
which, he says, is more primitive and fundamental than the
metaphysics of subjects and objects. This primitive sense
of being, centered on activity and action, is still with
us, though it has been obscured by the conception of Being
as that which is v*p~esentft to the mind (or, more recently,
as the objective reality described by science). This
conception of Being has been the predominant metaphysics
since Plato first began the separation of reality into the
two parts of knower (subject) and known (object).
Heidegger 's basic premise is that Dasein (roughly
hvean being or human activity) is essentially interpretive
of itself and the world. Dasein and world are interdefined
by Daseints activities and each is dependent on the other
for its being. It is because traditional philosophers have
been working within the Platonic/Aristotelian disclosure
that Dasein has interpreted itself as an occurrent thing ( a
self-contazned mental substance, a rnind/body, a rational
animal, etc.f and has interpreted the world as a domain of
occurrent objects. Descartes ' Meditations on First
Philosophy is perhaps the most transparent example of the
interpretation of Being to which Heidegger objects.
Indeed, in Heidegger and the Problem of K n o ~ Z e d g e , ~ ~
Charles Guignon casts Being and Time primarily as a
reaction against Cartesianism. The ontology of being-in-
the-world may then be seen as an alternative to or even
necessary precondition for the emergence of subject/object
metaphysics.
Perhaps the best way to introduce the ontology of
being-in-the-world is to discuss Heideggerts rejection of
the traditional notion that knowledge about the world can
be attained best (or only) through disengaged
contemplation, by assuming a detached theoretical attitude.
As Hubert Dreyfus says in his recent study of B e i n g and
Tf me :
From Platois theoretical dialectic, which turns the mind away from the everyday world of "shadows, '@ to Descastes ' s preparation for philosophy by shutting himself up in a warm room where he is free from involvement and passion, to Humels strange analytical discoveries in his study, which he forgets when he goes out to play billiards, philosophers have supposed that only by withdrawing from everyday practical concerns before describing things and people can they discover bow things xeally are.==
Heidegger's objection to this view is three-fold.
First, he maintains the very notion of attaining a
Page - 13
theoretical attitude presupposes that the world has an
objective structure that ean be observed or studied as it
is in itself, That is, it presupposes that one can detach
or disengage human activity and interpretation from the
world and still be left with an intelligible, structured
reality to study. Heidegger rejects this view, arguing
that the world bas a structure only in relation to human
concerns, activities, and interpretations; the identity of
entities within the world is a function of their place in
an over-arching framework of purposive, meaningful
activity. For Heidegger, it does not make sense to speak
of the structure of the world independent of the
determinations conferred on it through human disclosuxe.
Indeed, f a r Heidegger, the very notion that the world has a
structure "in itselfn is intelligible only within the
framework of traditional ontology.
Secondly, Heidegger rejects the implicit assumption
that human beings are self-contained individuals or
subjects of thought and experience who can be detached from
the world in which they ordinarily reside. Heidegger
traces this modern, subjectivist view to Descartesv
ffinventionw of the mind as the mechanism for grasping
universals. This invention transformed the
universal/particular distinction of the Greeks and
Scholastics into subject/sbject metaphysics; both
distinctions are implicit in the Greek disclosure of truth
Page - 14
as discuvery, I n his s t u d y of Being and Tine, Charles
Guiqnon says:
[With Descaxtesl the subject becomes the center around which all other entities revolve as ttobjectsn of experience: the self is the "sub- j ec tumn -- that which is "thrown undert* and underlies beings,,,-What makes a person unique is now seen as t h e bidden, private riches of his inne~most mental realm, ..,[ghat ernesgesl is a picture of the inner self as completely self- defining, with no essential bonds to anything else in the cosmos.x2
Hcidegger argues, against the tradition, that the
shared, p ~ b l i c "we-worldH always takes precedence over any
'+innern realm of experience or private grasp of meaning ox
truth. For Meidegqer, individuals always exist within, and
are defined by, a common institutional framework of roles,
and norms of behavior and equipment use. P3
[The individual is always] contextualized in equipmental contexts, in a culture, and in history. These contexts define the self without residue -- the Cartesian mind as a center of experiences divides out without remaindex. What makes us unique as individuals is not an "internal spacew or substantial self distinct from our roles in the world.. ..In this way [Heideggesf attempts to retrieve from oblivion an earlier understanding of the self as inextricably woven into the wider context of a community and a cosmos. 5 4
Heideggex does not deny that we can experience
ourselves as conscious subjects relating to objects via
intentional states, but he maintains that this is a derived
and intermittent condition, presupposing a much more
fundamental involvement in a shaxed, public world. Our
Page - 15
ability to understand ourselves as conscious s u b j e c t s is
dependent on our familiarity with a specific disclosure of
the world. And, disclosure is a communal or globa l
activity, not an individual, subjective process of thought,
judgement, or representation. Thus, Heidegger may be
called an anti-individualist; in his view there is no
private, individual self distinct from or more fundamental
than the public roles one assumes in the everyday public
world.
Finally, Heidegger rejects the view, implicit in the
theoretical attitude, that our primary mode of access to
the world is in the form of beholding independent reality
with the eye or the mind. Heidegger argues that our most
fundamental way of being is characterized by activity and
involvement with the world, by concern for and interaction
with the entities w e encounter in our daily lives, not by
detached observation and contemplation. This interaction
is governed by a network of tacit, communal rules of use
and interpretation that make up the public, social world.
The most primitive of these rules are pre-intentional, pre-
linguistic norms of behavior and use, giving us a pre-
theoretical understanding of what entities are and how they
behave which must always already be in place before it Is
possible for us to gain theoretical knowledge about t h e m -
Understanding is activity-based; it is more primitive than I
subjective contemplation and theoretical thinking.
Heidegger says :
Page - 16
fklfi sight for insight for that matter1 is grounded primarily in understanding .... f f I n t u i t i o n f l and "thinkingft are both derivatives of understanding, and already rather remote ones, Even the phenomenological +@intuition of essences" is grounded in existential understanding. [I471
Anothex way of putting this point is to say that one must,
at some level, always, already understand what one is
looking for before it is possible actually to look for it
or to know whether one has found it. Because
understanding, unlike intuition and thinking, is pre-
intentional and pxe-linguistic, it involves a far deeper
interconneetion between Dasein and world than that allowed
by beholding. Fox this reason, Heidegger argues that
beholding cannot be the fundamental characterization of our
understanding of the world.
The picture emerging from these considerations is one
in which human beings and the rest of the world are,
through the communal activity of being-in-the-world,
essentially interdependent and mutually defining, rather
than divided into ontological categories based on
ontological type-distinctions such as consciousness/matter,
form/content, and universal/particular,
Although it will be necessary to make brief excursions
into other sections of Being and Time, this thesis
considers particularly those sections explicitly devoted to
the nature of reality and the nature of truth: section 43
"Dasein, wosldhood, and realityw and section 44 "Dasein,
Page - 17
disclosedness, and truth." The structure of these two
sections is roughly as follows.
SECTION 43: DASEIW, WORLDHOOD, AND RBALITX
Heidegger begins by pointing out that philosaphers
have traditionally interpreted Being in terms of entities
within the world and construed entities within the world as
occurreat things: isolated, substantial objects, located in
space/time with no tefeofogical connection to that
space/time. Substantiality has thus become the primary
characteristic of
Section 43ta):
The question
confused with the
"reality. "
of what reality signifies
question of the existence
h a s been
of the external
world. This has happened because reality has traditionally
been taken to consist of occurrent things and b e c a u s e Zt
has long been held that reality can best be understood
through objective observation and contemplation. However,
if we begin with the assumption that the world consists of
occurrent objects, go on to ask epistemological questions,
and use the method characterized as beholding to answer
these questions, we will discover that the only thing
certain is indeed something "inner." T h u s the need to
prove the existence of the "external" world arises.
Even Kant fell prey to this problem: he called it the
"scandal of philosophy and of human reason in generai* that
there is still no cogent proof for the existence of t h i n g s
Routside of us* which would do away with skepticism.
Page - i8
Heidegger maintains, however, that the scandal of
philosophy is not that such a pzoof has yet to be given,
"but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and
againm [ 2 0 5 1 . The demand fon such proofs arises only
because the charactex of the being who requests pxoofs and
does the proving has not been properly understood.
Traditional attempts to determine the nature of
reality have gone awry because they have focused on
epistemologfcal issues (i.e., whether and how Dasein can
have access to reality) while leaving the ontological
presuppositions upon which epistemology is based
unguest i oned .
Section 43(b):
The term "realityw stands for the being of entities
occurrent within the world. Thus, an analysis of neality
is possible only if the phenomenon of "within the
wor2dnessM is clarified first. But, the phenomenon of the
world is a basic constituent of being-in-the-world, Thus,
an analysis of reality is possible only in connection with
an ontological analysis of being-in-the-world.
Nevertheless, positive contributions have been made by
philosophers who have attempted to analyze reality without
reference to any explicit ontological basis. For example,
Dilthey and Schefer have noted that reality is given
primarily in resistance to impulse and w i l l , not in
thinking or apprehending. Heidegger notes that in any
experience of resistance or willing something must already
Page - 19
have been d i s c l o s e d as w h a t m e ' s will i s > u t f o x . T h u s ,
in any experience 0 5 resistance to will Dasein f i n d s itself
already a m i d s t a totality OR involvements, slready I:; 3
d i s c l o s e d warfd. Experiences of resistanre, Cher e f ~ r r , do
not disclose the world for t h e first time; they presuppil:je
that the worla has been d i s c l o s e d already.
Section 43Cc):
Because nepresent inc ; is j u s t a n o t h e r way 1-f b ~ i r q - i n
the-world, attempts to work out an analysis of r e a l i t y
cannot be based on representing but must be trared t c j
beinq-in-ttr~-~ar1-d. That IS, representing Is -1 n?echan!sm
o f filscovery, an activity based on the
PPatonic/Aristatelian disclosure of the world. Disclusur~
is r e l a t e d to Dasein's most fundamental act ivitles a n d
involvement with the world,
Neideqgex points o u t t h a t in early G r e e k philasoyky
t r u t h was understood to have a fundamental t a n n e c t i c ~ r r w i t h
being; it was n o t made a theme for theatfes of judgement o r
knowledge as i t is today. Heidegqez stresses the
connection between truth and being and, i n doing s o , s h o w s
how our modern notion of t r u t h as correspondence ts d e r i v e d
fro= a more fundamental notion of t r u t h .
Secl5on +I$a)z
The mast dPffieult question facing adherents cf
correspondence t h e o r r e s is Row something representatlfmal
can carrespond te gbjective reality, Rather than trying t o
answer t h i s queskfm, Heideggox maintains t h a t t h e question
has afreaay been dfs tor ted by the untologlcalfy unclarified
separation of representations and reality. In approaching
t h e questfun of truth from the standpoint of traditional
metaphysics, we not anly begin at an impasse, we presuppose
t h e very t h i n g at issue: we presuppose that truth is a
relation between representations and reality.
Heideggex says that assertions are not
~epresentations; they are tools for calling attention to
relevant aspecks of a sdtuation ~ccurrlnq within an already
- dlsclose8 world- Ta say that an assertion is true
signifies that it uncovers the thing It is about in the
"howa of its being, zelative t o a disclosure. The entities
that are uncovered are true -in a second sense.w The being
who does the uncovering, Dasein, is true in a more
fundamental sense.
Truth as correspondence has come to be seen as basic
rather than derived from a more primordkaf notion of truth
because the two terns involved in the cozrespondence
relation -- assertions (or ludqements) and objects (or
states of a f f a i z s ) -- have themselves come to be seen as
basic rather than dsrhved from discourse Cor telling) a d
~quipaent reap~ctfvefy, Heldegger says that discourse
belongs essentially to those beings who disclose the world.
DEscourse I s a way of uncovering entities within the wosld,
Page - 21
but it is also a way of conveying how
worfd have been uncovered, Discourse
usually takes the form of assertion.
entities within the
of the latter sort
In this way,
assertions became toals for passing on information about
entities within the world, But, because entities within
the world have been taken to be occurrent things and
because these things are what assertions are about,
assertions themselves come to be seen as occurrent, as
tokens of representation. Thus, truth comes to be seen as
an occurrent relation between occurrent things.
Section 4 4 f c ) :
Because truth, in its deepest sense, is referred back
to the being or a c t i v i t y of Dasein, there is truth only in
so far as Dasein is and for so long as Dasein is. This
does not mean that truth is subjective. The world is, in
every case, already disclosed for individual Dasein.
In all of this w e have presupposed t h a t there is
t r u t h . B u t this is nothing like an idle or groundless
presupposition on our part. Rather, we must presuppose
that there is truth because we posses the sort oE being
P3hos5 activities disclose the world and discoven entities
with in the worfd, I t is only on the basis of thexe being
The thesis itself is divided
Chapter one contains an
into three chapters.
account of Heideggerts
wdestruction* of the history of metaphysics. The first
section traces the development of subjectfobject
metaphysics from Parmenides to Descartes. The second
section contains a brief discussion of Heideggerfs
objections to Cartesianism and introduces two aspects of
Heidegger's proposed alternative. Section three, entitled
HThe Occurrent and the Available," explores Neideggerfs
contention that entities within the world are defined in
terms of human purposes, rather than in terms of abstract
physical properties. The fourth section contains a brief
discussion of Heidegger's view of language and the
connection between language and metaphysics.
CHAPTER TWO
The bulk of chapter two is devoted to a discussion of
being-in-the-world. This is divided into three sections:
the nature of Dasein (the being who is in the world), the
notion of being-in (a contrast between the "inH of spatial
inclusion and the "infi of non-spatial involvement), and the
notion of the world (a contrast between traditional
definitions and Heidegger8s technical sense of taworldw).
These three sections are followed by a section on "caretf:
Heldeqqer's characterization of Dasein as being-in-the-
Page - 23
world. The final
discussion of the
science.
section of
nature of r
chapter two is devoted to a
sality as understood in
CHAPTER THREE
Chapter three deals directly with Heideqger's
conception of truth and is divided into six sections. The
first section deals with the shift that occurred in Plato
and Aristotle from the pse-Socratic notion of a l e t h e i a to
the modern notion of truth as correspondence. The second
section deals with some of Heideqgsrts objections to
traditional theories of truth and with Weideggerts attempt
to clarify the notion of agreement. In the third section,
1 discuss the nature of assertion and Heideggex" notion of
truth as uncovering. The fourth section contains a
discussion of truth as disclosure -- Heidegger's more
fundamental notion of truth -- and the notion of being "In
the truth and the u n t r ~ t h . ~ Fifth is a discussion of
assertion, and the shift that occurred from uncovering to
agreement. And finally, there is a discussion of the
nature of truth and the presupposition that there is truth.
NOTES FOR THE IN1PRODUCTION
zUnless otherwise noted all references to Heidegger are from: Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1962).
'See: William James, Pragmatism (Cambridge, Massachusettes: Warvard University Press, 1975) 97-104. James says, for example, #True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, cozroborate, and verify." James also says true ideas are those that are "useful," that mwork,*z that "pay," or that **help us to deal. ..with either the reality or its b e f ~ n g l n q s , ~
See also: John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, Enlarged Edition (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1965) 156. Dewey says, for example, "If [ideas, meanings, conceptions, notions, theories, systems J succeed in their off ice, they are reliable, sound, valid, good, txue. If they fail to clear up confusion, to eliminate defects, if they increase confusion, uncertainty and evil when they are acted upon they are false. ... The hypothesis that works is the true one.
=Many of the points Heidegger uses to criticize traditional versions of coherence and pragmatic theories of truth cannot be used to criticize more recent versions of these theories such as those formulated by Donald Davidson and the later John Dewey.
V h e German word translated as t@primordialw by Macquarrie and Robinson is @ursprunglich.~~ Because Heidegger clearly believes there are degrees of ursprunglich, a better translation may be afundameatalw or "primitive." I will substitute one of these terms where it is appropriate.
SThe German word translated as wdisclosev@ by Macquarrie and Robinson is Herschliessen.w This is contrasted with "entdeckenfF translated as ndiscoverw or wuncover.fi Discovery pertains to entities within the world; disclosure pertains to the world itself.
@Following Hubert Dreyfus, I will translate the german term 'i~~rhsndena as a~ccurrent. I *'Vorhandenf* is translated as Rpresent-at-handw by Macquarrie and Robinson.) This term refers to entities whose primary characteristic is substantiality -- the static, independent objects of Cartesian enquiry. I will translate the german term %uhandenM as *available. f 'fZuhanden is translated as wzeady-to-handa by Macquarrie and Robinson.) This term
refors to entities whose primary characteristic is useablity -- the context-dependent equipment Heidegger takes to be basic. See section 1.2 for a discussion of the occurrent and the available,
7Bernd Magnus, H e i d e g g e r *5 Hetabistory of Phil oscphyr Amor Fati, B e i n g and Truth (The Hague: Martinus Mijhof f , 1970) 74 *
BThe term "Being*' (with a capital "BW) will be used to refer to the traditional conception aceoxding to which Being is occurrent. "Being*! skauld be understood as a noun. The term "being" !with a small "bf') will be used to refer to Heidegger's conception of being as activity-based. Here, *#beingw is a gerund.
"I use the phrase 3isubject/ob3ect ontologyw to refer roughly to the metaphysics underlying traditional theories of truth and knowledge. Thus, "subjeet/object ontology" should be understood to include all dualistic schema5 -- the Platonic ideal/real, the Cartesian mind/body, and all other versions of the representation/reality distinction such as mental imaqe/reality, language/world, etc.
loCharles B. Cuignon, Heidegger and the P r o b l e m of Knowledge (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983)
"Hubert Dreyfus, B e i n g - i n - t h e - W o r l d : A Commentary on Heidegger ' s B e i n g and Time, Division One f Cambr idge, Mass : H I T Press, 1991) 6.
="See chapter 2.2 of this thesis for a discussion of equipment use.
I4Guignon, 19.
CHAP! PER OWE
HEIDEGGER AND REALISM
Heidegger believes subject/object metaphysics
originated in ancient Greece through a re-interpretation
of certain key concepts. This re-interpretation created
a new world-view: one that has dominated our concepts of
knowledge, truth, reality, and selfhood since Plato.
Because subjectfobject metaphysics is the basic
metaphysics of the West, it will be necessary to outline
its origins and to discuss some of Heideggerfs objections
to it before going on to discuss the alternative ontology
of being-in-the-world.
% . I : THE ORIGINS OF SUBJECT/O%JECT METAPHYSICS
Heidegger says that subject/object metaphysics began
explicitly with Parmenides and was firmly entrenched by
Plato and Aristotle [1001. For his part, Parmenides was
the first to raise the general question about the nature
of Being (i-e., the ultimate nature of reality). To
characterize Being, Parmenides drew a contrast between
"the way of seeming* and Nthe way of truth." The way of
seeming was identified with the beliefs of mortals who
wrongly suppose that things exist at some times and not
at others t i . & , , that change is real) and that some
things contain less Being than others (i-e., that there
are differences between things). The way of truth, on
Page - 27
the other hand, was identified with the divine, The way
of truth teffs us that the object of thought and
knowledge exists and must exist. Real Being is eternal,
ungenerated, and indestructible. No distinctions can be
made in it; it does not move or change; it does not admit
of degrees or qualitative differences. Parmenides
concluded that mortals are wrong to assume that Being is
many (i.e., that change and difference are fundamental
characteristics of Being) based on the information
conveyed to them by the senses (the way of seeming) when
reason (the way of truth) tells us that Being is one and
unchanging.
Parmenides8 influence on Plato was direct and
profound. As David Furley says in his article,
*Parmenides of EleaN:
Plato inherited from Parmenides the belief that the object of knowledge must exist and must be found by the mind [reason] and not by the senses. He agreed that the object of knowledge is not something abstracted from the data of sense perception but a being of a different and superior order.=
In Pfato, the objects of knowledge are, of course, the
Platonic forms, which have all of the characteristics
ascribed to Being by Parmenides; they were eternal,
untreated, and unchanging. In the early and middle
dialogues, the Platonic forms were conceived along the
lines of arithmetical and geometrical objects, and so
they provided Plato with eternal objects sought through
Page - 28
t h e a r t o f d i a l e c t i c , d i r e c t l y comparab le t o t h e o b j e c t s
{truths) sought by a r i t h m e t i c and geomet ry . I n h i s
d u a l i s t i c o n t o l o g y , P l a t o c o n t r a s t e d t h e forms w i t h
c o n s t a n t l y c h a n g i n g , s e n s i b l e p a r t i c u l a r s , which wer
s a i d t o owe t h e i r s t r u c t u r e t o t h e i r p a r t i c i p a t i o n i
forms.
n t h e
Plate's t h e o r y of fo rms p r o v i d e d a n e x p l a n a t i o n of
how human beings c c u l d u n d e r s t a n d u n i v e r s a l c o n c e p t s s u c h
as Wisdom o r V i r t u e and i d e n t i f y i m p e r f e c t p a r t i c u l a r
i n s t a n c e s of them i n t h e s e n s i b l e w o r l d . I t a c c o u n t e d
f o r o u r a b i l i t y t o make sense o f d e f i n i t i o n s , s t a n d a r d s ,
and paradigms, of immutable t h i n g s ( s u c h as numbers ) , of
(Cartesian) inner realm of consciousness and certainty.
In "Why Isn't the Mind-Body Problem Ancient,?' Wallace
Matson suggests that the Greeks had no way to divide the
events of the inner realm from the events of the external
world,
The Greeks did not lack a concept of mind, even of a mind separable from the body. But from Homer to Aristotle, the line between mind and body, when drawn at all, was drawn so as to put the processes of sense perception on the body side.. , .ffSensationtf was introduced into philosophy precisely to make it possible to speak of a conscious state without committing oneself as to the nature or even existence of external ~ t i m u l i . ~
One of Descartes' major contributions to philosophy
was to sharpen up and reposition what had been a vague
distinction between mind and body. Tn this way,
Descartes invented the distinction in its modern sense.
The novelty in Descartes' treatment of the distinction
fay in the notion of a unified, inner space that
accounted for sensation and perception, the grasp of
universals, the idea of God, moods, thought, and all the
rest of what we now call mental. Rorty s a y s :
Once Descartes had invented that tpprecise sensett of "feeling" in which it was wno other than thinking," w e began to lose touch with the Aristotelian distinction between reason-as- grasp-of-universals and the living body which takes care of sensation and motion. A new mind-body distinction was required -- the one which we call that "between consciousness and what is not consci~us."~
Paqe - 30
It is difficult to say with certainty why Descartes
repositioned the line between the mental and the
physical. It is probable, however, that he was
attempting to provide a foundation of indubitable truths
that could justify the discoveries of science as absolute
truths about nature, rather than describing scientific
discoveries as mere heuristic devices for fallible
humans, as Galileo was forced to do. When Descartes
fcund himself unable to doubt that he was in pain when he
could still doubt that " 2 + 2 = 4," he moved sensations,
moods, and the like into the realm of the mental because
they seemed to have an air of certainty even more
fundamental than the truths of mathematics and physics.
Once mind was no longer synonymous with the faculty of
reason (i.e., for Descartes the mind was also conscious),
something other than the ability to grasp universals had
to serve as a mark of the mental. Descartes chose
indubitability as the essential mark of consciousness and
the demarcatio~ he based on it has remained more or less
intact: philosophers still argue within the parameters
established by Descartes even in their almost universally
declared rejection of Cartesian metaphysics.
universal; truth had to be Parmenidean. Plato settled on
the (immaterial) forms as the true objects o f knowledge
because the sensible world, as Heraclitus had pointed
out, was in a state of constant flux. Plato's
metaphysics, however, is notoriously problematic; the
difficulties in it center on the relation between
universals and particulars, between form and matter. How
do particulars participate in or resemble the forms? How
can Parmenidesf one and Weraclitus' constant flux be
synthesized? Platofs philosophy left a chasm between the
forms and sensible objects, between universal concepts
and concrete particulars. And, because particulars were
held to be pale imitations of the forms, the sensible
world was deprived of most of its reality and meaning.
The early philosophical works of Platots more down-
to-earth pupil, Aristotle, may be seen as an attempt to
rectify this situation. Aristotle rejected the
transcendence of the forms but retained the Platonic view
that knowledge (at least scientific and metaphysical
knowledge) was of the universal and real. The job of
philosophy was then to find a way to retain the
permanence and universality of the objects of knowledge
without relying on metaphysically distinct forms.
Aristotie did thi eloping his c o n c e p t of Essence
and locating esse sensible pazticulars,
identifying the object of knowledge with the visible form
of sensible objects themselves. Some of the Platonic
Page - 32
forms were transformed into biological categories ( e . g , ,
genus, Animal; species, Man), immanent in particulars and
essential to their development. Other Platonic Eorms
were transformed into metaphysical categories (e.g.,
quality, quantity, number), characteristic of and
essential to all sensible particulars. Essence and
substance, rather than the sort of universal truths
characteristic of mathematical abstraction, became the
central concepts in Aristotle's philosophy. Indeed, in
Book VII of the Metaphysics, Aristotle suggests that
essence determines identity* He says: "The question as
to the Being of a being is the question as to Its
essence. w s
At times, however, Aristotle links the notion of
essence so closely to the notion of substance that they
are virtually indistinguishable. For example, in chapter
five of the Categories, Aristotle calls the essences or
natures of particulars "secondary sub~tances.~~'~ The
history of philosophy since Aristotle is filled with
attempts at distinguishing the material (or physical)
from the formal (or structural) aspects of substances.
By the time of Descartes (ox, at least, in
Descartes) there is essentially no difference between
essence and substance: thought [broadly construed) is the
sole essextfaf attribuke of mental substance {mind] and
extension is the sole essential attribute of physical
substance (matter). But Descartes does not explain what
Page - 33
a substance
to say that
is the only
is apart from its essential praFerty , except
is the existence of an essence fand t h a t ~ ~ ? d
substance for w h i c h existence is essential 1 +
Hind is thought; matter is spatfo-temporal extension. Ry
making extension the so le essential p r o p e r t y o f physical
substance, Descartes succeeded i n purging the physical
world of the spiritualistic and teleologica3 dimensions,
surviving in Christian theology from Platu" sand
Aristotle's accounts, thus rendering the physical world
an appropriate object of a new kind of study: one
focussing on the essences of thfngs as described by the
laws of mechanical motion. The division between mental
and physical was complete, As Rorty puts it, was
more like a distinction between two worlds than l i k e a
distinction between two sides, or even gaxts, of a human
being. H a
The details of Cartesian dualism have chanqed, but
the metaphysical contention that there is an unbtidqeablc
gap between the meatal and the physical - - that
individuals are pximarily subjects of experience, trapped
in private, inner worlds and that the entities around us
are primarily isolated bits of extended m t t e ~ in which
accidental properties Inhere -- remains, It is this v i e w
that HePbcqger s e e k s to sdestroy.e
' S m-mmrms TO cmmsIzwwn
According ts Charles Guiqnon, Descartes' philosophy
1s an attempt to find a foundation for scientific
inquiry, and shnuld be seen as an attempt to overcome the
wave of skepticism and relativism that swept through
sixteenth century Europe.
The revalutionary advances in science and technology, new discovexies abroad, abrupt shifts in demographic patterns, the breakdown of traditional political and economic structures ... fall1 proved to be incomprehensible within the traditional framework of medieval thought. Most significant among these dislocations was the protest Launched by Luther in 1517, Luther challenged the authority of the Church and the traditional conception of reason, insisting on the absolute authority of individual conscience in interpreting Scriptuxe. As a result of these sudden transitions, the traditional standards for knowledge had been undermined by the beginning of the seventeenth century, and there was no Longer any universally binding criterion that could provide assurance of beliefs in science, morality, or ~eligion.~
By the early seventeenth century, the traditional
understanding of the universe as a teleologically ordered
structure of synbols containing the story of human
salvation, and made intelligible to man by divine
revelation, had lost its authority in intellectual
circles- The collapse of the medieval framework,
tagether w i t h t h e absence =L any obvious alteznative, fed
to an unprecedented sise in reflgious and moral
~elativisa and skepticism, Even the most cherished
Page - 35
beliefs, the fundamental tenets of Christianity, were
subjected to doubt.
Descartes proceedez by means of a method of
investigation that would lead to certain and Indubitable
truths: truths uncolored by any presuppositions or
caltural prejudices, upon which we could rebuild an
edifice of true beliefs. (The Parrnenidean/Platonic
conception of truth survives in Descartes conception.)
To this end, again like Parmenides and Plato, Descartes
~esofved to disengage himself from active involvement
with the wozlG, to set aside all cares and passions, and
to be an unbiased spectator of all that passed before
him. ft was only after assuring himself that he had
indeed achieved the standpoint of pure objectivity, of
the dispassianate, rational observer that Descartes began
his investigation into t h e sources of understanding and
universal truths about particulars.
According to Meideqger, however, Descartes' attempt
to reach a punely objective standpoint was itself laden
with tacit philosophical presuppositions. In disengaging
himself from active involvement with the world, setting
aside a l l cares and passions, resolving to be a spectator
objectivity, what he could know about those objects
concerned their abstract physical properties and not
their sensible features.zo Heidegger maintains that
Descartesg apparently (by now to us) innocuous starting
point distorted the actual epistemological situation of
the enquiring subject. Indeed, Heidegger goes further
than this, arguing that the very notion of attaining a
completely objective view of the world must be brought
into question,
Descartes' conviction that a purely objective
standpoint for the discovery of universal truths could be
attained was Based on presuppositions, inherited from the
ancient Greeks, committing him to a picture of the world
as an independently structured reality represented by
subjects in thought and experience. The first of these
presuppositions grew out of the Parmenidean
interpretation of Being. According to this
interpretation, the true objects of knowledge are
unchanging with respect to their defining
characteristics; they have an objective structure that
can be grasped by the mind ithe source of the "pure light
of reasontt championed by the Enlightenment). Even though
m o d e r ~ accounts of substance (such as Descartes' and
* - hucke'si differed from those given by the ancient Greeks,
they retain& the prinsipie of an objectiveiy distinct
neality represented by knowing subjects who grasped the
universal laws of science and metaphysics.
This conception of reality guarantees the existence
of absolute truths about the world that can, in
principle, be discovered by human (or divine) reason and
that, when discovered, can provide a foundation for
knowledge. According to Heidegger, however, science,
Cartesian rationalism, Platonic dualism, Aristotelian
essentialism, and Christianity do not confirm the view
that the world has an objective structure so much as they
presuppose it. The structure is said to be "projected1'
onto nature in such a way that only those aspects of
nature conforming to it are allowed to show up. Nature
is then defined in terms of the features picked out by
the projection. Furthermore, for Heidegger, the world is
not, as most of the philosophical tradition and
scientific community have taken it to be, a collection of
ready-made objects whose independently determinate
essences await our discovery. Rather, it is a sphere of
significance constituted by human concerns and activities
-- of which science is only one. This sphere, what
Heidegger calls a "world," is dependent on those concerns
and activities for its being or reality. I discuss these
points in greater detail in chapter two.
The second presupposition Heidegger identifies
fnvofves Descartesf xeliance on the scientific method of
investigation. Heidegger believes this method grew out
of the Parmenidean/Platonic fascination with theoretical
abstractness. It is the idea that the universe is
Page - 38
ultimately understandable, that there discoverable,
universa7 principles underlying the profusion of
phenomena. We are urged to observe the phenomena before
us, to reflcct critically upon the source of our beliefs
in the underlying elements of reality, and to devise
certain universal criteria of correctness for those
beiiefs. Guignon calls this unitizing and generalizing.
The first component of the ideal method, uuitixirg, begins by regarding reality as dissolved into basic units. The concern of unitizing is to find the discrete, simple tibits" that mbke up the world....The second component ... involves a process of generalizing. The goal of generalizing is to find regular, orderly relations among the units arrived at by unitizing, in order to show how they are combined into the organized whole of nature.lX
The method of unitizing and generalizing presupposes
that entities can be decontextualized -- taken from their
places in specific situations -- and understood as
interchangeable bits of matter governed by universal
causal laws, Heidegger believes this method of
investigation to be based, in part, on the
subject/predicate model of language that originated with
Aristotle, but was to a high degree implicit in Plato.
On this model the paradigmatic unit of meaning is the simple predication in which the subject terrfi refexs to or picks out some object in the world and the predicate term ascribes some property to it. This picture of language leads us to see the world as made up of so many self- identical things with attributes -- the substanee/aecident ontology. l2
Page - 39
I
Heideggef @s attack on this method is two-fold.
F i r s t h e develops ax alternative to the
scientific/Cartesian view that reality consists of
discrete, isolable bits of matter. On Heideggerts view
the identity of an entity is not, as it was for
Descartes, a function of the properties (size, shape,
color, etc.1 the entity possesses, but a function of the
role it plays in a system of rule-governed, purposive
activity. On this view the question "what is it?t# is
often equivalent to the question "what is it for?," a
question that can be answered only from within a wider
context of use. I discuss this in greater detail in
section 1.3,
Second, Heidegger argues that the subject/predicate
model of language is derived from a more general use of
language to point out or call attention to certain
aspects of an already meaningful situation. On this view
sentences are not molecular structures built up out of
atomic elements; words do not get their meanings by
referring to entities or properties. For Heidegger,
language is a unified whole rather than as a composite
built up out of discrete elements. The meanings of words
and the grammatical st~ucture of sentences is grounded in
the practices of a community. Dreyfus rightly says:
On Heideggerrs phenomenological account words as used in everyday talking do not get their meaning from anywhere. Once one has been socialized into a community's practices, as
Page - 40
long as one dwells in those practices rather than taking a detached point of view, words are simply heard and seen as meaningful.z3
1 discuss Heidegger9s view o f language in greater detail
in section 1.4.
To sum up, Heidegqer argues that if we begin with
the same ontological presuppositions Descartes began with
(i.e., the presupposition that the world has an objective
structure whose unde~lying principles can be grasped by
the mind, and that this structured is captured by the
subject/predicate model of language) and go on to
formulate epfstemological questions critically fi.e. in
keeping with the method of unitizing and generalizing),
as Descartes did, then what we will find *'as proximally
and solely certain is lindeedl something merely 'innerttf
12063. In other words, if we adopt the two ontological
presuppositions mentioned above, we will eventually reach
the same skeptical conclusions Descartes (ought to have)
reached. For this reason, Heidegger believes we can
escape skeptical conclusions only by questioning
Descartes' initial starting point. To this end,
Heideqger urges us to set aside our common sense view of
reality and examine our everyday way of being.
Deszarkes began his investigation with the
presupposition that the world consists of static,
occurrent objects located in space. On this view the
identity of an entity is a function of its physical
properties and is independent of its relation to ather
entities. Heidegger rejects this view, arguing that the
identity of an entity is a function of the role it plays
in a context of activity, a function of its "place" in a
referential network organized in terms of human purposes.
For Heidegger our everyday world is characterized by
a bewildering variety of activities. We are involved in
day to day tasks, concerned with the completion of our
projects, absorbed in the multitude of mundane
undertakings which constitute our daily fives -- eating,
commuting, cleaning, dressing, writing, etc. It is true,
of course, that we can sit back and contemplate the
entities before us as Bescartes did, but a more basic,
pre-theoretical way of encountering these entities is to
use them in achieving our goals. Heidegger says:
The less we just stare at [an entity], and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more does our relationship to it approach the primordial, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is. 1 6 9 1
In our activities, we do not ordinarily encounter
entities as mere substances with properties accidentally
located here rather than there. Most of the time, we
enc~unter them as t o o l s available for our use, gear which
we manipulate i n order to get on with the task at hand,
things that are familiar and significant to us because
they have a 8*placew in our world. Because we are
involved in goal-oriented interactions with most of the
entities around us, entities are seen primarily as
extensions of ouzselves, not just physical extensions but
extensions of o u r concerns and interests. Heidegger
calls the mode of being of such entities ttavailableness91
( 8 ' s u h a n d e n h e i t H ) ; Re refers to these entities themselves
as nequipmentfVHzeug")x4 or sometimes as "the available"
( zuhanden) ,
Heidegger says :
Taken strictly, there "isw no such thing as an equipment .... Equipment is essentially "something in-order-ton. ... fAnd3 in the "in- order-to" as a structure there lies an assignment or reference of something to something. [ 6 8 1
In other words, equipment always refers to other
equipment i e . g . , hammers refer to nails and boards) and
are assigned a function in a context of purposive
activity (e.g., hammers are assigned a function in
building and fixing). Any given item of equipment is
defined by the role it plays in an equipmental nexus and
a functional context. A single piece of cloth, for
example, may be used as a bed-sheet, a wrap-around skirt,
a table cloth, a curtain, etc. The cloth is not simply
in conjunction with a mattress and blankets in order to
sleep comfortably, and so on.
Equipment is defined by its function fits in-order-
to) in a referential whole, but it is also caught up in
means/end relationships even broader than functional
roles. In order for equipment to have a function, it
must fit into a context of meaningful activity, activity
that makes sense because it is "for-the-sake-ofv
something, activity that makes sense of things having a
function. Dreyfuc puts it this way:
Hammers make sense by referring to nails, etc. But how does the activity of hammering make sense? Equipment makes sense only in the context of other equipment; our use of equipment makes sense because our activity has a point .... To take a specific example: I write on the black board in a classroom, w i t h a piece of chalk, in order to draw a chart, as a step towards explaining Heidegger, for the sake of my being a good teacher.l5
There are two major differences between the
occurrent and the available, First, while the occurrent
can be characterized independently of a subject and
context, the available can be chanacterized only in
relation to a subject and context: the available is
always available to someone for some purpose. Thus, the
nature of the available cannot be understood without
reference to a context (what it is available along with),
a purpose (what it is available for), and a subject (to
whom it is available).
Page - 4 4
Second, while the occurrent comes to us as
meaningless bits of matter which must later be invested
with significance, the available derives its significance
from its context. Consider the example Heidegger gives
when discussing signs, one particular type of equipment.
Motor cars are sometimes fitted up with an adjustable red arrow, whose position indicates the direction the vehicle will take .... This sign is an item of equipment which is available to the driver in his concern with driving . . . . [Itl is available within the world in the whole equipment-context of vehicles and traffic regulations. It is equipment for indicating, and as equipment, it is constituted by reference or assignment. 1 7 8 1
When we are actively engaged with the world as
drivers or pedestrians, the red arrow comes to us not as
a meaningless bit of colored plastic whose significance
we must discover or interpret. Rather, in our
familiarity with vehicles and traffic regulations, we
understand the arrow first as an indicator of the
direction the vehicle will take. There is no separate
act of interpretation, no inference drawn from basic
beliefs, no judgement made regarding the meaning of the
arrow, The significance of the arrow does not lie in its
physical properties, but in the role it plays: the arrow
is in order to indicate direction for the sake of
preventing injury to people. It is only after we
disengage ourselves from our involvement with the world
of traffic, set aside our concern for our own safety, and
Page - 45
just stare at the indicator that we notice it is a
colored object of a certain size and shape, and wonder
how it gets its meaning.
For Heidegger, availableness and occurrentness are
not two different but equally basic characterizations of
entities within the world. We can understand entities as
occurrent because w e are able to decontextualize them in
the way Descartes decontextualized everything including
himself. We can step back and just stare at them,
contemplate them as brute things, focus our attention on
properties while ignoring context and purpose. We can,
in other words, understand occurrentness as
decontextualized availzbleness. We cannot, however,
invest the occurrent with value independent of Daseln's
interests; tools do not have properties of usefulness
independent of the contexts of activity in which they
gain their identity as tools. The following passages
from Weidegger will help to clarify this point.
No matter how sharply we just look at the Houtward appearancew of things in whatever form this takes, we cannot discover anything available. 1691
When something cannot be used -- when, for instance, a tool definitely refuses to work -- it can be conspicuous only in and for dealings in which something is manipulated. Even by the sharpest and mast persever inn 3 "percept iontp and "representation* of things, one can never discover anything like the damaging of a tool. f 354 1
When we are using a tool cixcumspectively, we can say ... that the hammer is too heavy or too
light, Even the [simple predication] proposition that the hammer is heavy can ... signify that the hammer is not an easy one ... that it will be hard to manipulate. 13601
Dreyfus adds:
When the hammer I am using fails to work, ... I have to deal with it as too heavy, unbalanced, broken, etc. These characteristics belong to the hammer only as used by me in a specific situation. Being too heavy is certainly not a property of the hammer, and although the philosophical tnadition has a great deal to say about properties and the predicates that denote them, it has nothing to say about such situational characteristics ... like "too heavy for this job.wz6
In short, we cannot account for availableness in teLms of
occurrentness,
The important point here is that the available does
not have characteristics or identities independent of
human activities and interpretations (i.e., norms of
use). If Heidegger is correct in claiming that the
available is closer to the primordial than the occurrent,
it follows that entities cannot be fundamentally
characterized "in themselvesH and so the fundamental
structure of entities themselvesw cannot, even in
principle, be discovered by a beholding subject. Thus,
the PlatonicjCartesian project of determining the
underlying structure of reality and using this structure
as a foundation for knowledge cannot even get started.
The ontological significance of the available is closely
connected with t h a t of being-in-the-world - Chapter ! tic
contains a discussian of being-in-the-world,
1 - 4 : HEIDECGWZ'S VIEW OF LhHGUAGE - Heidegger believes t h e substancefattribute b3ntsfag>A
u n d e r l y i n g the scientific e n t e r p r i s e , and the Uartesiarl
search for its foundation, d e r i v e s i ts p l a u s i b i 1 i ty
largely from the subjertfpredicate model ~f Xanyaage,
Heidegger attributes the origins of this model to
Axkstotfe's theory 02 grammar, formulated i n D e
Interpretatiane, where Ar istotf e draws a d i s t inck imt
between nouns, verbs, and adjectives, suygesrs t h d t
spoken utterances signify ideas in t h e s o u l , and u u t l i r t e s
the truth conditions to+ assertion, x 7 Ort both t h ~
Aristotelian and modern w r s i n n s of t h i s model, w o r d s g e t
their meanings by zeferring, in some p a x t i c r ~ f a r way, f a
entities/properties in a correspondence relation. The
basic function of language is to predicate properties t r ~
subjects in simple assertions f i . e . , to r e p r e s e n t t h e
connection between s u b s t a n c e s and attzitutezf, Lanyuaqe
is treated as a set sf (occurrentj lexica3 items t o be
used in various combinations according to + h e r u l e s o f
syntax, r u l e s which represent substance/attribute
re lat ions, A13 other form sf language a r e t r ea t ed 35
derivatives o f simple predication. Wittqensteinis
Tracta tus Logico-Philosophicus, published at the
beginning of t h i s century, -just as Pleidegger was writing
Page - 4 8
B e i n g and T i m e , h a s been an irrf f u e n t i a l example of t h i s
duz irrg t h e same peri.rcd as Being and T i m e , Heidegger says:
Lanp= ,um-3e is not i d e n t i c a l with t h e sum total of all the words printed in a dictionary; fnstead,..frnguage i s as Dazein is.- ,it exists - Z b
In Being and T i m e , ht s a y s :
Language is a totality of words -- a totality i n which d i s c o u r s e Fot telling1 has a nworldlym being of its own; and as an entity within the warfd, this totality thus becomes something which we may came aczass as available, f2611
Guiqnon suggests that the Heidegqer of Being and
Time alternates between tuc. views of the n a t u r e of
language, both of which are incompatible with the
Aristotelian view mentioned above and discussed in
Wittgenstein's Tractatus* Euignon calls these the
Rinstrumentalist* v i e w and the aconstitutiveR view,7Q On
the instrumentalist view, language is one type of
equipment available within the wozld and, along with
atRex types, h e l p s m a k e the world intelligible but is not
dtself the most basic too4 of interpretation available t o
Dascin. The primary functian of language on this view is
Page - 4 9
t~ reveal or point c u t c e r t a i n aspects of a n a l r e a d y
intelligible situation, As Guignan says:
From t h e instrurnentalis18s standpoint, our ability to use language is grounded in some prior grasp of the nunsemantic significance of the contexts in which we find aurseZves..,-Afthaugh language may play a very important role in making the world intelligible, it is itself possible only against the background of an understanding t h a t is n o n l i ~ g u i s t I c . ~ ~
The constitutive view of language is more radical
tin the sense that it i s further from the Aristotelian
tradition) and resembles the v i e w espoused bn
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, Here
language serves as a sort of template through which we
first come ts understand ou~selves and the world.
Language literally constitutes t h e world by making i t
possible to characterize entities.
Whereas the available is ontologically defined by its pXace in a total context, language plays the role of generae ing those contexts of activity and making possible the f a c t that there are such contexts at all.,.-Language on this view inhabits ou+ lives and shapes the sikuatians in which we find ~urselves.~'
Language, then, is not scmething merely available that
can { b u t need not1 be used ta point out things that have
independent identitfes and propexties- Rather language
constitutes intelliglbifity itself; if there were nn
language, there would be no identities and no attributes.
Page - 50
The prior articulation of the world in language is so all-encompassing that there is no exit from the maze of language. We can never encounter a world as it is in itself, untouched by the constituting activity of linguistic schemati~ations.~~
Because the grammar of public language determines the
essences of entities within the world, there is no
nonlanguage-bound way to distinguish between the way
ti-iings are in themselves and the way we describe them or
talk about them in our everyday lives. That is, the
contrast w e in fact draw between language (the way we
talk about things) and reality (the way things are in
themselves) is itself a language-bound distinction.
It is clear from his later writings that Heidegger
eventually explicitly adopted the constitutive view, In
the Introduction to Hetaphysics, written in 1935,
He idegger says :
Words and language are not wrappers in which things are packed for the intercourse of talking and writing. It is in words and language that things first come into being and aze. 2 4
And, in a much later essay entitled "On the Nature of
Language,?? written in f957/8, he says:
Only where the word for the thing has been found i s the thing a thing. Only thus is It .... The word alone gives being to the thinq,,,,The being of anything that is resides in the word.==
Page - 51
In Being and Time, however, Heidegger fails to
distinguish between these two views of language and, as a
result, appears to switch back and forth between them.
Dreyfus suggests that this apparent vacillation is not
entirely due the Heidegger's text but is, in part,
attributable to the Macquarrie/Robinson translation of
the German word "reden as wdiscourse. " Dreyfus says
tfdiscourseg@ is too formal and too linguistic for what
Heidegger includes under this term.
Rede ordinarily means talk, but for Heidegger rede is not necessarily linguistic, i.e., made up of words. So I shall translate rede by "telling,@' keeping in mind the sense of telling as in being able to tell the time, or tell the difference between kinds of nails.?=
The translation of nredeM as "tellingw casts the
Heidegger of Being and Time primarily as an
instrumentalist and results, I believe, in the most
coherent reading of the text.
The intelligibility of being-in-the-world . . . expresses itseJf as telling. The totality- of-significations of intelligibility is put into words. 11613
[Dasein discloses I *fsignifications" : upon these, in turn is founded the being of words and of language. 1871
The existential-ontological foundation of language is telling. [I601
[Tlelling expresses itself for the most part In language. l 3 4 9 1
'*en fully concrete, telling ... has the character of speaking -- vocal proclamation in words. f323
Page - 52
The main difference between the instrumentalist view, on
which language is one mode of telling, and the simple
predication model of language is that on the former view
assertions are context-dependent and derive their meaning
from the role they play in the larger context of
purposive activity, while on the latter view assertions
have a fixed meaning independent of the context in which
they are uttered and derive their meaning by referring to
entities/properties. The use of language as a whole is
grounded in the practices of the community; it is subject
to communal norms which are themselves dependent on still
more primordial communal norms of use and activity.
The transition from language as interpretation to
language as predication occurs in three stages. At the
most primitive level, assertions are a way of calling
attention to something, of pointing something out within
an already meaningful context, Dreyfus gives the
following examples:
If, in a shared context, something needs attention, language can be used to point out characteristics of the work in progress. Thus, while involved, I can point out, "The hammer is too heavy," Clearly, it is not too heavy in isolation, but it is too heavy for this specific job, and I point this out to someone on the j o b with me. What I let him/her see is the shared problem, not some representation or meaning I have in mind.27
At the second level asserting is a way of calling
attention to a specific characteristic of the item or
activity in question.
In pointing out the characteristic of the hammer that needs attention I can "take a step back" from the immediate activity and attsibute a "predicatew ("too heavyff) to the hammer as rfsubject." This singles out the hammer and selects the difficulty of the hammering from a lot of other characteristics, such as its being "too loud," thus narrowing our attention to this specific aspect of the total activity.2e
At the highest level, the assertion is cut off from the
context altogether, yielding a theoretical assertion. A
property (heaviness) is predicated of a subject (the
hammer). Heidegger says:
Within this discovering of occurrentness, which is at the same time a covering-up of availableness something occurrent which we encounter is given a definite character in its being-occurrent-in-such-and-such-manner. Only now are we given any access to properties or the like. I1581
According to Heideggex, then, the primary function
of language is to communicate relevant aspects of a
situation within a world whose structure has already been
articulated through activity. The subject/predicate
model of language is derived from this situated use of
the language whole. The derivation that takes place here
is similar to the derivation of occurrent objects from
available equipment: both consist of the
decontextualization of essentially context-dependent
Page - 5 4
entitles into isolable things and the fragmentation of an
essentially holistic phenomenon into discrete pieces.
Because Heidegger believes the very possibility of
decontextualizing and fragmenting presupposes prior
participation in a inter-dependent whole, he suggests
that we begin our investigations by examining the nature
of the whole. That is, rather than beginning with
questions regarding the underlying structure of occurrent
particulars, questions concerning how individual
occurrent words attach on to individual occurrent
objects, and questions about haw isolated mental subjects
can have access to independent physical objects, we
should begin by examining the nature of the entire
phenomenon of being-in-the-world. In this way Heidegger
hopes to show that subject/object metaphysics is derived
from being-in-the-world when both physical reality and
language are regarded as dissolvable into distinct
categories, rather than as being essentially inter-
dependent.
Heidegger is concerned with undermining the
subject/predicate model of language because the
subject/predicate model lends plausibility to
subject/object metaphysics. That is, the
subject/predicate model enables us to see language
primarily as a means of representing reality; a language
consisting of subjects and predicates maps neatly onto a
reality consisting of substances and attributes. In
arguing that the instrumentalist view of language is more
basic than the subject/predicate model, Heidegqer does
for language what he did for reality when he argued that
the available is more basic than the occurrent. He
deprives language of its static, absolute character,
tying it essentially to human purposes and activities.
For Heidegger both practical and linguistic telling
is dependent on the prior structural articulation of the
world. This structural articulation is based on the
wdisclosedness" of the world which is in turn dependent
on Daseinis being in-the-world. Chapter two contains a
discussion of the ontology of being-in-the-world and,
derivatively, a discussion of the world's disclosedness.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER ONE
&David J. Furley, "Parmenides of Eleal"n The Encycl'upedia of Philosophy, volt 6, ed . Paul Edwards (New York: Macrnillan Publishing C o . Inc. & The Free Press, 1967) 50.
2Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) 40.
3Wallace Matson, "Why I s n ' t the Mind-Body Problem Ancient?" in Mind, Matter and Method: Essays in Philosophy and Science in Honor of Herbert Feigl, ed. Paul Feyerabend and Grover Maxwell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966) 101.
SAr istotle, Metaphysics, trans. W. D. Ross (London, 1 9 4 8 ) lO28b3.
@Aristotle, Aristotles ' s Categories and De Interpretatione, trans. 3 . L. Ackrill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963) 2 a l l .
7The difficulty involved in distinguishing between the notions of essence and substance in Aristotle is further complicated by the subsequent history of philosophy. For example, Alasdair HacZntyre says: "[In Aristotlel the name given to the ~eing that the intellect grasps is ousia, which W. D. Ross renders as essence, following Quintilian and Seneca, who translated it as essentia. . . .Augustine used substantia and essentia without difference of meaning, and Boethius translated ousia as substantia. * Alasdair MacIntyre, "Essence and Existencev? in The Encyclopedia of ~ h i l o s o ~ h ~ , Vo1 - 3 , 59- 60
*Charles B. Guignon, Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1 9 8 3 1 21.
1 0 F o ~ example, Descartes begins with the wself-evidenttg claim that we first perceive feature of things and then draw inferences from thos~, perceptions to the things themselves. He says, fox example: tlIWlhen looking from a window and saying I see men who pass in the street, I really do not see them, but infer that what I see is men..,,And yet what do I see from the window but hats and coats which may cover automatic machines? Yet I judge
Page - 57
these to be men," And later he says: 'tI judge that the wax is or exists from the fact that 1 see it." Both of these quotations are from: Rene Descartes, "Meditations on First Philosophyf1 in The Philosophical Works of Deseartes, voi.i, trans. Elizabeth S , Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) 155-6
131bid., 219,
x4flEquipmenttt is a technical term. It does not refer to a certain type of entity, but to those entities with which Dasein has a certain type of relationship. That is, an entity is an item of eqiiipment if and only if it plays a role in a use-context. Therefore, equipment is identified in terms of Daseinfs interests and its ontological status cannot be accounted for by means of traditional substance/attribute metaphysics. Even such apparently independent and objective entities as the objects of theoretical physics are part of a broader explanatory context.
lsHubert Dreyf us, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger 's Being and Time, Division One (Carnbr idge, Mass: MIT Press, 1991) 92.
17Martin Heideggex, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959) 5 8 ,
="Martin Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology trans. Albert Kofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982) 258,
lSSee the section entitled nThe Nature of Daseinw in chapter two of this thesis for a discussion of Heide7gerVs use of the term
"=Guignon, 118-4.
' 3 f b i d . , 119.
24Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, T r a n s . Ralph Manheim (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1851) If.
25Martin Heidegger, "On W a y to Language, Trans. & Row, 1971) 62-3 .
the Nature of Languagew I n On the Peter D. Hertz ( N e w York: Harper
Heidegger argues that subject/object metaphysics
emerged from the Parrnenidean interpretation of being as
objectively structured and "presented" to the mind for as
it is ffre-presentedtr by the mind). It should be made
clear, howevew, that Heidegger does not believe
subject/object metaphysics is wrong or that we should get
back to the correct view of the pre-Socratics. If he
did, Re would be committed to the view that there is a
single correct interpretation of the nature of Being -- a
view Heidegger clearly rejects. Puzthermoxe, Heidegger
realizes that the Parmenidean interpretation of Being has
had many culturally significant effects. It has led us
to decontextualize objects and study them as isolated
portions of matter, and thus to formulate the laws of
science as the expression of that interpretation. This
has made possible the very existence of science and
technology and has established them as defining
characteristics of Western civilization.
Heidegger also believes, however, that the
Parmenidean interpretation has no special claim to
authority as the deepest account of the structure of
reality. Intked , to understand subject/object
metaphysics snd the interpretation of Being upon which it
is based as an absolutely accurate representation of
Page - 6 0
reality at its deepest level is to adhere to a specific
interpretation while ignoring the fact that it is an
interpretation. On Heideggeris view, what is basic to
Dasein's nature is interpretation itself. Interpretation
is, therefore, connected directly to the phenomenon
Heidegger describes as being-in-the-world.
Heidegger says being-in-the-world is a single,
"unitaryw phenomenon presupposing the interdependence of
Dasein and world. It is nothing like the joining
together of a subject and objects within the world where
subjects and objects are taken to be static, independent,
occurrent things. Because being-in-the-world is more
than the sum of its parts, it cannot be broken up into
components and pieced back together 1531. Nevertheless,
it will be helpful to examine briefly the phenomenon of
being-in-the-world in terms of its three constitutive
elements: the being who is, in each case, in the wozld,
the activities of being-in, and the constituted nature of
the world. I begin with the nature of the being who is
in the world,
2.1: THE NA"PURB OF DASBIN
Heidegger calls the being who is in the world and
does the interpreting " D a ~ s i n . ? ~ He chooses this term
primarily because it is not tied to any historical
interpretations of pe~sonhood and so does not carry with
it any philosophical baggage. Literally, "DaseinW means
Page - 62
"being there . * I n c o l l o q u i a l German, however, i t mesns
roughly "everyday human existencew and so Heidegqer u s e s
t h e t e r m " B a s e i n n suughly tc r e f e r t a human beings.l Hut
we are n o t t o think o f D a s e i n as a p a r t i c u l a r s o r t of
thing as Descaztes t r i e d t o d o * Heidegger's goal is ta
discover w h a t makes human beings different from m e x e
o b j e c t s with prope r t i e s and he finds this diffeEcncr in
the way human beings are involved w i t h t h e w o z l J t h r t - # u g h
t h e i r activities -- m a n i p u l a t i n g t h i n g s , t a k i n g t h i n g s
apart, putting things together. Thus, Dasein is n o t to
be c o n s t r u e d independently of its activities in the
world. It is nut a tatf~nal a n i m a l , a mindbbady, a
c o n s c i o u s subject, a C a r t e s i a n f ' I , " a Kantian ego , n r any
other traditional conception of human beings relying on
the substance/attribute picture of reality. Rather,
'"DaseinW refers to human b e i n g , i n t h e s e n s e of7 t h e humat!
w a y of b e i x 2 g . l Dasein is a w a y of engaging ux
interacting w i t h the world, a k i n to the
culturalXhistorical/racia1 heritage shaxed, for example,
by members of t h e Jewish community, Gut with a scope
fncfusive of ail peoples: a s o r t a • ’ fundamental culture
shared by all humans. Dasein can be u n d e s s t o s d a s d
gerund as well as a noun: dasein-ing is the activity c ~ f
%eing human through activity in the world, O n e cant+
take Dasein out sf the world within which it h a s its
identity. One can't treat Dasein like a substarrce w j 4 h
attributes.
Heidegger user She t e r m 3Eexis tencet t to r e fe r
generally t a the activities of Dasein. We says that
D a s e i n possesses the character of a "who" r a the r t h a n 3
" w h a t w 1 4 5 1 and the "who" a t taches to activities,
Existence d ~ e s n o t simply mean oriented in Newtonian
space or having tcaporaf duration. It is rather a
pazticular w a y of being involving purposive, usually
rule-governed aecivlty: enquiring, seeking truth, and
taking a stand fin belng through interpretation of self
and others, Thus, trees and socks and even dogs and cats
d~ not wexist" in Heidegger's sense because they are not
invalved w i t h the M G ~ L ~ i n the required w a y .
It shoufd be noted that, for Reidegger, cultures and
institctions e x i s t as well as individual human b ~ i n g s
3ecause the concerns, attitudes, and practices of
cultures and ins%ltutisns, like those of individual human
beings, contain an interpxetation of what it means to be
that culture ar instituti3n- So, "the whole question of
whether Dasein 3s a generaf t e r m ur the name f o r a
specilic entity is undercut by Heideggexss more basic
i n t e r e s t i n the 5.23~ ~f Eeinq t h a t tindividuali human
beings, cuftuxes an5 instktutians share.ng
reiection of individualisa implicit in Heidegger's
aczaunt sf Cartesianism- Because individual Daseinss
Page - 6 3
possibilities, c u l t u r e c a n n o t be a composite made up of
i n d i v i d u a l s ; i t 3s more than the sum of i t s parts. T h a t
i s , because the meaning and organization of cultuses
defines narms (the "in-order-ta'sf* and Nfor-the-sake-uf-
w h i c h k s " available ta i n d i v i d u a l Daseinl, t h e normative
o r g a n i z a t i o n a n d meaning @ f a c u l t u r e rnus"be t a k e n as
basic or loqicaffy prior to the desizes, interests, and
even identities of indiviauals. Through t h e i ~
participation In a culture, individuals are socialized
into a particular understanding of themselves and t h e
woxld and, until they are, ind iv idua l s a r e n u t Uasein.
This point is discussed i n greater d e t a i l i n s e c t i o n 2 . 4 .
The second component af being-in-the-world i s the
phenomenon of being-in, Meideggex begins h i s discussion
of being-in by calling attentian to the f ac t that the
preposition Rinn h a s various meanings- One s u c h meaning
is that of spatial inclusion. Water may be i n a glass ,
for example, or a coat may be in a c iose t . "By t h i s "inq
we mean the relatianship of being which t w o entities
extended 'in' space have to each other with regard to
their lacation in that spaceR ZSSE, The theozetical
extension of the " i n z of spatial inclusion i s Newtort ian
space; reality is taken to Be the c~lfecti2n of entitles
in that space, This is the s ~ t t of n l n " pertaining t n
occurrent things, It is not, however, the s o r t essential
to the being-in nf Dasein. In section 44fb), Heidegger
says:
[Tlhe u l t i m a t e business of philosophy is to preserve t h e force of t h e most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself, and to keep the cornman understanding from levelling them off to that unintelligibility which functions in turn as a source of pseudo-problems, ( 2 2 0 1
Regarding the HinH of spatial inclusion as ontologically
basic is, Heidegger argues, one such ffsource of psuedo-
problems." For this reason, Heidegger reminds us that
the preposition " i n f f is derived from "innan" meaning Ifto
residen and #habitare" meaning "to dwellvf [ 5 4 1 . These
words axe meant to convey a sense of invofve~ent in and
familiarity with transcending mere spatial location, It
is the sense conveyed by expressions such as being in
love, being in the army, or being in business: non-
spatial involvement~ playing a crucial role in an
individual's interpretation of self and world. The
being-in of Dasein's being-in-the-world is, then, meant
to convey a sense of Dasein's involvement in and
familiarity with the world, a sense of the dependence of
Dasein's identity an that involvement and the roles
provided within the world.
Weideqger maintains the pFinfi of involvement is more
-r ,,,,.,,,,al 8 ma WR i than the @ i n f i of spatial inclusion. It s h o u l d
he noted that Heideggex seems to use the terx
Rprfmordial* in two different ways. At times he seems to
use it in t h e sense of wontologically basic* or
" f ~ n d a m e n t a l , ~ a t o t h e r times i n t h e sense of
t f h i s t o r i c a l l y ear ly" o r t 'pr i r n i t i v e . " As Chaxlus Guignon
p o i n t s o u t , however, "what must be u n d e r s t o o d is t h a t ,
f o r He idegger , t h e s e two s e n s e s of ' p r i m o r d i a l t amount t o
the same thingeW4 The i n t e r p - r e t a t i o n of b e i n g u n d e r l y i n g
s u b j e c t / o b j e c t m e t a p h y s i c s h a s p l a y e d such a n i m p o r t a n t
r o l e i n o u r philosophical t r a d i t i o n and h a s become s o
pe rvas ive i n o u r wor ld-view t h a t it h a s t a k e n on a
v i r t u a l l y s e l f - e v i d e n t c h a r a c t e r . For He idegger , t h e
o n l y way t o escape t h e m o n o l i t h i c c o n s e q u e n c e s of t h i s
i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is t o e v a l u a t e t h e t r a d i t i o n a s a whole .
He idegger a l s o b e l i e v e s , however, t h a t t h e r e is no
n e u t r a l v a n t a g e p o i n t f r o m which we c a n c a r r y o u t s u c h a n
e v a l u a t i o n . S i n c e t h e o n l y ways of e n c o u n t e r i n g t h e
world open t o u s are t h o s e p a s s e d down by o u r a n c e s t o r s
and c o m p r i s i n g o u r c u l t u r e , t h e o n l y a v a i l a b l e o p t i o n is
t o r e t u r n t o r o o t s of o u r h e r i t a g e and t r y t o d i s c o v e r
p o s s i b i l i t i e s of i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , p o s s i b l e ways o f
understanding t h e wor ld , t h a t w e r e c l o s e d o f f t o u s
d u r i n g t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t uf t h e s c i e n t i f i c world--view.
B y p o i n t i n g out t h a t t h e " i n " of spatial i n c l u s i o n is
derived f r o m t h e n i n n of invo lvement , Heidegger is a l s o
p o i n t i n g back t o a t i m e before t h e d i s t i n c t i o n had been
brawn. He is showing us a fork i n t h e road. Our
further and further from t h e o t h e r s i d e a l m o s t t o the
point of having forgotten thexe ever w e r e o t h e x options.
Heideggerfs rejection of spatial inclusion in favor
of involvement as the primordial metaphor of being-in is
associated with his rejection cf abstract reasoning in
favor of "understanding" as an explanation of how we make
sense of the wo~ld. In short, Heidegger denies that
knowledge can entirely be characterized in terms of
theories of perception, intentionality, and the like, all
of which rely heavily on metaphors derived from the "inff
of spatial inclusion to describe constructs such as
"inner representations" and the "external world," the
lfmental'f and "physical realms, or fflogical space,
"semantic space," and "physical space."
For Heideqger, our ability to act appropriately in
various situations, our immediate grasp of the
significance of signs, our everyday activities and
undertakings are not ultimately grounded in the kind of
metaphysical distinctions that have emerged since Plato.
Rather, they are based on a multifarious set of shared
skills, practices, and discriminations into which we have
been socialized and which must remain firmly in the
background if we are to function in our day-to-day
dealinqs. French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu gives
the following example of this process of socialization.
He s a y s :
A whole group and a whole symbolically structured environment ... exerts an anonymous, pervasive pedagogic action.,..The essential part of the modus opezandi which defines
Page: - 67
practical mastery is transmitted in practice, in its practical state, without attaining the level of d i s c o u r ~ e . ~
For Heidegger, there simply is nothing inner
tuninterpreted perceptions, self-evident truths,
backgrount5 beliefs, sub-conscious inferences) that could
provide a grounding or foundation for knowledge. Our
shared skills, psactices, and discriminations are nwn-
intentional and non-discursive. We are not, for
Heidegger, intentional beings at birth and, to pursue the
metaphor, we are never intentional beings distinct f r o m a
cultural perspective -- our beliefs and interests are
constituted By a particular culture, similar to the
precedence of Wittgenstein's forms of life to language.
Our skills, practices and discriminations are not a b o u t
anything in the way beliefs and propositions are about
things and they cannot, even in principle, be
systematically spelled out as intentional.
An example will help to clarify why Heidegqer
rejects the "in" of spatial inclusion in favor of the
"in" o f involvement and how the "inn of involvement is
partly pre-theoretical and pre-linguistic, Consider the
relationship between business people and business. Being
in business is constitutive of being a business p e r s o n .
That is, one cannot be a business pexssn w i t h o u t b e i n g in
business and if one is in business then o n e is i p s 0 f a c t n
a business person, One can, however, be (spatially) jn a
place of business without being a business person and
business people need not remain (spatially) in places of
business to be business people. The ftwarld of business, ''
in turn, exists only because of and in relation to the
business people who constitute it. That is, there could
be nu worfd of business without the shared practices,
values, beliefs, and activities of business people.
Because of this mutual interdependence, neither business
people nor the world of business could exist without the
involvement of the one "inft in other. Indeed, without
this mutually constitutive involvement it would not even
make sense of speak of business people being in places of
business since neither business people nor the world of
business would exist. Furthermore, being in business is,
at least to some extent, pre-theoretical. Through
involvement in the world of business, business people
frnay) acquire certain pre-theoretical skills, practices,
attitudes, habits, etc. which (may) pervade their lives
and calor their outlook in other areas: one begins
Winvesting in leisure timeRn "maintaining a family
support network, fs fyoptirnizing career potential, " or what
have you.
Heidegger argues that the same is true of Dasein and
worfd. Being-in(vo1ved)-in-the-world is constitutive of
Through activity Dasein creates an understanding of the
worfcl, an interpretation that makes the world
intelligible, %%at w e (Daseinl take entitles to be like,
what we find important or noteworthy about them, is a
function of the way we are involved with them, Ti-, a
large extent, our involvement determines the being s f
entities. Laszlo Versenyi puts it this way:
To say that Dasein is always characterized by being-in-the-world means not only that Dasein is always involved in a great variety of essential relationships with all sorts of other beings without which (relationships) it c o u l d not exist but also that these beings and the world itself are dependent for their mode o f being un Daseinrs relations to them. They too would not be what they are but for these relationships, which are thus essential not only to Dasein but also to everything in its world .... fWords like1 "utensil" and '$mere thingw ifor example] are not terms for different kinds of ontic beings; they designate different relations of Dasein to them.6
Heidegger phrases it in more poetic terms: "The
botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow;
the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river
is not the 'springhead in the daletft L7Ol.
T h e way we are involved with entities is, in t u r n , a
function of our self-interpretations: of how we
understand ourselves and our world, of the roles we each
have assumed, and of the roles available ts us within our
cultural and historical context, It is because the ~ o l e s
of bath poet and geographer are available in oux society,
because each r e f e is familiar to us, t h a t we can
understand He5deqqerfs rivex as both a geographical
*sourceR and a wspringhead in the dale," Which way a
person is inclined to see t h e r iver depends on haw t h a t
person sees herself and on what she takes to be important
about the n a t u r a l world.
2 . 3 : The World
The interdependence of Dasein and world gains
plausibility from Heidegger's complex reinterpretation of
"world." In Being and Time, Heidegger lists four
different meanings of the term. The first two meanings
are based on the "in" of spatial inclusion and have been
taken to be basic by traditional Western philosophers.
I ) The world is the totality of objects of a certain sort. For example, the physical world consists of all the physical objects located in space.
2) The world is "a set of particulars specified in terms of the essential characteristics of the entities that make up that set."7 The physical world, for example, is defined by what all physical objects have in common, eg. substance or energy.
Heidegger maintains, however, that these two senses of
*worldw rely on a confusion between entitles within the
world and the world itself. The world is not a great
container filled with objects, nor can it be built up out
of the entities within it, as the positivist and
empiricist traditions have attempted to do, because the
identity of at least s o m e entities is dependent on their
relationships to other entities, equipmental contexts,
purposive activities, etc.
Page - 71
A more fundamental way of understanding the world is
based on the "in" of involvement. Thus, Heidegger lists
two additional senses of "world."
3) The world is "that 'wherein' a Eactical Dasein as such can be said to 'livet" [651. It is the entire configuration of beliefs, values, habits, interests, techniques, mannerisms, e t c . shared by the members of a community.
This sense of world is reflected in expressions such as
€*the child's world," 'Ithe world of fashiofi," "the
business world," or when we speak of two people "being
worlds apart," or of wanting to "be a part of that
world." I will use the term "sub-worldH to refer to t h e
worlds of definition three.
4fwThe worldff refers to the most genexal systems of equipment and practices shared by the sub-worlds of definition 3.
It is the network of very general systems o f beliefs,
values, skills, etc. common to members of all the various
sub-worlds. The presence of these general systems makes
possible the existence of particular variations of
b e l i e f s , values, skills, practices, etc. within t h e sub-
worlds.
It is important to note that Heidegge1's w o r l d s (the
third and fourth s e n s e s aSove) are always public "we-
taken as some private sphere o f experience and mean ing ,
which is self-sufficient and intelligible in itself, and
Page - 72
so more fundamental than the shared public world.we
Rather, my world is constituted by the unique blend of
sub-worlds in which I dwell and by the roles I assume
within those worlds.
Dreyfus provides a useful example to help clarify
the difference between the traditional definitions of
world (one and two) and Heidegger's definitions (three
and four), and why Heidegger takes the latter senses to
be basic. He says: "It helps here to contrast the
physical world (sense number
with the warZd of pPlysics --
1) -- as a set of objects --
a constellation of
equipment, practices, and concerns in which physicist
dwell.?fs The world of physics, in the sense just
mentioned, determines the nature of the objects belonging
to the physical world and the underlying characteristics
shared by all such objects, The world of physics is,
therefore, logically priox to the physical world. It
"createsH the physical world by establishing such things
as paradigms, standards of justification and evidence,
physical laws, etc. thereby determining which entities
count as physical and w h y they count as such. Thus, the
world of physics is directly, and the physical world
derivatively, dependent on physicists for its being. The
reason it seeras so strange to say the physical world is
dependent on Dasein for its being is that the world of
physics has determined that the physical world is
independent of human activity. Indeed, this independence
Page - 73
has been made one of the defining characteristics of the
physical world. But HeideggerTs point is that the
physical world would not have any defining
characteristics whatsoever were it not for the work of
physicists and hence the physical world could have no
being without the activities of physicists.
The metaphysical priority of involvement is a l s o
true at the global level (the world of definition four),
Global Dasein's activities allow entities within the
world to show up in certain ways, t o have certain I defining characteristics: the world is ~ d i s ~ l o s c d , ~ as I
defined that term in the introduction. I return to this
point in section 2.5, It should be remembered that for
Heidegger the available is more primordial (i-e., bo th
mole fundamental and more primitive) than the occurrent.
It should also be remembered that in order f o r the
available to be available it must fit into a context of
purposive, rule-governed activity, There must be a
reason for doing things, a right way to do things and a
right way to use things. This rule-govesnedness is, for
Heidegger, what distinguishes human from non-human
activity. A bird" nest-building activities, for
example, are purposive, but not rule-governed. There is
no normatively {though there may be an instlnctuallyj
right way for a bird to build a nest, and there i; no way
a bird could understand its activities as purposive
Page - 7 4
activities by, f o x example, articulating the rules
governing them.
T h e r e is a right way to use equipment in rule-
governed activities and it is this normative aspect of
equipment usage that determines what entities axe. That
is, what something is in a use-context is a function of
what it is used for when it is used as "anyone would use
i t But, the activity of Dafein is logically prior to
the assignment of functions to the available, logically
prior to there being equipment; the world must be in
place, so to speak, before entities within the world c a n
be discovered as entities within the world. Dasein's
being-in-the-world is, thus, constitutive of entities,
even when entities are taken to be occurrent.
2 - 4 : CARE
Dasein has been defined as the being for whom being
is an issue (1911 and who takes a stand on being through
its participation in the world, Heidegger calls Dasein's - way of being-in-the-world "care":
[Carel is to be taken as an ontological structural concept. It has .*2othing to do with tqtribulation,a 3=wlanch0ly,~ o r the "cares of fife," though ontically one can come across these in every Dasein, These -- like their opposites, "gaietyR arid "freedom from caree -- are onticalPyza possibfe only because Dasein, when undexstod ontologically, is care. f57P
The ontafogical cmcep t care has a three fold structure:
"Being-alxeady-in* refers to t h e fact that
always ffthruwr~w i n t o a previously characterized
D a s e l n i s
WCSLIZ~, a
wozld not of its own creation and n o t under its own
control but whase already articulated s t r u e t 3 ~ r e Daseln
absorbs through socialization. Dasein always e x i s t s i n
and is defined by a common institutional framewark uE
interdefined norms of behavior and use. Thxouqh its
being-already-in, its thnuwnness into a particular
cultural and historical epoch, Dasein acquires a template
or framework for understanding t h e world +
"Being-amidst" r e f e r s t o the fact the? Dase ii-1
inhabits or dweffs i n t h e world, amidst the entities
within the world* Dasein t e n d s E a " f a l f H into the
dominant intexpretation c > f its c u l t u r e , to he preoccupied
with individual details, sbscxbed in the available and
the in-order-to, and so ts lose sight of i t s own
thrownness [being-already-in) and projection (being-
ahead-of-ikse12Et f f F a l l e n n e s s " is t h e a f s u m p t i o r ~ t h a t
one's *concerns= Ear entities within tne wsrid a x e
absolute; one Ffaf;s i n withw t h e predominant
interpretatian w i t b a u t undeestandinq I t s s r i g i n s or
t h e possibilities d i s c l o s e d through being-already-2n and
Page - 7 6
with t h e m as .",key .t-ta:,dr - . :F!i;.x D a ~ e i n In each *case, t h e
fdefinition 4 3 ; specialized g roups disclose f o r
The activities af tke scientific commun i ty , f u r example,
t h e i r methods, paradigms, and c o n c e r n s allow c e r t a i n
types of entisies and c e r t a i n p a t t e r n s t o r e v e a l
themse lves and hence c-co be discaverer?; disclosure m a k e s
d i s c o - ~ e t y ~ ~ z s i b k ~ , B g t what is d i s c l o s e d depends, i n
t u r n , on the ac t iv i t ies sf t h e qraup. The sub-world
disclosed b y srie group, the re fore , h a s no spec ia l c l a i m
tc a u t h o r i t y and t h e d i s r c - ~ e r i e s made about entities
Heidegger hel ir-i.e.cl s,k-,at- the r o l e D a s e i n ' s care
s t r u c t u r e plays i n determining t h e s t r u c t u r e of the world
has been covered : ~ p Bz the ascendency of t h e scientific
wcrfd-view. S c i e n ~ e ctnarasterizes the world as t h e sum
R o t 2 t )of cccaxrex: entities w i t h i n t h e world, governed Gy
characteristk @E being.. , . l i k e any o t h e r entity, Dasein t o o is accorrent as xea2, . . . T h e other modes of being become defined negatively and p r i ~ a k l ~ z e l y w i t h regard to Reality. 12ClJ
Ano&her w a y ~f puetinq t h i s point is t o say t h a t when
Oasein f a l l s intu the dominant interpretation of b e i n g ,
t h e framework and me?hodafagy presupposed i n t h a t
interpretation is l e f t unquestioned. I n o u r case t h e
daminant reaf is= of cur interpretation i s mast c3 earl lt
manifest i n our belief t h a t science tells u s a b o u t the
woxld as it is in itself and o u r adaption o f the
scientific method as a paradigmatic mode of enquiry ta be
emula ted i n sther 3iscipfines,
Under this frasewjrk, t h e world r e v e a l s i t s e l f as
being a cenzain way, specifically as c ~ n s i s t $ n g of
aSSectively quantifiable, Independent s u b s t a n c e s , O n l y
sshat can be quantified Il,e,, what is s u b s t a r t t i d l 1 is
qravnded i n sci ermt i f ic +t.iesry becontrss ne-r r.1 y '*:r;t-3b jecf i V P "
and waesthetic," But , Heidegger believes t h e s c i c i i t : f i c
T h e r easan the scientific world-view and t h e search
g r i p on u s c a n be Z o ~ n d i n the very fact t h a t Dasein is
care , When Gasein i s t h r o w n i n t o a w o r l d a l r e a d y
understood t~ be the sum total of e n t i t i e s w i t h i n t h e
world, and e n t i t i e s within the world are already
understoad to be a c c u r r e n t things, there is a t e n d e n c y
Ear Dasein tc naderstand i t s e l f as an o c c u r r e n t t h i n g f a
rnind/body, a r a t i o n a l a n i m a l , etc,) and t o concexn itself
w i t h pushing back &he boundaries of discovery with regard
t~ itself v i a scientific enquiry, w k f i e ignoring t h e
fundamental dirc lozure t f kke world, i ts own t h r o w n n e s s
i n t a t h e world , a n d its p r s j e c t i o n of the frarnewozk o n t o
entities within the w ~ r l d , In short, Dasein ignores i ts
roots i n being-in-the-war13 as the activity af
interpretatian; E t substitutes discovery within the
4 3 f c ) , Weidegqer reminds u s :
A l l nsdes af being 2 2 entities within t h e world are founiled on0-32og ica2 ly upon t h e xstldhood nf t h e wuald, and azcaxdingly upon t h e phenomenon of b e i n g - i n - t h e - w ~ ~ r i d , From this there arises t h e insight that ammg the modes of being o f entities wikhin t h e warid, reality f u r d e z s t o o d as pure ~ c r u r r e n t n e s s F has no p r i 2 z i Q - , and that rcakity i s a kind sE being which cannot even characterize anything l i k e the warld or Basein in a x a ~ which is o n t o l o g i c a l l y appr~priate. 1211-32:
Reality cvnnct charactenize Dasein and world in an
account f o r t h e vesy involvement t h a t is t h e source of
Dasejn is "aheadn OF itself oz p r o j e c t s itself i n t o the
f u t u r e is to say that Dasein cannot f u l l y be c a p t u r e d by
t h e "scientificm undesstanding a• ’ i t s e l f as a n occurrent
being. Science c a m u t a c c o u n t •’ow the disefosure of t h e
world as ontalogically occurrent because science is based
on a d i s c l a s u r e ; It does n o t itself disciose,
In section 4 3 f c ) , Heidegger attempts t a clazify t h e
distinction k e t w e e n what he ca l l s r e a l i t y a n d t h e r e a l ,
reality. Meideqger h e r e w5es t h e t e r m " r e a l i t y q r to ~ e f r r
ta t h e world as character ized by s c i e n c e , R e a l i t y is the
t o t a l i t y a• ’ objectively s t r u c t u r e d , i r3ficspertdently
e x i s t i n g , occurrent e n t i t i e s loca ted i n space. H T h e
real ," on the o t h e r hand , is just w h a t e v e r i t is; i t is
completely uncharacterized and uncharartcrizab3ez except,
o f course, th rough Dauein's interpretaticns. G i v i n g t h e
r ea l a charaekerlzatisn would essentially a l t e r its w a y
real into a framewcxk, for example, u n d e r s t m d i n y
z e a l as Qccuzrect. Reic2egger t ~ i e s to evoke i n i 3 5 a
sense of the rea l by discuzsing what w o u l d be i f Uasein
d i d not exist. Re says:
When Dasein ~ C P S no t e x i s t , "indepar~det ice" *'isn n a t either, nox m i s H the *in itself," In s u c h a case th5s ssrt of t h i f i g r a n be nei%her understoad nar not unders tood . I n such a case
Paqe - $ 2
even entities within the world can neither be discovered nQr lie h i d d e n . In such a case it canno t be s a i d t h a t entities axe, n o r can it be said &hat t h e y a re n o t , f 2 1 2 f
T h e pervasiveness of sub3ectfsbject metaphysics should be
apparent from t h e fac t that the words Xeideggex places in
quotation marks deindependence," "is," "in itself") have
a l l acquired t h e meanings they have w i t h i n t h e f r a m e w o r k
of subject/~bfrct metaphysics, This is not intended to
b e a d e f e n s e of i d e a l ism, nor is i t i n t e n d e d t o have
great impact an auz view of reality or an the scientific
enterprise, Heidegger's only objection to science is
that it misunderstands its own foundation and so
B u t rlowF as iang as there is an understanding of being and therefare an understanding of u c c u r r ~ n t n e s s , it can indeed be s a i d that i n t h i s case entities will still continue to be, f 2121
Heideqger'f paint is t h a t reality is a human construct,
as ckaracterizatian a•’ the real, p o s s i b l e o n l y o n t h e
b a ~ i s of Easein's being-in-the-world. W i t h ~ u t Dasein
ever having, been ~2 suck characterization could ever
have been qives. Entities wlthin the w o s l d could never
have been d i s c f o s e d as cnkities w i t h i n k h e world. But
reality has been d i z s l o s e d by Dasein and o c c u r r a n t things
Rave been disclcse8 as p e r m n e n t , independently e x i s t i n g
enr i ties. Thus ?5e zontinued existence of occurrent
Page - 4 3
t h i n g s is assured by the w a y Dasein h a s d i s c l o s e d
r e a l i t y .
The r e a l is i n d e p e n d e n t of D a s e i n but reality e x i s t s
o n l y in relation t~ Dasein because reality is w h a t D a s e i n
discloses. Thus when Heidegger says "being h o t
entities) is dependent upon the understanding o f beinq;
that is ta say zeality inat the r e a l ) is dependent upon
caretv 12123 he is warning us t h a t in o u r investigations
reality (understood as a particular chaxacterization o f
the real) must not be made basic, b u t m u s t always be
traced back t o the being of D a s e i n . Dreyfus calls this
position "hermeneutic x e a l i s m " and n o t e s t h a t , for
hermeneutic realists, the realism that is part of t h e
practices of science " c a n n g t be used t o justify t h e c l a i m
that the object of science exist independently of t h e
activity of the scientists, nor c a n t h i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g
d i c t a t e what structure the science's objects m u s t
have*Nx3 f254f. I discuss D r e y f u s ' characterization o t
HeideqgerFs pasitian as hermeneutlc realism a little more
f u l l y in the conclusion,
Heidegger has attempted ta p r e s e n t a c o h e r e n t
alternative to traditional metaphysics, one t h a t
describes the origins of the metaphysics s f subjects and
obfects and prsvides ghat Heidegqer believes to he a mote
f a i t h f n f portrayal of the human situation. f f his
p n ~ 3 e c t succeeds, its l m p l i c a t i s n s will rewerborate
t h r a u g h a u t the philosophical en te r pz ise because Ifeidegqer
Page - 8 4
is cmghasizing activities in t h e world ra ther t h a n s t a t e s
i n t h e ~ ~ i n d es the primary medium of representation.
This is a a a j o ~ Zeparture from traditional s~bjectiobject
metaphysics, Eortanately, our cgncern is only with its
implications fox trzditional theories of truth, I turn
nr)w to a discussion a• ’ these implications amil of
Heldegqer's own cunception of t r u t h *
NOTES FOR CHAPTER T W
xHuberf, L , Dreyfus, B~ing-z*r?- the- -wordd: A Com?rre-ntary i-tn Heidegger fs Beicg and T i m e , D i v i s i o n O n e i Canbx iclge, Massachusetts: The HIT Press , 13911 1 3 .
4Ckarles B , Guignun, Heideggex and the P r o b l e m of Knowledge I fndianapalis, I n i l i a n a : Hacket P a ~ b l i s h i n q O D . , 99831 78.
"Pierre Bourdieu, D u t f iae of a Theory ~i Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Fress, 1 9 7 7 1 8 7 .
6Laszlo Versenyi , Heidegger, Being , and Trut tt i New tlaverr and London: Yale University Press, 1 3 6 5 ) 1 0 - 1 3 .
lPHeidegq?r uses the term "onticaltyW to mean r auy t t ly ' ' i n actual casesm; t h e %ezm "anticu and i t s variatians x e k e r to entities at +he level of "dis~overy,'~ # ' O r 4 t i c a l l y n is contrasted with amtcf sy icaf ly, 'f mednicg rauqhi y t h e d e e p e s t leveln; nontologica3gf and j t s variations refer t o " b e h q " and the level of d i s c l o s u r e ,
zrMacquarrie and R a b T n s ~ n translate the German "scin &:if' as "being-alongside, " W~wevex, I will follow Dreykc?> i n translating it as *being-anidst-"
==John Wauyeland, mDassin's Disclosedness" i n The Southern Jou-rnaf GE Pki2cscrphy 11983 1 Val. 2 8 , SrzppTemc.tl!r - 64.
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used as a t e r m fes entity i n the sense of " t h a t w h i c h
s h o w s itself" ; S 3 J ; , Heidegger concludes f rom t h i s t h a t
p r i o r t o P i a t o a 3 e t h e i a was n o t a theme f o r a t h ~ u r y of
knowledge or judgement bat was u n d u r s t o a d as havi r lq a
p r e - t h e o r e t i c a l connection with B e i n q deeper t h a n cind
logically pxiaz ro t h e msdern n u t h ~ n o f ~ x u t h as
agreement.
Heidegger rezninds US t h a t t h e G r e e k w o ~ d " a l e t - h e l a , "
means literaify, r%n<-cove~ed. " Hie says :
( A l e t h e i a meant f t a k l ng entities atft o f < h e i r hiddenness and letting them he s e e n i n t h e i r unhiddenness f their uncovexedricss) . i 239 3
Truth Guncoverednrss) i s somethinq t h a t m u s t always first be wres ted from entities. E r ~ t j t i e s g e t s n a t c h e d nut o f their h i d d e n n c s s , 1 2 2 2 1
To translate this wcx3 as "truth,'>rid, above a l l , to deflfie t h i s expression c ~ r ~ z e p t u a f l y i n theoretical ways, i s E q cover up the rnealiirig o f what t h e :pre-3acratic E G r e e k s irrade '-'se2 f - evldentlyH basic, $ 2 2 9 ;
In Being and Time Heidegger traces the shift in the
its meaning 3s cgrrectness uf judgement o r r e p r e s e n t a t i o n
back t o AristatLe, Wtwever, in a later essay entitled
''Platots Doctrine of T r u t h , " Weidegger l x a t e s t h e shift
one step f u r t h e r back, i n Ffatais allegory 2 f the cave.
This allegory is meant to be an illustration of the
essence of education, but Keidegyer maintains *!that what
underlies PZato's thinking i s a change in t h e eseence of
t r u t h .
4s t i l - 2 Irrkabitants of the cave move through t h e
various stayes af t h e i r edwzakion t h e y are expose? to a
series of images hec2ming 2rugressivef y more *'real1* as
the yxisoners move clsser tck the s o u r c e G • ’ knowledge.
But, these imagez 3ispfay themselves s n f y in t h e l ~
aoutward appearance," And Heideqger says :
P l a t o does not take t h i s BoutwarE appearanceH as a mere waspeck". , . . In G r e e k ilouttr:ard appearancew is eidos or idea .... Actording to P l a t s , i f man 2i3 not have these ideas before his gaze as t h e respective noutwazd appearance" uf things, living creatures, men, numbers, and t h e gods, then he would never be able ta perceive k h i s az that particular thing as a house , as 3 tree, or 35 a
Because ideas induce uchld4enness f i . e = , enab le us tz
perceive t h i s or ?ha% particafar t h i n g as the thing it
and put under t h e e ~ n t r o l af t h e idea , f n making this
shift, F f a t o m c v e s t h e essence of truth f ro= t h e
unh id r l enness ~f entities to t h e ideas t h a t permit
unhiddenness, Hei&e;ger says that when tks i dea becames
"the master permitting unhiddenness..,the essence of
truth++.shifts its abode to t h e essence cf t h e i d e a . " >
Central ko the educatian a• ’ the inhabitants of t h e
cave is the painful process of l o o k i n g at brighter and
b r i g h t e r images ( i r e + , grasping higher and higher I d e a s )
u n t i l at fast they are able to s t a r e at t h e s u n l i . e . )
grasp t h e idea of the jood).
L i b e r a t i o n l f s r the cave dxellersl does not t a k e place in t h e mere ac t of getting f r ee from t h e c h a i m and does n o t zsnsist m c r r t y i n he inq u n t r a m ~ e l e d , , . .Actruz?f libexaticn f i e s in t h e steadiness wl' th w h i c h one turns frowarrfs k1ha t m a n i f e s t s i t s e f f in its outward appearance and is in th3s manifesting t h e most unbidden. (emphasis added ) "
P l a t o himself says, ' ' t u rned t 2 w a x d s t t : i n q s t h a t ; a r e b c i n y
A r ~ s ~ ~ t ~ ~ ~ ~ 3 i 5 c k ~ 3 j + 5 { s e n s e percepti*;$c 2 and R G ~ S fz Ic:e::"al perizer*+ian F- of s T s p 1 ~ aaf-tmres; 3 ~ e 3; j isys tz::~?; +,tic? canrno: be f a l s e . m x - A - -- i k i ? $ + * - t f E a i s P "-- A p - A z L j r -ye - 2 - 2 W-pG S% -2 x - r . . * synihefis, x t x i c ~ 3s fz~2zd i n djsc*-~rs iq~sr tf ; in)rinq :cr 223ge:sftr;t! :dianac;sis j 323 igi 3
particular 2se cf L a n q z a g ~ Cfogosl which r e p r e s e n t s thst thinkinq, namely i n asser t ion i iagrts ag3pha,atii:~=isl.'
Aristotlo, then, the s y m t h e t i c s t r u z t u r o s f a s s e r t iotr
judgements to be true; ar f a l s e hecause o n l y at the l e v c l
uf synthesis is it pass i t l e that t h i n g s will be conhine?
in thought which are mt combined i n reality* Wcfdegyew
says :
I n the final chapter of t h e Bonk I X of h i s Metaphyslcs,,+,where A r i s t o t e l i a n t h i n k i n g a b o u t t h e B e i n g of beings reaches its peak, unhiddenness is t h e basic f e a t u x e o f B e i n g h o l d i n g sway aver everything. But at the same time A~istotle can say: "The f a l s e and t h e t r u e are not in the act [itself) . . . b u t in t h e understanding. Where t h e u n d e r s t a n d i n g m a k e s an a s s e r t i o n i n order t o pass judgment is the place of truth and f a l s e h o ~ d and t h e i r difference. The a s s e r t i o n is true i n so fax as it is compared t o t h e c i r c u m s t a n c e s and i s t h e r e f o r e likeness, T h i s e s s e n t i a l d e f i n i t i o n of t r u t h c o n t a r n s n o f u r t h e r r e f e r e n c e t o a le the ia i n t h e s e n s e cf ~ n h i d d c n r i e s s . ~
It is this Hessential d e f i n i t i o n of t r u t h w that Heideggex
has in- mind when, irr section 4 4 f a f o f Being and T i m e , he
says. "Aristotle, the f a t h e 1 of l o g i c ( a n d grammarl, n o t
only assigned truth to t h e j u d g m e n t ao its p r i m n r d i a l
t r u t h as unktidde:;nrss " c r diselosedness f . However, he
apprsaches t h e f ioticr: 0% truth as unhiddenness by fitst
pc i ln t ing c u t t h e aza'ifr problem inherent in all
coarespapdence theories. At t h e beqinnrng of section
44fa f Heidegger says traditional correspondence t h e o r i e s
of truth are c h a ~ a c t s r i z e d by the following theses: I f
The locus of truth is assertion o r judgement; 2 ) t h e
essence of t r u t h f ies in the *agreementM of the judgement
with its object, Heidegyer a l s o says, 3 ) A r i s t o t l e
a s s i g n e d t r u t h to the judgement and set t h e going
definition of truth as agreement E 2 1 4 1 . That is, with
P l a t o and ktistotle a theory of t r u t h was established.
It was a thearetical device in t h a t i t used terms like
*agreementw and *judqementn in a way different from the
way in which t h e y had previously been used. From Plato
and Aristotle to Descartes and Kant, truth has been
understood as adaequatio i n t e l lectus et re i : agreement
Eor "7ikeningnf af iudjement with its object 1 2 1 4 1 ,
But what dues it mean to say a judgement agrees with
an object? The relationship cannot be one of equality
because judgements and objects are *not of the same
on representation correspor,ds w i t h a n o b j e c t oi s t a t e o f
Rather than try t o answer this question head-on t-3y
giving t h e a c c o u n t ~f r e p r e s e n t a t i c 9 n c o r r e s p o n d e n c e
thear ists have been waiting far, Heidegger r i r a in ta i r~s t h a t
the question bas already been " p e r v e r t e d " i n t h e v e r y w a y
it has been approached: perverted "by the antologically
unclarified separation of the real and the idealM 1 2 1 7 1 ,
The German word translated as "gezverted" by Macquarrje
and Robinson is nabkehrw meaning literafly "to tuwn
away.w The point Heidcqyer is making here, then, i s tklat
with t h e Platonic separation of reality i n t o u n i v e r s a l
and p a r t i c u l a r , and subsequent re-workings of tttis
separation into distinctions between the mental and t h o
physical 5r nepresentatianr and reality, questions
concerning the nature of t r u t h were t u r n e d away f r ~ m
questions atout the unhiddenness of entities and
h % n s f ~ r m e 5 i ~ t s questions about the nature of
zcrrespc3ndenre. I f w e t a k e the antology o f being-in-the-
world ser ious iy , h ~ u e v e r , we wiff se2 that the separation
G E representation and reality is a theoretical c o n s t r u c t
based on one specific interpretation of being. And, as
such, it has nu :'- - 3 claim to special priority, contrary
to what Aristutic dairrtained in his history of
philosophy, Indeed, w e will see that problems concerning
the natu~e af this correspondence are, in principle,
impossible to solve.
However, if Heidegger is to show that the
correspondence theory of truth is not monolithic, he must
g i v e an account of truth that does not involve the
subject/object distinction. How, then, are we to
appsoach the subject of truth? Heideggex tells us that
truth becomes phenomenally explicit when knowledge
wdemonstrates itseldm as true. Thus, we are to clarify
the notion of truth (and the relationship of agreement)
by examining the "phenomenal context of demonstration"
t 2 1 7 1 . Seidegger g ives the following example of such a
demonstration:
Let us suppose that someone with his back turned to the wall makes the true assertion that "the picture on the wall is hanging askeweH This assertion demonstrates itself when the man who makes it, turns around and perceives tho picture hanging askew on the wall. What gets demonstrated in this demonstration? €217)
WE may 3e ir-;cfined t o say t h a t what g e t s
demonstrated is an agreement between a belief and the
thing in q u e s + i c m - The demonstration af this
correspnndence results in '*knowfedgem" Meideyger says
that whether this is correct 3epends on our
interpretation of "what is knownw and s~ on o u r
understanding of what agrees with what. What docs net
get demonstrated is an agreement between a
ftrepresentation" of the real picture, in the form of a
belief or mental state, and the real picture itself. How
is the man able to recognize his mental state as a
representation of the picture on the wall? Conversely,
if the man is able to recognize the representation of the
picture, why can he not recognize the unmediated p i c t u r e
itself? Of what use is the representation?" In
demonstrating the truth of an assertion we do not compare
a representation with a real object fcorrespondence); n o r
do we compare one representation with another
representation (coherence),
Representations do not get compared, either among themselves or in relation to the real thing. What is to be demonstrated is not an agreement of knowing with its object, still less of the psychical with the physical; b u t neither is it an agreement between "contents uf consciousness* among themselves. ( 2 1 8 1
Heidegger says what one Hhas in mindn when one makes an
assertion is the real thing and nothing else [ 2 1 7 1 . No
representations are relevant to the truth of the belief
CIZ j~dgerrg~nf Tyj. s g p p o s e they are ncjt o n l y relies a n the
r e p r e s e n t a t i c r t i z e a l i t y d i s t i n c t i o n , it a l s c !%belies the
phenomenal facts of the caseH f 2 1 8 1 .
The truth o f t h e assertion I f t h e picture is hanging
askeww gets demonstrated when the man who utters it turns
around and sees the picture hanging askew: "sees fv n o t i n
t h e s e n s e of "represents to himself," but "sees" in the
sense of notices or confirms his suspicion or belief that
the picture is hanging haphazardly or in a way t h a t is
out of the ordinary and "seesff that the picture requires
straightening. The demonstration takes place in the
activity of turning around, looking, straightening the
picture, etc., or even in the act of neglecting to
straighten t h e picture and simply getting on with other
t h i n g s , The t r u t h is demonstrated in finding out what is
t h e case.
3 - 3 : THE NATURE: OF ASSERTION AND TRUTH AS UNCOVERING
At the primordial level, assertions are not to be
understood as representations of any sort. They are to
be understood as speech acts, linguistic acts of
interpretation (or discovery) and, even more
fundamentally, as acts of interpretation they are
grounded in Dasein's non-discursive background
understanding of the world (the world's disclosedness)
and are essentially tied to the context in which they are
uttered.
Z e k d e ~ w e r 3 - cZa4rs t h a t at the mare bas ic l r v e i o f
understanding asserting Is a way of p o i n t i n g to t h e
relevant obSect, of directing a t t e n t i o n ta the entity or
activity i n question. A t t h e level of \2iscovery, the
truth of an assertion gets demonstrated when the entity
cr activity shows itself as being the way it was said to
be in the assertion, This is the pre-Sooratic sense o f
truth described by A r i s t o t l e .
[The entity or activity1 shows that it.,.is just as it gets pointed out in the a s s e r t i o n as being -- just as it gets uncovered as being. [2193
The assertion "the picture is hanging askew," for
example, was demonstrated t o be true when the picture
showed itself as being just as it was pointed out i n the
assertion as being. No representations are necessary
here; assertoric language simply picks out ceItain
features of the world, calls attention to one aspect of
the surrounding totality.
To uncover or discover an entity is to show it as
being a certain kind of thing or as being a certain way.
Thus the essence of assertion is the uncovering or
discovering of beings rather than the synthesizing of
nouns and verbs into likenesses of reality. The
uacgvers the ball in the "how" of its being. The
uncnverLng of entities within the world, however, always
takes place relative to the structural disclosure of the
world as a whole- The subject/predicate structure of the
assertion !"The ball is red*' is pre-determined by tk#e
(already articulated) categorial structure of language as
ascribing properties !predicates] to objects (subjects)
according to the template "The is " and the
(already articulated) categorial structure of reality as
consisting of substances with attributes, established as
the essence of linguistic representation by Aristotle in
De Intergretatione, Substance/attribute ontology implies
and is implied by subject/predicate language. The
structure of the world is disclosed. The "howw of this
particular entity within the world is discovered relative
t~ the disclosurea Heidegger says:
To say that an assertion t r u e f t signifies that it uncovers the entity as it is in itself. Such an assertion asserts, points out, "letsu the entity **be semt9. . . in its uncoveredness. The being-true (truth) of the assertion must be understood as being-uncovering. 1 2 1 8 1
"Being-uncoveringw (truth) is not a relation
between two things. Rather, it is the activity of
revealing or uncovering entities as being of a certain
character, as having some determination or other relative
to the categories set up through disclosure and manifest
in the grammar a• ’ language. Asserting is one possible
example, T pick ap an entity and use it in ordex to
hammer n a i l s 5 n t o wca3, 1 revea l t h a t e n t i t y as b c i n q uf
a certain s o r t , T-e,, t h e s a r t which is suitable f o r
d r i ~ i n g naifs i n t a wsod- As Hark O k r e n t says i n
Hel'degger rs Pragmat i s m :
[For Weidegger 1 these p r a c t i c a l acts of interpxetation, a s well a s a s s e r t i o n s , can be t r u e . For s u c h an act t o be t r u e i t m u s t succeed in using the thing as the t h i n g i t is attempting 2o use it as. I f the a c t s u c c e e d s , t h e thing is revealed to be as it has been taken to be fintexpretcd as being1 in t h e praeticaf activity.2a
It must be xemembered, hawever, that individual Uasein is
always part of a communal way of being. T h e r e f o r e , i t : i:j
not my act which must succeed but a n y m e ' s a c t , T h a t is,
anyone (though not everyone] must succeed in using the
thing as t h e thing one is attempting to use it as when
one is attempting to use it as anyone wauld use it. I
may get along very nicely using a blanket to c o v e r a
window, but still one uses b l a n k e t s tn k e e p waxm i n bed
and one uses drapes t o cover windows. What I r evea l by
succeeding in mls-using the blanket is not that this
blanket is really a drape, but that it works nicely w h e n
used as a drape, It should be noted, however, t h a t t h e r e
practices; one
practices wher~
practical acts
time aberrations c a n becone communal
w i d e l y accepted,
arques , f u r t h e r m o r e , t h a t w i t h o u t
3f intezpretation there c o u l d be 93
linguistic truth. I n other words, finguistically
characterizing entities as substances with attributes
[ t h e of assertitni is dependent on uncovering
something as something through practical activity (the
It,sw of interyxetation). To see why this is so, we must
l e t u r n to Heideggerfs c la im that truth becomes explicit
in the phenomenal context of demonstration. The t r u t h o f
an assertion is demonstrated when the entity in question
shows itself as being the way it was said to be in the
assertion. But, how is it possible fox an entity to show
itself as being a certain way? Only, Heidegger says,
through the entities already playing a role in a context
of rule-governed, p u r p o s i v e activity. Dasein's
activities give entities some determination; they let
entities show up as being like (or failing to be like)
they were said to be in the assertion. Thus, before an
assertion can be true ar false, the object of the
assertion must already have been (non-linguistically)
assigned a function in a context of purposive activity.
3 . 4 : TRUTH -45 DISCLOSURE
disclosedness: a ~ d k h i s structure is artiouiated ( t h e
world is d i s c ? s s e d 3 through t h e activities of qlohal o r
communal Daseln, The entities t h a t are ancovexed o r
discovered within the wolld are t h u s said t o be t r u c ~ n l y
"in a second sense."
Uncovering is a way o f b e i n g f o r being-in-the-- world. C i r c u r n s p e c t i v e concern, or even that- concern in which we tarry and look a t something, uncovers entities within t h e w o r l d , These e n t i t i e s become t h a t which has b e e n uncovered. They a r e "true" i n a second s e n s e . f 2203
Being-true-as being-uncovering, is a way n f being for Dasein, What makes this vexy ancovezing poss ib le m u s t n ece s sa r i l y he c a l l e d "true" in a still mare primordial sense,. . .What is primarily "truer8 -- t h a t is uncovering - - is Dasein. t2201
Global Daseints activities disclose the w o r l d l i n e s s of
the worl3. That is, they s e t up a world ( d e f i n i t i o n s 3
and 4, Chapter Two) that allows entities within the wnrld
to show up u n d e r descriptions, available c o n t e x t s , e t c ,
and hence t o be discovered. Only through Dasein's
activities can truth get a grip a n the world. So, Dasein
as bring-in-the-world characterized by care is the
p~i rnary conditicn for t r u t h . However, even t h i s
condition is subject to c h a n g e with a l t e r a t i o n s i n t h e
d i s c l o s u r e .
Page - 101
T r u t h h e r e is ~ c t a ~ o r z e r p s n d e n c e between beliefs 02
propositions arid t h e w - ~ r l d b u t f l o w s out 2f the communal
practices and activities that i d e n t i f y e n s t i e s t h r o u g h
t h e practices and f m c t i a n s possible within the world.
B e c a u s e t r u t h is always r e l a t e d to Daseinis
activities, Dasein i s , as HeiGegger says i n section
4 4 ( b ) , ontoIogicafly -in the truthe 12213. That is,
ind i v i d u l l Dasein always operates within a framework,
making it possible for that Basein to discover t r u t h s
a b o u t the warld; traditionafly "being L Q the t r u t h w h a s
been being able to represent occurrent entities.
Heideyger is quick to point out t h a t Z h i s does n o t mean
Dasein is always or in each case "introduced to all t h e
truth" f22lI. Ontically f i . e . , in actual cases), Dasein
can be mistaken, wrong, believe falsehoods, etc. The
following remarks wiff h e l p to clarify what Heidegger
means wben he says Dasein is ontologically " i n the
truth. '?
Since Plato and A r i s t o t l e , truth has come to be
understood as the activity of uncovering how things are
in the world, Individual Dasein uncovers or discovers
truths through individual acts of interpretation, t h r o u g h
"seeingH entities as substances with attributes. Such
Page - 102
szructure sf what Is ?Iisc:csed, 35 we?: & Y t h e
~fra~aic"Lfllst i 25 ar,& .3i;cer:rr4r3 .st i f;:fi$; L>yt? X:,T i;j 3fi? sari!. i t i 4l::
within t f te w ~ r r - j 3 l " f c ~ i , p a ~ ~ z ~ z 2 1 " ~ ~ ~ a;f- s;;~=;d:;~i, 2zrc_. j - 1 ;
dependent an 71~b3f Dsseia'r p*>rpc>ses, q4;rzccr rat:, sk i f i :;, s m" prae"tizes, &=, rrrierg f i ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a r j " ~ ~ $ 6 5 3 a p x z *-'-";t"'" - L - v C f
s j g n ~ f i c ~ ~ ~ ~ f s r i;-czf, jt a ~ ~ s > ~ s t fpe s ~ r r e ' c 3 tip
i ~ : a ce r t a in w a y , ,a w ~ y , b-;p, r;l;t frhe 9rfTj" ;dc~)r, k t z , s t
waafd really i s in ik=ePf, ife:?eqger r e a l -Gr2a:x
f is t ha-fe a n a b s c l c t e estractgre. Ra the r , it confnxms to
- 5 ~ ir;f f n i k e -~sr ie t ;8 sf t n k e r p r e t a t i s n s wiEh no one
ir3<s7r-ref - & v 3tit;s &527 ::;?re a-csratp t h a n a n y : > t h e r , ks
t he beitig nhc 4 2 e u t h e i n t ~ r p z e t j f i g a n d t h e uncovering,
Gase in is bel r tg-~~rksc :=~er ing i% , e . , D a s e i n if the way of
beEr~g & i s h H~idegqer ha5 defined as t r u t h ] , Thus Dase i n
is c j n t o l o y i c s l l y *Sn $ h e ' z u t h " by allowing t h e world t a
t:ntrat,tr ttecitiu.; w h e ~ * 1% =31Zsrws the world to show up in
one way i t ; i m * . 1 l t 3 n e w , ~ l y c f c ~ e s o f f n t h c r possible ways
In which #:he raarld .-;cr~.ld .=fio.,.i itself ,. Noc all possible
dcterrninatians oE e:&tE ELes can show t h r ~ u g h at once
because when one i f i terpzetation g a i n s pzirnacy is pushes
o t h e r possible interyretatisns ink$: the background, This
i s w h a t happened tc k h e pre-3acratJc notion uS truth as
unhidbenness when PZato2Aristotfe made truth caxrectness
uf representation; tke earlier interpretation was simply
pushed a s i d e , Therefore, by o p e n i n g u p o n e sphere a • ’
siqnificance Dasein is closing o f f others, Furthermore,
becausc Dasein projects its possibilities into t h e
future, Dasein c a n s e a ~ t l y R3ssurnes* t h a t ixvth has yet to
be rrnrrr,;sert;d, T r a t h , like Dasein, i s always "not: yet , "
always s t i l l ts be diseovere3. T r s t h and u n t r u t h are
J Thezelore , k e e c a w e f s e i n c a n n e v e r be completely J
:\represented ta i t se l f , Dasein is a l s o o n t ~ : ~ f a g i c a E l y " i n
the u n t r u t h , " T r u t h goes w i t h d i s c l o s u r e , T h e ~ e is !la
Heldegger maintains that h i s definition of t r u t h as
uncovering is mare primitive [both histarically and
ontologicallyf than the definition o E truth as
cozrespondenee. T s 3 show this, Heideqqer prr3poscz t.o s h o w
how truth o n d e ~ z k m d as . q x c e m e n t i s d e r i v e d f r o m t r u t h
undexstood as *3isclosednesn. Heidegger says that
discourse [or telling] is a n essential feature of
Daseinfs disclssedness* I t is thronqh discourse for
telling) in general and assertion in particular th+3t
Dasein expresses itself abcut t h e entities it u n c c ~ v r r s
f 2 2 5 - 4 1 . B u t assertions not only c o n t a i n the
uncoveredness of the entities they a r e a t o u t , t h e y a l s o
preserve i t . The assertion becomes sameth ing avai:atle
within the world t h a t can be taken up and s p o k e n a g a i n .
In section 44!b), Heidegger says :
The assertion which i s e x p r e s s e d is about -..-he 3ul,,cLhinq, arid i n w h a t it is abotlt kt-, coritairis t h e uncoveredness of these entities, This uncoveredness is pr es~rved i n wha r is expressed. What is expressed becomes, a s jt w e r e , something available w i t h i n the world which can be can be taken up and spoken again . f 224 2
Fage - 105
While the assertisra takes c n the chs~acter s f equipment
The assertion expressed becomes an item sf equipment
available within the world by means of which the
oncuveredness of the entity is preserved. That is,
subject/predicate language reflects and preserves
[When this occurs1 Now to demonstrate that Ithe assertion] is something which uncovers means to demonstrate how the assertion by which the uncoveredness i s preserved is r e l a t e d to these entities. [emphasis added) ( 2 2 4 1
The assertion is said to cvntain something that holds for
the object C224i. But the kind of being belonging to the
object and to the assertion is misunderstood when both
object and assertion are taken to be occurrent: when
entities are taken to be fundamentally substances with
attributes and assertions are taken to be fundamentally
syntheses of subjects and predicates. As a r e s u l t t h e
r e l a t i o n s h i p between the two shows itself as an agreement
G E ~ W G ~ c c u r r e n t k~ings, 3 n agreement w h i c h i s i t s ~ l f
sccurrent, and s e c2rresponilerice t h e o r y i s bazn . Hej.deyger bel ieves that t h i s is a neces sazy o u t c o m e
given the kind ai being Dasein possesses .
Dasein, in its concernful absorption [with the wozfdl, understands itself in terms of what i t encounters within the w a r l d , The u n c a v e r e d n e s s [of entities1 which belongs to uncovering factivity of Daseinl, is somethinq that w e come across proximally [and for the most part1 within the world in that which has falreadyl been expressed,-..Our understanding of being [in general] is such that e v e r y entity i s understood in the first instance as o c c u r r e n t . 12251
when we come across an assertion, we understand it
first as an occurrent thing with a static
subject/predicate structure that is about a n o t h e r
occurrent thing with a static substance/sttribute
structure. Our equation of m x u r r e n t n c s s and b e i n g is so
pervasive, once the view that language consists a • ’
occurrent lexical items hooked on to the world has been
established, as it was by Aristotle, the q u e s t i o n af
whether truth is an occurrent relation (agreement of
assertion and object 2 Hcan not came a1 i ve a t af f *f L2%5 1 .
The issue has been settled; correspondence between
language and world becomes an unquestionable
characteristic of t r u t h .
Page - 107
3 - 6 : THE NATURE AE3D PRESUPPOSlTION OF TRUTH
In section 4 4 ! c 3 , Heideqger himself asks the
question: "Does this signify that all truth is
obvious
*subjectivet?" H t s reply: *If one interprets
*subjectivef as 'left to the subject's discretion', then
it certainly dues not" 1227f. Because disclosing and
uncovering are global activities, Heidegger in no way
makes truth wsuhjective?f or relative to individual acts
of interpretation. Furthermore, within a disclosed
framework, the characteristics of the entities themselves
limit the possibilities of both individual and global
interpretation, If, for example, while building my
bookshelf, f grab a bag of marshmallows or a light bulb
o~ something similarly unsuitable for hammering, and
attempt to use it t5 drive nails into the wood, my
practical act of interpretation is bound to fail. The
failuxe, of course, does reveal a truth: that
marshmallows and light bulbs are unsuitable for
hammering. The point here is simply that within a
disclosure the possibilities of interpretation are
limited by the entities in such a way as to preclude the
subjectivity or relativity of truth.
Nevertheless, Heidegger eoes make truth depend on
the existence a% Dasein because it is only through
Daseints discfosive activities that entities can emefge
as entities af such-and-such-a-sort, that entities can be
entities with defining characteristics within the world.
Things iike Lightbulbs and bags of marshmaliows ate
entities that emerge within a disclosure; they exist at
the level of reality, n o t at the level of the real as
Heidegger distinguished them in section 4 3 i e ) . The real
(whatever is outside the disclosure) does not have any
defining characteristics and so can be aceuxately
characterized in an infinite variety of w a y s . Thus, o n l y
within a disclosure are the possibilities of
interpretation limited, However, because the practices
that disclose the world are global practices and because
the real does not have a structure in itself, truth, even
at the level of disclosure, is neither subjective n o r
relative.
Furthermore, although Dasein's activities take platre
within purposive contexts, the most fundamental of these
activities are not intentianal. The relation between the
hand and the hamm~r, for example, is not intentional
because it is non-propositional, It i s even u n p e r c e i v e d ,
until something goes wrong, When Dasein is hammering,
the question of truth does not arise. But if the hammer
breaks, Dasein's concern must switch over to
Ndeliberationw in the form "if -- t h e n " e . g . , "if i
am to continue with my project, then I must get a new
When Dasein" s u n c e r n switches nves t o
deliberation, Dasein's activities become p r o p o s i t i o n a l
and intentional, However, Dasein and being---in-the-world
cannot be completely alinguisitic. Dasein is essentially
Page - 105
a lanquaqe us i r iq be ing , but there are also precondition
ks langaage in teinj-in-the-world,
As Heidegger has already noted, disclosedness (the
basis of all truths) is an essential feature of Dasein
and o n l y of Dasein. Heidegger concludes from this:
"There isn t r u t h o n l y in so f a r as Dasein is and so l o n g as Dasein is. Entities are uncovered only when Dasein is; and only as long as Dasein is, aze they disclosed. 52261
This holds equally for contingent truths, physical laws,
and truths of logic,
Newton's laws, the principle of contradiction, any truth whatever -- these are true only as long as Dasein is. Before there was any Dasein, there was no truth; nor will there be any after Dasein is no more. For in such a case truth as disclosedness, uncovering, and mcoveredness, cannot be. 5 226 5
To say that there could be no truth without Dasein says
equally that there could be no falsehood without Dasein.
Before Newtoc's laws were discovered, they were not "truew; it does not follow that they were false, ox even that they would become false if ontically no discoveredness were any longer possible. Just as little does this v'restrictionH imply that the being-true of "truthsN has in any way been dirninished.[226-71
This restriction does imply that without Dasein the real
(whatever is independent of Dasein) would not have been
characterized (made into reality). The world would not
have been disclosed, entities within the world would not
Page - 110
have been uncovered, assertions would not have been made,
correspondence would not have arisen, n o t h i n g would be
true and nothing fa lse .
To say that before Newton his laws were n e i t h e r true nor false, cannot signify that before him there were no such entities as have been uncovered and pointed out by those laws. Through Newton the laws became true and with them, entities became accessible in themselves to Dasein.
This is not to say that physical laws, truths of logic,
ar reality are only contingent.
Once entities have been uncovered, t h e y show themselves precisely as entities which beforehand they always were. Such uncovering is the kind of being which belongs to "truth." [ 226-227 I
Here we should recall Heidegger's claim that " b e i n g ( n o t
entities) is dependent upon the understanding of being . . . reality [how entities are disclosed through Uasein's
activities1 lnat the real) is dependent upon care" 123.21.
At the end of section 44(c), Heidegger asks: "Why
T h e t a c k Heldegc j~r I s taking h e r e is sirnifar to one
commonly fovnd i n h i s f a k e r w o r k s where he says s u c k
things as: "Language brings entities as entities into t h e
Open [beingl for the first time.flzx Language ascribes a
determination to entities; gives them a place in the
world and lets them be entities of such and such a sort.
In the say way, truth brings Dasein into being, lets
Basein n e x i s t * s in Heidegger's technical sense of the
term (inyui~e, interpret, take a stand on things).
But the operation of bringing Dasein into being is
not itself completely linguistic. Rather, it is founded
on being-in-the-world as forms of understanding and
disclosure that make language possible. Aristotle's
H6isclosure* of the world as consisting o f substances
with attributes goes hand in hand with the language of
subjects and predicates and the subsequent forms of
"discoveryw or uncovering based upon subjzctiobject
metaphysics.
Heideqger says that "presnpposingW means
understanding wsomething as the ground for the being of
some other entity" l2281. Thus, to say we presuppose
t r u t h means w e understand truth as the ground for our own
being, It must constantly be kept in mind that Dasein is
not a thinq but the activity of Dasein-ing and that
Dasein-ing always takes place in the w o s l d . The primary
activity of Dasein-ing is the search for truth. Dasein
does this by disclosing the world and discovering
Page - 112
e ~ c i z i e s wit hi^ t k e w o r l d . S o , t h e prcsuppozition t h a t
there i s t r u t h is t he necessary c o n d i t i o n f a x C a s e i n ' s
"existenc~.~
We must " m a k e " the presupposition of t r u t h because it is one that has been "made" a l r e a d y with the being a f t h e "we." 1 2 2 8 1
Dasein never f r e e l y decides t o come into D a s e i n : Dasein-
inq I s thrust upon Dasein and with it the p r e s u p p o s i t i o r l
that t k e r e is truth is also thrust upon Dasein, This is
why Heideqger says:
The usual ref3tation a•’ that skepticism which denies either the being of "truthig oz its cognizability, stops half way. What it shows , as a formal argument, is simply that i f anything gets judged, truth has been presupposed. .. .One here fails t o recoqrlize t h a t even when nobody judges, truth already g e t s presupposed in s o far as Dasein is at a l l . 1228-91.
And later, preminiscent of Wittgenstejn's and I J a v i d s u n ' s
rejection of global skepticism:
k sceptic can n o more be r e f u t e d than the being of truth can be " p r ~ v e d . ~ And i f any sceptic of the kind who denies the truth factically is, he does not even need t o be r e f u t e d . 12231
If we can't make sense of D a s e i n without Dasein's
interconnection to the world through its activities
Ci-e., no activities, no Daseinf, it makes nc> sense t o
question the existence of the world. Easein's a c t i v i t y
has a self-confirming character istic. Searcftirtg f cr
Page - 113
t r u t h i e an activity taking place i n the wsrld that has
been discfosed i n a certain %fay- The pressppositiar: t h a t
there is t r u t h makes it G o t h possible f o r and necessary
that Dasein discloses and discovers. But the
philasophical traditian has thought of representation in
such a way that s h e nature of the search for truth has
heen covered-over. Basein tends to fall into the world
and f o r g e t that it is interpreting the world, f a r g e t that
cansciousness 3rd representation are interpretations, and
forget that the primary phenomenon of truth has been
covered-over by aur understanding of being a s
7Gary S t e i n e r "Hei3eggerrs Reflection on AZetheia: Mercaly a T e r t n i n o l o g i c a l S h i f t ? " i n A u s l e g u n g , va1.13, No.1, 4 1 .
8Heidegger, "Plato's Doctrine o f T r u t h , " 2 6 6 -
CONCLUSION
Heidegger a rgues t h a t t h e W e s t e r n wor ld -v iew Is
based on certain implicit nntologic~l presuppositions
that were i n h e r i t e d from the ancient G r e e k s . The mast r i I i m p o r t a n t of %ese presuppositions are: l i There is a
fundamental ontological distinction between knowers and
t h c object sf knowfedge. 2 ) The primary mode of access
knowers have to the object of knowledge is disinterested
observation or contemplatian. 3 ) T r u t h consists in
dccuracy of royresentatiac.
These presuppositions have led to a p i c t u r e of
reality according to which: I f There is a way the o b j e c t
of knowledqe (the world, reality, etc.1 is in itself,
independent of human activity and interpretation. 2 )
T h e r e is a way knowers {human beings, representers, etc.)
take the world to be, which may or may not be an accurate
representation of reality. As a correlative of t h i s
o c c u t r e n t relation between reality and representations of
reality.
U s i n g the ontology a f being-in-the-world, Heidegger
argues that the traditional ontological picture and its
corresponding view of truth as correct representation,
does not adequately capture the nature of human existence
or the xelevance a•’ human existence to truth- By
focusing on concerned activity rather than on
Page - 116
disinterested "beholding," and on m e t a p h o r s s f
involvement rather than spatial inclusion, Heidpgqer i::
able to escape traditional conclusions, w i t h a l l . o f their
inherent problems, regarding the nature of zcaiity arid
the nature of truth, First, Heidegqer argues that
construing entities as available (i. e- , character i x i n q
them primarily in terms of their f u n c t i o n ) is a mare
fundamental way of understanding t h e m than i s r o n ~ f . r t t i n q
them 35 occurrent (i.e., characterizing then p r i m a r i l y I n
terms of substance/attribute) . T h i s is meant; t o s h o w
that any c o n c e p t i o n of the structure and identity of
entities within the world is dependent on U a s e i n ' s
purposes, concerns, and activities, i . e, , to sliow t h , i t
there is no way entities within the world are "in
themselves," i n d e p e n d e n t o f human interests. S e c o n d ,
Heidegger characterizes being -in-the-wor ld as a type r ) f
involvement in a system a • ’ human practices that a r c
necessary for the emergence of entities within t , h p w o r l d .
This is meant to show that both knowers and the object o f
knowledge are interdefined through the practices i n w l ~ i c h
they are involved. Under the framework o f be i rig- i n - t l i ~ -
world it is, theref ore, jmpossi h l e to c h a r a c t e r i z e trittki
as an occurrent relation between the i n d e p e n d e n t realms
of representation and reality.
Heidegger, however, does n o t reject as wrong
traditional subject/object metaphysics or its
complementary view of truth as some form of
l i m i t a t i o n s of the traditional view: i . e , , t o show its
r o o t s in a particular interpretation, itself rooted in a
pdrticular cultural and historical epoch. In so doing,
Heideyger tries to show the inability of traditinnal
metaphysics to provide an absolute characterization of
reality at its deepest level. Indeed, Heidegger goes
further than this, arguing that "realityv is always a
particular characterization of "the real." The real does
not have a determinate structure; it is infinitely
dense.
-
Heidegger wants to retain both the common sense view
that facts about the world are discovered rather tl-,an
invented and the philosophical view that "the realff is
indetexminate independent o f the projection of a
framework. To accomplish this Heidegger's philosophy
functions at two levels: the ontic and the ontological.
Ontically (i.e., in particular cases) facts within the
world can be discovered by individual Dasein. However,
the ontic is essentially dependent upon the ontological.
Ontoloyically the world is disclosed, for Heidegger,
through the activities of global Dasein. Traditional
subjectlobject metaphysics and its accompanying view of
truth as correspondence are reserved a place at t h e l e v e l
of ontical discoveries within the world. At the higher
levels, Heidegger is a realist in the limited sense that
he believes there is an independently existing level of
Page - 118
occurrent reality. T o r e - q u o t e an important passi?qc
discussed in section 3.5,
But now, as long as there is an uriderstanclinq of being and therefore an understanding of occuruentness, it can indeed by said that in this case entities will still contintle to be. [ 2 1 2 3
Heidegger also xecognizes, however, that despitc
playing the role of determining our understanding u f key
philasophical concepts, ontology is ultimately
interpretation. We always work within a cultural and
historical perspective, within a language and a v a g u e l y
defined range of concepts which limit t h e ways i n which
we can understand or characterize t q t h e real." Perhaps
even more fundamentally, we are limited by biology, by
the narrow range and limited power of our ability t o
sense and perceive, and by our limi t:ed capacity to
reason.
It is not the case, however , that we could access
the real if we had more diverse and powerful senses, or
if we had more acute powers of reason. T h e zeal , , t o r
Heidegger, cannot be characterized in an a h s o l u t e sense,
from God's point of view (which is not d p o i n t oE v j e w ) ;
it can only be contrasted with particular
characterizations of reality, e . g . , as occurrer i t ,
Attempts, such as that made by Dreyfus in his 3 c c o u n t of
hermeneutic realism, to portray science as " g e t t i n g a t
Page - 119
u l t i m a t e causal powersw and religion a s "getting at
ultirr~atse saving powers ," and that, therefore, both t h e
scientific and religious accounts can be Vxue?! u f the
real, seem t o m i s s t h e pointe2 They imply that "u l t imate
characterizations" are open-ended or incommensurable, but
nevertheless directly about the real. But, there is nu
independent criterion of ultirnaticity except from within
an interpretive framework. Dreyfus seems ta want to have
it both w a y s . He wants t o have a traditional ultimate
c:haracterization of the real and to have a hermeneutical
account of truth. For Heidegger, however, the real is
simply open to an infinite number of interpretations, no
one of which can be picked out as the most fundamental.
What is fundamental f o r him is Daseinfs interpretive
dct ivity.
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