A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness, and Action: Heideggerian/Phenomenological criticism of Kant

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One cannot but feel that upon reading Heidegger one is re-engaging with the sphere of the sacred realm of Being that the ancient Greeks were so keen to explore, but in a way that still has concrete contact with this worldly world we dwell in. There is also, however, also a feeling of dwelling in a realm where everything appears as it is but where all disguises and illusions have not dissipated: a feeling of dwelling in a world that is contemplated by a mind that might still possibly be under the influence of an illusion.

Heidegger’s phenomenological criticism of Kant reveals very clearly some of his theoretical commitments and this criticism is significant for our discussion of many of the aporetic questions that arise concerning Psychology, cognition, emotion, consciousness, and action.

Heidegger’s Later work, however, demonstrates a fecundity of Philosophical thinking in that he uses Aristotelian ideas in ways that depart from Kant’s interpretation and criticism of Aristotle.

For Heidegger, the human being symbolises a way of being or form of existence which differs from the extant being of a rock or an artefact, and differs also from the world-less forms of life such as plants and animals. A Human Being is a being-in-a-world and a being-for-a-world. Rocks, tables, tools, plants, and animals are revealed to us in/through/for our human comportment toward them. The world is that totality, or particular whole, toward which we freely comport ourselves at all times, choosing to think this or that, do this or that, able to dwell intimately with beings as well as distance ourselves from them, all without detaching ourselves from our beloved world. We are not by any means observing ourselves in our relations with the world. We appear to “transcendentally” know “non-observationally” what is going on. There is no thematic or conceptual awareness but rather a kind of practical knowledge that is pre-conceptual. Given that “Observation” is one of the foundation stones of science this obviously raises the aporetic question of the nature of scientific activity.

Heidegger claims that our comportment toward those non-human beings we come across in the world is one of practical use. We use rocks, artefacts, plants, and animals in ways that dominate them, and by using these beings, it is claimed, we get to know them. When a tool breaks, for example, it appears startlingly in consciousness as “something that is present at hand but can no longer be used”. The tool poses a question to consciousness that must be answered in some way. It is no longer “ready-to-hand” and as a consequence assimilated into our preconscious system of practical knowledge. Consciousness of the question forces the agent to choose to answer the question.

All of this is part of a larger mythical struggle against nature in which we learn of its power via struggling with it and protecting ourselves against it. Our relation to Nature is, then practical, and not theoretically reflective. The “bare perception” of something “present-at-hand” reveals nothing essential about the entity perceived. Nothing is as self-evident as when we are engaging in “instrumentalities” and everything is “working as it should “. Our understanding of “instrumentality” is understood from the outset and not something we “discover” in our engagements in the world. When Nature overwhelms us with its power, we experience this phenomenon of its power but may not consciously and fully understand the meaning of the experience. Kant’s image from his Critique of Judgment is that of a powerful waterfall impressing the power of nature upon us, and a reflective “recovery” from this largely submissive experience: a recovery that transports the mind to an experience of the power of our freedom as moral agents capable of obeying the moral law. Here we are no longer, insofar as Kant is concerned, in the realm of instrumentalities but rather in the realm of Being.

Our pre-ontological comprehension of Being is contemplative and this does not of itself constitute a scientific form of theoretical comportment. Heidegger, like Husserl before him is concerned with the transition from this pre ontological comprehension of Being to the scientific level of understanding. Science, for Heidegger, is to some extent Aristotelian. Biology, for example, presupposes a pre-ontological understanding of the life of an organism and the concepts that are developed in the name of this discipline will convert living beings into “Objects”. For each science there are both basic ideas and a realm of investigation is developed out of these ideas. Here we are clearly involved in the context of “exploration”. This “process” of objectification is seen best in the so-called mathematical sciences of nature. Mere observation and collection of fact, although necessary, in the opinion of Heidegger, does not suffice for the act of objectification. This act requires “instrumentalities” in the form of experimentation in which the trial and error “method” of techné, or the crafts is the model or standard to be used. Modern science, however, also inclines itself toward quantifying and relating phenomena in the context of calculation and measurement. The Aristotelian categories of Change, namely, Quantity and Relation are set up as the a priori standard to refer to when engaging in the context of exploration. The categories of quality, substance, and modality are largely “suspended”. The movement of objects or bodies in a space-time matrix becomes the primary kind of change that is in focus and the primary tool to be used in the exploration of this kind of change is mathematics. Motion, bodies, and space-time are not conceptually investigated per se as concepts–all that are investigated are particular bodies in motion at particular places at particular times. These concepts are thus “used” instrumentally. These mathematical categories of change are projected upon nature and determine all steps of the context of exploration thus becoming the means of explanation and justification of the scientific activities of objectification and its accompanying processes. This is all in the Spirit of Galileo and Kepler.

Insofar as Kant is concerned, however, Science, in the form of Physics(the science of the cosmos), as a consequence of these basic commitments, does not necessitate the rejection of transcendental and metaphysical logic both of which retain its commitments to the metaphysical theory of change of Aristotle and his transcendental theory of the mind(Philosophical Psychology). Kantian “projection” is, however, more complex than the “modern” act of objectification carried out by modern science and its “instrumentalities”. Heidegger calls this act of objectification an “opening” of nature but in the light of the above and in the light of Kant’s commitment to a biological theory of evolution it is not clear that Kant would agree with this “Instrumental” characterisation of Physics or its implications for other sciences. Kant would agree, however, that when man began to demand that nature answer his questions instead of passively observing or collecting “facts”, a light dawned upon science. The student of nature was replaced by a judge leading a tribunal of inquiry in the spirit of “justification”. Kant might not have agreed, however, in narrowly circumscribing the scope of that light to quantitative and relational categories of change. That is, the context of explanation and justification for Kant would have to include reflection upon substantial and qualitative change as well, especially insofar as the Historical and biological sciences were concerned. In these “modern” disciplines, the general concepts of Time and Life are also “grasped” in terms of particular instrumentalities. It is therefore unclear what significance to attach to Heidegger’s claim in his work “Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason” that mathematics “opens nature”. Heidegger does agree in this work that Science cannot investigate the extent to which it “founds” the ontological constitution of its own field. This presumably must be left to Philosophy or at least to the Philosophy of Science. For Aristotle, this was also true because it was the task of what he called “First” Philosophy to investigate the question of the nature of Being qua being.

Heidegger argues insightfully that significant progress in the sciences will not be made by the discovery of new facts but perhaps only by recasting the foundations of the science in question, which in Kant’s view would involve rethinking the basic concepts(the principles) and their field of operation. The general nature of these concepts will not be connected to the particularities of their use but rather to their relation to the ontological constitution of the beings they are related to. They will that is, in Heidegger’s language be related to the being of those beings. In the Philosophy of Kant or Aristotle, this will no longer be an act of objectification but rather a logical and metaphysical act. Heidegger, however, believes that an ontological act of objectification is involved. For Heidegger, the role of Philosophy is more concretely characterised as the understanding of the complexity of a human existence that already understands being pre-ontologically. In such a study one cannot, Heidegger acknowledges, regard beings instrumentally as one can in the sciences where it is possible as he puts it “to sneak away from being”(P27). In science, that is, one can sneak away from Philosophy and this is partly due to the constitution of Dasein whose essence lies in the freedom to choose.

Kant regards Metaphysics as the science of super-sensible beings and there can be no sneaking away from Philosophy in this kind of investigation, even if there can be a critique of pure reason. Now whereas sensibility is the faculty of mind that we most use when we are engaged in instrumentalities, (engaged, that is, in doing particular things in particular ways at particular times), judgment, understanding, and reason are also involved.in such circumstances. These “instrumental” activities carried out by the faculty of sensibility are clearly not blind, but are directed by ideas or the faculty of concepts, which is a faculty of general representations that contain not only the general rules for thinking the particular under the universal in the act of judgment but also the general rules for thinking, e.g. the principles of logic(principle of non-contradiction and sufficient reason). The difference between the faculties of the understanding and reason may rest in this quote from Kant:

“For reason is the faculty which supplies the principles of a priori knowledge.”(Critique of Pure Reason Trans Kemp Smith London, Macmillan, 1929, B24, A11)

Reason, that is, will definitely be involved in the formation of the Categories of Judgment which will be very important to consider in the making and understanding of scientific judgments. The act of objectification seems in this context of explanation and justification to be “transcended” by “intentional acts” that are no longer “instrumental” but have become “categorical”. By “a priori” in the above quote Kant means “Independent of experience and produced by the act of thinking conceptually”. “Independent of experience ” merely means in this context not determined by the content or intentional object of experience. Many commentators have taken this to mean innate but this is an unnecessary concretisation of what is meant here.

A priori judgments can be purely conceptual and “analytical” such as in the case of “the cause is the capability of producing an effect”, and the principle of intelligibility here is the principle of non-contradiction which prevents the act of cognition from extending the logical scope of the subject beyond the identity of the concept and into the realm of the meaning of another concept. The predicate of the judgment, that is, is “contained in ” the subject. Judgments can also be a priori and synthetic. They can be necessarily true because the predicate is necessarily predicated of the subject: but such judgments are not synthetically connected to particulars and are rather universal or general judgments, the aim of which, as is the case with analytic judgments, is Truth. The qualifier “synthetic” here is meant to indicate that the connections between the two concepts in the judgment are not based on observation but based on the synthesis of two concepts to produce a necessary truth about the world, a necessary truth that is a condition of the possibility not just of this or that particular experience but the possibility of all experience of what Kant calls “the phenomenal world of appearance”. Synthetic a priori judgments are therefore both transcendental and metaphysical and necessary for scientific activity of all kinds. We see here, however, an interesting shift from the act of objectification to an act that relates to our understanding and our desire and effort to understand the world. Synthetic a priori judgments are important to lay the foundations of our Science, a foundation that grounds any acts of objectification. These synthetic a priori judgments are critical for our pre ontological comprehension of the being of the beings we are investigating via our perception and manipulations of those beings. This, is, of course, the famous Copernican revolution of Kantian epistemological investigation. We are no longer students of nature expecting knowledge to arise from our contact with objects but rather judges in a tribunal of investigation demanding that our objects correspond to our a priori knowledge. This judge is similar to the judges in our legal tribunals who measure everything that happens in terms of the law which is the standard for the proceedings of the tribunal. The judge Kant has in mind here is a judge in possession of transcendental and metaphysical knowledge expressed partly in synthetic a priori and metaphysical judgments. Transcendental knowledge here is not directly concerned with the objects in an act of objectification but rather with the mode of our knowledge of such objects. The system of such knowledge is the concern of transcendental Philosophy which is part of the science of metaphysics.

Instrumental judgments on the other hand aim at the good:– not the categorical good of universal categorical judgments such as the categorical imperative, but rather at the good of a calculating reason which is evaluating means to ends. Here we can see the importance of the final cause or the telos of the judgment. The aim of a judgment that is both future-oriented in that it commits the judger to the bringing about of a state of affairs in the future falls into the grammatical category of the imperative. There are two forms of these imperatives according to Kant, the technological imperative, and the categorical imperative. Kant characterises the difference between these two forms of judgment in the following manner:

“now there are but two kinds of concepts, and these yield a corresponding number of distinct principles of the possibility of their objects. The concepts referred to are those of nature and that of freedom….The will… is the faculty of desire and, as such is just one of the many natural causes in the world, the one, namely, which acts by concepts: and whatever is represented as possible(or necessary) through the efficacy of the will is called practically possible(or necessary)…..let the concept determining the causality be a concept of nature, and then the principles are technically practical: but let it be a concept of freedom, and they are morally practical…technically practical principles belong to theoretical philosophy(natural science) whereas those morally practical alone form the second part, that is, practical philosophy(ethical science).” Kant, I., trans Meredith J C (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1952, P8-9)

In the case of such practical principles, they can be either hypothetical and categorical. The first hypothetical kind is illustrated in the care a doctor gives to his patient when he wraps him in warm blankets to alleviate the symptoms of his illness(a cold). Here the doctor is exercising a skill on the object of the patient’s body, a skill which has a hypothetical character. There are principles or precepts of this skill that concern only the means to achieve an end and the reasoning involved does not aim at the end but only at an action that brings about the end. The principles or precepts of ethical or moral action, on the other hand, are aimed categorically at the end and this is registered in the fact that happiness, (the a priori end for mans action according to Kant’s Groundwork P.68)is involved in moral action in a twofold sense: firstly it is aimed primarily at other people as ends in themselves(at their souls) and therefore secondarily their happiness, secondly it aims to make the agent of the action worthy of Happiness. Necessity is involved in both the doctor’s action and the ethical agents’ action but the first instrumental action is precept based whereas the latter categorical action is based on a universal and necessary moral law–an “ought” that is a duty for which no man needs to take an oath, as is the case with the doctor. The action of the doctor is conditional upon the patient’s acceptance and comes as a counsel of prudence whereas the kind of necessity involved in the ethical case is unconditional and must be obeyed by all. What we are seeing here is the difference between action in an empirical realm of causality in the sensible phenomenal world(where appearances can be necessarily connected) and the supersensible noumenal realm of rational agency in an intelligible world filled with souls in a Putative Kingdom of ends(where things in themselves are “connected”). The “ought” judgments in these different realms have very different “logical” characteristics that Kant charts in great detail. In the former case of the doctor’s action, we are not dealing with the theoretical connection of appearances via a causal category of judgment: the effect is to bring about practically a state of health in the patient which is, of course, something that he regards as necessary for his happiness. Once this is achieved, however, the needs of the patients soul transcend the needs of the body and to the extent that the agent is intent upon exercising the transcendental power of freedom which he possesses the patients desires and efforts will be refocused on “more important things”, for example, actions which will reveal the nature of his Being-in-the-world and the nature of the better world he is committed to bringing about.

Heidegger’s early phenomenological criticism, however, is not directed specifically at Kant’s Practical Philosophy. He is more concerned with undermining the Philosophy of Mind we find in the First Critique. He believes there is a problem with the unity of the mind in Kant’s account of the relation between the transcendental aesthetic and the transcendental logic because he does not embrace, as Kant does, the full implications of Aristotelian metaphysics and hylomorphic theory. It is this aspect of Kant’s theory that lies behind the claim that the power of reason assimilates and transforms the powers of sensibility such as the transcendental imagination. Heidegger maintains that it is the transcendental imagination that lies at the source of the unity of the faculties of the understanding and sensibility rather than the metaphysical first principles of Reason. There is no direct discussion of this point in his early phenomenological analysis of Kant but in this criticism there appears to be an assumption that the principles of logic( identity and non-contradiction) are not directly related to Being qua being in the way in which Aristotle envisaged, but are rather transcendental principles, applying only to propositions(meaningful statements or “thoughts” about things). There are difficulties with the translation of key Greek terms in this discussion such as ousia which Shields for example in his work on Aristotle(London, Routledge, 2007, P.240) translates as “being” or “substance”. Vasilis Politis in his work “Aristotle and the Metaphysics”, on the other hand, translates ousia correctly, in our opinion, as “primary being”. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle also importantly claims that although “Being can be meant in multiple ways”(Met. 1003a33-1003b 10) there is a reference to a single “arche” which Shields translates as “core”(P.241) but would probably be better translated as “principle” or “form”. This would also take into consideration Aristotle’s “shift” in his later writings toward substance as “form”, thus moving away from the material implications of the term “substance”. Regarding the principles of identity or non-contradiction as principles connected to what people say or think propositionally, the transcendental logician runs the risk of turning logic into a transcendental matter and opens the gates of relativism, because as Aristotle says, one can even claim to believe that the principle of non-contradiction does not apply to Being or the world. One can claim, in other words, that the principle is not true. In such a case Aristotle counters almost impatiently as he undoubtedly did with his more skeptical students, that If we believe that falling off a cliff is a bad thing to happen the denial of the principle of non-contradiction(PNC) would also lead one to believe that falling off a cliff was not a bad thing to happen. Why he asks, do we not then observe such sceptical relativists falling off cliffs, why, that is, do we observe them taking all the precautions necessary not to fall off cliffs. They take precautions because they cannot mean what they say. There is a modality of necessity attached to the principle which entails that such sceptical relativists cannot mean what they say. Wittgenstein in his later work would probably insist that someone who says they do not believe in the laws of logic is being bewitched by the language they are using into believing they are saying something significant. As Aristotelian rational animals capable of discourse we must mean what we say for metaphysical reasons, i.e. we must apply the PNC metaphysically. It is not merely or only a transcendental principle connected to a relativist interpretation of the claim that “Being can be said in many ways”. The PNC is probably, in that respect better regarded as a metaphysical law. Let us remind ourselves of what Aristotle had to say on the issue of Being:

“Rather, just as every healthy thing stands to health, some by preserving it, and some by producing it, and others by being indicative of it, and others by being receptive of it, or as what is medical is related to medicine..so too, being is meant in multiple ways with reference to a single “arche”. Some things are called beings (onta) because they are substances (ousia), others because they are affections of substances, others because they are a path to substance or are destructions or privations or doings of substances, or are productive or generative of substance, or belong to things spoken of in relation to substance, or are negations of some of these or of substance itself(wherefore we can even say that non-being is non being(to mê on))(Met 1003a33-1003b 10)

Attributing metaphysical status to the transcendental imagination is problematic and negates the fundamental intention of the First Critique which places the responsibility for the unification of the elements of sensibility and understanding upon Reason and the metaphysically and logically structured categories. Kant abandoned talk of the transcendental imagination in the second edition of the First Critique because of the risk that the “I think” would be inflated into an absolute as it was by Fichte and by later Phenomenologists. Heidegger is correct to point out the important role of intuition in all knowledge-claims. Intuition is one of the transcendental elements but the most intellectual form of thought is a discursive form that uses concepts in the absence of intuitions that are “intended” but not actually present in the form of sensation: chalk, for example, will present itself through the sensations of whiteness, hardness, and shape, and these will be imagined in any thought of the chalk in its absence. Sensations are of course not subjective feelings but objective representations and logic will be operating at the level of sensations because the chalk cannot be qualitatively white and not white at the same time and in the same respect. Subjective feelings such as pleasure and pain, on the other hand, do not represent anything, but are rather representations of the state of the subject in relation to whatever caused the representation. The appearance of the chalk when combined with the consciousness the subject has of the appearance is Perception, a form of knowing of the chalk. The chalk in itself is a mystery, all we can know is what is presented to our perception of it. Given our constitution, however, we know that there is something behind the appearances but this is the extent of our knowledge of things-in-themselves insofar as theoretical cognition is concerned. In practical matters, we relate differently to persons when we treat them as ends-in-themselves in our role as moral agents. This Kantian idea of things-in-themselves is nothing other than Aristotelian metaphysical logic operating rationally and aporetically in the sphere of the philosophical discourse about Being qua being.

Heidegger believes that Kant is ambiguous about things-in-themselves and claims that Kant is “entangled” in an ancient ontology. If that means he is entangled in Aristotelian metaphysics then that is a correct description, but Heidegger the phenomenologist means something negative when he accuses Kant of being “entangled”. In this context, it would be interesting to ask whether Heidegger agrees that the law of non-contradiction applies metaphysically to the appearance of the whiteness of chalk. He agrees that the word “appearance” merely signifies the difference between divine and human knowledge, between the phenomena we experience and the noumena that lie in a realm that at best can only be “symbolised(to use Ricoeur’s term)or reached via “practical” reasoning of a certain kind(moral reasoning).

Part of the problem with all phenomenological accounts is that they are not merely anti-scientific(in a certain classical sense of scientific, where the scientific activity is determined by rules, principles, and laws) they are also anti-hylomorphic. The reason for phenomenology’s anti-hylomorphic attitude is related to the reason for it being anti-scientific, namely an anti-authoritarian attitude toward principles and laws. The following is an excerpt from Heidegger’s work”Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason”:

“Kant states that space and time are pure intuitions wherein what is encountered in terms of sensation can be put in order. He calls them forms of intuition, Accordingly, “forms” are the “wherein” of possible ordering or disordering….one does not know how to do a real phenomenological interpretation of what Kant could have meant with the talk of “form” and “matter”. Instead one uses this pair of concepts in a completely universal excessiveness and says that everything has a content and a form and that both belong together..with these concepts of form and matter nothing is achieved in interpreting Kant and that, on the contrary, with these schemata and formulae access to what Kant wanted to say is obstructed.”(P.85)

This relies on an understanding of Aristotle that is mistaken. “Form” in the later Aristotelian work only means “substance” insofar as substance means “principle”. Aristotle would definitely have rejected the Cartesian “reduction” of “form” to “thinking substance”. Heidegger is clearly struggling in these passages with the idea of one active substance relating to one passive substance, thus ignoring Kant’s explicit commitment to Aristotle in the following passage which Heidegger actually quotes:

“These two concepts underlie all other reflection, so inseparably are they bound up with all employment of the understanding. The one(matter) signifies the determinable in general, the other(form)its determination.”

What Kant means by determination here is that which determines something as a principle. Since the “form of intuition” is being referred to it is clear that we are not dealing with principles or categories of the understanding but rather principles of sensibility. What the phenomenologist often misses in their evaluation of the Philosophies of Aristotle and Kant is the fact that there are different levels or stages of phenomena: the tadpole, for example, is a phenomenon in its own right but it is a stage on the way to being a frog: sensibility and the way in which space and time constitute the current perception of a landscape(a powerful waterfall) are a stage on the way to perhaps the sublimity of the scene. The unity of space and time in this “phenomenon” are a kind of synoptical unity that forms a “matrix”. For Aristotle it is clear that experience needs to be organised by the “form” or “principle” of memory, For Freud, certain forms of pathological memory are in need of organisation by the “form” or “principle” of language(where the “talking cure” is the issue). For Aristotle, again, it is clear that his definition of a human being in terms of “rational animal capable of discourse” is a definition in which stages build upon stages moving from animality to animals discoursing and finally toward an animal whose discourse is “rational”. In hylomorphic and Kantian Critical theory, powers build upon powers to reach an ultimate cognitive end in which certain forms of cognition (the categories of the understanding) build upon other “lower” forms of cognition(the forms of intuition of space and time). There are also different kinds of rationality, namely theoretical and rational, which ought not to be conflated as forms of cognition. Here, a picture of a division of the human power of cognition between practical and theoretical kinds is clear and distinct in both Aristotle and Kant but is unclear in most forms of Phenomenology. There are “forms of sensibility” involved in both kinds of cognition. How to describe the unity of space and time is difficult but here perhaps Phenomenology provides us with a useful hypothesis. Heidegger talks in his early work in terms of “having a view” and also in terms of intuiting space as our being oriented in relation to something which lies before, next-to, in front of, and behind. This actively determines our orientation or being-in-the-world from an intuitive perspective. Here a form of practical intuition is the “determining factor” of our being-in-the-world. Neither Aristotle nor Kant would have any objection to this description, indeed, this would be in concrete terms, what they would mean by the term “form” or “principle”, in a practical intuitive context. Kant is often mischaracterised by commentators who insist that he believes Euclidean geometry to be the means by which to theoretically “order” the intuitive representations of space. Given that Kant is insistent upon the fact that these are singular(unique) representations this would fly in the face of the theoretical logic of singular judgments which are not about general objects such as triangles and circles that are objectified in any geometry whether it be Euclidean or non-Euclidean. Kant has this to say in the note to B161:

“Space represented as object(as we are required to do in geometry), contains more than mere form of intuition: it also contains combination of the manifold, given according to the form of sensibility, in an intuitive representation, so that the form of intuition gives only a manifold, the formal intuition gives unity of representation. In the Aesthetic I have treated this unity as belonging merely to sensibility, simply in order to recognise that it precedes any concept, although as a matter of fact, it presupposes a synthesis which does not belong to the senses but through which all concepts of space and time first becomes possible.”

Space and Time, Kant insists at B55 are a priori sources of knowledge. S.Körner claims in his work “Kant”, that space and time are “particulars(P.33). The basis for this claim is another claim that Newton(a figure Körner claims Kant admired) regarded space and time as “particulars”. Particulars relate to substance and matter and Kant is very clear in his expositions that neither space nor time are in any way “particulars” whose identity would depend upon spatial and temporal conditions. They normally figure in relational rather than substantial judgments. They are also of the kind singular judgments and insofar as we see Aristotle’s idea of Time implied by Newton’s account, space and time are also infinite continuums. Judgments about space and time are not material conditions of spatial and temporal judgments. They are, rather forms or principles of organizing relations in reality. Judgments such as “Space has three dimensions” and “Time has one dimension” are “standards of representation”, standards that we use to organize reality. The so-called “absolute” space and time of Newton would be if not “things-in-themselves” (with its unfortunate substantial implications) “ends-in-themselves” about which very little can be said in the language of the early Wittgenstein. These ends-in-themselves are perhaps best characterized as “that about which one cannot speak” but also in the language of the early Wittgenstein “that which can only be shown”. Space “shows us its three dimensions. Time “shows” us that it has only one dimension, one direction. In his later work, Wittgenstein regards the above judgments concerning space and time as “norms of representation”, grammatical remarks about space and time. This is perhaps in accordance with the transcendental exposition we find in Kant but is ambiguous insofar as the metaphysical exposition is concerned.

Heidegger, in a discussion relating to synthetic a priori knowledge, has the following to contribute to this discussion:

“..this knowledge is given in propositions which are certain a priori although they are synthetic. They are apodictic propositions, for example, “Space has only three dimensions”, “Time has only one dimension”, “Various times are not simultaneous but successive”. Such propositions are neither empirical propositions nor judgments of experience, nor can they be inferred from judgments of experience. They teach us prior to and not by means of experience.”(P.96)

Heidegger goes on to state that time is a necessary component of motion. Now, given Aristotle’s definition of time as “the measurement of motion in terms of before and after” we can take this as “showing” that the time we can represent and know a priori is the time connected to a number which is in its turn connected to pure succession. Space, in itself, cannot account for motion without contradiction because it is a contradiction to be in two places at the same time but it is not a contradiction to claim something to be at two places at different times. This is part of the transcendental exposition of time. In such an exposition it would be impossible to make any judgments in relation to motion without the presumption or intuition of time as pure succession. Motion itself is not an intuitive representation because it presupposes the conceptual thought of something substantial and permanent that moves. Time is not primordial nor is it the case that Time and Space are equiprimordial in importance because time in its turn requires a representation of something extant in Space before a representation of change can occur.

Phenomenology, however, locates its “description” of “phenomena” in relation to the initially promising concept of the “Being-in-the-world” of the Subject. Heidegger claims in his work “Being and Time” (P.51) that the term “phenomenon” signifies “to show itself”. “to put in the light” “that wherein something can become manifest, visible in itself”. Heidegger here objects to the term “appearance” which can be found in the English translation of Kant’s work. Also, according to Heidegger, the term “logos” is wrongly regarded as “reason”, “judgment”, “concept”, “definition”, “ground” or “relationship” but rather should be regarded as a form of discourse that “makes manifest what one is “talking about” in one’s discourse”(Being and Time P.56). Heidegger also uses the formulation “letting something be seen by pointing it out”(P56). Because of this manifestation, discourse can be true or false:

“When something no longer takes the form of just letting something be seen but is always harking back to something else to which it points, so that it lets something be seen as something, it thus acquires a synthesis structure, and with this it takes over the possibility of covering up. The “truth of judgments”, however, is merely the opposite of this covering-up, a secondary phenomenon of truth, with more than one kind of foundation.”

What is pointed to here is Being which because of the concept of the “phenomenon”:

“is something that proximally and for the most part does not show itself, and it belongs to it so essentially as to constitute its meaning and its ground.”(P.59)

This Being can be “covered up” and be forgotten. The task of the science of phenomenology, then, is to “reveal” the Being of entities. It is a task for which the war cry is Husserlian, “Back to the things themselves!”. Heidegger is claiming here that phenomenology concerns itself with an ontological investigation but an investigation which is both fundamental and interpretative in its method especially when it comes to investigating the nature of Dasein(the phenomenology of Dasein). The hermeneutical method, then, will attempt to “uncover” or “reveal” the conditions on which the possibility of the uncovering of Being depends. Paul Ricoeur, by the way, is critical of this notion of the hermeneutical method which he believes must take a longer route of interpretation through the institutions, works, and monuments of our cultural activity.

The Heideggerian methodological interpretation of Dasein reveals the so-called historical nature of our “Being-there”. In this process of “interpretation of Dasein, we are of course typically, insofar as phenomenology is concerned, seeking the “things themselves” or the “essence” of things. Dasein’s essence, it is maintained resides in its existence and the possible modes of its existence. Further, Dasein is mine and its mode of existence can be chosen. Heidegger, then, in his work “Being and Time” relapses into “matter-of-fact description” of Dasein:

“Dasein’s Being is an issue for it in a definite way: and Dasein comports itself towards it in the mode of average everydayness, even if this is only the mode of fleeing everydayness, even if this is only the mode of fleeing in the face of it and forgetfulness thereof.”

These “characteristics” of Dasein are not categories of the understanding but rather what Heidegger terms metaphysical “existentialia”. Curiously however Heidegger aligns this question of Daseins existence with the question “Who is man?” rather than with the Kantian question “What is man?” He prefers to associate the latter question with an entity he calls man being “present-at-hand”, whatever that means in this context. The upshot of this argumentation is the insistence that the question “Who?” is Phenomenologically prior to the question “What?”. This latter question is best answered by the disciplines of anthropology, psychology, and biology. Here Heidegger may or may not be speaking about the philosophical and ontological commitments of these disciplines. He is, however, intending to criticize these disciplines as “sciences. In Biology, for example, the so-called “unexamined” concept of “life” is taken as given in Heidegger’s view and is not therefore treated as sufficiently problematic from his phenomenological/existential perspective.

Heidegger discusses the Psychological Anthropology of Dilthey and refers to this kind of theory as “personalitic”. The person is the unity of immediate lived-through experience. Scheler and Husserl are also invoked in the context of this discussion and all such theorists are criticized for ignoring what Heidegger calls “personal Being”. These theorists, it is argued do not take account of the “Being of the whole man”(P.73) which is not a matter of simply adding together the kinds of Being indicated by “body”, “soul”, and “spirit”. Both ancient ideas of life and Christianity are blamed for this condition of the forgetfulness of the Being of Dasein:

“But what stands in the way of the basic question of Dasein’s Being(or leads it off the track) is an orientation thoroughly coloured by the Anthropology of Christianity and the ancient world, whose inadequate ontological foundations have been overlooked both by the philosophy of life and by personalism.”

It is not clear what Heidegger is objecting to with respect to the Philosophy of life. Is it hylomorphism? Neither is it clear what he is objecting to insofar as Christianity is concerned. Is it the implied individualism or the manifest spiritualism?

Aristotle’s definition of rational animal is specifically discussed and a curious objection emerges claiming that this definition refers to something occurring rather than to some potential for rationality or power of rationality. (P.74) . As we have pointed out previously the full amended definition that Aristotle uses is “rational animal capable of discourse(logos) and this is supported by the battery of arguments relating to Three kinds of science, 4 kinds of change, three principles and 4 causes(kinds of explanation). Heidegger ignores this complexity or has forgotten it. Being is not for Aristotle something “present-at-hand” because metaphysics is the Philosophy of first principles and principles do not have the status of “occurring” or being “present at hand”. Similar criticisms can be levelled at Heidegger’s subsequent discussion of the Biological concept of life which he maintains could never ontologically define Dasein. Life for Aristotle, as it is for modern Aristotelians such as O Shaughnessy is a principle defining an ontological level of Being in the matrix of forms of Being that stretches from the inorganic to the pure Form or Principle of God. It appears very much as if Heidegger’s reflections in Being and Time are fixated upon identifying a particular mode of substance and its “way of existing” or “way of Being”, thereby perpetuating the myths of materialism and dualism that inevitably emerge from all denials of hylomorphic theory. In his account, there is always something there underlying empirical experience and he calls this something a foundation but his conception of “foundation” resembles the earlier Aristotelian conception of material “Substance” rather than the later conception of “form” or “principle”.

In accordance with the “spirit” of the times reference is made to “average everydayness” of Dasein in modern society and we are given an account in which there is a Rousseau-like longing for a primitive form of life in a state of Nature that will somehow “reveal” the superficiality of our modern form of life and its forgetfulness of Being. The argument is that so-called “primitive phenomena” can reveal more of our relation to Being than the everyday mode of existence of Dasein. The science of ethnology is, however, of no assistance in this matter because the workers in this field either use everyday psychology or scientific conceptions of Psychology that do not meet Heidegger’s criteria for an ontological conception of Dasein. Aristotle would also criticize such sciences for either their dualistic or materialistic approach to the form of life of the human being. Both Heidegger and Aristotle would, that is, paradoxically, in their different ways criticize the sciences for not paying sufficient attention to the question of Being in relation to the study of man. Aristotle would probably seriously question Heidegger’s notion of “personal Being” or the formulation of me “possessing” my Being(“Being is mine”). It is probably this aspect that provokes the psychological question of identity “Who is man?” rather then the more Philosophical Kantian question “What is man?”. The identity question “Who?” then relies on one’s “memory” or “forgetfulness” of Being for its analysis of the Being of man.

Being-in-the-world manifests itself for Heidegger in terms of a concern for the world which is a knowing that takes the form of addressing oneself to the world and discussing it(Logos). This form of knowledge or understanding is not, however accessible to us(presumably because of our “forgetfulness”) and is misrepresented in terms of a “relation” to another soul or the “relation of a subject to an object”. This misrepresentation casts a shadow over our practical active relations to the world. This subjective-objective relation in its turn then results in our conceiving of knowledge and understanding and perhaps also reason as “inner activities” of the Subject. Hylomorphic theory would largely agree with the misrepresentations of “forms” or “principles” in terms of “relational or quantitative” properties. There might also be agreement to the characterization below of Being-in-the-World”:

“If we now ask what shows itself in the phenomenal findings about knowing, we must keep in mind that knowing is grounded beforehand in a “Being-already-alongside-the-world, which is essentially constitutive for Dasein’s Being. Proximally, this Being-already-alongside is not just a fixed staring at something that is purely present-at-hand. Being-in-the-world, as concern, is fascinated by the word with which it is concerned. If knowing is to be possible as a way of determining the nature of the present-at-hand by observing it, then there must first be a deficiency in our having to do with the world concernfully.”(P.88)

Heidegger goes on to characterize present-at-hand relations to Dasein as a holding oneself back from manipulating or utilizing objects of concern. If, however, our perception is as Heidegger claims, “consummated” by a discussion of what we are doing we both interpret and make determinate what it is we are experiencing. Such discussions give rise to propositions that assert what we are concerned with. Heidegger specifically denies that perception can in any way be characterized as a relation of “representation-what is represented”: neither can any part of this relation be located “Inside” a subject separated from the object of its concern. Heidegger insists:

“..the perceiving of what is known is not a process of returning with one’s booty to the “cabinet” of consciousness after one has gone out and grasped it; even in perceiving, retaining, and preserving, the Dasein which knows remains outside, and it does so as Dasein.”(P.89)

Rather, one’s Being-in-the-world, which on the description above looks suspiciously “instrumental”, is the underlying state of our knowing or understanding anything categorically. The question that immediately arises is “What is the nature of the world “in” which we supposedly “dwell”?

We “dwell” amongst “things invested with value” Heidegger argues. The worldhood of the world is a “state” of Dasein. The above suspicion is confirmed in Heidegger’s claim that :

“The kind of dealing which is closest to us is as we have shown, not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use: and this has its own kind of “knowledge”.

Existential Phenomenology then concerns itself with this kind of “knowledge” which is an existential form of knowledge rather than a categorical form as presented, for example by Kant in his theory of moral action. The fascinating suggestion here is that value is first understood in contexts of instrumental action or what the Greeks called “pragmata”. The existential-phenomenological analysis of “instrumentalities” or what Heidegger calls “equipment” is that in the totality of these instrumentalities there is a relational structure in which the “things” or equipment involved in these instrumentalities belong in a context of “involvement”. The major difference between such items and the point of view of a purely viewing consciousness noticing things present-at-hand is that our practical form of knowing is a knowing of pragmata in terms of things that are “ready-to-hand”. The form of perception involved in this kind of knowing is “circumspection”. The teleological result of this kind of pragmatic involvement is “work”. Aristotle referred to this “phenomenon” in teleological terms. For Aristotle, the product of house building, namely the finished house is conceptually and logically connected to the building activity. What we see in this activity insofar as Aristotle is concerned is a transmission of the form, or the principle, of “house” down the chain of “causal” activity. There is for both Heidegger and Aristotle a reference to the “material” and “equipment” used in this process which perhaps begins with a pile of wood and stone on a building site. This is probably why one of the aitia or “causes” of the fourfold kinds of explanation is an explanation that relates to the material the house is made of. This “form” or “Principle” for Aristotle is one of three kinds of forms or “principles” that include also biological reproduction of ourselves in our offspring as well as the “forms” or “principles” that are communicated in non-instrumental teaching activities. In this latter kind of activity, we create virtuous “characters” who “value” “things” such as other people as ends in themselves but also perhaps “knowledge” as an “end-in-itself”. Kant would regard the judgments connected with such values as “categorical”. Heidegger prefers to characterise our understanding or knowledge of such values as “existential”. Paul Ricoeur is unhappy with this “interpretation” of our relation to value and prefers to recommend a more hermeneutical/philosophical approach to “objects” of value such as works of art and Literature, texts, and the monuments of our culture. Ricoeur believes that such a hermeneutic will reveal human existence in terms of our “effort to exist and desire to be”. Ricoeur, of course, is also motivated phenomenologically to preclude metaphysical or transcendental logic from his largely dialectical form of reasoning. At issue is whether we with Parmenides and metaphysical logicians believe that Being is one(with many meanings, e.g. Aristotle) or whether Being is rather constituted of many forms(e.g. Plato’s theory of forms). Related to this issue is the issue of where Heidegger stands in relation to his seeming commitment to the de re existence of our “instrumental” relation to the world. Heidegger might insist that Aristotelian and Kantian metaphysics and transcendental philosophy is deficient in its attempt to make assertions about objects that are present-at-hand. When equipment, for example, is no longer usable, e.g. the head of the hammer falls off its shaft, it manifests itself, according to Heidegger. We stand helpless before this broken hammer and this is what is regarded as phenomenologically a deficient mode of concern with the world. Whilst the hammer is intact, however, and I am hammering in the process of building a house I am in Aristotelian logic and in Heideggerian existentialism definitely transmitting a principle across the manifold acts of hammering. It is also the case that the form or principle of “building a house” covers everyone else’s work on this project. Also involved in this project are three Aristotelian principles, of that, firstly, which a thing changes from (the “material and the ground upon which the material stands”) secondly, that which the thing changes to, namely the complete house, and thirdly, the thing which endures throughout the change, namely the form, or the principle of the house. Also all 4 kinds of change envisaged by Aristotle will be involved, firstly there is a bringing of a new substance into existence, a new house, there are also manifold qualitative changes occurring throughout the process, further, there are quantitative changes involved in the changes in the magnitude and sizes of things and fourthly, there is the locomotion involved in moving material and equipment from one location to another. Our circumspection comes up “empty” when we are dealing with deficient modes of concern. When our concern is genuine there is a reference to something, i.e. something manifests or shows itself and this is indicative of its value. This something can be manifested as a sign which is a practical entity, not something theoretically present-at-hand. Signs, like other entities “ready-to-hand”, have relations of “in-order-to” and for-the-sake-of” in the context of involvements which as we know are contexts of concern. Insofar as one can conceive of words as signs which have meanings that need to be analysed, it is, of course, true that these signs refer to something but perhaps the more comprehensive account of their meaning is that these signs signify because they are used “in-order-to” and “for-the-sake-of-which”, in a totality of significations(a kind if involvement connected with logos or discourse) which we call language.

In his analysis of what he calls the “worldhood of the world” Heidegger discusses the Cartesian distinction between the “ego cogito” and “res corporea” and claims that this distinction is decisive for a further distinction between Nature and Spirit, thus raising the spectre of dualism. Substance, it is argued is constitutive of the ontological structure(the Being-in-itself) of res corporea. All substances, it is argued, have attributes or essential properties that enable us to interpret the substantiality of the substance and in the case of res corporea this property or attribute is “extension” (the length, breadth, and thickness of natural objects). All other attributes or properties are essential modifications of both substance and extension. The shape of natural objects is one such property as is the motion of such objects. The extension of the piece of wax, for example, ontologically defines it. Descartes, however, is criticised for regarding the wax as something present-to-hand rather than regarding it in terms of what Heidegger refers to as the worldhood of the world. The difficulty, however with the Heideggerian account is how to qualitatively or substantially characterise “extension” that appears to belong naturally in a quantitative and relational universe of discourse. It appears that is, that, which categories are relevant to this term must be decided before the kind of “value” it represents can be established.

Heidegger does admit that Kant’s account of “res corporea” was more penetrating than the Cartesian account but he goes on to offer his own account which is different from the Kantian account. Equipment, Heidegger argues, is not fundamentally and ontologically present-at-hand in space but rather has a place in the world. This place “belongs to”(P.136) a totality of involvements that is defined as a context of equipment-involvement. This context, it is argued cannot be determined by any observationally-based attempt to measure space. Circumspection is a different kind of awareness to that of theoretically-driven observations. Insofar as the ready-to-hand involvements are concerned, the kind of awareness is characterised as an “inconspicuous familiarity”: circumspection makes what is inconspicuous, conspicuous. Dasein is neither present-at-hand nor ready.to-hand but rather so “dwells” in the world that it deals with entities within its world both concernfully and with familiarity. However exactly we measure our world, it is argued this activity will not affect our familiarity or our concern. It is this familiarity and concern that defines what Heidegger refers to as the “closeness” of the world. All attempts at bringing the world “closer” by “speeding things up” such as with the introduction of radio during Heidegger’s time does not achieve its objective ontologically insofar as it does not embrace our everyday environment. Radio, it is argued, will only succeed as a medium to the extent to which it is able to bring about a concern-full Being-in-the world. Our senses, however, possess the possible characteristic of de-severing us from the world given the fact that they are so-called “distance senses”. We are thrown into this world and orient ourselves in terms of the disclosedness of space. Space is the pure “within” Heidegger argues(P.143) and allows us to discover the form and direction of what is ready-to-hand. We “make space” for the ready-to-hand but this does not mean that space is “in” the subject, it is still “in” the world. It “shows” itself yet proximally remains in a sense “concealed” but it still is one important dimension of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. We are “close” to the world when we are engaging in “instrumentalities” or entities that are ready-to-hand. Heidegger insists, however, that the “who” of Dasein that underlies the phenomenon of everydayness may be absorbed with the world which includes “Others”. This latter fact implies that the raw idea of the “I” or a subject or a self is not ontologically significant. This is not what Heidegger means by Dasein being in all cases “Mine”. Similarly the “phenomenal” “I” ignores the “Others” that are together in the world with us, especially in contexts of involvement such as work. The ship moving on the horizon, for example, has a necessary reference to Others but the presence of these Others is neither ready-to-hand nor present-at-hand but rather are “in-the-world” as “Beings” in their own right. There is a “being-with-one-another” which is ontologically significant but is to be understood not as a form of presence at hand that we think categorically but rather something that is to be understood existentially. O Shaughnessy in his work “Consciousness and the World” disagrees with this analysis and maintains that our relation to the world or our “being-in-the-world” is primordial and our relation to others of secondary significance, though still important. Heidegger counters this position with the idea that we are not merely concerned with the Being of others but rather ontologically “care” for them in a way in which would make the solipsistic view of being-alone-in-the-world as a deficient mode of Being. Concern may be a form of care for things but “solicitude” is the form takes insofar as Others are part of our context of involvements. Everyday Dasein, however, maintains itself in a deficient mode insofar as solicitude for Others is the focus. Here Others are “they” present at hand and we, in turn, are “they” present-at-hand in the eyes of others. In this mode of existence Dasein shows consideration or forbearance when it is authentic but lacks this characteristic in deficient modes of Being. This is a major issue for Dasein, a Being for whom its very Being is in question. Heidegger answers this question, however, by claiming that any understanding of Being implies the understanding of the Being of others. Involved in this mode of existence of Care is a care for the differences between human Beings which can manifest itself in the demand that differences be equalised or alternatively “levelled down” in terms of exploring its possibilities. The “who” in this context of involvements becomes the “nobody”. This implies that insofar as the self does not insist upon its difference it will interpret the world in terms of the everydayness of the “they” and become as Heidegger terms it “dispersed”(P.167). Dasein becomes the “they-self”. To the extent that Dasein explores the world in its own way, it discloses more authentic aspects of Being and its own Being. The world and Others will then be interpreted neither in terms of the present-at-hand nor the ready-to-hand and in this interpretation one explores the possibility of “being-oneself”. It is clear from this account that equi-primordiality reigns amongst the fundamental elements of “concern, solicitude and the “Who” “Being-ones-self”. “Being-in-the-world” is the fundamental whole that unites these primordial elements, Dasein is translated as “Being-there” and this “thereness” of Dasein and its “Being-in-the-world”. The constitutive elements of this “thereness” are state of mind, understanding, and discourse. In “state of mind” we are attuned to the world. Heidegger’s translators translate the German term Heidegger uses as “Mood” but it may be that the term “attitude” is the more appropriate English term in some contexts. Dasein is slipping in and out of different moods it is claimed but it is always thrown into some kind of mood or attitude. Dasein uses its will and knowledge to master its moods but Dasein is fundamentally revealed to itself in its mood. The bad mood by definition, then, is the state of mind in which Dasein is undisclosed or led astray from itself. Dasein’s “Being-in-the-world”, then is fundamentally disclosed by a basic mood in which our existence is revealed to ourselves: it is a state of mind in which we submit to our thrownness into the world. In this basic state of mind, the value of the world emerges because in this state the world matters to us. This state of mind or basic mood is more difficult to discern when we are engaged in theorising about the world. Nevertheless, theorising has its own distinctive state of mind which relates to entities as present-at-hand. In this context, Heidegger refers to Aristotle’s work on the emotions, affects, and feelings in the Rhetoric. The orator, he claims manifests the state of mind of the “they” when he is engaged in his activities. Heidegger also claims that no progress has been made in the exploration of this hermeneutic field since the work of Aristotle. He refers to the work of Scheler and how phenomenological research has:

“guided the problematic to a consideration of how acts which “represent” and acts which “take an interest” are interconnected in their foundations.”(P.178)

One of the basic states of mind, interestingly, is Anxiety which is concretely revealed to us when we fear something. Detrimentality in relation to what is ready-to-hand, present-at-hand, and “Being-with-one another is one of the “causes” of fear. Dasein fears for itself and whatever else it is “alongside” whether it be concern for the sake of the world or solicitude for Others.

For Heidegger, every state of mind has its understanding which is primarily “projective” and aims at its possibilities, possible ways “to be”. Dasein is always more than it factually is and this means that the Kantian Philosophical questions, “What ought I to do”? and What can I hope for?” are always aimed at answers that transcend the factual existence of things in the world or the factual existence of Dasein itself. In other words, understanding is in Aristotelian terms “teleological” or that “for-the-sake-of which”. When Dasein understands itself it is transparent to itself but to the extent that it does not understand itself, it is opaque to itself and may live in anxiety in the face of its own lack of understanding. This “understanding” is not conceptual until it is “Interpreted” by our conceptual system. Here something that is “Pre-conceived” becomes discursively conceptualised and is connected to a “fore-having and a “fore-sight” that is part of our context of involvements. There is something resembling the hermeneutic circle operating here. The hermeneutic circle claims that one must believe in order to understand and understand in order to believe. The expression “in order to” itself indicates a context of involvements but the term “belief” is ambiguous between meaning “believing something to be the case”(understanding something) or “believing something about something”(conceptually understanding something). The hermeneutic circle obviously is operating in a larger circle of meaning, understanding, and interpretation which is perhaps the concern of Heidegger. Meaning is intimately connected to understanding of the Being of entities within the world and the Being of Dasein itself. Interpretation interprets the projection of meaning and its relation to “possibilities”. Interpretation, that is, is grounded in understanding and can be demonstrated in judgment insofar as judgment is related ontologically to understanding and in turn to Being. When Dasein encounters what is present-at-hand there is no ontological ground for the involvement and this suggests that what is present-at-hand does not have “meaning” in the above sense. The assertion in such judgments does not point out an entity but refers only to “representations”. In assertion, something is said of something and seen as something and the entity pointed out is given a definite character. An assertion is authentic when it involves a Being towards that which has been pointed out and a Being with Others one is communicating with. There is a risk in the communication process that what has been pointed out gets veiled in this hearsay process. An authentic assertion is an authentic mode of interpretation of our Being-in-the-world. Authenticity is determined here by being a part of the context of existential involvements, such a determination is in terms of action and not “theoretical”. Present at hand judgments isolate entities from their existential context of involvements and relate more to “seeing” than to action. The seeing-as involved in our response to present-at-hand judgments is not the authentic seeing-as that is related to concernful understanding or circumspective interpretation. Words themselves can also be present at hand entities and logos in such contexts does not disclose existential meaning, neither the words nor the contexts are rooted in the existential analytic of Dasein. Heidegger claims that the “existential-ontological foundation of language is discourse or talk.”(P.203). This condition accords with the Aristotelian definition of man as a “rational animal capable of discourse”. What gets “revealed” in discourse is a totality of meaning that is articulated in words. Discourse also reveals Dasein and its “Being-in-the-world” via its understanding of Being and its understanding of Being-with.

Heidegger ventures into the domain of Psychology with his claim that Dasein does not dwell alongside “sensations” of things: on the contrary, he argues that we dwell alongside these things themselves. We do not relate to the sound of the creaking of the wagon but rather directly to the wagon itself and its mode of Being. Similarly, in listening to someone talking we are together with them in relation not to their sensations but rather to the things themselves they are talking about. Presumably, Heidegger means that we are psychically and physically in contact with these things but not in the same way in which we are affected by the sensations associated with these encounters. It is not clear, however, whether he would have been prepared to accept an Aristotelian account in which the sensations involved in this context are part of the material and efficient accounts of what was occurring in this context of involvement. The science of the Being of Language is not captured, Heidegger argues, by using entities theoretically characterised as isolated and as present-at-hand. Heidegger is also uncertain as to whether the kind of Being that characterises discourse is a ready-to-hand kind of instrumentality or the kind of Being that Dasein possesses. What is clear is that when, in discourse, we authentically “say something” there is Aletheia, an uncovering or disclosure of Being. “Saying something” sometimes is “idle talk” and disguises thought about Being and shares with “idle seeing”(seeing not in order to understand but just for the sake of the curiosity or novelty) the characteristic of being an activity that falls into the category of the “play of representations”. This “Play of representations” in practical terms may be reasonably categorized in Freudian terms as “substitute satisfactions”–satisfactions regulated by the pleasure-pain principle in contrast to the Reality Principle(Ananke). In this state, which is neither a state of concern or solicitude, we “confront” what is present-at-hand in contrast to “beholding” what we see when we understand what we see. In “idle talk” presumably a similar point could be made and it could be maintained that we “confront” rather than “behold” what we are talking about. In idle talk and curiosity, we are tranquilised and driven into uninhibited hustling activities which is a part of our “everyday” mode of Being in which we “lose ourselves”

In the above, we do not “Care” for Being which is the “meaning of Being in general”(P.227) Dasein cares for Being but also is anxious in the face of its possibilities. In this structure, no question can be raised concerning the reality of the external world. How after all could we be concerned with, care for, and have solicitude for, something that does not exist? Here Kant is accused of irrelevance because of the attempt to prove the reality of the external world in terms of the “reality” of what is present-at-hand and our consciousness of ourselves. The presence of these two kinds of entities being present at hand together does not in Heidegger’s view constitute a “proof”. Heidegger claims that Kant is maintaining that Being and Reality are “in” consciousness but there is no evidence provided for this. Phenomena are empirically real for Kant and understanding, reason and noumenal entities are transcendentally ideal. One can, of course, ignore the phenomena/noumena distinction and accuse Kant of being an idealist but this would be a problematic characterisation of Kant’s criticisms of pure and practical reason. Heidegger agrees in the context of this discussion that idealism cannot be explained in terms of ready-to-hand or present-at-hand entities and claims that it rather refers to the transcendental aspect of our involvements with Being. As Heidegger rightly points out this puts both Aristotle and Kant into the camp of idealist Philosophers (P.251)

What both Aristotle and Kant are lacking in their analyses of Being, Heidegger argues is an analysis of the phenomenon of the world as it forms part of Daseins Being-in-the-world. Our “confrontation” with the world or Reality presupposes the prior disclosure of the world and no psychology can analyse the confrontation without understanding the analytic of this disclosure. One way of comporting oneself to Reality is to characterise it as a way of being-in-the-world but this is not done via worldless Cartesian cogitationes (P.254). Our comportment, it is argued, is better characterized by our understanding and care. Reality is often conceived of as a form of substance and “the substance of man is existence”(P255). Aletheia or the disclosing of entities in the world as part of our Being-in-the-world is a basic state of Dasein and this is the foundation of Truth which “shows” these entities in their Being. Assertion and not judgment is the central focus of this account. Assertion points out something and thereby discloses it in its Being.

My body’s presence-at hand emerges at death at the end of our life. My Dasein, of course, can be represented by Others but “I” as “Being-there” am no longer “there”. This reminds one of Socrates in his death cell when he challenges his friends to find him after his death thereby denying the belief in life after death and its presupposition of the separation of the soul and the body. He was not denying the presence at hand of his body which can be represented in “assertions” or “judgments”. This present-at-hand body, in Socrates’ judgment, will no longer be capable of activity whether it be the activity of concern, solicitude or Care. This is probably the only characteristic of Dasein that can be regarded as uniquely mine:- no one can “do” my death or die for me and if this occurs then this Dasein is “Being-no-longer-in-this-world”. Here death is the “possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there” and the state of mind of anxiety is directed at this ultimate “possibility”. In the idle talk about death “they” speak of death as an “event” in the world. The talk does not involve itself with this event but displaces its significance. as something not yet present-at-hand for oneself(P 297). We speak idly with others when we help them to believe they will escape death and soon return to the so-called “tranquilised world of everyday concern”(P.297). This is tranquilizing solicitude. There is no courageous confrontation of the kind we find in the case of Socrates. Everyday idle talk is certain about the empirical event of death but it does not confront the authentic certainty of this event in the way that Socrates does. What Socrates is confronting is, of course, a “nothing”, “the possible impossibility of his own existence”.(P.310). Socrates frees himself of idle talk and its embeddedness in the fear of this impending event

The everydayness of “Being-there(Dasein) can be modified by authentic resoluteness which genuinely chooses its own possibilities. The voice of conscience helps in this process of transformation. This “power” for Heidegger is prior to any experience but its task is to call Dasein to its potentiality-for-Being. Heidegger interestingly claims the following:

“Conscience discourses solely and constantly in the mode of keeping silent”(P318)

This reminds us of the relation of Socrates to his daemon. The state of mind associated with this call of conscience is, of course, anxiety but Guilt and Care is the point of all activity associated with the call. Heidegger specifically denies this as part of his anti-Kant campaign, but Guilt is associated with the ought system of concepts, with, that is, us owing something to others and ourselves and must, therefore, be associated with our Freedom. Here, Heidegger engages in a dialectical examination of negation and the “not”, and claims that Guilt is the “basis of a nullity”(P329). This appears to be a very theoretical discussion about a very practical matter, namely the regret an agent experiences when they do not use their freedom to choose in ways that serve the common good or indeed their own good. Ricoeur analyses Guilt as an internal representation of evil which we care about and therefore symbolise in various ways in the works of our culture. This transforming of an ethical issue into an aesthetic one is marginally better than turning an activity governed by practical reason into a theoretical aporetic issue but it still is missing the point of the importance of ethical reasoning in the life of Dasein.

Everydayness apparently disguises the call of conscience because it conceives of Dasein in terms of what is ready-to-hand, in an instrumental fashion that constantly reasons about the means and ignores the ends of action. Kant would have agreed with this judgment. It is part of what he referred to as the “melancholic haphazardness” of everyday life. The instrumental imperative displaces the categorical imperative and part of the process of restoration of our “rationality” for Kant would undoubtedly involve a Socratic reference to a daemon or “the call of conscience”. Heidegger points out that Kant represented conscience as a kind of tribunal that guided its proceedings by the categorical imperative of the moral law and claims somewhat paradoxically that the only court for the interpretation of conscience is our everyday experience of conscience. Presumably, he means the everyday experience of the call of conscience which is authentically resolute but it is not clear why he would be doubting that this is the phenomenon that Kant is analyzing in his “Critique of Practical Reason”. It should also be pointed out that Heidegger is also talking about the call of conscience in terms of “wanting to have a conscience”(P342) but again it is not clear how this desire is related to the telos or “end” of the process, whether that is, the connection of the “want” with the actualised fact is “logical-categorical” or “causal-instrumental”. The overcoming of anxiety on the road to stoical resoluteness would undoubtedly be a “causal-instrumental” matter. Involved in this would also be an overcoming of the obstacles of our ready-to-hand and present-at-hand attitudes toward Dasein. This must occur because this is the nature of the world we have been thrown into. We are not only “thrown” into such a world(De Civitate Terrana) we are “lost” in such a world. For Heidegger, there is no striving for the City of God(De Civitate Dei) but there is a striving toward a “Being-towards-the-end-which-understands”(P353). Everydayness possesses the state of mind of anxiety that can manifest itself as fear in which one’s existence is threatened by depression or bewilderment. Anxiety itself is anxious in the face of the nothingness of the world or its insignificance. Anxiety springs from Dasein itself whereas fear is caused by entities in the world. The former is future-directed and the latter concerns itself with a lost-present. Dasein neutralizes fear and indifference. There is also concern with another mood, the mood of hopefulness but according to Heidegger this concern is still related to the burdens of the past. For Kant Hope is a cognitive state and related to a bright future.

States of mind are concerned with the past and the past, of course, is the domain of History which is poised ambiguously between a past which is still having effects in the present and a past which is present-at-hand now in the form of historical ruins or texts in archives. History manifests itself in our concern with events and their effects but also with:

“the transformations and vicissitudes of men, of human groupings and their “cultures”, as distinguished from Nature, which likewise operates “in time”. Here what one has in view is not so much a kind of Being—historizing–as it is that realm of entities which one distinguishes from Nature by having regard for the way in which man’s existence is essentially determined by “spirit” and “culture”…..”

The presence of Hegel is clear and distinct in these remarks. History belongs essentially to Dasein because temporality is an essential aspect of its existence. Dasein, when it is concerned with the constancy of itself and its world finds itself in a “moment of vision”(P442) that discloses what is world-historical in its Situation. Entities that are world-historical are thematised historically and require a hermeneutic in order to be disclosed as a form of historical existence: a hermeneutic of the historically constituted Dasein.

Heidegger discusses the work of Dilthey in the areas of the human sciences, the natural sciences and the historical sciences of man, society, and the state. The latter science Heidegger characterises as psychological hermeneutics. The central organising theme for Dilthey is that of “Life” which Heidegger criticised earlier as being similar to ancient interpretations of the question of Being: interpretations which did not acknowledge the importance of the question of the meaning of Being in general. The dating of events in History is obviously a form of measuring temporality. The time of clocks and calendars conjures up a multiplicity of nows that are present at hand. The World becomes “objectified” in such “world-time”. Aristotle is taken to task for his account of “Time” because his conception of “now” appears in Heidegger’s eyes to be something present-at-hand. The multiplicity of nows get interpreted as a stream of “nows” passing away and coming along and this is regarded as a distinct process separated from the hylomorphic temporal process of actualisation and also something separated from the hylomorphic framework of “causes, principles and “kinds” of change we find in Aristotelian thinking about time. Instead, at the close of “Being and Time”, we are presented with Hegel’s theories and the dialectical logic of negation that neutralised both Aristotelian and Kantian thinking about the temporality of Dasein and Being-in-the-world.

In conclusion, we should note that in spite of this being a Phenomenological account, there is no emphasis upon the notion of Consciousness. Whether this is a consequence of Heidegger’s disagreement with his teacher Husserl or a consequence of his Existential interpretation of Being is not clear. What is clear is that the notion of Consciousness is conspicuous by its absence.