What is Being? Indeed.
Today we continue our inquiry into being. We dig into Being and Time, section 2: “The Formal Structure of the Question of Being.” We encounter Heidegger’s provisional and perplexing definition of “being” itself.
This is the third post in my series on Heidegger’s Being and Time. I suggest reading the first two before this one. The first post is here, and the second one is here. Today we begin with Being and Time §2.
Review
Ontology is a formal inquiry into being.
People have a sense for the meaning of being, even though we don’t go around with an explicit theory of being. We easily make sense of statements like “I am here,” “He is the drummer,” “The cat was on the mat,” and “5 plus 2 is 7.”
We also have skills for dealing differentially with the various kinds of entities we encounter: ourselves, furniture, cars, cats, trees, and other people.
The philosophical study of being—ontology—is guided by this vague, underlying sense for being.
Preview of the Connection Between Being and Time
Heidegger calls this underlying sense of being our “understanding” of being, or sometimes our “pre-understanding” of being.
The prefix pre emphasizes that this understanding precedes—or is “earlier” than—our explicit knowledge and theories about being. We are guided by this understanding already, before we get into any theorizing about being.
Take note: the “earlier” and “already” mentioned here become important later. Heidegger is already building his case for an intimate connection between being and time.
To do ontology in a fresh, fundamental way, we need to tap into this pre-understanding of being, rather than starting from what we think we already know.
The Difference between Being and Entities
A vague understanding of being is “in play” every time we interact with the various entities in the everyday world. Again, I intuitively understand, without needing a theory, that my neighbor has a different way of being than my car or my cat. I have a "pre-understanding" of the different ways of being of these various entities.
This brings up an observation that is at once so obvious that it escapes notice, and a real mind-bender once someone draws your attention to it:
Being is intimately connected to beings, but being itself is not a being. This is what Heidegger calls "the ontological difference."
The being of entities is not itself an entity.
Being is not something that we can measure in millimeters, see under a microscope, or pray to in a church.
This is murky terrain. If you are perplexed here, don't worry. Perplexity is the mood we need for a fundamental inquiry.
Bring On the Ontological Perplexity
Being is not an entity. What is being then? Does Heidegger have anything positive to say about being at this point? He does, but at this point it's another stumper:
Being is “that which determines entities as entities, that on the basis of which entities are already understood.”
We have here one of those cases, not uncommon in philosophy, where you need to read the whole book before you can really understand its “Introduction.”
Luckily, you don’t need to “fully get” any of this in order to continue with the inquiry. Let the definition of being (and the distinction between being and entities) stand as an invitation to ontological perplexity and as the opening to further inquiry.
For now, just let yourself get used to pondering "the ontological difference." While we engage with particular entities in our everyday lives (ourselves, other people, furniture, cats, trees, etc.), this engagement is guided by a preliminary understanding of the being of those entities. The being of these entities is not itself an entity.
Investigating the being of entities requires a new way of observing ourselves and our experience of the world: phenomenology.
From Perplexity to Conversation
What questions, half-formed thoughts, or perplexities does all of this bring up for you? Let me know in the comments or by sending me a message!
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