Guide questions for “Introduction: The Exposition of The Question of The Meaning of Being,”

Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, trans. Joan Stambaugh

Tobias, John Jerome R.

I. The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of The Question of The Meaning of Being

1. How does Heidegger formulate the (two-part) philosophical problem he wants to raise,
hinted at by the title of the book? (See: Epigraph)

a. He raised anew the question of the meaning of being. He worked out the said question
and he did so concretely.
b. He made it as a provisional aim to interpret time as the possible horizon for any
understanding whatsoever of being.

2. What three dogmas or prejudices have led to the forgetting of the question of being?

a. Being is the most universal concept. An understanding of being is always already

contained in everything we apprehend in beings.
b. The concept of being is indefinable.
c. Being is the self-evident concept.

3. What does Heidegger say about the nature of seeking? Why is it that the meaning of being is
already available to us in a certain way?

Every seeking takes its direction beforehand from what is sought. Seeking is questioning. It
is a knowing search for beings in their thatness and whatness. It can become an
investigation. What is to be ascertained lies in what is questioned. As a seeking, questioning
needs prior guidance from what it seeks. With regard to the meaning of being as already
available to us in a certain way, we intimated that we are always already involved in an
understanding of being. From this grows the explicit question of the meaning of being and
the tendency towards its concept. Though we do not know what being means, we have this
idea of what it is without understanding its conceptuality.

4. Discuss the following statement: “The being of beings ‘is’ itself not a being.” Explain the
senses of “being” used and why the verb “is” is in quotation marks.

Being requires its own kind of demonstration which is essentially different from the discovery
of beings. The meaning of being will require its own conceptualization, which is essentially
distinct from the concept in which beings receive their determination of meaning. The “is” is
in quotation marks because the first philosophical step in understanding the concept of being
is not determining beings as beings by tracing them back in the origins of another being – as
if being had the character of another being. Beings are interrogated with regard to their
being. The question of being demands that the right access to beings be gained and secured
in advance with regard to what it interrogates.

5. State Heidegger’s definition of Da-sein. Why must the analysis begin with Da-sein? How is
Da-sein ontically distinct among other beings?

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Guide questions for “Introduction: The Exposition of The Question of The Meaning of Being,”
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, trans. Joan Stambaugh

Da-sein is a being who questions. Da-sein is transparent in its being. It is being held out in
the nothingness of being, held as relation. This is the being in which we ourselves in each
case are and which includes inquiry among the possibilities of its being. The explicit and
lucid formulation of the question of the meaning requires a prior suitable explication of a
being with regard to its being. There has to be a determination of beings in their being
beforehand and then on this foundation first pose the question of being. Da-sein is the site
of understanding of being. Ontically, Da-sein is distinct among other beings in a way that in
its being this being is concerned about its very being.

6. Compare and contrast “ontological” and “ontic” inquiries.

Ontological inquiries create the fundamental concepts amounting to nothing else than
interpreting these beings in terms of the basic constitution of their being. This investigation
precedes the positive sciences. Ontological inquiry studies the nature of existence or beings
as such. To be ontological does not mean yet to develop ontology. On the other hand, ontic
inquiry is about knowing the character of real rather than phenomenal existence. It involves
a discussion that anticipates subsequent analyses which only later will become truly
demonstrative.

7. Differentiate “existentiell” from “existential” understanding. Why must fundamental

ontology be sought in the “existential analysis of Da-sein”?

Existentiell means we come to terms with the question of existence always only through
existence itself. It is more related to an ontic understanding of existence. On the other hand,
existential understanding aims at the question of structure targeting the analysis of what
constitutes existence. Its analysis is an existential one. Fundamental ontology must be
sought in the existential analysis of the Da-sein since existence defines it. The ontological
analysis of this being always requires a previous glance of existentiality. Da-sein takes
priority in several ways over all other beings. It is ontologically the primary being to be
interrogated.

II. The Double Task in Working Out The Question of Being: The Method of The Investigation and
Its Outline

1. What are the two main tasks for working out the question of being? (Hint: Outline of the
treatise, p. 33)

a. The first is the interpretation of Da-sein on the basis of temporality and the explication
of time as the transcendental horizon of the question of being.
b. The next is establishing basic features of a phenomenological destructuring of the
history of ontology on the guideline on the problem of temporality.

2. Da-sein, which is ontically nearest, for this reason is what is ontologically farthest removed.
Explain. Why is the analytical access to Da-sein through its average everydayness?

Each of us is the Da-sein. The most proper being has an understanding of its being and has
the ability to sustain a certain interpretation of it. Da-sein tends to understand its own being

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Guide questions for “Introduction: The Exposition of The Question of The Meaning of Being,”
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, trans. Joan Stambaugh

in terms of that being to which it is essentially, continually, and most closely related – the
world. The analytical access to Da-sein is through its average everydayness because this
being can itself to itself on its own terms. Moreover, the problem of gaining and securing
the kind of access that leads to the Da-sein truly becomes crucial.

3. What is the common understanding of time? How is this “obvious” understanding to be

investigated via the existential analysis of Da-sein?

The common understanding of time is that it has its rightful autonomy. It has this obvious
ontological function of itself. The meaning of the being of that being we call as Da-sein
proves to be temporality. Time is that from which Da-sein tacitly understands and interprets
something like being at all. Time is the horizon of the understanding of being, in terms of
temporality as the being of Da-sein which understands being.

4. What is “historicity”? How does it differ from “history”? Why is temporality the condition of
the possibility of historicity?

Historicity means the constitution of being of the occurrence of Da-sein as such. Historicity
is prior to what is called as history. History involves world-historical occurences. Historicity is
the ground for the fact that something like world history is at all possible and historically
belongs to world history. Temporality is the condition of the possibility of historicity because
the question of the meaning of being is led to understand itself as historical in accordance
with its own way of proceeding, that is, as the provisional explication of Da-sein in its
temporality and historicity.

5. What does Heidegger mean by the destructuring of the ontological tradition? Explain how
Kant and Descartes, respectively, have neglected ontology.

Heidegger states that the ontological tradition prevented us from knowing the meaning of
being. The ontological tradition uproots the historicity of the Da-sein. This led to the
meaning of being to become unresolved. As such, to have clarity on the meaning of being,
the concealments produced by this tradition must be necessarily dissolved. This is the task
of destructuring of the ontological tradition. As for Kant, his analysis of time remains
oriented toward the traditional understanding of it. It prevented him from working out the
phenomenon of a transcendental determination of time in its own structure and function.
Kant neglected something essential: an ontology of Da-sein. With regard to Descartes, he
was not able to determine the meaning of the being of the “sum”. He left undetermined in
his radical beginning the manner of being of the res cogitans. As such, he gave a complete
ontological indeterminateness of the thinking thing, whether it be mind or spirit.

6. Compare and contrast “phenomenon” as self-showing and “phenomenon” as semblance.

Why is the former ontologically prior to the latter?

The self-showing phenomenon is the manifest. It is the totality of what lies in the light of
day or what can be brought into light. Beings can show themselves from themselves in
various ways, depending on the mode of access to them. As semblance, it is a good that
looks like – but in reality, is not what it gives itself out to be. What both terms express has at

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Guide questions for “Introduction: The Exposition of The Question of The Meaning of Being,”
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, trans. Joan Stambaugh

first nothing to do with what is called appearance or even mere appearance. The former is
ontologically prior to the latter because the self-showing in itself gives a distinctive way
something can be encountered, compared to the semblance.

7. How does the Greek concept of truth (alētheia) differ from the correspondence theory of
truth? Enumerate at least three ways in which phenomena can be covered up.

The Greek concept of truth differ from the correspondence theory of truth in a way that the
former entails that the beings are being talked about out of their concealment. In
correspondence theory, the covers or the concealment are there in determining the truth.
Three ways in which phenomena can be covered up are as follow: First is deceiving in the
sense of covering up by being false; Next is putting up something in front of something else;
Another example is distortion.

8. Heidegger asserts that the content of phenomenology is ontology and its method,
hermeneutics. Explain.

Heidegger believes that phenomenology is the science of the being of beings. Hence, it is
ontology. Its theme is the Da-sein. This must be done in a way that our ontology confronts
the cardinal problem, the question of the meaning of being in general. The methodological
meaning of phenomenological description is interpretation. Phenomenology of Da-sein is
hermeneutics in the original signification of that word. The method is hermeneutics because
it designates the work of interpretation. This is the explanation why Heidegger asserts that
the content of phenomenology is ontology and its method is hermeneutics.