Heidegger's Concept of Truth

HEIDEGGER' S CONCEPT OF TRUTH

DANIEL 0. DAHLSTROM Boston University

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Dahlstrom, Daniel 0. [Logische Vorurteil. English] Heidegger's c on c e p t of tru th I D an ie l 0. D ahls trom

p.

em . - ( Mode r n E uro p ean philosophy)

I ncludes bib li ogra ph ic a l refe rences and index. JSBN

o-52 1-643 1 7-1

1. Heidegger, Marti n, 188g-1g76 - Con tri bu tions in l o g ic . 2 . Ethics, Modern- 2o th c en tu ry. 3· Truth . 1. T i tl e. 11. Se r ies .

B3279.H4 9 4 0 3 413 2 00 I 1 2 1 '.og2 - d c2 1 oo-og6297 ISBN

0 52 1 6 43 I 7 1 hard b ac k

For Eugenie

H EIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TRUTH

This major new study of Heidegger is the first to examine in detail the con­ cept of existential truth that he developed in the 1 9 20s. Daniel 0. Dahl­ strom critically examines the genesis, nature, and validity of Heidegger's radical attempt to rethink truth as the disclosure of time, a disclosure al­ legedly more basic than truths formulated in scientific judgments. The book has several distinctive and innovative features. First, it is the only study that attempts to understand the logical dimension of Hei­ degger's thought in i ts historical context. Second, no other book-length treatmen t explores the breadth and depth of Heidegger's confronta­ tion with Husserl , his erstwhile mentor. Third , the book demonstrates that Heidegger's deconstruction of Western thinking occurs on three interconnected fron ts: truth , bein g, and time . Dealing with a crucial aspect o f the philosophy o f o n e o f the great thinkers of the twen tieth century, this book will be important to all scholars and students of Heidegger, whether in philosophy, theology, or literary studies. Daniel 0. Dahlstrom is Professor of Philosophy at Boston University.

CONTENTS

page

Acknowledgments Introduction

XV

List of Abbreviations 1

2

Xll1

XXV11

The Logical Conception of Truth : The Logical Prejudice and Lotze's Concept of Validity 1. 1 The Question of Truth and the Idea of a Philosophical Logic 1 . 2 The Logical Prejudice 1.2 1 Sense, Justification, a n d Traditional Scope of th e Logical Prejudice 1. 2 2 The Logical Prejudice and the Question of Truth in the Post-Fregean Tradition of Philosophy of Logic 1 . 2 2 1 The Debate about Truth-Bearers 1.2 2 2 Redundancy, Semantic, and Pragmatic Theories of Truth 1.3 Truth as Validity and the Forms of Actuality 1.31 The Criticism of Psychologism and Heidegger's Ambivalence 1.3 2 The Roots of the Criticism of Psychologism : Lotze 's Concept of Validity The Phenomenological Conception of Truth : The Cri tical Confrontation with Husserl 2. 1 The Three Discoveries of Phenomenology 2.1 1 I n ten tionality and the Repudiation of a Cartesian Cognitive Model IX

1 10 17 17 23

24 25 29 30 35

48 54 54

X

CONTENTS

2 . 1 1 1 The Entelechy of Inten tionality and the Stages of Fulfillment 2 . 1 1 2 Evidence, Being-True, and the Meanings of 'Being' 2 . 1 2 Categorial Intuition 2 . 1 2 1 "Acts of Syn thesis" and Saturated Perceptions 2. 1 2 2 "Acts of Ideation " and Grasp of the Universal 2 . 1 2 3 Ontological Implications of the Doctri ne of Categorial Intuition 2 . 1 3 The Original Se nse of the A Priori : "Indiffere nce to Subjectivity" and the Character of an Entity's Being 2 . 1 4 Summary: Field, Aspect, an d Manner of Treatment 2 . 2 The Critique of Husserl 's Phenomenology 2 . 2 1 Being, State of Mfairs, and State of Truth 2 . 2 2 The Forgotten Being of Intentionality 2.2 2 1 The Phenomenological Reduction and Its Questionable Presupposition 2 . 2 2 2 The Absolute Being of Pure Consciousness 2 . 2 2 3 Essence and Manner of Being: The Neglected Reduction 2 . 2 3 A Summary of the Objections and Some Qualifications 2 . 3 What Husser} Cares About: Knowledge Known and the Fear of Being-Here 2 ·4 The Distorted Pic ture of a Maturing Phenomenology 2 .4 1 Altered Meanings, Neglected Matters, and the Question of Sensations 2 .42 Ge netic Phenomenology and Embodiment 2 .42 1 Temporalizing Sensations: TimeConsciousness and the "Transcendental Aesthetic" of Husserlian Logic 2 .42 2 Localizing Sensations: Kinesthesia, the Lived Body, and Transcendence 2.43 Heidegger's Silence and Its Sense ·

59 65 74 78 93 95 97

101 1 03 1 04 to8 11 1 1 16 1 20

1 25 131 1 38 1 43 1 49 1 49

1 60 1 64

CONTENTS

xi

2 ·5 Summary: Transforming the Phenomenological Conception ofTruth 3

4

The Hermeneutic Understanding of Truth : The Critical Appropriation o f Aristotle 's Analysis of Truth and Assertions 3 .1 The World of Original Meaning and the H ermeneutic 'As'-Structure of Primary Understanding 3 . 2 Apophan tic Determining: Asserting, Thematizing, and Obscuring 3·3 Being-True and the Truth of an Assertion : Aristotle 's Metaphysics, Theta 1o

17 5

The Timeliness of Existential Tr�th: Disclosing the Sense of Being 4.0 Preconsiderations: Metacategorial Distinction and the Paradox ofThematization, Formal Indications and the Task of Philosophy, and the Concrete Universality of Being-Here 4.1 Concern , the Work-World, and Handiness 4. 2 Solicitude , Being-with-Others, and Palaver 4·3 Care, Genuineness, and "the Most Original Ph enomenon of Truth" 4.31 Disposedness and the Thrownn ess of BeingHere 4. 3 2 U nderstanding and the Proj ect of Being-Here 4·33 Fallenness and th e Palaver of Being-Here 4·34 Anxiety as a Fundamental Disposition and the Unity of Care 4·4 The Logos of Conscience, Resoluteness, and "th e Most Original Truth" 4·5 The Timeliness of Truth 4. 51 Genuine Timeliness: Five Aspects 4.52 Exemplar and D egeneration : The Strategy and Structure of the Argument in Being and Time 4.5 21 Original Timeliness and Timeliness in General: Fleischer's Obj ection 4.5 2 2 Modes of Presen ting ( Gegenwiirtigen) : Curiosity, Theory, Transcendence 4·53 Clocking Ti me

223

181 200 21 o

2 31

255 2 70 2 88 292 301 307 311 315 325 327 338 34 1 348 360

xii

CO NTE N T S

4·53 1 Clock Time and th e Use of a Clock: Dimensional Time and World-Time 4·5 3 2 Ecstatic-Horizonal Timeliness and the Time of Concern : Havi ng Time and Buying Time 4 · 5 3 3 The Measurement of World-Time and the Common Conception of Time 5

Disclosedness, Transcendental Ph ilosophy, and Methodological Deliberations 5· 1 Does Heidegger Obscure the Problem of Truth and Forfeit the Difference be tween Truth and Falsity? Tuge ndhat's Obj ections 5 . 2 Disclosedness and the Sense of Being, as It Is in I tself 5 . 2 1 The Lesser Charge: Heidegger's Non Sequitur and the Senses of 'Sense ' 5 . 2 2 The Main Charge : Heidegger's Careless and Dangerous Obliviousness to the Specific Sense of Truth 5·3 Skepticism, Transcendental Philosophy, and Heidegge r's Analysis of Truth as Disclosedness 5 .3 1 Transcendental Truth and Transcendental Philosophy in the Critique of Pure Reason 5 . 3 2 The Transcendental Character of Truth as Disclosedness 5·33 Transcendental Truth and Propositional Truth 5 ·4 Heidegger's Pragmatism 5 ·5 Thematization, Mediation , and the Formal Indication: Between Poetry and Theology

Index

3 70

3 74 385 394

397 398 4 03

419 4 23

43 3

4 57

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could not have been completed without the help of many friends. For the original German edition , I am especially grateful to Pro­ fessor Klaus Dusing's criticisms and encouragement over the years and to AI and Maria Miller for their intellectual exube rance and indefati­ gable will to think things through . For the English version , I am par­ ticularly indebted to Jeremy Ryan for his discerning cri ticisms and atten tive reading of two versions of the entire manuscript and to Mary Troxell , who read the enti re penultimate version of the manuscript with characteristic care . For their many helpful suggestions and c riticisms of various chapters or passages, thanks are also due to Bernard Prusak, Troy Catterson , Nicolas de Warren , Jam es Dodd , Juliet Floyd, Judd Webb, David Roochnik, Aaron Garrett, Victor Kestenbaum , Justin Good, and joe Waterman. I would like to express my gratitude to former teachers and past as well as prese nt colleagues for inspiration and insight: Henry Allison, Dominic Balestra, Michael Baur, Richard Blackwell, Klaus Brinkmann , William Charron ,]ames Collins, An tonio S. Cua, Bonnie Damron,Jude Dougherty, Charles]. Ermatinger, Manuel Espinosa, Alfredo Ferrarin, Hans Furth , Jaakko Hintikka, Patrick Murray, Stephen Pasos, Thomas Prufer, Luis Manuel Rodriguez, Stanley Rosen, Robert Sokolowski , Claudius Strube , Ronald Talmage , William Wallace , Paul Weiss, Samuel West, Carol V\Thite , Kevin V\Thite , and john Wippel. It would also be re­ miss of me not to acknowledge my deep debt to a number of contem­ porary scholars of Heidegger's work, especially Steven Crowell , Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Guignon , Ted Kisiel, John McCumber, Otto Poggele r, William Richardson , Robert Scharff, Reiner Schurmann , Thomas Sheehan , Claudius Strube , an dJohn van Buren. I am grateful to Wal-

Xlll

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ACKN O W L E D G MENTS

ter Havighurst and janis Bolster for their expert h elp in transforming the manuscript into a printable text. Thanks are also due to Robert Pip­ pin for proposing the translation , to Terence Moore for his patience, and to Charles Griswold for his hearty encouragement.

INTRODUCTION

Without certain stock beliefs and practices that are simply taken for gran ted, there would be neither scientific research nor political col­ laboration, neither confidences nor humor. We experience our first prejudices on our mothers' laps, and we grow up with and into the everyday assumptions of all those who in one way or another command our attention , affection, or respect. Prejudices and the habits informed by them thus become the bonds of culture and daily life as well as the stuff of dreams, wishes, and despair. As deep-seated sources of iden ti ty, such seemingly self-eviden t beliefs and practices are seldom articulated and even more rarely subj ected to critical investigation . This neglect is , to be sure, not unfounded, since it is far from obvious what would qual­ ify as an adequate examination of prejudices. Would such an examina­ tion, for example , have to be unprejudiced? If so, how is that possible and how would it be determined? "The notion of having no prejudice" may not be "the greatest prej udice," as Heidegger contends, but it is dif­ ficult to gainsay the conclusion that the notion is a prejudice and a self­ defeating one at that. Perhaps it is not possible to examine our prejudices in a completely unprejudiced or adequate manner, one is tempted to reply, but this fact does not rule out the possibility of a degree of adequacy, the minimal condi tion of which would be logical consistency. Of all our basic as­ sumptions, probably none occupies a higher rank. Indeed, if prej udices are unavoidable , then the least that one can hope for is that they are logical and, indeed, that the principles of logic are among them. Ock­ ham 's old saw still holds: log;ica est scientia scientiarum et ars artium. The prejudices and principles of logic are seemingly so self-eviden t and fun­ damen tal that we stumble over our own logical feet, as it were, with every attempt to ground or eve n clarify them . XV

XVI

I N T R O DUC TIO N

Yet self-eviden t beliefs or principles could hardly be called "preju­ dices," according to some prevailing uses of the term . Nor could the as­ sumption that all prej udices are unj ustified be considered an unj usti­ fied p rejudice , if prominent pej orative senses of the term are invoked. A person 's theory or viewpoint is said to be "prejudiced" if certain un­ examined beliefs or practices prevent her from considering evidence to the contrary. Even more typically, ' prejudice' is a label today not merely for prejudging some subject matter but for main taining quite deleterious beliefs and practi ces. A prejudice in the latter sense is not simply an unstated premise of an argument or part of the background knowledge needed for a particular inquiry. Such a prejudice is, instead , an inauspicious habit of thinking and behaving that need not be ex­ plicit and can be detected and dismantled only with great difficulty, if at all. In fact, despi te one obvious reading of its etymology (from 'prae­ judicare' ) , a prejudice such as racism is not, properly speaking, a judgment at all but rather a fateful pattern of response . If the term "prejudice" is understood in this standard way, the ex­ pression ' logical prejudice ' seems an oxymoron. The term 'logical ' is principally employed to designate specific connections and inferences, either because certain assertions (assumptions or considerations) do not contradict one another or because a conclusion may be validly drawn from one or more of them. There is arguably no more justified presupposition , no more legitimate prejudice than that of abiding by the principle of noncon tradiction and the rules of inference , a practice that enables us to speak and think about things further and to do so to­ ge the r. Far from leading us down some shadowy and potentially per­ ilous path , logic steers us clear of what is unthinkable, what is nonsense. Nevertheless, it would make good sense to speak of a "logical preju­ dice" - a prejudice of logic (genitivus subjectivus) - if logic itself were to presuppose a belief or practice that can have the effect of disabling rather than enabling genuine discourse and thinking. The expression 'logical prejudice ' is employed in the following study in this sense . The specific logical prejudice in question is a certain way of speaking and thinking about truth or, equivalently, a theory of sui table uses of ' truth ' and its cognates that is traditionally construed as a cornerstone of logic . Logic typically begins with analysis of assertions (propositions, state­ ments, judgments, or the like ) and their possible combinations as the elements of any scientific theory that is open to verification or falsifica­ tion . In other words, logic assumes th a t assertions and their kin are th e �ile uf truth, indeed, in the sense that they mu�t he- in place for the re

I N T RO D U C TION

xvii

to be anything that might be termed the " truth ." This assumption can take different shapes. Truth has been characterized as itself ajudgment, as a property of an assertion or judgment, as a relation obtaining be­ tween a judgment and a reality, or even as the confirmation or con­ firmability of such a relation . Truth has also been conceived as the com­ ple te agreement (identity) be tween something meant by a judgment and some state of affairs that is gi ven or presents itself as such . The com­ mon bond of these diverse ways of construing truth is the assumption that truth is to be understood primarily in terms of assertions and in view of the presence of what is asserted. There may be more than one logical prejudice , but in the following study the expression 'logical prej­ udice ' refers to the thesis, as Heidegger puts it, "that the genuine 'lo­ cus' of truth is the judgment" (SZ 226 ) . During the years prior to the completion of Being and Time, Heideg­ ger was preoccupied with the task of exposing and undermining the logical prejudice. This preoccupation is particularly evident in the Mar­ burg lectures, especially those of the summer semester of 1 9 2 5, pub­ lished as Prolegomena to the History of the Concept of Time, and the follow­ ing winter semester of 1925/26, published as Logic: The Question of Truth. His reasons for undertaking a critique of the logical prej udice are not difficult to discern. Heidegger can agree with proponents of the logical prejudice that truth is, if anything, itself a way of speaking and thinking and, indeed, the very way of speaking and thinking that pre­ sumably speaks and thinks what is. A conception of truth is, in other words, a way of speaking and thinking about speaking and thinking, about what they are, including both what it means for them to be "about" something and what they are about. In short, a conception of truth is essen tially reflexive and ontological . In order to mount any­ thing approaching an adequate analysis of truth , the analysis must gi ve an account of itself and the sense of being that it presupposes. In the case of the logical prej udice , however, the reflexivity remains largely unreflected and the significance of 'being' is, if not preon to­ logical , then typically the offspring of an on to logy that is insufficiently fundamental . As a result, presumptive restric tions on the proper uses of ' true ' have counterparts in similar strictures placed on the proper uses of ' exists' and its cognates. ' True ' is restricted to use as a predicate of certain propositions, and truth is equated with propositional truth , on the assumption ( or, equi valen tly, as an indication ) of the presence or onhandness (Anwesenheit or Vorhandenheit) of the states of affairs cor­ res po n d in g to those propositions. In this way the logical prejurlire is tra-

XVlll

IN T R O D U C T I O N

ditionally linked to the iden tification of the significance of 'being' with presence . This iden tification takes a variety of forms, from the crass equation of 'being' with 'what is now on hand and available ' to the more imaginative supposi tion that ' being' is an abbreviation for being presently present (a slice of space-time or merely a logically idealized equivalent of it) and thus potentially, if not actually, present to someone. In Heidegger's view, the obtuseness of this identification is symptomatic of the ontological obliviousness ( Seinsvergessenheit) at the heart of West­ ern philosophy, its loss of itself, its true poten tial and its vocation. De monstrating that the logical prejudice is not the last word on truth is necessary in order to recover the question and the sense of being. The main objective of the following study is to elaborate Heidegger's early conception of truth (formulated in the Marburg lectures and in Being and Time) as it proceeds from his critique of a particular history of the logical prejudice. Heidegger argues that the disclosedness of be­ ing-here (Da-sein) or, more precisely, the disclosure of the timelin ess of being-here , is a truth more fundamental than any propositional truth . In this way he aims to outflank what he sees as the hallmarks of tradi­ tional alethiology and ontology, the companion conceptions of truth as a proposi tion 's property and being as an entity's presence or onhand­ ness. While the maneuver meets with some success, I argue that the de­ gree of success depends upon a tacit but unexplained complementar­ ity between truth as disclosedness and propositional truth (between ontological and on tic determin ations of truth ) . In other words, even in the exposure of the logical prejudice, the latter remains in some sense a prejuge legitime. Following a sketch of the sense and scope of the logical prejudice, Chapter 1 begi ns wi th Heidegger's assessment of i ts place in the debate ove r psychologism around the turn of the cen tury. While many philoso­ phers of logic were confident that psychologism had been refuted, Hei­ degger has his doubts, not least because the purported refutation is, in his eyes, largely an expression of the logical prej udice . In order to ex­ pose the roots of this confidence, he directs his students ' attention to the writings of He rmann Lotze . In particular, Heidegger sketches how Lotze 's characterization of "true judgments" as the on tological sense of truth 's "actuality" cemented the logical prejudice in the minds of an en­ tire generation. In Heidegger's view, however, the re is a pivotal exception to this gen­ eral trend among Lotze's successors: Edmun d Husser!. "It hardly needs to be admitted," Heidegger not�s in the summer of 1925. " that, oppo-

I N T R O D UCT I O N

XIX

site Husserl , even today I still consider myself a novice.'' Chapter 2 takes up the question of the significance ofHusserl 's logical investigations for Heidegger's critical engagement with the logical prejudice. Together, the lectures given by Heidegger in the summer semesters of 19 2 3 and 1 9 2 5 contain his most comprehensive treatment of Husserlian phe­ nomenology. Largely on the basis of these lectures , the chapter details Heidegger's account of "the three decisive discoveries of Husserlian phenomenology" and the breakthrough that they represent toward a sense of truth presupposed by propositional truth and a sense of being ( Sein) presupposed by but not reducible to an entity, entities , or even the general character of enti ties as such ( Seiendes, Seiendheit) . Heideg­ ger nonetheless faults Husser} for not appreciating the full import of his discoveries, as evidenced by his failure to elaborate what it means for intentionality to "exist. " Heidegger traces this failure, at least in part, to the fact that Husserl supposedly remains caught up in the logical prej udice. But Heidegger also shows his hand by suggesting that the ul­ timate reason for Husserl 's continued commitment to the logical prej­ udice 's ontological presuppositions is a fear or anxiety in the face of be­ ing-here itself. The force of some of Heidegger's criticisms is substantially mitigated, as Chapter 2 also recounts, by the fact that they are directed at a stage of intentional analysis that Husser} had long since gone beyond by the summer of 19 25 when Heidegger is reci ting those cri ticisms to his stu­ dents. Heidegger's silence on this development is significant, since he w as plainly aware of it and since i t anticipates his existential analysis in certain essential respects. For example, in Husserl 's investigations of the temporal constitution of intentionality, he breaks with the act-object schema of his earlier analyses and, in the process, with the senses of being and truth implied by that schema, senses that Heidegger lin ks to the logical prejudice and makes the object of criticism . By way of con­ clusion , Chapter 2 attempts to give some reasons both for Heidegger's silence on Husserl 's later development and for the divergence in the paths that they chart for pheno1nenology. Long before and long after Lotze and Husserl, defenders as well as critics of psychologism cite the authority of Aristotle as the thinker who originally recognized that truth must take the form ofjudgments or as­ sertions. One of Heidegger's aims i n the winter semester of 19 25/ 2 6 was to show how mistaken this in terpetation of Aristotle is. According to Heidegger, Aristotle's complex views on the subj ect of truth , even more so than those of Husserl, point to th e phenomenon of disclosedness as

XX

I N TRO D U CTION

a truth that is more basic than any propositional tru th . As a means of making this point, Heidegger makes a startling connection be tween what he calls "hermeneutic and apophantic 'as '-structures of under­ stan ding" and Aristotle 's treatment of truth in Metaphysics, Theta 1 o. Chapter 3 attempts to demonstrate that connection , as provocative as it is precarious. In Metaphysics, Theta 1 o, Aristotle gives an account of how utterly simple, uncombined en tities ( asyntheta) are grasped in a way that, as Heidegger puts it, never conceals but only uncovers. The way in which asyntheta are uncovered is, in Heidegger's mind, instruc­ tively analogous to the manner in which the senses of being disclose themselves in the existen tial-hermeneutic '"as' -structure" of a "pri­ mary" understanding, that is, in being-here itself. In his early lec tures Heidegger provides detailed co1nmen taries on Lotze 's, Husserl's, and Aristotle 's analyses of truth . The commen taries are part of a strategy of exposing th e roots of th e logical prejudice as well as the ways in which those analyses poin t past the logical prejudice in the direction of his own accottn t of truth. The aim of the first th ree chapters of the following work is accordingly to examine Heidegger's h istorical reading of these eminent predecessors. By con trast, Chapter 4 reconstructs the argument for the so-called existential truth : th e orig­ inal disclosure of the senses of being in being-here . This truth , as it is presented in th e course of the existen tial analysis of Being and Time, is the disclosure of time as the sense of being-here. The argument here is broken down into five steps. Th e first three steps correspond to the three structures that constitute the specific way in which we exist an d disclose ourselves as being-in-the-world, namely, at work procuring th ings (Besorgen) , worrying about each other ( Fiir­ sorge) , and taking care of ourselves ( Sorge) . Since the crowd and public opinion - the anonymous world to which we are prone to relinquish re­ sponsibility for our way of being-here, that is, caring - regards these structures as sotnething handy or on hand, a fourth step is required to recover what it means to be-here genuinely. The fourth step demon­ strates that a certain timeliness constitutes the sense of being-here pre­ cisely as the si te of the disclosure of the senses of be ing. Sin ce , however, time can also be viewed as merely on hand, a final step becomes im­ perative: a determination of the original mean ing of ' timeli ness, ' namely, insofar as it constitutes th e sense of existence . In addition to the analysis of timeliness in Being and Time, Heidegger's lectures in 1927 at M a r b u rg , publish e d as Fundamental Problems of Phenomenology, are an important sourc� of this part of the investigation .

I N T R O DUCTI ON

XXI

Among the more influential criticisms of Heidegger's arguments against the logical prejudice and for h is account of truth as a primitive disclosedness is that advanced by Ernst Tugendhat. According to Tu­ gendhat, the primary significance of ' truth ' consists in indicating that something is being uncovered or asserted precisely as it is. This signifi­ cance , he charges , is lost when the term is expanded, as it is by Hei­ degger, to encompass the mere display of things and not, more restric­ tively, the display of th em as they are . Using Tuge ndhat's influential cri ticisms as a springboard, Chap ter 5 focuses on proble1ns besetting Heidegger's account of truth . Tugendhat's specific criticisms miss the mark, I contend, but they poin t to a dilemma in Heidegger's concep­ tion of fundamental ontology. His investigation of the senses of truth , being, and timeliness, styling itself as a scie nce, proves incompatible with the senses that he manages to re trieve . One migh t well contend that this difficulty is reason enough for Hei­ degger to abandon, as he does, a conception of philosophy as "tran­ scendental phenomenology. " As contended in the final chapter, how­ ever, the problems that beset his philosophical quest ( i. e . , the problem of objectifying the themes of truth, being, and time) survive his aban­ donment of the scien tific approach of Being and Time. Fully cognizant of these problems, Heidegger contends , both before and after this turn in his thinki n g, that the way to meet them ''at least in a relative way" is to understand philosophical concepts as "formal i ndications." The fi­ nal chapter addresses how, in this connection, Heidegger's method, while ending up quite self-consciously in the neighborhood of poe try and theology, remains dependent upon the presence of its theme . One patent indication of this dependency is the fact that Heidegger invokes propositional truths as part of the self-conscious, philosophical retrieval of truth as disclosedness. As a result, the problem of mediating these two senses of ' truth ' takes center stage (much as does the problem of mediating on tic and ontological considerations or, al ternatively, what it means to be "within-tiine" and what it means to be "timely" ) . In con­ clusion I argue that the problems of thematization and mediation need not have the effect of negating Heidegger's analyses, but that these problems do demonstrate just how urgently and in what sense his analy­ ses need to be supplemen ted. Heidegger, following Husserl , does not reserve the term 'sense ' ( Sinn) for linguistic usage. Unlike H usserl ( in 1 9 1 3 ) , he also em ploys the te rm 'meaning' in a way that is broader than any linguistic sense or expression . These uses of 'sense ' and 'meaning' p r e sen t a stumhling

xxii

I N T RODU C T I O N

block for anyone who insists on restricting the application o f these terms to signs, words, and complexes of them. As discussed in Chapters 3 and 5, Heidegger is willing to indulge and even exploit ordinary uses of these terms (particularly insofar as they nominalize corresponding verbs with sometimes foreboding or purposive connotations, as in the Wallace Stevens line "Crispin . . . sensed an elemental fate" or "they were meant for each other" ) . Yet, however the terms are used, it is necessary to respect the distinction between use and mention. To this end refer­ ence to a word or expression is always indicated by single quotation marks in the present study; double quotation marks are reserved chiefly for directly quoted words or sentences, as exemplified in this para­ graph . Accordingly, the sense of being is one thing, the significance of 'being' quite another. For years my students have heard me preach the necessity of writing and rewriting, with the plea that we generally do not know what we mean until we hear what we say. A fi rst version of this book appeared in German in 1 994 under the title Das logische Vorurteil: Untersuchungen zur Wahrheitstheorie des frilhen Heidegger. People often asked: "Why did you write the book in German , given the wider audience in English? " My standard answer was that it was easier to write in German, give n Hei­ degger's nomenclature. Being presented with the opportunity to trans­ late what I wrote in German into English has been a truly humbl ing ex­ perience, revealing to me how little I understood in either language. The supposed greater ease of writing on Heidegger in German was, more often than not, a way of avoiding hard interpretive decisions. But Heidegger's jargon can be a trap in translation no less than in German. For this reason, no German term, whether Heidegger's or my own , is left un translated . When a te rm that serves a systematic function is in­ troduced, the Ge rman original is cited along with the translated term and an explanation for the translation . In keeping with this attempt to avoid substituting terminological consistency or orthodoxy for critical examination and understanding, all quotations from Heidegger are also translated, even in the footn otes . Pursuit of this policy is obviously treacherous for reasons familiar to studen ts of Heidegger's though t. In the 192 0s he insisted on distin­ guishing entities from their manners of being ( though he would later acknowledge certain pitfalls associated with that insistence) . Few would dispute the difference between considering what sort of thing an entity is or what relations it has to other entities and co nsidering whethe r it exist�. Heidegger's insistence on the distinction bet\veen entities and

INTRODUCTION

XX Ill

their manners of being is intended not to reassert this obvious distinc­ tion but to raise the question of what it means for something to exist. According to Heidegger, failure to maintain the distinction in such a way that this question is raised is symptomatic of Western thinking or, more precisely, what he calls "being's forgotten ness" ( Seinsvergessenheit) in the West. This obliviousness to being is supposedly evidenced by the way in which Western thinkers repeatedly collapse a consideration of being itself, that is , ontology, into metaphysics, that is, an ontic science of entities and the relations, typically causal relations, among them. In large measure as a means of avoiding the collapse of this distinction and re trieving the question of the sense of being from oblivion, Heidegger develops a distinctive te rminology in his pursuit of a "fundamental on­ tology. " This terminology contains some neologisms rooted in the or­ dinary uses of certain terms, for example , ' al readiness ' (Gewesenheit) or ' prese nting' (Gegenwiirtigen). More often, however, Heidegger takes or­ dinary expressions - for example , 'palaver' (Gerede) or ' on hand' and twists and turns them until their generally over­ ( vorhanden) looked. ontological significance cries out in pain. Such is Heidegger's way with words. The challenge facing any translation of Heidegger's terminology is to convey the ontological significance that he assigns his terms, without losing sight of the roots in ordinary (ontic) usage on which he also re­ lies. There is no more formidable instance of this challenge than the term that Heidegger employs to designate the manner of being that is the object of his investigation in Being and Time and his Marburg le c­ tures: 'Da-sein, ' 'Existenz. 'In the first half of the eighteenth century, 'Da­ sein ' was in troduced by Wolff and Gottsched in to Ge rman philosophi­ cal nomenclature as a replacement for the Latin derivative , 'Existenz. ' Heidegger i n fact employs ' existence ' and 'being-in-the-world' as equivalents to 'Dasein, ' though not synonyms for it. In other words, 'Da­ sein, ' 'Existenz, and 'In-der-Welt-sein ' each say some thing different, but they all say it of the same entities. Further complicating matters is the fact that 'Dasein 'strategically does double duty in Heidegger's analysis, standing not only for a distinctive , inde ed, exemplary manner of being, but also for the sort of entity that enjoys that manner of being. For German as well as English readers, however, what creates special problems for understanding Heidegger's use of the term is his ex­ ploitation of its compound character, that is, the combination of 'da ' and 'sein. ' 'Da 'has a wide array of uses in German , ranging from uses as an arlverh of place or time to uses as an adverbial and even causal con-

'

XXIV

INTRODUCTION

junction. Heidegger also cites Humboldt's observation of pronomial uses of the term ( SZ 1 I f; P 3 4 2 ff; these and other abbreviations are ex­ plained below) . Given the two ways in which 'da ' is used adverbially, 'Da­ sein ' might be construed as the original manner of being of time-space. The most protninent adverbial use of 'da, ' however, is to indicate a place, a sense exploited by Heidegger as he attempts to demonstrate that the very sense of this manner of being is to be "outside itself" or "ecstatic. " But in this respect, too, matters are complicated by the fact that 'da ' can signify equivalents of both ' here ' and ' there. ' Thus, ' here and there ' can be a translation of both 'hier und da ' and 'da und dort' in Ge rman . Heidegger makes it clear, however, that, while 'da ' poin ts to what is signified by ' here ' and ' there , ' th e proper synonytn for 'da'in the term 'Dasein' is ' disclosedness. ' Moreove r, on at least rnro occasions he ob­ serves that a here and a there are only possible on the basis of this dis­ closedness ( SZ 1 3 2 ; P 3 42ff) . But since ' disclosedness' is a translation of another systematic term in Heidegger's nomenclature , namely, 'Er­ schlossenheit, ' it is necessary to find some other term. One possibility is ' openness ' ( the suggestion comes from Thomas Sheehan , via William Richardson ) . This translation has the advantages of being similar to ' disclosedness' and retaining some sense of spatiality conveyed by some uses of 'da. 'Yet it also has the disadvantage of forfeiting the direct, or­ dinary significance of 'da, ' even as it ambiguously straddles the signifi­ cance of ' here ' and ' there. ' In o ther words , use of 'openness' runs the risk of overcorrecting Heidegger's own choice of terms. Two other possibilities presen t themselves: 'being-there ' and ' being­ here . ' Both expressions have the disadvan tage of suggesting senses of ' there ' and 'here ' that are supposed to be derivative of the disclosed­ ness of 'Dasein.' Yet they also have the virtue of preserving the con tinu­ ity ( between on tological and antic senses) that makes that derivative­ ness possible . That is to say, with the proper qualifications, each translation migh t convey the fundamen tally ecstatic sense of 'Dasein ' as being 'always already outside-itself' or being-in-the-world. Of these two possibilities, howe�ver, "being-there" has the distinct disadvan tage of in­ troducing a distance where there is none or, at least, at such a remove frotn us that we might be impartial or even indifferent toward it. In other words, ' there ' in English (like 'yonder' or the German 'dort') fre­ quently denotes the very opposite of what is o �ten signified by 'da. ' "Here is your book,'' for example, b es t translates the remark "Da ist dein Buch," made wh il e handing son1eone her book. In many parts of Ger-

INTRODUCTION

XXV

many, not least in parts where Aleman nic, Swabian , and Bavarian di­ alects are spoken, it is common to announce one 's arrival by saying, HDa bin ich ," signifying "Here I am ." These colloquial uses of 'da ' and 'sein ' suggest a nearness that is lost if 'Da-sein' is translated ' there-being' or 'being-there . ' More importantly, translating 'Dasein ' as ' being-there ' runs the risk of rendering the theme something that need not be a mat­ ter of intimate , pressing concern , or in other words something that we do not necessarily care about. While there is clearly no perfectly adequate English translation for 'Dasein, 'as Heidegger uses the term , bo th 'openness ' and 'being-here ' appear to be suitable translations. Because 'being-here' is a more straightforward translation and conveys senses of the German expres­ sion that are not re tained by ' being-open ' or ' openness, ' I have opted to em ploy it as the translation for 'Dasein ' in the following study. Nonetheless, i t deserves iterating that disclosedness remains the pri­ mary significance of the term for Heidegger. To be-here is to disclose and to disclose is to be-here . Various manners of bei ng disclose them­ selves prereflectively to us in theory and practice and in all the myriad behaviors that make a mockery of the distinction , from looking in a m i­ croscope to driving a car, from arguing to praying. According to Hei­ degger, this disclosure "defines" human existence more basically than does any set of se nsory, ki nesthetic, and imaginative capaci ties, any combination of motor skills and powers of concentration , com puta­ tion, or inference , as well as any sublim inal urges to survive, propagate , or dominate . By ' define' here, I do not mean the sortal process of lo­ cating a specific difference wi thin sotne genus. Such a process presup­ poses the givenness of things ( the manners of being of entities) and the issue for Heidegger is precisely not to take the meaning of that ' given­ ness' for gran ted. By 'define' I mean an articulation of what is equiva­ lent to existence itself. In other words, whatever else might be said of a human being ( including the animality that traditionally constitutes the 1

1 The following two quotations p rovide fa mous examples of uses o f 'da' in which the most likely Engl ish equivalent is 'here, ' not 'there .' Goethe, Fau.\t, ninth edition ( Munich: Bec k , 1 9 7 � ) , 20: '"Da stehe i ch n u n. ich anner Thor I U nd bin so klug wie zuvor." Betti ne von Arnitn, vVi>rke und Briefe, ed. Gusta\' Konrad (Darmstadt: Wissensch aftliche Buchge­ sellsch aft, 1959) , vol . 2, p. 131: .. U n d wenn ich [Goethe] jetzt i ns Theate r kon1me und schaue nac h seinem [ Schi llers] Plat! und muB es glaube n , daB er in dieser Wel t nicht m ehr da ist, daB d iese Augen rnich nicht mehr �uchen, dann verd rieBt rnich das Lebe n , und i c h nH)chte Iie ber nicht 1nehr d a sein ."Accordi ng t o Tr ii bne r, 'Dasfin 'o riginally sig­ nifit:"d concretely, physi cally 'bPing-hn-e, j>rP.�enrP, prP!>Pnt' ( l-Iiersein, Anwesenheit, Gegcn­ wart); cf. Triibnn-\ J)putschPs �Vortprhurh, vul. �(Berlin: de (�ru yter. 1910). �H.

xxvi

I N T R O D UCTION

genus for humans) , it must be said of this disclosed ness. "To be-here" is to disclose pre reflectively to oneself what i t means - for oneself and others, for things handy and on hand - to be. This disclosure is not "on e 's doing" in any ordinary sense of the word and, though our vari­ ous projects and projections play a role in the disclosure , it is also not something that we direct. Moreover, contrary to the logical prejudice, it is also not a matter of human j udgment. A list of abbreviations for the principal texts used follows this intro­ duction. References are given parenthetically in the text and by means of footnotes. Occasionally a phrase or word may be quoted but not di­ rectly followed by a reference. In such cases, the source of the quota­ tion is given in the very next parenthetical reference or foo tnote in the same paragraph in which the quoted phrase or word occurs. Unless oth­ erwise indicated, all numerals following works cited in the text and the footnotes refer to page numbers. If a text is quoted, followed by more than one page number, the first number cited is always the source of the text, followed by other page numbers (in order of appearance ) that refer to pages containing similar or relevant information . If no text is quoted but a list of numbers is cited, the order of numbers corresponds to the relevant pages in order of importance.

ABBREV IAT IONS

A ApS

AT B BZ BzP CM DR EpF

F

FS FTL

Immanuel Kant. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. First Edition ( 1 7 8 1 ) . Edited by Raymund Schmidt. Hamburg: Meiner, 1 97 1 . Edmund Husserl. Analysen zur passiven Synthesis aus Vorlesungs­ und Forschungsmanuskripten (1918-1926). Edited by Margot Fleischer. Hague: Nijhoff, 1 966. Rene Descartes. O Euvres de Descartes. Edited by C. Adam and P. Tannery. Revised edition . Paris: Vrin/C. N. R. S., 1 964-76. Immanuel Kant. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Second edition ( 1 7 87) . Edited by Raymund Schmidt. Hamburg: Meiner, 1 97 1 . Martin Heidegger. Begriff der Zeit. Edited by Hartmut Tiegen. Tubingen : Niemeyer, 1 989. Martin Heidegger. Beitriige zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). Edited by Friedrich-Wilhehn von Herrmann . GA 65 ( 1 g8g) . Edmund Husserl. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortriige. Edi ted by Stephen Strasser. Hague : Nijhoff, 1 950. Edmund Husserl. Ding und Raum. Edited by Karl-Heinz Hah­ nengress and Smail Rapic. Hamburg: Meiner, 1 99 1 . Martin Heidegger. Einfiihrung in die phiinomenologische For­ schung. Edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrman n . GA 1 7 ( 1 994) . Margot Fleischer. Die Zeitanalysen in Heideggers 'Sein und Zeit ': Aporien, Probleme und ein Ausblick. Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann , 1 99 1 . Friih e Schriften. Edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann . GA 1 ( 1 978) . Edmund Husser]. Formate und transzendentale Logik. Edited by Pauljanssen. Hague: Nijhoff, 1 97 4 .

XXVII

XXVlll

GA

GM GP HP Id I

Id II

KPM

L Lotze LU I

LU II/ 1

LU ll/ 2

MAL

N 0

ABBREVIATIONS

Martin Heidegger. Gesamtausgabe. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1 9 75-. All references to this complete edition are followed by a number indicating the volume . Martin Heidegger. Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann . GA 2 9/30 ( 1 98 3 ) . Martin Heidegger. Grundprobleme der Phiinomenologie. Edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann . GA 24 ( 1 975) . Mark Okrent. Heidegger's Pragmatism. I thaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1 98 8 . Edmund Husser!. Ideen z u einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie. Fourth edition. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1 980. Edmund Husserl . Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phanome­ nologische Un tersuchungen zur Konstitution. Edited by Marly Biemel. Hague : Nijhoff, 1 952 . Martin Heidegge r. Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Fourth , expanded edition. Frankfurt am Main: Kloster­ mann , 1 973. Marti n Heidegger. Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit. Edited by Walter Biemel. GA 2 1 ( 1 976 ) . Hermann Lotze . Logik. Edi ted by Georg Misch . Leipzig: Meiner, 1 9 1 2 . Edmund Husserl . Logische Untersuchungen, Erster Band.· Prolegomena zur reinen Logik. Fifth edition. Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1 968. Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, I. Teil: Untersuchungen zur Phiinomenologie und Theorie der Er­ kenntnis. Fifth edition. Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1 968. Edmund Husserl . Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, II. Teil: Elemente einer phiinomenologischen Aufklarung der Er­ kenntnis. Fourth edition. Tiibingen : Niemeyer, 1 968. Martin Heidegger. Metaphysische A nfangsgriinde der Logik. Edi ted by Klaus Held. GA 2 6 ( 1990) . Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche. Two volumes. Fourth edition . Neske: Pfullingen, 1961. Martin H ei de gg er. Ontologie (Hermeneutik der Faktizitiit). Edited by Kate Brocker-Oltmanns. GA. 6 3 ( 1988 ) .

A BBREVI AT I O N S

p

PAA PasW PI

PIA

PIK

PRL

PS PTP

sz

T us vs vww w

Zb

XXIX

Martin Heidegger. Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs. Edited by Petra jaeger. GA 2 0 ( 1 979) . Martin Heidegger. Phiinomenologie der Anschauung und des Ausdrucks. Edited by Claudius Strube. GA 59 ( 1 99 3 ) . Edmund Husser!. "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft. " Logos I ( 1 9 1 o-1 1 ) : 2 8 g-3 4 1 . Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations. Trans­ lated by G. E . M. Anscombe. Third edition. New York: Macmillan, 1 968. Martin Heidegger. Phiinomeno logische lnte:rpretationen zu Aristoteles. Edited by Walter Brocker and Kate Brocker-Olt­ manns. GA6 1 ( 1 985) . Martin Heidegger. Phiinomenologische Interpretationen von Kants Kritik de:rreinen Ve:rnunft. Edited by Ingtraud Garland. Second edition. GA 2 5 ( 1 98 7 ) . Martin Heidegger. Phiinomenologie des religiosen Lebens. Edited by Matthias Jung, Thomas Regehly, and Claudius Strube . GA 6o ( 1 995) . Martin Heidegger. Platon: Sophist. Edited by Ingeborg SchiiBler. GA 1 9 ( 1 99 2 ) . Edmund Husser!. Psychological and Transcendental Phenome­ nology and the Confrontation with Heidegger ( 192 7- I 93 I). Edited and translated by Thomas Sheehan and Richard Palmer. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1 997. Martin Heidegger. Sein und Zeit. Twelfth edition . Tiibin­ gen: Niemeyer, 1 97 2 . Ernst Tugendhat. Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husser! und Hei­ degger. Second edition. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1 970. Marti n Heidegger. Unterwegs zur Sprache. Pfullingen: Neske , 1 959. Martin Heidegger. Vier Seminare. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1 97 7 . Martin Heidegger. Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Fourth edition . Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann , 1 96 1 . Martin Heidegger. Wegmarken. Second , expanded edition. Frankfurt am Main : Klostermann, 1 978 . Edmund Husserl . Zur Phiinomenologie des inne:ren Zeitbe­ wu]Jtseins. Edited by Rudolf Boehm. Hague: Nijhoff, t g66.

XXX

ZBP ZSD

ABB R EVIAT I O N S

Martin Heidegger. Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie. Edited by Bernd Heimbiichel. GA 56/ 57 ( 1 98 7 ) . Martin Heidegger. Zur Sache des Denkens. Second edi tion. Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1 976.

References to Plato and Aristotle follow the standard convention of Stephanus and Bekker numbers respectively.

l

TH E LO G IC A L C ON C E P TION O F T R U T H : TH E L O G I C A L P R EJ U DIC E AND L O T Z E ' S C O N C E P T O F VA LIDITY

Logic is the only science that, strictly speaking, treats of truth . Heidegger, 1 9 2 5 1

Heidegger's philosophy is not at odds with logic , at least what is tradi­ tionally understood as formal logic . Though he has serious reservations regarding the discipline 's place in a university curriculum and ulti­ mately questions the range of its principles' validity, his inquiry into the meanings of 'being' does not violate logical principles that sustain any genuine communication . Nor would he concede that the truth al­ legedly revealed by his early phenomenological analyses is extralogical or even prelogical , so long as the logical domai n is understood broadly enough to include the original uses of 'logos ' and their contemporary equivalents. In certain respects, to be sure, this last observation may seem like little more than a clumsy sleight of hand. For if l ogic is any­ thing today, it is " the science of deduction" and "its most conspicuous purpose . . . th e justification and criticism of inference." 2 To study logic is to study implication , th e validity of a conditional relationship be­ tween two or more statements, and develop techniques for showing that such a relation obtains. Yet with this aspect of logic , too, Heidegger has no basic quarrel . But if the assumption is made that logic can be ade1 L 7 : "Streng ge nommen hande l t kei n e einzige Wi ssen sch aft auBer Lo g i k von der Wahrheit." See Gottlob F reg e , " Der Gedanke" ( 1 9 1 8 ) , in LogischP Un tersuchungen, ed. Gunther Patzi g, th i rd edition ( Gottinge n : Van den hoeck & Rup recht, 1 98 6 ) , 30. 2 Ri c h ard jeffrey, Formal /Jogir: Its Scope and L imits, s econ d editi on ( New Yo rk: M cG raw-H ill, 1 98 1 ) , 1 ; W. V . 0 . Qu i n e, Methods of l.ogir, fo u r t h edition (Cambridge , M ass . : H a rva rd l J n i v. Pn��l\, 1 !) H 2 ) , 1 5 ·

H F. I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

2

quately pursued in relative isolation from the ordinary or scientific con­ texts in which statements are made ( "irrespective of their subject mat­ ter" ) and, even more fundamen tally, from the question of the sense of the truth of such statemen ts, then Heidegger can fully agree with the spirit - though not the letter - of Emil Lask's claim that "it is necessary, of course, to come to a halt at something ultimate; but the logical is pre­ cisely not that ul timate something." � VVhile theories of truth and questions of the suitable uses of the pred­ icate ' true ' are not generally considered part of courses in "logic proper," they are often addressed under the rubric of ' tnetalogic' or ' philosophy of logic. ' However, as an extension of formal logic, meta­ logic is generally liinited to a consideration of the consistency, com­ pleteness, or decidability of systems of formal logic. As a result, these formal concerns dominate metalogical treatmen ts of truth . 4 By con­ trast, philosophy of logic does examine theories of truth and th e ques­ tion of truth-bearers as part of its focus on questions of the scope and aim of logic , the differences among formal systems, and their relations to informal arguments. 5 Philosophy of logic, so conceived, has affinities with what Heidegger in 1 92 5 understands by logic, though with the important difference that formal logic continues to set the stage for philosophy of logic much as science does for the philosophy of science . Thus, the philosopher of logic critically examines the meaning, parameters, and competi ng par­ adigms of a tnore or less established discipline. Within this con text the­ ories of truth also come up for consideration , but they are theories that generally take their bearings from the application of the predicate ' true ' to assertions, propositions, statements, sentences, or beliefs. By contrast, Heidegger's "logic" is a "philosophical logic, " the chief con­ cern of which is the meaning and possibility of truth , a forward-looking discipline that is " the prolegon1enon for all logic'' ( L 20) . As this last re­ mark indicates, Heidegger's use of the term ' logic' is somewhat elastic; like many of his contemporaries, he employs it at times to signify tradi3 Emil Lask, Die Logik dn- Philosaph if' und die KateKorien lehre: einP Studie iiher den Hrrn rhafts­ berPil h der logi!lchf'n Formen ( Tiibi nge n : Mohr, l �) l 1 ) , 2 5 ; M . Sch lick, "Das V\'e�en rler \tVah rheit nach der modernen L o gi k ( 19 1 0- 1 1 ) , Philosophische l�ogik ( Fran kfurt am Mai n : Suh rkamp, 1 g86) , 3 � r D a he r kan n auch eine Li n te rsuc hung tib e r das \1\ e s e n der vVahrh eit n i c h t auf re i n Iogischen1 Felde geftihrt werdcn . ., See also FS 405ff. 4 Bas C. van Fraassen , Formal Sema ntio a nd Logic ( � ew York: M.ac mi llan, 1 97 1 ) , 2 , 1 63-7 2 . 5 Sec Susan Haac k, Philosoph)' ol Lo!(its ( Cam bridge : C a m b r id ge u n iv. Press , 1 9R5) , I - I o , "

"

7 9- 1 34 .

'

THE

LOG ICA L

C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

3

tional logic ( including formal logic and mathematical logic) or tran­ scendental logic, and at other times he uses it as a synonym for his own self-styled "philosophical logic." In spite of this occasional ambiguity, his philosophical logic distinguishes itself in not taking formal logic and the possibility of the truth or falsity of premises and conclusions for granted. 6 Far from canceling the propriety of formal logic or even merely considering deviations from it, Heidegger's philosophical logic investigates what makes it possible and, for that very reason, is not fully circumscribed by i t. Heidegger's interest in logic, it bears noting, is neither superficial nor passing. His second academic publication, "Recent Research on Logic ," is a critical , albeit cursory survey of an array of studies by logi­ cians from Hey1nans and Meinong to Geyser and Russell. Though the 1 9 1 2 review is prefaced with an acknowledgmen t of "the persisting lack of an unequivocal , unanimous defini tion of logic," the young Heideg­ ger endorses the Fregean repudiation of psychologism. He also notes that the specific question of whether psychologism or transcendental­ ism is essentially grounded in Kant's philosophy has probably been de­ cided for the present in favor of the "transcendental-logic view repre­ sented by Hermann Cohen and his school as well as by Windelband and Rickert. " The importance of this development, Heidegger adds, is the fact that through i t "the distinctive value of the logical" was emphasized (FS 1 9 ) . More significantly, in this essay Heidegger gives some indica­ tion of his own early understanding of logic by defending the Husser­ Han conception of i t as a �'theory of theories, a doctri ne of science ," con­ cerned with "fundamen tal concepts ( categories) and the connections among them" but also with the logical structure of individual sciences and their place in a system of sciences. 7 Thirteen years later, remnants of this view of logic continue to be discernible in Heidegger's charac­ terization of phenomenology as "productive logic," an extension of " the process of the original logic" developed by Plato and Aristotle, the task of which is to disclose the manner of being of a particular domain be­ fore it is worked over by science ( P 2 £) . 6 FS 1 66f:

"Precisely because we wan t to find th e

access

to the judgmen t of lo gic, we cannot

take it as the point of departure." 7 FS 1 8 , 2 3 . In this c o n n n e c t i o n ( FS 2 3 n . g) He idegge r makes explicit m e n ti o n of the "valuable" works by Wundt, S igvv a r t and Lotze . I t is n o te wo r th y that, wh ile unwilling to count Ka n t am on� the psycholugi�ts, Hei degger also is not ready to joi n "the side of the ex treme Neo-Kan tians" ( FS � 2 ) ; see , too , the references to the "natural ization of con­ s c i ou�n e �s i n1 p l i c i t in psycho logi stic t h e o r i es ( FS 1 � ) . See abo FS 6�f. ,

"

4

H E I D EG G E R ' S C O N C EPT

OF TRUTH

In Heidegger's 1 9 1 4 dissertation ( "The Doctrine ofjudgment in Psy­ chologism") he makes what he calls "a critical-positive contribution to logic" by exatnining four theories of judgment in order to show that, while each is representative of a different sort of psychologism , all are inapplicable to logic, not simply because they m isrepresent this "prim­ itive element of logic,'' but because they uniformly fail to recogn ize "the distinctive reality of the logical object" ( FS 64f, 1 6of) . For Heidegger that distinctive reality can be gathered from the identity of an iterated judgment or, equivalen tly, the sense of a sentence that is true or false of some object. What makes logic more th an "a merely technical disci­ pl ine" and distinguishes judgments, logically considered, from any psy­ chological activity of judging is a judgment's capacity to be true or ob­ tain (gelten) for some object. 8 "A psychological activi ty can never be true or false; it exists or not like the 'flowing' of electrical current, that lies outside the either/ or of ' true and false "' ( FS 1 7 5 ) . Pervading the dis­ sertation is accordingly a con ception of "pure logic," a discipline that must take care of itself, establishing the objectivity of its subj ect matter both for itself and for every other science. 9 While holding fast to the distinction between the psychological re­ ality and the validating content of a judgment, Heidegger acknowl­ edges in the dissertation that he is shelving the question of how to char­ acterize the relation between these spheres and, indeed, "whether in this question a profounder solution can be aimed for." 1 0 Yet logical is­ sues con tinue to dominate his thinking, so much so that, in his Cur­ riculum Vitae of 1 9 1 5 , he declares logic "the philosophical discipline that still in terests me most. " 1 1 From his lecture "The Concept of Time in the Science of History" of the same year, it is clear that he con tinues to consider logic "a doctrine of science" and categories i ts "ultimate ba­ sic elements" ( FS 4 1 6£) . H eidegger does not himself use the term ' tran8 FS 1 7 2 ff; the cotn plexity of the p h e n o m e no n of the oqject ive refere n tiality ofj udg1nen b

wo u l d be the place , H e i de g ge r adds i n a fo o t n o t e to criticiLe the d o c t ri n e o tj u d g rn e n t ,

of mathemati cal l o gi c , n o tably, th e "lo gisti c'' of B . Russe l l ; see FS 1 7 4

9 As h e attest') hin1seJf

( FS 20 5 n . 1 o) ,

ers ( e.g. , Lot7e , Hu sse rl ) wh o

co n tr

n.

8.

H e idegge r's use o f ' p u r e l o g i c ' m i Jn i cs �e,·e ral wri t­

a s t it \vith ' appl ied logic . ' Heidegger add� th a t he is

not engagi n g " the i n te re � t i n g and profound i n\·es tiga t i o n s that h ave arisen o n th e bas i�

of tran�cendental ph ilosophy, ''

n

a m e l y , those by Ri c kert and Lask ( FS 1 7() n. g ) . In t h i �

self-i rn posed l i m i ta ti o n l i e s pe rh a p s part of t h e reaso n why he refrai ns fro m ta lk i n g

plici tly of transce n d e n tal logic i n h i s d i �se rtati on .

ex­

FS 1 7 6 ; see , to o , the r e fe r e n c e to "the true preli rn inal}' wo.rk fo r logic" at FS 1 H6. 1 1 Th o ma� S h ee h an , " H ei d egger\ Leh tjahrt> , " ThP Collegium Phaenommologicum: ThP Fint Ynn.s , ed . J. �al i i � , G. �I o u e ta , d. l l d J. Ta rn i n i a u x ( Do ni rer h t : Kl u w� r, 1 nHH ) , 1 J f)f. 1o

THE

L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I ON OF

TRUTH

5

scendental logic' to designate what he means by 'logic, ' but the issues subsumed by him under 'logic' - specifying the distinctive "reality" and "value" of logic, determining the categories, and elaborating the rela­ tion of an obj ectively logical sphere to a j udging subj ect - make it clear that his understanding of logic is closer to what h is contemporaries were dubbing "transcendental logic'' than to anything else on the hori­ zon of academic philosophy at the time. 1 2 That Heidegger has the issues of transcendental logic in his sights, even if not by natne , is partictllarly evident in h is habilitation on Duns Scotus the following year, which he h imself describes as an attetnpt "to bring about a deeper understanding of medieval-scholastic thinking with respect to the problem of categories and logic in general'' (FS 41 2 ) . A theory of categories, the most general ways in which obj ects are de­ termined, is described by Heidegger as a ''particularly intensive preoc­ cupation of modern logic," spawned by the work of Windelband and von Hartmann . 1 3 Sorting out possible domains of what can be though t or experienced, according each domain its specific "logical place'' and value, is a basic requiretnent of such a theory (FS 2 1 off, 400) . Among the paramount categorial differences, for example, is the difference be­ tween a true j udgment's manner of being and that of what it is true of (or the difference between it and the words in which it is expressed ) . A theory of categories thus serves a purpose loosely akin to those of Aris-

1 2 H . Rickert, "Zwei Wege der Erkenn tn istheorie," Kant-Studien 1 4 ( 1 gog) : 2 0 1 : ·'u n sere Frage nach dem vom Denkakte U n ab h a n gi ge n hat also zu Iauten: Was ist das Si nn i n seiner Einheit, d e n wir an e i n e m wahren Satze verste hen? Weil wir dabei von d e m psy­ chischen Akte vol lig absehen u nd uns auf den logischen Wahrheitsgehalt beschranken miissen , n e n n en wir diese Fragestellung im Gegensatz zur transscenden talpsychologi­

schen die transscendentallogisrhe . Sie fii h rt in eine ' reine' Logi k hinein, die es dan n nur mit dem transsce ndente n u nd nicht m i t dem im man e n ten Sinn zu tun hat, wie die Transscende ntalpsyc hologie . '' On H usse rl 's early use of the term ' transcendental logic , '

see Einleitung i n die l.,ogik und })rkenntnistheoriR, Husse rl ian a � 4 , ed . U . Melle (Dordrecht:

Nijhoff, 1 984) , 1 1 1 f; see also Las k , Die Logik der Philosophie, 2 8 , 30, 42 ; Die Lehre vom Urteil (T ii bin gen : Mohr, 1 9 1 2 ) , 1 3 6 , 1 4of; see Steve n Gal t Crowell , "Emil Las k: Alethiology as

Ontology," Kant-Studien 87 ( 1 996) : 7off; Crowell, "H usse r} , Lask, an d the Idea of a Tran­ sce ndental Logic," in

llusserl and thP Phenomenologiral Tradition, e d . R. Sokolowski (Wash­

ington , D . C. : Catholic U n iv. of America Press , t g8 8 ) , 69; Crowel l , "Lask, Heidegger, and

Journal of the British Society of Phenomenology 23 ( 1 99 2 ) : 2 2 2-2 39· 1 3 FS 2 o 2 , 403 ; cf. E . von Hartm a n n , KatPgorimlehre ( Leip z i g : Haacke , 1 896) and W. Wi nde l b a n d , Vom S)'.� tem der Ka tpgo rien (Tiibinge n : M o h r, 1 goo) . For a val u able exami­ the H ome lessness of Logi c,"

nation of He idegge r's a d o p t i o n of Las k 's c o nc e pt i o n of fo rm , see Steven Gal t Crowell,

" M aking Logic P h i l oso ph ical Ag ai n , " i n

RPad1ng Heideggprjrom the Start, ed. T. Kisiel and

J . va n Bure n ( A l ha ny: SUNY Prc�s . 1 99 4 ) . 5 ,� -7 2 . ��r- G � .

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

6

totelian and Kan tian categories inasmuch as the former are supposed to determine what kinds of things there are and the latter what can be expe rienced. Yet these traditional lists of categories draw on a specific domain of beings or objects for their determinacy and validity and, be­ cause of that, they are insufficiently formal ( FS 2 1 1 , 263 , 2 8 7£) . In ad­ dition to its clear recognition of the irreducibility of logical reality to psychological facts ( FS 2 7 1 -2 7 9 , 2 84-2 8 8 ) , Scotus 's logical theory is said to have the virtue of appreciating the utte r universality of logical categories, their applicability to sensory, supersensory, and nonsensory realms ( the reahns of natural sciences, tnetaphysics, and mathematics) 1 4 Paradigmatic among logical categories are as well as to themselves. the transcendentals, beginning with "being," the "category of cate­ gories" that indicates a "logically-theoretical value," namely, that of objectivity, and thus signifies "the condition of the possibility of knowledge of an object at all . '' 1 5 I n Scotus 's appreciation of the universality of certain logical cate­ gories, particularly in his account of truth as a transcendental, Heideg­ ger also finds a clear anticipation of the subjective and reflexive turn on which transcendental logicians insist. For example, Scotus 's c haracteri­ zation of "being'' as the maximally knowable ( "maxime sci bile") and his claim that "the true'' is not something prior to the act of understanding mee t in advance the demand to take the 'judging subject" into account without confounding the con tent of what is judged truthfully with the passing reality of the subject ( FS 2 7 of, 2 7 5 , 2 8 5 , 402 ) . His rejection of an infinite regress of knowingjudgments is interpreted by Heidegger as having its basis in an act remarkably akin to what Husserl describes as a 1 4 In the habilitation, Heidegger i n ve s t iga te s Scotus's theory of categori es only t o the ex­

tent necessary to be able to determ i ne the pa rticu lar dom ain of m ean i ngs in his doc­ tri ne. But He i de gge r al so 1 nak e s a mo re fundamental qualification, based upon his rejection of attempts to determine categories in abs trac tion from ex p e r ie n ce of the mate ria l formed by th e m . Ado p ting Lask's co n ce p tion of categories as form s in t ri n s i cally oriented to particular mate rial ordered by them , H e i d e gge r e m p h a 5iLes the n ec­ essarily nondeductive, ostensive, and open-ended character of suc h an undertaking. From t his st a nd p oi n t , the very generality of Scotus's theory ( elaborated without the ben­ efit of the v a ri o u s newly de ve l o p ed sc iences) is at odds wi th the demand., of a m o d e r n theory of categories. Nevertheless, Heidegger defends ta k i n g S cotu s ' s gene ra l refl ec­ ti o n s as his poi n t of d e p arture with the observation that ge n e ral refl ectio n s are n eces­ sary if j ustice is to be d o n e to one's own way of p roce e d i ng M o reove r, despi te th e ad­ vances of transcendental p h i l o s o p h y con tempo rary theory of science h as n o t m oved beyond p ro b l e n1s at s u ch a gen�ral level ( FS 2 oof, 2 1 2 ff, 2 7 4f) . FS 2 1 5 ; nor doe� th e a na l ys is sto p at this po int, s i n ce the m e a n i n g of ' being' can be u n­ pac ked i n tenns o f other transce n d e n tals ( t he p redicates unu m, verum, and bonu m, wh ic h are convt> rtiblt> wi th it) . St>e PS 1 � � rr fo r I -I c i dcgge r's ren1 arks on agathon. "

"

­

"

"

.

,

1 .�

TH E L O G I C A L C O N C E PTI ON O F T R U T H

7

categorial intui tion (FS 2 7 3 ; see 2 . I 2 below) . Finally, for Scotus, as for most scholastic logicians, logical theory is essentially reflexive since its subject matter is composed of "second intentions." According to Scotus, anything that is entertained can be made an object of logical consider­ ation insofar as consideration shifts from what is initially entertained ( ''first intentions" ) to the way i t is entertained and the entertaining it­ self ( "second intentions") . Heidegger construes Scotus as introducing in th is way "the absolute hegemony of logical sense," anticipating in the process Lask's demand that logic be truly universal by determining not only constitutive categories for various regions of being but also reflex­ ive categories for the determination itself. 1 6 Echoing Lask 's demand for a "logic of philosophy," Heidegger declares: ''Logic itself requires its own categories. There must be a logic of logic" ( FS 2 88 ) . Though most of the habilitation pursues the problem of categories principally in the spirit of the transcendental logic of Lask and others, its concluding chapter, written after the habilitation was completed and added as a supplement, provides the problem with a new, translogical orientation. "One is unable to see logic and its problems in their true ligh t if the context out of which they are interpreted is not a translogi­ cal one . " 1 7 "Translogical" in this connection stands for a consideration that transcends not simply any formal or symbolic logic but especially any transcenden tal logic. An adequate theory of categories has not only to differentiate distinct regions and relate the categories to a judging subj ect (as Scotus begins to do, anticipating transcendental logicians i n the process ) , but also t o interpret the historical meaning that underlies the positing of values, including the logical value of the categories (FS 408£) . Philosophy must aim for a "breakthrough into the true actuality and actual truth "; orienting itself to the concept of a living, historical 16 FS 404ff; see FS 2 7 9 : "Everyth ing existing in the world of metaphysical, physical and mental obj ects , n1athe1natical, eve n logical objects is taken up into the realm of the 'se­ cunda inte n t io "' Lask's constitutive categories are conceived as forms for the material of sensory, supersensory, and nonsensory domains (or, equivalently, natural science, metaphysics, and mathematics) , whereas reflexive categories work, not with a form-ma­ terial matrix , but rathe r with a su�ject-o�ject one. The expanded l o gic is supposed to be a logic of philosophy; hence , the two parts of his Logi.k der Philosophie, "the logic of the categ o ri es of being" and " th e logic of the philosophical categories." For a discussion of Lask 's i nfluence on th e habilitation , see T. Kisiel, The Geneszs oj 'Being and TimR' ( Berkel ey: U niv. o f Cal i forni a Pres� . 1 993 ) , 2 5-3 7 . 1 7 FS 40 5 ; see Lask, Die Logik der Phi[o!;ofJhif, � 1 1 , for a similar view. O n the import of the supplement, see Claudius Strube, Zur VorgP�chichte der hermenrotisrhen Philo!;ophie (Wu rzburg: Konighausen & Neun1 an n , 1 99 3 ) , 7Hf; J . van B u ren , The Young Heideg,_f4er ( Bloom i ngt o n : Indian a l l n iv. P ress. 1 991 ) . H7- 1 1 2 . .

8

H E I D F. G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

spirit and guarding against exclusively restricting i tself to the study of structures, "epistemological logic" must make "logical sense a problem in its ontic meaning as well.'' Only in this way, Heidegger concludes, will a satisfactory answer be possible as to how an unreal, transcendent "sense" secures us the "true reality and objectivity" ( FS 4o6ff) . Though Heidegger offers a course on "Basic Questions of Logic" in the win ter semester of 1 9 1 6/ 1 7 , the new " translogical" orientation dominates his ensuing lec tures before he explici tly returns to the subject in the Marburg lectures of 1 92 5 / 2 6 (here dubbed the "logic lec­ tures" ) . Not that logic is ignored in those intervening years. In the spring of 1 9 1 9 , for example, after making a plea for replacing logic as a " theory of theories'' with a "non theore tical science , a genuinely orig­ inal science [Ur-wissenschaft] ," Heidegger takes Natorp (and Husserl) to task for "absolutizing logic" and sharply cri ticizes Rickert's attempt to construe logic as a "doctrine of value." 1 R Two years later, in the course of elaborating the task of defining philosophy, Heidegger challenges formal logi c 's idea of definition for not being sufficien tly formal, in other words, for being uncri tically oriented toward a specific material region of objects and way of grasping them. Mter charging that this ten­ dency is facili tated by the lack of the basic experience in which philos­ ophizing comes to be spoken ( '"zur Sprache ' kommt'' ) , Heidegger maintai ns that the want of that experience also prevents a radical prob­ lematizing of logic , with the resul t that "since the time of Aristotle phi­ losophy has not understood the problem of the authenti c logic.'' 1 9 This last remark, made in the winter semester o f 1 9 2 1 I 2 2 , is partic­ ularly prescient for Heidegger's subsequent development. His mention of an "authentic logic" signals a willingness , once again, to construe his own project as a kind of logic, albeit one that problematizes logic (for­ mal and transcendental ) . It is a willingness that he continues to display in his Marburg lectures. This willi ngness is j oined, moreove r, by a con­ viction that Aristo tle 's writings provide important lessons for under­ standing this authentic logic. Study of those wri ti ngs largely shapes Hei1 8 ZBP g6f, 1 07ff, 1 9 2-2 00. Heidegger makes si milar c ri ticisms of N a to rp 's conception of logic a year later in the lectures of th e summer semes ter of 1 9 2 0 ; see PM 1 o 2 f, 1 1 9 . On H eidegge r's t g t 6/ 1 7 offeri ng, see Kisiel , Geneszs, 5 5 3 · 1 9 PIA 2 of, t 6 2ff, 1 7 8 ; in these lec tures of 1 9 2 1 I 2 2 Hei degge r main tains t h a t even th e pri nciple of non c o n tradiction is said to be conditi o n e d by a "specific l ogic o f o rderi n g" ( PIA 1 6 3 f) , a poi n t he i te rates two years late r, claim ing that H usserl h as com e to the

same co n c l usion ( see EpF 2 5 5f, 3 1 6 ) ! I n lec tures of 1 9 2 0/ 2 1 Heidegge r fram es hb ac­ <'Ou n t of a phenome nology of the forrnal ( by way of formal i n dications ) in co n trast to fo rmal logic and torn1 al ontology ; L f. PRL 6 2 -6 � ; L 2 �� -

T H E L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

9

degger's research program and lectures for the next four years, leading up to the publication of Being and Ti1ne. Ove r that period, i ncluding his first two years at Marburg, when he is not lecturing on Aristotle 's logic and philosophy, he in troduces treatmen ts of Husserl and Plato with ex­ tensive discussions of Aristotle 's conceptions of logos and aletheia. 20 By itself, this brief survey does not explain what Heidegger means by "Logic. The Question of Truth , " the title he gives his Marburg lectures of 1 9 2 5/26. Providing such an explanation is one of the tasks of the present chapter. However, the survey se rves i ts purpose if it manages to show that consideration of logic, formal and transcendental, is never far from the cen ter of Heidegge r 's thinking from the outset. When Hei­ degge r fashions h is project as a philosophical "logic" in these Marburg lectures, he is using the term in a distinctive but not wholly unpre ce­ dented or unconven tional way. What Heidegger considers the specific difference in his philosophical logic is the way in which it raises the question of truth . Traditional philosophical reflections on truth gener­ ally presuppose that truth is one of two (or more ) possibilities of a sen­ tence or its equivalen t. In addition to ignoring the fact that truth an d falsity do not compete on a level playing field, while also foreclosing in­ quiry into truth as the preeminent possibility, a wholesale commi tmen t to this presupposi tion fails to question whether there is a measure of i ts own truth . Insofar as this sort o f presupposition preempts any serious entertaining of these questions , it may be dubbed "the logical preju­ dice . " Disabling the logical prejudice and all that it entails constitutes a considerable part of Heidegger's philosophical logic, his effort to in­ vestigate the senses of truth. The focus of the presen t chapter is the first leg of Heidegger's cri­ tique of the logi cal prejudice , as presented principally in the lectures entitled "Logic. The Question ofTruth . " The first section ( 1 . 1 ) ske tches Heidegger's idea of a philosophical logic and the sense in which the question of truth is central to it. Attention then shifts ( 1 . 2 ) to the logi­ cal prejudice , the presupposition that, in Heidegger's mind, forces the question of truth to be bracke ted as meaningless or superfl uous. The final section ( 1 . 3 ) is devoted to Heidegger's examination of the thinker 2 0 See EpF 6-4 1 ; PS 1 4-2 2 5 · I n the sutnnter of

1 9 2 2 Heidegger gives lectures not ye t pub­

lish ed but e n ti tled " Ph anontenologisc h e I n te rpretation ausgewahl te r Abh and lunge n d es Aristoteles L U O n to)ogie u n d Logi k." I n Marbu rg, l ec tures o n Hu�serl ( EpF) a n d o n Plato 's Sophist ( PS ) flank lecture� n o t ye t publ ished from t h e summer sem este r o f 1 9 2 4 enti tled " G ru n d hegrifle d e r aristotclisc h en Philo"oph ie . " B u t bo th E p F a n d P S begin wi th exte n sive treatm c n t':i of Aristotel ian tex ts.

H F I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E P T OF T R lT T H

10

who in his mind succeeded more than anyone else in cemen ting the logical prejudice in the minds of a generation at the outset of the twen­ tieth century: Hermann Lotze . 1 . 1 The Question of Truth and the Idea of a Philosophical Logic

In Heidegger's l ogic lectures, one looks in vain for any doctrine of for­ mal implication or inference, any treatn1en t of how or why - purely on the basis of their forms - one proposition follows another. The object of his lectures is, as already stressed, a ''philosophical " or "philosophiz­ ing logic" and what he understands by this has li ttle to do with the tra­ ditional logic taught in the universi ty curriculum . Indeed, one has to wonder what sort of instruction in logic Heidegger personally had that he could attack the discipline with such vitriol . The logic taugh t in the classroom is for him "a product of decline." What traditionally passes for instruction in logic is largely nothing more than a recoun ting of "a fixed and thoroughly milled stock" of formtllas, containing merely "the externalized, uprooted, and thereby hardened content" of the an­ cients' origin ally philosophical inquiry. Such a logic is "an abomination for actual philosophizing and unworthy of the university. " There is cer­ tainly nothing m ore worth striving for than learning to think, the al­ leged motive of logic; but one learns to think, Heidegger insists, not by acquiring some free-floating rules of thought, shorn of all con tent, or by attending a collegium logicum, but only by ac tive engagement with re­ ali ty or th rough con crete research of some specific scientific domain. 2 1 Yet if thinking is not learned in abstracto, but only in prac tical life or the concrete work of scien tific research, the question arises what sort of science a philosophical logic is supposed to be. If Heidegger is seri ously proposing the removal of formal logic from the university curriculum because such a logic claims to be purely formal , that is to say, to be un­ connected with any con tent, then the question presents itself: what is the obj ect of a "philosophical" logic supposed to be? Is there some mat­ ter or content that is to be regarded as the genuine dom ain of logic and thus the theme of a philosophizing logic? 2 1 L 1 �-I H. An

logic.

a n e c d o te n1ay ill ustrate

rece n t disrn ay a t u n iver" i ty i n � truc tion i n i n t h e late 1 9 70� ( if n1y rr1emo ry se rves tn e cor­

more

I n a l e c t u re at t h e APA c o n ve n t i o n

rcc t1 y ) M i c h ael Sc rin:· n u pbraided th ose of cl ai

u�

teac h i ng �yrn bo1 ic logic to u n d e rgradu­

n1 i n g t h a t , ] i ke te ac h i n g i n forntal logic , it is a was �e of t h e i r tim e and o u rs ( ex­ ( e pt t h at, ou trageou�Jy� we a re p a i d for doin g �o) . I n s tead , he argued, we s h ou l d he

ate� �

teac h i n g thetn colll ] Hl lc t p H >grat n m i ng.

T H E L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

11

Heidegger sketches an initial answer to these questions by turning to the Stoic differen tiation of logic, the science of the logos, from physics and ethics. Whereas physics is the science of the world ( the entire realm of what is on hand) and ethics the science of hutnan beings (insofar as they act) , logic 's theme is what announces and reveals the connection be tween the world and human beings as well as between one human being and another. ' Discoursing' or ' talking' ( Rede) , as ' logos' might be translated, accordingly designates something that is not simply juxta­ posed with physis or ethos, nor is it to be found among natural things and events and/ or among human dispositions and behaviors. By means of discourse ht1man beings exist precisely as human beings, both in the sense that discourse renders unthinkable an existence without one an­ other, and in the sense that it opens the world up to them. In th is way Heidegger anticipates his interpretation of discourse in Being and Time, where h e charac terizes it as an "existential constitution of the dis­ closedness of being-here . " "Discourse is thus a distinctive, universal fun­ damental stance of the human being towards his world and towards h imself" (SZ 1 6 1 ; L 1 -5 ) . Herein lies, Heidegger suggests , the original sense of ' logos, ' the proper subject matter for logic as a science of logos. In his Logic Lectures, as in Being and Time, Heidegger draws atten­ tion to the difference between discourse and language. ' Language ' ( Sprache) can stand for the conceptual content of linguistic science, the complete system of linguistic phenomena ( sounds, word-formations, and forms of possible word-combinations) . U tterances and the forma­ tion of language are thereby detach ed from th eir (intersubjectively) ex­ perienced, h istorical meanings. So understood, language falls among the objects properly investigated by the natural sciences. 22 ' Discourse ' ( Rede) , by contrast, always refers to a matter of talking with someone about something. Thinking as discoursing with oneself ­ Pl ato's formulation in the Theaetetus ( 1 8ge- 1 goa) - is, it should be noted , not excluded by this construal of discourse. Nevertheless, in ter­ subj ectivity ( " talking with one anoth er" : Miteinanderreden) is, in Hei­ degger's view, an essen tial determination of logos as the theme of a p hilosophical logic . In Being and Time this theme resurfaces with a spe­ c ia l accent in the discussion of "the everyday in terpretedness" to which 2 2 L 1 5 1 f; S Z t 6of; cf. FT L 3 5 8-36 1 . On a cognate disti n ction between 'fJarole ' and 'lan!(Ue, ' cf. Ferdinand rle Sa u��ure , Course de lin{fUistiquP g,Jnhale, secon d edi tion ( Paris: Payot, 1 9 2 2 ) , 3 0 - 3 2 , 3 R , 2 2 7 . H eid egg-e r ale rts hili stude n ts i n th i s con tex t that there is no spe­ c i fic a n cie n t G reek n atn e fo r l a n gu age ah� t retcted fro m rl i"cnn r�f· .

12

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

Dasein is "constan tly handed over" and from which it can "never extract itself. " 23 Yet, without denying the essen tially in tersubj ective character of the logos, Heidegger accords the "aboutn ess" of the logos, its revelatory char­ acter, a certain pri macy over the communicating community. The basic point seems to be that there would be no reason for people to speak to one another if they did not have something to say. The cen tral, over­ riding feature of discourse is the fact that what is talked about is un­ covered and dete rmined. 2 4 There are , to be sure , many other functions of discourse or talking (e.g. , one migh t talk in the sense of addressing, accusing, persuadin g, encouraging, protesting, excusing, and so on ) . One can certain ly talk in order to lie, conceal, or mislead. Yet these sorts of dissembling discourse (and presumably even those other forms of discourse as well ) presuppose that at bottom talking uncovers some­ thing, that the world opens itself up to us in and by means of discours e . Wi th these considerations, at the outset of the Logic Lectures, Heideg­ ger provides his students with an initial characterization of what he u n­ derstands by ' truth ' : "This un coveredness, that is to say, unconcealed­ ness of the entity we designate as truth ." 25 Soliloquy and confidential conversations, n o l ess than public utterances, take place because som e­ thing is uncovered and because further talking promises to reveal i t even more. 26 2 3 SZ 1 67 , t 6g. In th is connection H eidegger again iterates a theme from Husserl 's logic lectures in Freiburg; cf. ITL 359-36 1 . See Karl-Otto Apel, "Sinnkonstitution und Gel­ tungsfertigung: Heidegger und das Problem der Transzendentalphilosophie,n in Mar­ tin Heitkgger: lnnen- und Auj3ensirhten, ed. S. Blasche , W. Kohler, W. Kuhlmann , and P. Rohs (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkamp, 1 g8g ) , 1 40, t 68f. 24 I t is not that the revelatory character is something present in advance of the intersub­ jective character of discourse; rather the revelatory character is a condition for the in­ tersubjective , i n the sense of being both it� presupposition and it(\ telos. The intersubjective character is in a sense the proprium, the revelatory character the differentia specifica. That is to say, there is no revelatory charac ter without the intersu�jective char­ acter but only bec ause the revelatory character, in addi tio n to being the essen tial fea­ ture of discou rse , always en ables communication . This sort of account is not uncommon for Heidegger. A similar relation obtains, for example, between the ecstases of time. The future is the esse n tial feature of temporality, a lways enab1ing the alreadiness and p re­ senting (sources of past and present) . 2 5 L 7; cf. also 1 34; ApS 2 0 1 : 'Jede Bewahrheitung ist ein zutage, zur Klarheit der Selbst­ gebung Bringen eines Verborgenen." 26 There is more than a superficial resemblance between th is view of discourse and the Augustinian picture of a language primarily of names and descriptions, which Wittgen­ stein and Austin so effectively criticize ; PI 1 1 - 1 8 ; andJ. Austin , Philosophical Papers, sec­ ond edition (Oxfo rd: Oxford U niv. Press, 1 979 ) , oof 1 3 1 . While there is a fundam e n­ , tal affinity between discourse as a t u n danu� n tal exi�te n t i al and language a� a fonn of

T H E LO G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N O F T R U T H

From this initial in terpretation of discourse ( logos) , Heidegger con­ cludes that the "fu ndamental theme" of a philosophical logic ( science of discourse ) is the determination of what ' truth ' means. While each science concerns itself in its own way with truth , a philosophical logic has to explain how something opens itself up to "speakers and listen­ ers" in talking and communicating. The "basic task" of philosophical logic is the question of truth ( the inquiry into truth ) in this sense . As Heidegger puts it in the quotati on cited at the beginning of this chap­ ter: "Stric tly speaking, no other science than logic treats of truth as its theine." It hardly needs to be noted that Heidegger's determination of logic and its chief task, at least in the con nection just sketched , finds little res­ onance today. In an age when symbolic logic has become a fixture in the curriculum as part of a general education and the idea of an ideal­ istic or transcendental logic ( in contrast to a purely symbolic or con­ structivistic one) a historical curiosity, the claim that logic 's basic task is the question of truth appears preposterous, if not simply false . For some logicians it is not merely that the question of truth is not part of l ogic but rather that logic has no need of the concept of truth at all: "One can erect logic in its entirety without speaking of truth . " 27 Others con­ cede that logic presupposes some sort of use of ' truth' or, be tter, ' true ' and that investigations of this presupposition are meaningful. Yet it is not considered advisable to carry out these investigations under the rubric 'logic. ' Thus, the author of a typical introduction into logic writes: "Still, what ' true ' ultimately means, is n ot a problem of logic, but of epistemology. For logic ' true ' is ultimately an undefined basic con­ cept. " 28 An author of a text on the philosophy of logic acknowledges that it is crucial for logic "whe ther there is an objective concept of truth and, to be sure , primarily for singular sentences," but then adds that the question of its presuppositions is "a second-order, epistemological question . " 29 Nevertheless, at the dawn of the twentieth cen tury the question of life, Heidegger does hold out fo r the normativity, not of the ordinary use of language, but of disclosedness - not unlike certain aspects of Augustinian illum ination. 2 7 B. B. von Freytag-Loringhoff, Logik. Ihr System und ihr Verhiiltnis zur Logistik, second edi­ tion (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1 957 ) , 8g; also 70, 7 5 , 85-go, 1 7 5f. 8 A . Menne, E1njiihrung in die Logik, second edition ( Mu nich: Francke, 1 973 ) , 3 2f; G. 2 Frege, Schiftm zur Logik und Sprachphilosophie, ed. G. Gabriel (Hamburg: Meiner, 1 97 1 ) , 2 3 : "Was wah r sei , halte ich fur nicht erklarbar.'' 29 Thomas M. Seehohm, Phzlowphie der 1.-ogik (Freiburg: Alber, 1 984 ) , �}l ; cf. also 2 6-2 R , 112.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

truth was commonly construed as the cen tral question of a philosoph­ ical treatment of logic. The reason for this construal is not difficult to find. It emerges from the attempt to locate logic wi thin psychology or to set it off from empirical psychology. According to Heidegger, the ad­ van cements made by logicians in clarifying logical principles, despite the lack of a clear definition of logic, coincide wi th an "energetic shun­ ning" of psychologistn . 10 But efforts to give an adequate account of what ' truth ' means can be found on both sides of this issue. Thus, Christoph Sigwart, one of the chief exponents of psychologism , takes up th e question of truth in his logic text. 3 1 Both Gottlob Frege and Moritz Schlick justify their investigations of th e crite rion and nature of truth by noting that logic in general is possible only by virtue of the con­ cept of truth . 32 Even Alexander Pfander (who complains about the fre­ quen t confusion of logic and epistemology and puts great stock in be­ ing able to distingtiish logic, epistemology, and phenomenology) elucidates a "positive determination of truth" in the fifth chapter ( "The Judgment and Its Claim to Truth" ) of his logic text. 33 The question of truth also takes center stage in the conceptions of logic advanced at the outset of th e twentieth century by a diverse group of thinkers, broadly characterized as Neo-Kan tians, who adamantly rej ect the notion that either psychologism or a logical formalism should have the last word on logic. Instead they pursue a "transcendental ( pure , objective ) logic," as Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert put i t, or a "logic of the origin" as Hermann Cohen dubs his Logic ofPu-re Knowledge. 34 As noted at the outset of this chapter, the Neo-Kantian idea 30 FS 1 8 . The struggle with psychologism is, Heidegger adds, no "crackpo t notion of philosophers" ( Srhrulle der Philosophen) , but in this "age of psychology" extends to ethics

and aesthetics, pedagoh'Y and jurisprudence, li terature and art. 3 1 C. Sigwart, Logik, first book, fifth edition , e d . H. Meier ( Ttibinge n : Mohr, 1 9 24) , 32

3 1 9-34 1 . S chl i c k , "Das Wesen der vVahrheit," 3 3 ; G . Frege ,

M.

" D e r Gedan ke , ''

3 3 A. Pfander, Logzk (first edi tion, 1 9 2 0; Halle: N iemeyer, 1 9 2 9 ) ,

3of.

2 2 0 , 2 09-2 2 3 ;

Heideg­ up phenomenologi­

characterizes Pfander's work as "a traditional logic , cl e a n ed cally'' (L 2 8 ) . 34 W. Windelband, " D i e PrinLipien der Logik," Enzyklopiidie der phzlosophischen H-'i!isensrhaft, e d . W. vVindelband and A. Ruge (Tubingen : Mohr, 1 9 1 2 ) ; H . Ric kert, Der GeKenstand der f_:rkenntnis (Fre iburg: \Vagner, 1 892 ) and "Zwei vVege der E rke n n tn istheori e " ; Her­ m ann Coh e n , Logik dn- reinPn Erken ntni!i, third edition ( Berlin : Cassirer, 1 9 2 2 ) , 36. I n i­ tial ly heeding Otto Li ebm a n n 's call "back to Kan t ! " i n t he second half of the n ineteen th ce n tu ry - see his Kan t und seznP J·.:pigonen ( St u tt gart: Schober, 1 8 65) - were the likes of Friedrich Albert Lange and Alois Riehl. \tVh e n H eidegger begins his �tudies in Freiburg, h owever, !\: e o-Kan tian i s m is ch i e tly re p re s e n te d hy two schools: the Southwest School , com p osed ot \t\'indel ban d a l I I c i d d b c rg a n d R i c k e r t at Freiburg, and t h e M a rh n rg ge r

T H E LOGI C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

1 !J....

of a transcendental logic forms an important dimension of Heidegger's early thinking. It provides the focus of the body of his habilitation , and remnants of his initial endorsement of this idea can be detected in the Marburg lectures as well as his early lectures at Freiburg. More impor­ tantly, for present purposes, Neo-Kantians were perhaps even more em­ phatic than the thinkers so far mentioned in demanding that a gen­ uinely philosophical logic address the theme of truth or, what they took to be its equivalent, validity (Geltung) . What this means is perhaps best seen in the case of Emil Lask, for whose work Heidegger seems to have retained a high regard. Accord­ ing to Lask, "Kant's revolution izing achievement" is to have conceived logic, not merely in view of acts of thinking, but also in view of their con­ tent. As Kant hilnself explai ns, "general logic" is concerned with "merely the logical form . . . i . e . , the form of thinking in general"; by contrast, a "transcendental logic" is so named because it transcends this purely formal consideration and focuses on the laws of the under­ standing and reason "insofar - and only insofar - as they are related to obj ects a priori" ( B 79-8 2 ) . The import of Kant's Copernican revolu­ tion , as Lask construes it, is that the objectivity of objects, the being of beings, is oriented toward what is logically valid or, simply, the "truth " ( rather than vice versa) . Not objects or entities ( Seiendes) th emselves, it bears emphasizing, but their obj ectivity or being ( Sein) is, on Lask's view, a matter of logical value or validi ty. As a result, the age-old belief that reality or being is somehow independen t of or transcends though t and logic is undermined ( and with it any mimetic or correspondence theory of truth ) . The determination of this truth - of truth as being is the proper task of a philosophic logic (a Geltungslehre) ; indeed, this truth or Geltung is the very subject matter of philosophy insofar as it dis­ tinguishes itself - as it purportedly should - from natural science and metaphysics. "In the age of Kantianism ," Lask submits, it is accordingly necessary to speak of an "expansion of logic , " that is to say, of "a logic that gathers together the ' transcendental ' and the 'formal-logical ' problems into an overarching unity." 35 Yet the most powerful influence on Heidegger's conception of a School, made up of Cohen and Paul Natorp. See Hans-Lu dwig Ollig, Der 1Veukantianis­ mus (Stuttgart: Me tzler, 1 9 7 9 ) .

35 Emil Lask, J)if' /.,ehre vom Urteil, 1 -3 ; D i e

Logik der Philosophie, 1 5f, 2 3 , 29, 1 2 6- 1 34 ; Lask conceives h i� work as oppo�ed to " Ka n tianism ," but as a continuation of Kant's "revo­ lu tio n " ; see B 1 2 4f and S. Crowel l , " E m i l Lask: Alethi ology as O n tology, " Kant-Studien 87 ( 1 4g6) : 6q-8 8 .

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

philosophical logic and, indeed, i n many respects the model for it is to be found in Husserl 's logical investigations, not only the book by that name published in I goo/ o 1 , but also in logic lectures repeatedly given by Husser} since 1 9 1 7 in Freiburg - including the time when Heideg­ ger was his assistant. Heidegger's complicated relationship to Husserl is discussed in more detail in the next chapter. In the presen t context, however, it deserves mention that the question of truth is also a recur­ ren t theme of those lectures by Husser!, lectures that he characterizes as introductions to "transcenden tal logic," "phenomenological logic," "genetic logic ," and even "transcendental aesthetic": "the universal and pure science of logos as logos , thus . . . of truth as truth ," that exclude s "all judgmen tal kn owing" (ApS 2 _56, 2 9 5 ; FTL 3 5 1 ) . Underlying this sci­ ence is the notion that those accomplishments of thinking that come to the fore in traditional logic ( for example,judgments and inferences ) rest upon even more basic accomplishments and experiences. [ Consider] th e specific thinking that is an accomplishm ent erected at such a level

as

to be expressible th rough language and general words and

to deliver a science, a theory. It cannot possibly be understood by us un­ less we go back before this thinking, back to those very acts and accom­ plishmen ts that constitute the broadest part of our life. For, in its breadth , it is not only a pretheoretical , but also a pre linguistic part of our life and one such that, with each ass ertion [A ussage] , ceases to be in its original primitive unity. (FTL 3 73 )

Husserl thus sees the task o f a phenomenological logic as the clarifi­ cation of the very experiences in which the senses of th ings are fi rst consti tuted, thereby making possible th e accomplishments of logic al thinking. Heidegger's logic lectures stand in close agreement with this gene ral conception of the task of a philosophical logic . His aim is to expose the logical prejudice ( the notion that truth is exclusively the property of a proposi tion ) and to do so as a means of in troducing a prejudgmental conception of trc.th as the disclosedn ess of bei ng. At the same time , a considerable difference between Husser) and Heidegger also etnerges . While Husserl directs his atten tion primarily to the q u e sti o n of the way sense is provided or constituted , for Heidegger the primary question for a philosophical logic is the question of truth . Yet, however this dif­ fe re n ce is further determined , t h e similari ty in thei r conceptions of the task of a philosophical logi c , re l a tive to t h e i r con tem poraries , is u n -

T H F. LO G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N

O F TR UTH

mistakable. In the mid- 1 g2os both Husserl and Heidegger regard it as the task of a phenomenological logic to unearth the pretheoretical, to thematize the prethematic, yet in such a way that the prethematic is not lost in the process and yet the possibility of thematizing and theory in general (its own possibility included) is explained. Heidegger accord­ ingly takes it upon himself to work out the sort of understanding of truth that is presen t in advance of the truth of theoretical , scientific knowledge as well as practical or religious truth. "In other words, it is by no means settled at all which version of the ' true ' - the theoretical or the practical - is the original and genuine one" (L 1 1 ) . 1 . 2 Th e Logical Prejudice

From the outset Heidegger runs up against the logical prejudice of con­ ceiving truth primarily as a property of a proposition. This prejudice abets and is abetted by the notion that theory and scientific knowledge, as so many systematic sets of true assertions, form the endgame of phi­ losophy. Yet there are considerable variations in the sense and scope of the logical prejudice within the history of philosophy. Because Hei­ degger links the prej udice up with a definite conception of being, his strategy in the Marburg lectures of 1 9 2 5 and 1 9 25/ 2 6 is to unpack crit­ ically the views of three thinkers - Lotze, Husserl , and Aristotle - who expressly address this linkage. The way in which Heidegger comes to terms critically with these thinkers makes up the theme of the first three chapters of this study. But before Lotze 's contributions are examined, it may be useful to outline the general sense and persuasiveness of the logical prej udice.

I. 2 I Sense, justification, and Traditional Scope of the Log;ical Prejudice. The logical prejudice' stands for the tendency to conceive truth in terms of a specific sort of discourse, namely, in terms of claims, assertions, and j udgments, that are formed as indicative, declarative sentences. Loosely speaking, thoughts and opinions may be said to be true, but only inso­ far as they can be expressed as assertions and judgments. For those who cling to this "model of propositional truth ," "the predicates ' true , ' 'fals e , ' are paradigmatically attributes of sen tences, statements, claims, judgm ents, assertions, propositions, and the like." 36 36 Carl Friedri c h Ge thn1an n , "Heidegge rs Wahrheitskon zeption in seiner Marburger Vor­ lesungen ." in Marlin HeuieK,[;!e?·: Innen- und A ufJensichten, 1 1 r=:) ; see Wittgenstein . Trar:tatus

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N CEPT OF TRUTH

18

Etymology aside, a prej udice is not a j udgment in the normal sense of the term and thus also not the result of an inference. Nevertheless, there are at least th ree reasons why the logical prejudice appears not merely innocuous and plattsible , but self-evident. The first reason is provided by the apparent symmetry or bipolari ty of truth and falsity. If someone can take something to be true , then it can presumably also be taken to be false - and vice versa. Accordingly, the structure of what es­ tablishes itself as true must be i n herently such that it could also have turned out to be false . A second reason for the logical prej udice can be traced to the ap­ parent fact that truth and falsehood alike require, as Aristotle puts it, both "grasping togeth er and holdi ng apart'' two things ( or two aspects of a thing) , ac tions corresponding to the synth etic and analytic dimen­ sions of propositions. "It takes two to make a truth ," as Austin puts it with characteristic pithiness. 37 The sheer presentation or idea of an in­ dividual and simple thing is nei ther true nor false because it offers noth­ ing that can be simultaneously h eld together and apart. In a certain sense such a presentation is p resupposed not only by representation, but also by a differentiation of the act of presenting ( entertaining, imag­ ining, perceiving, etc . ) and what is correspondingly presented ( enter­ tained, imagined, perceived, etc . ) . The mere utteranc e of an individual word is accordingly neither true nor false unless, of course, it occurs in the framework of a lan­ guage game in which the word takes the place of a sentence. An indi­ vidual expression (a m o rpheme ) can be used to convey a judgment but, in order for it to be understood, th e con text or other indications must make clear that the expression implicates some plurality and thereby the requisite syn thetic and analytic dimensions ( the "holding together and apart" ) . Especially in the case of such single-word utter­ ances, the context must also be relied upon to determine that a judg­ ment (otherwise exp ressed in a declarative sentence in th e indicative Th e terms listed ( to wh ich 'belief' migh t be added ) are not any 1nore than the c o rr e s p o n ding German ter ms (Aunage, Behauptung, Satz, Urteil, Glaube) . But even when the re is considerable argu m e n t abou t t h e p ro p er .. truth­ bearer" (see, e.g. , Austin and Straw�on ) the other terms are typically understood rela­ tive to the p rivileged te rm , fo r wh ich truth is o n e pos�ibi li t:y, falsi ty another. For a sam­ pling, see A. J. Ayer, La nguage, Truth a nd /,ogir ( N ew York: Dover, 1 952 ) , 8 8 ; J . L. Austin , Philofiophiral Papers, 1 2 0 ; D. Davidson , In quirie.� in to Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1 99 1 ) , 34· The expression ' logical prejudice' accordingly exte n ds to all �uch theories of tru th . � 7 .J . L. Austi n , Philo50fJhzral J..�apr n, 1 � 1- 1 1 . 1 ; At·i�to tl c , 1\1Ptaphysics 1 0 2 7 b 1 gf. Logico-Philosophirus 4 . 06 3 .

synonyms

T H F. L O G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N O F T R U T H

mood) and not a n exhortation ( "Slab ! " ) , question ( "Slab? " ) , or excla­ mation ("Slab ! ! " ) is mean t. This last consideration leads to the third reason for the seeming plausibility of the logical prejudice . judgments are typically affirmed or said to be true in order to underscore a conviction about the state of af­ fairs specified by the judgment. In other words, saying that a judgment is true is very often a way of indicating that it has been confirmed and/ or can be confirmed . Thus researchers typically formulate their re­ sults , not in the form of a question or a demand , not in senten ces in the subjunctive or imperative mood, but in utterances and sen tences in th e indicative mood. In this way, Heidegger suggests, the sentence or proposition became "the simple, most universal , and at the same time the most original form of discourse" and the traditional determination of truth affixed itself to this form: "The truth of theoretically scientific knowing became the basic and original form of truth in general. " 38 So, too , in the traditional threefold division of logic into theories of con­ cepts, judgments, and inferences (syllogisms) , truth is principally treated within the doctrine of judgments. Likewise in the wri tings of modern philosophers, for example, Hobbes and Locke , Leibniz and Kant, truth is repeatedly identified as a true claim (propositio) . 39 Thus there is widespread agreement that the judgment ( assertion or propo­ sition ) is the site of truth , such that truth in the sense of an articulable sentence is the end of any possible analysis of truth . From the customary usage o f ' true ' and ' truth , ' it i s possible to fathom the depth of the logical prejudice or, if Heidegger is mistaken, its legitimacy and the absurdity of his attempt to contend with it. ' Truth ' is used to designate certain sentences ( "eternal truths" ) , knowledge of a true sentence ( "you can 't handle the truth " ) , or an entire set of true sen tences about some theme ( " tell us the truth about what happened that night" ) . The term ' true ' is also often employed to characterize 38 L 1 1 ; Sc h l i ck, " Das Wesen der Wahrheit," 9 5 f, 1 0 2 ; Frege, " Der Gedanke , " 3 5 ·

Hobbes, Opera philosophica I ( Lon d o n : Boh n , 1 8 g g ) , 3 1 : "Voces a u tern h ae veru m , Essa)' Concerning Human Understa nd­ ing, fo urth ed i ti o n , ed. P. H. N iddi tch ( Lo n d o n : Oxfo rd L1 n iv. P ress , 1 9 R7 ) , 5 74 : "Truth properly be l o ngs o n ly to P ropos i tions"; G. W. Leibn i L , Die philosophischen Schriften V, ed. C. J . Ge rh ard t ( H i ldesh e i m : Olms, t g6o) , 3 7 8 : " 1 1 es v ray que j ' ay attri bue aussi Ia ve r­ i te aux idee� en disan t q u e les idees so n t vrayes ou fausses; m ais al o rs j e I ' en te nds en ef­ fe t de Ia verite des propo c;; i tion s , qui affi rm e n t Ia poss i bili te de I ' obj e t de l ' i d e e " ; ibid . VI I , 1 go ; I . Ka n t, Kant '5 gr-sammelte Schrijtfn : Kant 5 ha ndschriftirher NarhlajJ, vol . �r Lo g i k ( Be rl i n : de G ruy t e r 1 �p 4 ) , 2 1 2 4 : "vVa h rh e i t u n d Fa l � c h e i t ist n u r in d e n U rth eil e n " ; ibid. 2 1 1 2 .

3 9 Se e T.

ve ritas, Ye ra p ropos itio, idem val e n t" ; ] . Loc k e , A n

,

20

H E I D EG G ER ' S

C O N C EPT O F T R U T H

some thing or state of affairs ( ' true heir, ' ' true love ' ) ; but this usage can be readily e xplained as remaining within the ambit of the logical prej­ udice. The assertion that a thing or state of affairs is true can be con­ strued as confirmation that it corresponds to what can be thought or asserted in a sentence (e.g. , "their true love" may be construed as an ab­ breviated way of saying " ' that they love one anoth er' is true" ) . Thus, the form of a declarative sentence in the indicative tnood ( or, in older ter­ mi nology, the form of a categorical j udgment) remains decisive. Given this usage , it is only natural to assume that truth takes the shape of a th eoretical assertion. It becomes self-evident - and that is the point of the logical prej udice - that truth , in the final analysis, is to be under­ stood in the sense of aj udgment that obtains or is valid ( L gf, 2 5 ) . Not surprisingly, several of Heidegger's contemporaries and imme­ diate predecessors are in complete accord on this point. Sigwart, for ex­ ample, m ai n tains: "Every practical deliberation about purposes and means comes to an end in judging, every instance of knowledge con­ sists in judging, every conviction comes to closure in jttdging. . . . Fur­ thermore , the j udgment can be an object of scientific investigation only insofar as it is articulated in a sentence ." 4° For Schlick the concepts of truth and judgin g are "indissolubly bound. " 41 The Marburg Neo-Kan­ tians, Coh e n and Natorp, regard judging as "the fundamental accom­ plishmen t of thinking. " Cohen not only characterizes his logic of pure knowledge as a "logic ofjudgment'' but even declares the basic form of the judgment to be "the basic form of being. " 42 In the course of repu­ diating the attempt to construe logic in the sense of the "mental activ­ ity" of thi n king rather than in the sense of "what is though t, purely as such," Natorp observes: "The title of logic i tself leads to this since logos is the thought-content of the assertion, or the assertion itself in regard to i ts thinkable content. '' 43 Even Bruno Bauch decries "the erroneous view of 'judgment-free knowing"' and insists that, outside the logical judgmen t, "there is no truth . " 44 Heidegger's predecessors and contemporaries agreed overwhelm­ ingly that truth is to be understood as a judgment, assertion , or the like , 40 S i gwa rt Logik, g, see also 1 7 . 4 1 Sc hlick, "Das Wesen der vVahrh e i t , " 3 1 ; �ee Frege , '' Der Gedanke , '' 3 3 ff and ,

Logik, 40. 4 2 Cohen , J)ie l.ogik

der

rrinen t'rken ntni�,

Schriften zur

47.

43 Nato rp , Dzf logischen Grundlagen dn f?Xaktfn 1Yatunvissmschajten, th i rd e d i tion ( Leip7ig: Te ubner, 1 9 2 3 ) , :� 6 .

44 B. Bauc h , Wahrhnl, Wert und H 'i, klit hkeil

( Leipzig: Mein er,

1

923) , 1 76

a n rl

1 5 3f

T H E L OG I C A L C O N C E PTI O N O F TR U T H

21

with some placing the emphasis on the act of j udging, others on what is j udged. The preponderance of this view helps explain why "the ques­ tion of truth" is apposite for lectures like Heidegger's with the simple title "logic," rather than "epistemology" or "transcendental logic. " Not only in the traditional formal logic ( conveyed in Heidegger's view, as noted earlier, in an utterly unphilosophical fashion ) , but even in works of philosophical logic among his contemporaries, regardless of whe ther they construe logic "empirically'' or "transcendentally" ( "epis­ temologically" ) , the logical prejudice is presupposed . To say that it is presupposed is not, of course, to say that it is not argued for. Neverthe­ less, in the last analysis those who pursue a "philosophical logic" and thus seriously address the question of truth find themselves in agree­ ment with traditional logic's assumption that the truth is to be equated with the obtaining, validity, or correctness of a theoretical sentence. By contrast, Heidegger demands of a philosophical logic that it subject this presupposi tion i tself to scrutiny. Precisely because formal logic takes truth to be a property of a theoretical proposition, a philosophical logic is faced with the task of putting this sense of truth in question . In the process, as Heidegger puts it in a way particularly pregnant not only for his fundamental on tology but also for the subsequent turn in this think­ ing, "the question of the originally and genuinely truing [Wahren] , that is to say, the primary being of truth " becomes "the most fundamen tal matter for logic" ( L 1 2 ) . But what exactly does it mean to inquire into that so-called truing or, as Heidegger also puts it, "the primary being of truth"? Although he finds the beginning of an answer to this question in Husserl 's phe­ nomenological approach to logic, his own questioning also develops by way of a critical confron tation with Husserl 's phenomenology. This con­ frontation is never more prominent or explicit than in the two Marburg lectures ( 1 9 2 5 and 1 9 2 5/ 2 6 ) that, together with Being and Time, pro­ vide the principal backdrop for the present study. Indeed, because Hei­ degger's analysis of the concept of truth in both lectures takes the form of a critical interpretation of his predecessors, these two lectures pro­ vide a perfect complement to the discussion of truth in Being and Time. In the lectures in the summer of 1 9 2 5 Heidegger treats Husserl 's phe­ nom enology at length as a means of making the case for the necessi ty of radicalizing phenomenology in the direction of fundamental ontol­ ogy. The lectures on "Logic" o f the following semester take up what Hei­ degger considers the hi sto rical l y most importan t conceptions of truth , thos e found i n th e writi ngs of Lotze , Husse r) , and .A ristotle . The ai m of ..

22

H E I DEGGE R ' S

C O N C E PT

OF

TRUTH

the exercise is to dismantle these concepts and, in the process, demon­ strate how the question of truth leads back to the question of time ( hence, the earlier reference to " truing" ) . That particular sequence of conceptions of truth ( to which, as noted in the I ntroduc tion, the first three chapters of the present study correspond) is by no tneans acci­ den tal . With each criticism of each successive concepti o n , Heidegger attempt� to strip away one more layer of the logical prej ttdice and the "forgottenness of being" invariably bound up with it. The aim is to ex­ pose the prejudice ( the notion that truth is exclusively the property of a propositio n) and thereby open up the possibility of an inquiry into the above-mentioned "primary being of the truth ," a p rej udgmental conception of truth as the disclosedness of being. This path begins with an overview of "the present state of philo­ sophical logic, " as it emerged from the confrontation with psycholo­ gism. One might well ask what texts, other than Husserl 's Logical Inves­ tigations, Heidegger has in mind when he speaks of a phi losophical logic among his contemporaries. In the course of the logic l e c tures he men­ tions Balzano's Doctrine of Science as well as the psychologistically ori­ ented works by Lipps and Erdmann . 45 He also draws attention to a few works written after the turn of the century that largely d epend upon Husserl 's investigations: Rickert's "Two Paths of Epistemology" ( 1 909) , Lask's Logic ofPhilosophy ( 1 9 1 1 ) and Doctrine ofjudgment ( 1 9 1 2 ) , Driesch 's Doctrine of Order ( 1 9 2 3 ) , and PHinder's Logic ( 1 920) . 46 How­ ever, Heidegger particularly recommends four works from the nine­ teenth century that, in his opinion, are among "the most important" : Mill 's System of Deductive and Inductive Logic ( 1 8 4 3 ) and Sigwart's Logic ( 1 87 3 ) , two works that together created the fottndati o n for psycholo­ gism; Hertnann Lotze 's 1 874 Logic, and Wilhelm Sch uppe 's "mostly forgotten" Epistemological I_Jogic ( 1 87 8 ) . 4 7 45 L 38-4 3 ; sec T. Lipps, "Die Aufgabe der Erkenntnistheorie,'' Ph ilosophische Monatshejie 1 6 ( 1 88o) : _r:) 2 9-5 39, and Grundziige der /Jogik ( Hanlburg/ LeipLig: \toss , 1 89 3 ) ; B. Erd­ mann, !Jogik (Halle: Niemeyer, 1 8 9 2 ) ; while conceding that Bolzano 's influence upon Husser} is as great as that of Lotze, Heidegger claims that H usse r} overestin-.ated Balzano's con tribution ; see L 86f, 1 30 n. 5; FS 2 7 Rf; and Bolzan o, Wi.H enschaft!;/ehre, vol . 1 ( Sul7bach: Sei del, 1 8�3 7 ) , 8 3 . 46 The onJy one of these texts not already mentioned in th e notes is H. Driesch 's Ord­ nung!;/Rhre. f:in Sy!;tem des nirh lmetaphyszsrhm Teile� dPT Phi[o!;jJhie (Je na: Diederichs, 1 92 3 ) ; see, too, h is Die Logik al\ A ufgabe. F:in f? Studie iiber die Beziehu ng zwi!;rhen Phanomrn ologie und Logik (Tiibingen : Moh r, 1 9 1 3 ) . 47 W. Schuppe, l:!.,rken ntnistheoretische Logik ( Bonn: Weber, d �7 8 ) , and Grundrijl drr F.rkennt­ n istheorie und /Jogik, second edition ( Berlin: \Viedman n , 1 9.1 o) ; see L 2 8 , 5 1 .

23

T H E LOG I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F TRUTH

In the logic lectures themselves Heidegger focuses only on Lotze 's Logic. 48 This work above all, in his view, has put its stamp on ''the pres­ ent state of philosophical logic" by articulating the ontological presup­ position of the logical prejudice and, indeed, doing so hand in hand with an interpretation of the Platonic doctrine of ideas. However, be­ fore turni ng to Heidegger's critical interpretation of Lotze 's concept of truth, we would be remiss if we were to pass over without comment an obvious lacuna in the account he gives his students of "the present state of philosophical logic . " I. 2 2

The Logical Prejudice and the Question of Truth in the Post-}regean 1ra­ dition of Philosophy of Logic. If current historians of the philosophy of logic were as�ed to identify the most important works during the half century from 1 87 5 to 1 92 5 , most would unhesitatingly cite Frege 's Be­ griffsschrift ( 1 8 79) and oth er essays, th e Principia Mathematica ( 1 9 1 o- 1 9 1 3 ) by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, and Wittgenstein 's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ( 1 92 1 ) . Indeed, as n oted earlier, Frege and Russell are among the authors reviewed by Heideg­ ger in his second published article, "Recent Research in Logic. " 49 Yet in Heidegger's logic lectures in the fall of 1 9 2 5 he does not recotnmend a single one of these path breaking works to his students. This fact alone suffices to give notice of certain limitations in his grasp of the state of logic and the philosophy of logic at the time. Indeed, Heidegger can be justly faulted for not adequately appreciating, not only the way in which formalization or symbolization can be required by a certain sort of philosophical thinking, but also the way in which they can in turn de­ mand and evoke th inking with a radicality that rivals that of Heidegger's own deliberations. Moreover, in his effort to dismantle the logical prej­ udice, Heidegger takes no account of analyses of th e use of the predi­ cate ' true ' in writings of Frege and Russell , despite his acquaintance with th em . 48 Wh i l e Heidegger uses M isch 's e d i t i o n of LotLe 's Logik, the work first came out i n 1 R 7 4 ,

49

wi th a second edi tion i n t 88o, p u b li s h ed by H i rzel i n Leipzig each time. Ne u ere Fo rschunge n uber Logi k," in FS 1 7-44; H e id egger p r a ises Frege 's and Rus­ "

sell 's works ( 2 0, 4 2 ) but also charges t h a t a " ' l o g istic ' o r sym bo lic l ogic has inherent limit� prec isely "where the cond itions of th eir possibility l i e" and that the app l ica ti on of math ematical s y m b ols and c o ncepts "obsc ures the m e a n i n gs and shifts of m e a n i n g of j u dgm e nts ( 4 1 ff) . Si mil arly, in hi� dissertation , he notes that th e "form al charac ter" of m athem atical logic keeps it fron1 t he vi tal problems of the sen�e of th e j udgm e n t, i ts str uctu re and epistemic mea n i ng"; cf. F S 1 7 4 n . 8 . '

"

"

'"

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

24

Yet from the fact that Heidegger ignores the Fregean tradition, it cannot be inferred - at least not without furth e r ado - that his criticisms of the conception of truth , represen ted by the logical prej udice, do not apply to this tradition ( indeed, particularly if members of this tradition also consider truth indefinable or inexplicable) . On the contrary, a brief review of various prominent theories of truth , each heralded in Frege 's writings, provides ample prima facie evidence of the hold of the l ogical prejudice on this tradition . 5° 1 . 2 2 1 T H E D E B A T E A B O U T T R U T H - B E A R E R S . Consider the de­ bate about the so-called truth-bearers. The debate is roote d in attempts to determine what corresponds to the subj ec t (p) of the sentence 'P is true . ' Pioneeri ng in this connection is Frege's essay "The Thought. " Frege attributes truth or falsity to the thought, which h e construes as the sense of a sentence. He thereby distinguishes the thought not only from the sen tence but also from both the rec ognition ( " the judging" ) and the announcement of a j udgment ( " th e claiming" ) . Kneale and others argue in a similar way that the "proposition " is the bearer of

so G. Frege, D er Gedanke," 3 3ff; Nachgelassene Schriften, ed. G. Gabrie l et al. ( Hamburg: "

Meiner, 1 g6g) , 1 39 . In this brief overview of the post-Fregean tradition , Frege's own nu­ anced view of the truth should not be overlooked, especially since i t m ay seem a t odd� with typical formulations of the l ogi c a l p rej u di c e After all, as noted e a r l i e r ( n . 2 8 ) , he considers truth fu n d a m e n ta l ly i nexplicable. Furthermore , in Frege ' s view, it is not strictly speakin g a pro pos i t i o n but " thought" that is true or false. This th o u g ht is to be distinguished from thinking it, re c o gn izin g its truth ( i .e.,judging) , a n d announcing the j udgment ( maintaining it) . See Frege , "Der Ged an k e so: "Beim Den ken erzeugen wir nicht die Gedanken , sondern fassen wir sie. Denn das, was ich Gedanken gen an n t habe, steht ja i m e ngsten Z us am m e n ha ng mit der Wahrheit. Was ich a ls wahr anerkenne, von dem urteile ich, daB es wahr sei gan z un abh a ngi g vo n me i n e r An e rke nn u ng der Wa h rhe i t , auc h unabha n gi g davon, ob ich d a ran denke." Moreover, the truth of a thought c ann o t be exp re ss ed in the form of a sem a n tic pre d i c a te or, more prec ise ly, through as cri p ti o n of a pr e d i c a te to a though t or p r opo s i ti o n Acc o rdi ngly he distin­ guishes the j udgtnent-stroke, i ndicative of the t ru t h of a th o ugh t, fro1n a predicate or concept, insisting that it cannot be used to express a fu n c ti o n ( as they can ) . \Vhereas fu nc tio n s designate objects or, more precisely, m a p them onto truth-values, the judg­ men t-stroke d esig na te s n o t h i n g , b u t i n s te ad m a in ta i ns s o m e thi ng See Frege, "Fu n k­ tio n und Begriff," in Fu nktion, Begriff, Bedeutung, fou rth e ditio n , ed. Gi"tn ther Patzig ( Gottingen: Va n de n h o e c k & Ru p rech t , 1 975 ) , 32 n . 7· Howeve r, while bel o ng ing to nei­ ther the i n n e r nor th e "ou ter" world , though ts have the c h ara c te r of a p ro pos i ti o n e.g. , the Py t h agorean theorem ( Lehrsatz) . Frege, "Der Gedanke," 5 2 : "Erst der durch die Zeitbestimmung e rga n z te und in j e d er Hi n s i ch t vollstandige Satz drii ck t einen Gedanken aus . '' Hence , fo r all t h e n u an ces attach i n g to Fr�ge's c o n c e pt i on of t ru t h the proposition re mains , in the fi n al analysi s, i ts si te . .

,"

.

"

"

,

."

"

.

,

T H F. LOG I C A L C O N C E PT I ON OF

TRUTH

truth . 5 1 In a cognate way in his habilitation, Heidegger himself refers to the copula as "the authentic bearer of truth" (FS 2 70) . The conception of a "thought" or "proposition" (cf. Balzano's "proposition in itself" ) as the truth-bearer is very controversial . Austin and Strawson agree with Frege that the truth-bearer is to be distin­ guished from the sentence. But both regard "statements" and "asser­ tions'' that refer to the historica l event of the use of a sentence as the genuine truth-bearers. 52 Quine argues, to the con trary, that the sen­ tence or, better, the "eternal sentence" should be regarded as the sole truth-bearer. 53 As far as the present investigation is concerned, the details of this de­ bate are less importan t than the fact that such a "bearer" or "carrier" of truth is sought at all. The concern about the correct determination of the truth-bearer indicates that, despite all the differences among the parties to this debate, the truth continues to be understood primarily in terms of an assertion or something said precisely by means of an as­ sertion or judgment. The question of truth necessarily becomes a ques­ tion of the employment of ' true , ' functioning as a predicate. However the subject of this predicate - the reference of p in 'p is true ' - is to be further specified, it is first determined as or in concert with an assertion or a judgment. 1 . 2 2 2 R E D U N D A N C Y , S E M A N T I C , A N D P R A G M A T I C T H E O R I E S OF T R U T H . Not only the question of the truth-bearer, but also the diverse theories of truth within the Fregean tradition testify that it is deeply rooted in the logical prejudice. The redundancy theory of truth, also called ( in the shadows of Tarski's work) the "disquotational account of truth , " can be traced back to Frege 's insight that the predicate ' true ' is in a certain sense superfluous. That is to say, it adds nothing to the thought or proposi tional sense of a claim ( Behauptungssatz) : "The form of the claim is thus actually that with which we assert the truth and for that we do not need the word ' true . ' Indeed, we can say that even where Kneale, "Proposi tions and Truth in Natural Languages," Mind 8 1 ( 1 97 2 ) : 2 38f; see, too , W. Becker, Wahrheit und sprachliche Handlung (Freiburg: Alber, 1 988) , 1 2 5f. Austin , Philosophical Papers, 1 1 9ff; P. F. Strawson, Logico-lingu istic Papers (London: Methuen, 1 97 1 ) , 1 70-249; see , too,J. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1 969) , 2 9 . W. V. 0. Quine, Word and Object ( Cambridge, Mass. : M IT Press, 1 g6o) , 1 9 1 - 1 95; The Pur­ suit of Truth, se c o n d edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1 992 ) , 77ff; fo r a review of these debates, see Haack, Phzlosophy of Logics, 7 9-8 3 .

5 1 W. 52

53

HEI DEGGER ' s

C O N C E PT

O F T R U TH

we employ the following manner of expression, 'it is true that . . . , ' it is actually the form of the claim that is the essential thing. " 54 A cleare r ex­ ample of the logical prejudice than the redundancy theory of truth is scarcely imaginable ( though Heidegger would agree with its propo­ nents that any attempt to regard truth as a property is misguided ) . The truth is so intimately and narrowly identified wi th an assertion (propo­ sition,judgment) that the truth of the assertion says nothing more than the assertion itself. Even seman tic theories of truth take their beari ngs from the logical prejudice. 55 While adding nothing to the sense (or meaning) of a sen­ tence , the predicate ' true ' has a semantic function in that it points not to the sense but to the reference of a sentence. The sentence 'p is true' says that p has a determinate relation to some existing state of affairs or, equivalently, that p has a defini te truth-value. Heralding this conception of truth , Frege explains the relation of the though t to the truth as that of sense to referen ce: "It can never be a matter for us of the reference of the sentence alone; yet the mere thought also does not yield any knowledge; rather it is first yielded by the thought together with its ref­ erence, that is to say, its truth-value. Judging can be construed as pro­ gressing from a thought to its truth-value." 56 Understanding the sense of a sentence thus does not mean being acquainted wi th its truth but rather knowing what must be the case if the sentence is true and if it is .f:J 4 Go ttlob Frege , Nar:hgelassene Srhriften, second edition, e d . H . Hermes , F. Kambartel, and

F. Kaulbac h ( Hamburg: Meiner, 1 g83 ) , 1 40; see ibid . , 2 1 1 : "Im Grun d e besagt . . . der Satz 'Es ist wahr, daB 2 eine Primzahl ist' nicht mehr als der Satz '2 ist eine Primzahl, "' and 2 7 2 : "Das Wort ' wahr' hat einen Sinn , d er zum Si n n d es gan1en Satzes , indem es als Pradikat vorkommt, nicht� bei tragt." See, too, Frege, Schriften zur Logik, 1 3 9. For elab­ oration of the redun d ance the ory, see F. Ramsey, "Facts an d Pro p ositions ( 1 92 7 ) , " in Fo u ndations of Mathematio (New York: H arcourt, Brace & Co . , 1 93 1 ) , 1 3 8- 1 5 5 . See also

Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, 88; Austi n , Philosophical PafJers, 1 2 6- 1 2 9 ; P. F. Strawson ,

"Truth ," ProrePdings of thf Arislotelzan Soriet)' 24 ( 1 950) : 1 2 9- 1 5 6; Quine, Pursuit of Truth, 8ofT. 55 Becker, "'ahrheit und sprachliche 1-landlung, 3 8-45 ; see \Vi ttgenstei n , Tractatus logiro-philo­ sophirus 4 .0 2 4 , 4 .06 3 ; R. Carn a p , Introdur tion to Semant ics and Formalization ofLogic (Cam­ bridge , Mass . : Harvard Un iv. Press , t g6 8 ) , 2 2 ; Davidson, In quiries in to Trut h a nd ln ter­ prp/ation, 3 7 -5 4 ; Pal1l Horwich , Truth ( Oxford: Blackwel l , 1 990) ; R. L. Kirkh am, Theories of Tru th : A Critical Introduction ( Cam bridge , Mass . : MIT, 1 992 ) . 56 Frege , '' C ber Si n n und Be d eutung," i n Fun k ti on , Begriff, Bedeutu ng, 5o; Frege , "Die Vernein ung," in /,of!:ir;rhe Un tersuchungen, 63 : 'Jahre mfthevoller C n tersuchungen ki>n­ nen 1wisc hen dem Fassen des Gedan kens und d er Ancrke n n u n g seiner Wah rheit liege n . " Frege, Srh rifiPn zur Logik, 88: "Wenn ein Satz ttbe rhaupt eine Bedeu tung hat, so ist diese en twcder d as Wahre oder das Fabche." See Becker, Wahrheit u nd sprachlidzf 1-la ndlung. 5 �>,f: a1 1d M . D u m m ett, Truth and Othn- En igmas ( Cam bridge , M ass . : Harvard { 1 n iv. Pre�s, 1 9 7 H ) , • f. 1 1 7 f.

T H E L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N

OF

T R U T II

false. The truth itself is accordingly identified with the sen tence 's ref­ erence. One thereby moves, in j udging, from the sense to the reference ( truth ) of a sentence. Those bent on working out the semantics of truth characteristically attempt to distinguish rigorously between truth and verification ( in other words , between semantic and epistem ological or psychological questions regarding the employment of the predicate ' true ' ) :rJ7 Yet this very distin ction can obviously be questioned, leading to a third conception of truth , the so-calle d pragmatic theory. 58 Once again Frege 's essays are an important source , though this approach already surface s in Peirce 's writings. Thus, just as the concept of reality for Peirce "essentially involves the notion of a community, " the conception of truth involves " the whole communion of minds." 59 So, too, Frege explains that "by objectivi ty" he does "not unders tand an indepen­ dence from reason"; "to answer the question what things are inde­ penden t of reason means to j udge wi thout judging, to wash the fur wi thout ge tting it we t." 60 This reflexive or pragmatic aspect helps Frege to round out his insight into the redundancy of employing of the predicate ' true ' : "In order to set forth something as true , we need no particular predicate , but only the assertive force with which we an­ nounce the sen tence. " 6 1 This insigh t into the way in which the concept of truth is bound, if not to reason, at least to the speaker ( "the assertive force" ) of the sen­ tence leads to the performative and pragmatic theories of truth. Ac­ cording to these theories, the meaning of the sen tence ' It is true that p' (or 'p is true ' ) can be broken down into a propositional conten t ( ' that p' ) and a performative part that is to be understood in illocutionary fashion. The 'It is true ' part of the sentence is not supe rfluous even if it adds nothing to the propositional content itself but instead merely gives notice of the relation between the speaker and this content. In other words, the assertion p by itself is merely a claim; 'p is true ' is , on the other hand, the warranting or guaranteei ng of this claim . Thus, 57 Rudolf Carna p , " \Vah rh e i t u nd Bewahrung, " Wahrheitsthemien, ed. G. Ski rbekk ( F ra nk­ fu rt am M a i n : S uh rka n1 p , 1 9 7 7 ) , 94· 58 Becker, 1-'�/ahrhPit und spra ch liche Han dlung, 2 2-26. 5 9 Charle� S. Pe irc e , Collected Papers uf Ch arles Sandn-s Peirre, ed. C . Hartshorne and P. Weiss ( Can1bridge , � ass . : H a n·a rd U n i v. Press , 1 9 6 5 ) , vol . 5: 3 1 1 , and Selected Writing5, ed. Philip P. Wiener ( New Yo rk : D over, t gfi6 ) , � 3 · 6o Freg e , Die Gru ndlnge der A rithmPtik. t..'in P lu[:;isrh-mathematis( hf UntPnuchung iiher d.en Begriff der Zah l ( D a r n 1 st a dt : V\'i .;,sen�ch aftl i c h e Buc hge �ellsc h aft, 1 g6 1 ) , 3 6 . 61 Frcge, s( hrijlfn z u r I.. o.�ik, I � 9 ·

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

Becker explains: "While the understanding of the assertion entails a knowledge that a claim as to the truth of what is asse rted has been made, the predicate ' true ' indicates explicitly that this claim can be justified, that is to say, it can be shown to be intersubjectively warranted.'' 62 In certain respects these performative and pragmatic theories of truth come much closer to Heidegger's approach to the question of truth than do redundancy and semantic conceptions. 63 For th e most part, however, the pragmatic turn is no less oriented than those other theories of truth toward the asse rtion orjudgmen t as the terminus a quo et ad quem for the determination of truth . For the pragmatic concern is wi th the stance take n toward a proposition . Moreover, even if a prag­ matic theory of truth renounces the idea of timeless truths ( veritates aeternae) and deems any criteria for determining what is true a matter of perspective , historical context, interests, and so forth , this pragmatic construal of the truth remains derivative of something more basic in Heidegger's eyes; what he variously calls "the primary being of truth" (as noted in the previous sec tion ) or "disclosedness." This last remark can be nothing more than a promissory note at this point. Indeed, it is highly precipitous, usheri ng in central considera­ tions of the following investigation, requiring extensive argumen t. Nor has justice been done in the preceding paragraphs to pragmatic theo­ ries of truth or any of the more traditional , Fregean approaches to the question of truth briefly enumerated. The aim of this exercise , however, has been merely to indicate that, despite Heidegger's ignorance of and even disdain for the nuances of this tradition, there remains reason to think that its representatives betray commitments to some version of the logical prej udice. 64 For that reason, too , Heidegger's atti tude to­ ward this tradition should not be chalked up merely to obtuseness. Whether the predicate ' true ' is regarded as something superfluous or as something that refers to the reference of a sentence and/ or to the relation of the speaker of the sentence to the sentence, Heidegger's for­ mulation of the logical prejudice remains on target: for this tradition, too, "the genuine 'site ' of truth is the judgme nt" (SZ 2 2 6 ) . 6 2 Becker, Wa h rhfil u n d sprrl(hlirhe 1-la ndlu ng, 2 9.

63 Cf. HP 1 oo- 1 07 ; Ge th m an n , H ei d e gg e rs Wah rheitskon zeption ," 1 1 5 f; Ape I , "Sinn kon­ "

stitution und (;eltung�fe rtigung," J 3 2- 1 �� 5 · G4 Here i n , too, likely l i e� part of the answer - at least from l-leidegger's van tage poi nt - to Kusc h 's query "why Freg e was i g n o re d i n the an tipsyc hologistic crusade in Gennany'' ; cf. \1arti n Kusc h , P�ychologis m: A CnsP Study in the Soriology of Philosophical KnowlPdge ( New

Yo rk: Ro u d� d�t" ,

1

�J Y:} ) ,

1

� f.

T H E L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

1 .3 Truth

as

29

Validity a n d the Forms of Actuality

The influence exercised by Husser! 's Logical Investigations on certain cir­ cles at the outse t of the twen tieth century can be attributed principally to the criticism of psychologism in the "Prolegomena" to this work. Yet the success of th ese arguments was somewhat dubious since the deci­ sive discoveries of the subsequent logical investigations were barely ap­ preciated or even viewed as a lapse back into psychologism . Thus, some thinkers applauded the arguments of the "Prolegomena" but did not regard them as particularly novel. Such was, for example, the view of the Marburg School, which considered itself completely clear about the difference between the objective character of the logos and any sort of "psychologism": I f Kant and th en also Cohen in his initial writings did not anxiously avoid the language of psychology, the chasm separating the transcendental from the psychological viewpoin t was nevertheless c onstantly empha­ sized. Thus, in this connection we could only gladly applaud Husser} 's nice elaborations (in the first volume of the Logical Investigations) but there was not much at all that we could learn from them. 65

This attitude toward Husserl 's investigations is strenously contested by Heidegger, not si mply because it fundamentally mistakes their import, but above all because it just as mistakenly presumes to have settled the problem of the relation between psychology and logic. Heidegger ac­ cordingly attempts to unearth the historical reasons for this attitude and its kneejerk approval of Husserl 's arguments against psychologism . One important root of the attitude is to be found, he contends, in the concept of validity ( Geltung) that emerged from Lotze 's interpretation of Plato and discussion of the forms of actuality. As has already been noted, the influence of Lotze 's Logic and, in par­ ticular, the concept of validity that is its legacy can scarcely be overesti­ mated in Heidegger's view. 66 Even in his early essay "Recent Research 65 Natorp, "Kant und die Marburger Schule," Kant-Studien 1 7 ( 1 9 1 3 ) : 1 g8 ; see Cohen , Die Logik der reznen Erkenntnis, 56; Sigwart, Logik, 2 3 n . Heidegger cites Natorp 's claim re­ peatedly; cf. FS 1 9 , 63f; L 5 1 ; P 3 1 . 66 Hermann Lotze ( 1 8 1 7- 1 88 1 ) received his higher degrees in medicine and philosophy at the University of Leipzig before beginn i ng an influential career as Herbart 's succes­ sor at the U n iversity of Gt>ttingen , where he lectured and publ ished on the philosophy of nature , aesthetics, logic, psychology, and metaphysics from 1 844 to 1 8� 1 . Cf. Carl Stumpf, "Ztun Gedachtnis Lotzes ," Kant-Studi.en 2 2 ( 1 g 1 H ) : 1 -26; and George San­ tayana, Lotze '!1 System of Philosophy, e d . P. G. Kuntz ( Bloomington : L'niversi ty of Indiana Press, 1 97 1 ) .

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT O F TR U T H

on Logic," Heidegger notes that Lotze 's Logic, while overtaken in cer­ tain respects, "can still be regarded as the fundamental book of mod­ ern logic" ( GA 1 : 2 3 n. g ) . In his logic lectures he explains why. Hei­ degger attributes Lotze 's influence to the fact that Lotze's account of the concept of validity cemen t'i the logical prejudice in the minds of a generation of thinkers by providing i t with an on tological framework . In this connection it is significant that Heidegger discusses the Lotzean concept of validi ty with his students bifore confronting Husserl 's concep t of truth . This sequence does not mean that Heidegger takes Husserl 's phenomenological determination of truth to be merely another ver­ sion of the traditional concept of trttth . As is explained in greater de­ tail in the next chapter, H usserl 's explanation of truth in terms of a ful­ filling or realizing in tui tion is regarded by Heidegger as a genuin e breakthrough i n the determination of truth. Nevertheless, Heidegger insists that the logical prej udice , precisely as i t is refined and reinforced by Lotze 's ontological account of the concept of validi ty, preven ts Husser! from appreciating the depth of his own discoveries.

I. 3 I The Criticism of Psycholog;ism and Heidegger's Ambivalence. "If we are honest, none of us today can say what psychology is" ( L 35 ) . With this sentence at the outset of his discussi on of psychologism, Heidegger points to the ambiguous character of the concept of psychology. The ambiguity, he suggests, can be traced bac k to the fact that ancients con­ ducted their study of psychology, not as a separate philosophical disci­ pline, but in terms of two different disciplines, ethics and zoology: "As science of bios, psychology belongs to ethics; as the science of zoe, it be­ longs to physics" (L 34£) . This quandary over the content and nature of psychology led to attempts to unify the sciences or give one priority over the other. Nor is there any less c onfusion, Heidegger submits, i n the present, a s evidenced by the fact that people talk o f 'psychology' i n two senses. Some construe psychology as the explanation o f mental phenomena on the basis of causal laws; others as the way of under­ standing what i t means to be alive i n the sense of existing. 67 In the Pro67 Wilheln1 vVundt, " Uber die Defin i tion der Psychologi e , " PhilosophischP Studim 1 2 : 1 -6 6 ,

t>sp.

1 2 : " Psych ologie ist eine en1pi rische Wissenschaft . . . . "; and "Logisch e Streitfra­ gen , '' Viertfljahrssrhrift fiir wis!;m5rhajllichf Philosophie 6 ( 1 H H 2 ) : 34 5 : "Di e Natu rgese tt­ lichkeit fii h rt von selbst 1u bel) t i m m ten Normen , die nun als Regeln des ric h t ige n Denke ns al1 gemei n en psychologisch e n Sto rungen, die das Dcnken einem u n richtige n machen , gege n (tbertreten " ; cf. F S 89 n . 2 7 . Wilhelm Dilth ey, " ldeen iiber hesc h rc i b e n d e und zergli edernde Psychologie" ( 1 894) , in GesammRltP Srhriften, vol . f> , ed. (;eorg M i sc h ( Stu ttgart: Tt> u b l l l l t' t , 1 9 7 4 ) , 1 3 0- �40; c f. 1 ,l.j : " � a t u r c rklaren w i r, d a "i

T H E LO G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N OF T R U T H

legomena Lectures Heidegger cites Wilhelm Wundt's (;rundrij3 der phy­ siologischen Psychologie ( Basic Outline of Physiological Psychology) as a prime example of the first conception and Wilhelm Dilthey's "Ein­ leitung in die Geisteswissenschaften " ( Introduction to the Humanities) as a main source of the latter. 58 This ambiguity, which Heidegger re­ gards as a "sign of contemporary existence 's disintegration from within,'' will be a key to his confrontation with HusserI (L 3 6 ) . At the outset of his logic lectures, however, Heidegge r merely introduces this ambiguity without further comment. Nonetheless, he thereby signals his objection to both sides of the debate over psychologism , those who speak in favor of and those who speak against psychology's role in logic . 69 The meaning of the contention is by no means obvious if nei­ ther side of the debate is clear about its point of departure. Of course , not knowing what psychology is did not prevent some from propounding and others from challenging the thesis that logic is a part or branch of psychology. For the justification of the thesis there is a familiar argument readily available: Logic is concerned with the cor­ rectness of thinking and thus the laws proper to thinking. Where are the laws of thinking to be procured? Obviously from thinking itself! From the fact that thinking is "a mental occurrence " or "mental phe­ nome na" and the latter are part of the subject matter of psychology, i t follows that logic is " a psychological disciplin e" (FS 2 of; L 37£) . Versions of this inference can be found, Heidegger notes (following Husse rl ) , in John Stuart Mill 's An Examination ofSir William Hamilton s Philosophy and Theodor Lipps 's Grundzuge der Logik. 70 What the inference more pre­ cisely means depends upon the respective conception of psychology. Heidegger notes how, for example , the rules for correct thinking ( in­ cluding the principle of noncontradiction ) are understood by Mill as Psychische verstehen wir.'' For Heidegger's initial engagement with psychologism , see his second publication , noted above, and his dissertation DiP LP-hre vom Urteil im Psycho­ logismus: Ezn kritisrh-p(nitiver BP.itrag zur Logik, which exam ines the theories of Wilhelm Wundt, Hei n rich Maier, Franz Brentano, Anton M arty, and Theodor Lipps ( FS 59- 1 8 8) . For a review of the sociology behind th e psych ologism controversy, see Kusc h 's useful P!Jychologi�m. 68 P 1 5 , 1 gf. While conceding that both "psycho physics" and "empirical psychology" are part of psychology, Wundt argues that it should be unde rstood p rimarily as "experi­ mental psyc hol ogy." 6g Heidegger may h ave hims�lf in mind ( recall his disse rtation and endorsement of Frege 's a n tipsychologism) . Hus'ierl 's own suggestions of a rapprochement between logic and psychology sh ould also n o t be overlooked ; c f. LU I !)8. 7o Heidegger c i te s L U I 7 �H and 5 2 , hu t th e passages from M i l l and Lipps that he mentions a n=- to hP fo n n rl n n T . l r I 5 1 .

' H E I D EG G E R S C O N C E PT O F TRUTH

"generalizations from facts," both mental and physical, and by Lipps, Christoph Sigwart, and Benno Erdmann as "the natural laws of think­ ing" that can be traced back to the nature of the mind, in the sense not of an absolute , but of a hypothetical "uniformity of the constitution of our nature and species. "7 1 As th is last remark m akes clear, psychologism amounts to a kind of anth ropologism, an observation that, once again, is made by Husser! and merely iterated in the logic l ectures by Heideg­ ger. As might be expected from the lectures, Heidegger's exposition of Husse rl 's critique of psychologism is somewhat truncated but nonethe­ less effective for his thematic and pedagogical purposes. 72 He boils the critique down to two basic and, in the end, interdependen t objections. The effort to construe logic as a branch of psychology is faulted for its underlying inconsistency and fundamental oversights. Psychologistic theories, Heidegger contends, are self-defeati ng because they are the­ ories that undermine the very possibility of theory. The operative as­ sumption of this first criticism, as Heidegger observes, is that a theory is supposed to present a necessary, that is, justified combination of true sentences and that one and the same sentence can not be both true and false - for example, true for one person or group and false for another. ( This presumption is related to Husserl 's very conception of the nature and purpose of logical investigations, a conception initially accepted in good measure by Heidegger himself, as noted earlier. ) If the rules of correct thinking are traced back to some mental condi tion or predis­ position , be it that of an individual or the species, these rules are valid only for that mental state and only as long as their validity is identifiable in instances of that men tal state. So construed, the rules of thinking enj oy merely a relative validity that excludes any necessary justification or theoretical conception (L 43ff; LU I 1 1 2 £) . 7 1 L 39-43 ; cf. Th eodor Lipps, " D i e Aufgabe de r Erke n ntnisth eorie und die Wun d t 'sc h e Logik," Philosophiscllf Monatsh�fte I t) ( 1 �8o ) : 5 3of: " [ D ] ie Rege l n , n a c h d e n e n 1nan ,·e r­ fah ren muH ,

urn

verfa h ren tn u B ,

ri ch tig tun

so

lU

7\l

den ke n , s i n d nichts ande res a)s Rege l n , nach de nen man

den ke n , wi e es die Eige nart des Denken�, �ei ne be�iondt>rt'

(�esetzm aBigkei t , ve rlangt, ktt rzer ausgedriiCkt, sie si n d iden tisch m i t den Naturgese tl­ en des Denke n s . " '-"''hile acknowl edging that Li pps n1 oved beyond th is early " n aturali�­

by H uss e r! , H e i degge r c h a rges i n h i s d i �­ to gro u nd l o gica l theory i n psyc hology by c o n s t r u i n g th e 1o g ical j udg-ment to l i e i n a mental ac t ( recogn i tion ) ; cf. FS 1 2 5 f , 1 4 8f,

tic-real ist i c '' co n c e p tion

'iO

sharply c ritic it.ed

sert.ation th at Li pps co n ti n ued essence of th e

1 5 7[, and L U I 5 2 f, 1 3 7 f.

7 2 For an ove rvi ew of l-J usserl 's argum e n ts and th e i r ro ots in Frege , �ee Kusc h , Ps),rhologism, 4 1 - 6� L

T H E LOGI C A L C O N C E PT I O N OF TRUTH

33

This objection to psychologism is hardly convincing, sin ce it pro­ ceeds from a specific theory of theories that, in effect, begs the ques­ tion. It bears recalling that Heidegger claims, as early as his dissertation , that no positive proof can be mounted against psychologism ; it can be refuted only by indicating its "relativistic consequences" (FS 1 65 ) . It is by no means obvious that only a combination of true sentences, estab­ lished with rigorous necessity, qualifies as a theory. Ordinary usage and, indeed , some established usage of the term provide ample warrant for dubbing a "theory" any systetn of generalizations capable of explaining a factual connection with some degree of probability. At the same time, for all its prima facie plausibility, this riposte can itself be regarded as question-begging. If it does not presume that the conditions of a theory can be determined wi thout regard for the object of the theory, then it supposes that the subject matter of logical th eory is as much a matter of factual expe rience as the uses of the te rm ' the­ ory' are. Husserl 's second obj ection to psychologism takes it to task pre­ cisely for misconstruing or overlooking the subject matter of logic ( the very obj ection applied by Heidegge r to psychologistic theories of the judgment in h is dissertation ) . The import of Husse rl 's second objection is, in other words, that the object of logic (including the establishme nt of the laws of inference) does, indeed, demand the theoretical rigor­ ousness supposed by the initial objection. The first objection is, as Hei­ degger puts it, the one "based most on prin ciple," but the second pos­ sesses "a definite trenchancy" (L 45 ) . Heidegger sums up the arguments making up Husserl 's second, sub­ stantive objection as follows. In its attempt to establish logical principles on the basis of men tal facts, psychologism confuses: 1 what is thought ( the states of affairs meant in the judgmen ts) with

thinking (judgments as mental occurren ces) ; 2 logical n ecessi ty with real , causal dependency; 3 ideal validi ty with inductive hypothesis; and 4 apodictic with factual certain ty. In sum , the essence of psychologism is a confusion of "real mental be­ ing wi th the ideal being of laws" ( L 53 ) . The "basic mistake" underly­ ing this confusion on the part of psychologism is its obliviousness to an o ntological difference: "Th e fu n damental failing of psychologism lies ultim ately in overlooking the difference of a basic diversity in the being o f the en tity, ( L s o) .

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

34

What is overlooked by psychologism is the fundamental difference between being real and being ideal. 'Truth ' stands not for something real in the sense of some mental happening or positing, but rathe r something ideal : "the said a s such - the proposition" ( L 54) . The rea­ son that this on to logical difference is overlooked is "a naturalistic atti­ tude" or "the dominance of naturalism ," according to which everythi n g i s experienced and interpreted as a reality of nature (L 49f; FS t g ) . The appreciation , by contrast, of the fundamental difference between a truth and an eve n t, the ideal being of a proposition and the real bei n g o f judging, goes back to a distinction worked out by Plato between a persisting idea and transient variations of its concrete realization in s e n­ sory objects. Thus, an identical propositional content is meant in a po­ ten tially endless series of instances and despite changing and even ar­ bitrary judgings of it. Fully in accord with this Platonic sense , Husser} writes: "Truth is an idea, the individual instance of which in an evident judgment is an ac­ tual experience" ( LU I 1 90 ) . This formulation is ambiguous since ' i n­ dividual instance ' can be understood in the sense of what is judged o r the judging act. Overlooking this ambiguity, Husser! construed the idea as the genus for the judging acts or, in other words, "the truth as th e ideal correlate of the fleeting subjective cogni tive act. " While the judg­ ing act is "a fleeting experience ," the meaning of the assertion is "a valid unity in itself" ( Geltungseinheit in sick) (LU I 2 2 9; LU II/ 1 43£) . Sho rtly after the publication of the Logical Investigations, however, Husserl gave up this conception of the i ndividual instance in terms of the judging act. 7 3 Neverth eless, this reference to Plato 's doctrine of ideas, toge ther with the confusion of what is judged with the ac t ofj udging, points to a more immediate source of the conception of truth as an ideal bei ng. Not only for Husserl, but for many of his con temporaries, this concep­ tion was simply self-evident and, indeed, so patently obvious that, H ei­ degger suggests, it helps explain why H usserl 's critic ism of psych olo7 �-3 L 5 8-6 2 ; cf. Gethn1an n , " Hei degge rs \NahrheitskonLe p tion,"

1 o8f. Geth man n does n ot

take into acco u n t tha t H e id egge r twice etnphasizes that H uss e r] gaYe up this basi c nl is­

take . Hei degge r's cri tical confron tation with H u s s e r ] accordi ng}} is n o t centered on this poin t. Geth m an n

also

i� o f the \'i e\v th at H eidegge r trace� H usserl 's rnistak e , not to a

confu�ion of co n t e nt and act, bu t ra th e r to an a ttempt to con s t r ue the ( p ragm a t i c ) re­ la t ion of th e j udgmen t'� conte n t to the j udgi ng act as a ( sen1anti c ) rel ation of a ge nus t o a spe c i es . B u t Heid egger's d iscussion of the c on ten t and act ofj u dgi ng d o e � n o t i rn­

a whol esale ren u n ciation of t h e ge nus-spec i es d i s t i ncqon . H e rn erely mainta i ns that "the ' u ni versal ' as conte n t of th e judgm e n t - the sense - specifies i tself only to t h i s a n d t h a t se nse, u evt> r ro a( b " ( L G 1 ) . ply

TH E LOGI CA L CONC EPTI ON OF TRUTH

35

gism was so roundly - and uncritically - applauded. But, then , what ac­ counts for the apparent obviousness of this conception of truth? If one looks for the historical roots of this self-certain ty, one "chief root" is un­ mistakable: Lotze 's interpre tation of Plato 's doc trine of ideas and a con­ cept sketched in line wi th this interpretation: the concept of validity ( Geltung) . I.3 2

The Roots of the Criticism of Psychologism: Lotze s Concept of Validity. Lotze 's concept of validity cements the logical prejudice in the out­ look of a generation of philosophically minded logicians. Th e longtime Gottingen professor's far-reaching influence, proceeding hand in hand wi th his interpretation of Plato 's doctrine of ideas, had been appreci­ ated long before Heidegger's discussion of it. 74 Bridging the two halves of nineteenth-century academic philosophy in Germany, Lotze coun ted among his studen ts Frege , Carl Stumpf ( Husserl 's Doktorvater) , Josiah Royce, Georg Muller (an early experimental psychologist) , and the founders of the two major schools of Neo-Kantianism: Wilhelm Windelband and Herman n Cohen . 75 In the Logical Investigations Husser! speaks of Lotze 's "decisive influence" upon him; in 1 9 1 1 Lask observes that "Lotze 's development of the sphere of validity has shown the way for contemporary philosophical researc h. " 76 Three years later Heinrich Rickert's essay ''On Logical and Ethical Validity" appears, as does The Problem of Validity by his studen t Arthur Liebert, to mention only two of the many studies devoted at that time to the theme of va­ lidity (Geltung) . Via the philosophical projects ofWindelband and Rick­ ert, Lotze 's doc trine of validity becomes a philosophy of value in gen­ eral , as the concept of validity is joined toge ther with the three basic values - the true, the good , and the beautiful - that are supposed to cor­ respond to Kan t's three Critiques. In the essay mentioned above, Rick­ ert argues that value is the object of knowledge in the sense that, by judging ("the genuine , basic form of knowing" ) , one "recognizes some­ thing that obtains [gilt] timelessly. " This argument is also to be found zu den P roblen1en der Gegenwart," 7.-eitsrhriftfur Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 1 50 ( 1 9 1 3 ) : 1 7f; A. Liebert, Das Problem d�r Geltung, second edition ( Leipzig: Meiner, 1 9 20) , 4 · 75 See Richard Falkenberg, Hermann Lotze, Enter Teil: Das Leben und die En tsteh u ng der Schriften nach den Brzefen ( Stu t tgart: From m a n n , t go 1 ) , 1 o6ff; Fri tL Bamberger, Unter­ s u ch u ngm zur Entstehung df'J �Vertproblem \ in der Phi los op h ie des 1 9 . ja h rh u n der ts (Halle: N ieme yer, 1 9 2 4 ) , 40-9 1 . 76 LU I 2 2 7 ; Lask, LoK�k dn- Philosophie, 1 2 .

74 Richard Falken berg, "Hermann Lotze: sein Verhaltnis z u Ka n t und Hegel und

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

in "Two Paths o f Epistemology" ( I gog) , where h e distinguishes the "science of being" from the "pure science of valtte , " the problem of wh ich is "only th e validi ty [Geltung] of theoretical values." 77 "The prob­ lem of philosophy is th e validity of axioms," Windelband declares. 78 In conformity wi th the tack taken in Windelband 's Introduction to Philoso­ phy, Liebert in The Problem of Validity distinguishes psychological and logical series of validity, "two self-enclosed, self-grounded formation s o f validity, that can b e derived neither from one ano ther nor from any h igher principle superordinate to them . " In deliberate opposition to Dilthey (as well as pragmatism, Vaih inger, and Bergson ) , Liebert em­ phasizes the theoretical viewpoin t of logical validity and "its superior­ ity even to everything that is designated as life." Th us, Liebert declares his program: " The Logos of validity and validity of the Logos, the Logos as validity and validity as the Logos - that is what must b e proven, must be shown . " 79 In connection with this legacy of the Lotzean conception of validity, Bruno Bauch writes (a few years before Heidegger's logic lectures) : "Through Lotze the concept of validity has been c o nceived as the fun­ damental concept not only of philosophy but of all science and all knowledge . " 80 Nor should Heidegger's own endorsement of this use of the term i n his dissertation and habilitation be overlooked. Comment­ ing upon Scotus's understanding of the copula insofar as it establishe s a unity between the elements o f ajudgment, Heidegger observes: "And, of course, ' est ' does not mean ' existing, ' being actual after the manner of sensory and supersensory objects. What is meant instead is the manner of actuality ('esse verum ') , for which we have available to us today thefortunate 7 7 Rickert, Der Gegenstand der Erken ntnis, 5 7 , and "Zwei Wege der Erkenntnistheorie," 2 0 7 ,

esp . 2 I o: "Nur der Wert, der vollkom men in sich ruht, der als solcher ganz unabhan gig ist von j eder Bezi ehung auf ein Sei n und vollends auf ein Subjekt, an das er sich we n­ det, ist der transcendente Gege nstand: das Wese n des Transcendenten geht ganz auf i n seiner unbedingter Geltung. '' For m o re o n Rickert's importance to Heidegger's early developmen t, see Strube, Zur Vorgesrhiclzte, 1 5-24. 7 8 W. Windelban d, "Kritische oder gene tische Methode?" ( I 8 8 3 ) , Praludien, fifth , e x­ panded edition (Tubinge n : Mohr, I 9 1 5 ) , vol . 1 , p. 30; vol . 2 , p. 1 o8 ; Einleitung in dzr> Philosophie ( Tubi nge n : Mohr, 1 9 1 4 ) , 2 I 1 f; cf. ZBP 3 1 ff. 7 9 Liebert, J)as Problem der Geltung, 1 6f. On the wide-ranging significance of the concept o f validity, see also Leo Ssalagoff, "Vom Begriff des Geltens i n der modernen Logi k," Zeitsrhrift fiir Phii-Dsophie und philosophische Kritik 1 43 ( 1 9 1 1 ) : 1 4 3 , 1 47f; and F. Miinch , Erlebnzs und Geltu ng, eine sy!> tematisrhe Untersuchung zur Transzr>ndnztalphilosophie als Weltan­ srhauung ( B erli n : Reu ther & Re ichard , 1 9 1 3 ) . Ho Bauch, Wahrheit, Wn-t und Wirklirhkeit, 36; see also I , I I , 4 : G e l tu n g und Gii l ti gkeit" a n d I , III, 1 : "Wah rheit, Sac hve rhal t u n c.l Ge l tu n g . " Sec , too , LV II/ 1 43f. "

T H E L O G I C A L C O N C E P TIO N O F T R U T H

37

expression 'to be valid ' [Gelten]."RI It is accordingly not surprising to read Heidegge r a decade later remarking to his students that "validity . . . has become as it were the magic word for logic today. " But it must also be made clear why this magic word also is at bottom, he adds, "a ball of confusion , helplessness, and dogmatism" ( L 7 9 ) . But first, an explanation is in orde r for translating the magic word here as 'validity. ' Along wi th the corresponding verb ' gelten ' and adjec­ tive 'gii ltig, ' ' Geltung has a rich history of uses in German, rangi ng from expressions of commercial exchange and religious atonement to ex­ pressions of acceptance, righ tness, and even decisiveness, for example , "my dollar is worth (gilt) twenty-six cents"; "what you don 't min t, you think does not count (gelte) "; "no prophet is accepted (gilt) in his own land"; "a law is in force (in Geltung) ." 82 This wide range of uses perhaps explains the magic of the term for transcendental logicians. In any case , Kluge 's etymological dic tionary (which Heidegger used) indicates that the verb initially meant ' to be of value ' (ist wert) but now signifies ' to be valid' ( ist gii ltig) . R3 In logic texts and studies of logic by Heidegge r's predecessors, the verb and adjective are predicated of concepts, j udg­ ments, inductive inferences, tnodes of syllogisms, and so-called laws of thinking. This usage is plainly wider than that of 'valid' and 'validity' in FS 2 6 g ; 1 70: "Lotze has found the decisive designation for it in our Germ an language: next to a ' that is ' there is a ' that is valid. " ' See the opening section of the concluding chapter of Heidegger's dissertation, "§ 1 Logischer Gegenstand und Geltung," wh ich he relates back to Lotze (FS 1 66- 1 70) . Heidegger later admits that his habilitation em­ ployed Lotze 's distinctions; cf. L 64. For Heidegger's remarks on "the philosophy of value," see L 8 2-8 5 . 8 2 Etymologically linked t o the term fo r money ( Geld) , ' Geltung' and its cognates are often used in a commercial sense to indicate an equivalence or value (Goethe 2 : 267 : "sechs und zwanzig groschen gilt mein Thaler") or a figurative use that borrows from the com­ merical use (Goethe: "Was ihr nich t miinzt, das, mei n t ihr, gelte nicht") . Currency and things like currency that are recognized or accepted everywhere are said to be valid, to be worth something, to have a value (gelten) . Th ere are related, religious uses (com­ pe nsation , atonement, sacrifice, or penance) and an important j uridical use ( ein Gesetz ist in Geltung) ; cf. Matthew 1 3 :57: "Ein Prophet gilt n i rgend we niger als in seinem Vater­ lande und im eigenen Hause"; Luther: "da sie horete n, es giilde nich t anbetens oder opferns. " ' f:S gilt' can also signify 'it's right' in the sense of a quotidian as well as a fate­ ful, decisive moment; cf. Sch iller, Kabale und Liebe, I I , 5: "Es ist n i cht wah nsinn, was aus m i r redt>t . . . entschlusz in dem geltenden augenblick." For these and many other exam­ ples, see Jacob and Wi lhelm Grim m , Deutjches Worterbuch, vol . 5, revised by R. Hilde­ brand and H. Wunderlich ( M u n i c h : Deutsch er Taschenbuch Verlag, 1 9 84 ) , 3°66-3 099· 83 Kl u g e , r:t_vnologi�rhes Wortrrh uch dn- deutsrhen ,,prachf', twe n ty-th i rd, expanded edition , ed . El mar Se e b o l d ( Be rl i n : de Gruyter, I 99F) ) , 3 I o: "Die h e u t i ge Bedeutung [von 'gel ten ' ] fu h r t i"• ber ' i "t wer t ' 1 u ' ist �i' d tig. "' 81

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT

0 1-' T R U T H

con temporary Anglo-American discussions of formal logic, where these terms are generally reserved for designati ng a relation be tween two or more statements that is supposed to form an argument or inference . 8 4 For this reason , translating ' Geltung as 'validity' can be misleading. However, the terms 'valid ' and "validity' in English are oth e rwise used as broadly as 'giiltig and ' Geltung' in German, often signifyi ng a sense of value (with which the English terms are etymologically linked) . 85 Nor does there appear to be a more suitable translatio n . O ther possi­ bilities would be certain uses of the terms ' hold, ' 'count, ' and 'obtain ' i n the sense of 'prevail ' or ' matter. ' While these terms are adequate translations of the verb ' gelten, ' one of them - 'obtain ' - is perfectly suited as a translation for another term (bestehen) that is central to Lotze 's ontology. While the verbs ' hold' and 'count' in this connection are unobjectionable, the corresponding nouns, if they are usable in this manner at all , retain little of the valence that is supposed to be conveyed by ' Geltung. ' 86 In short, 'validity ' is not perfect but seems to be the most sui table translation of ' Geltung. ' For Heidegger the decisive p assages in Lotze 's Log;ic are the first two chapters of the third and last book ("On Knowing ( Me thodology) " ) . The i nterpretation of Plato, so i mportan t for an entire generation of philosophers, is to be found i n the second chapter, enti tled "The World of ldeas." 87 However, the first chapter ( " O n Skepticism " ) should not be C. Sa l m o n , Logic (Englewood Cliffs, N J . : Prentice-Hall, 1 963 ) , 1 8 : " Validity i s a p rop­ erty of arguments, wh ic h are groups of s tatements, not of in dividual s ta tem ents. Truth, on the other h a n d , is a p ro per ty of individual sta tements, not of argu1n e n ts . " W. V. 0 . Quine, Methods of Logic, 46: "In a wo rd, i m p l i c a t i o n is val i d i ty o f th e c o n d i ti o n al . " See , however, Aye r, Language, Truth, and Logic, 8 7 : "For i t is easy to see that t h e purp ose of a ' theory of truth ' is s i m pl y to describe the c riteria by which the val i dity of various kinds o f pro po s i ti on s is de termi ned." 85 S h a ke s p e a re , Hamlet, III, i i , 1 98- t gg: "Purpose is but th e sl ave to mem orie;/ Of vi o l e n t Bi rth , but poor validitie. " 86 Roderick Chisholm. Theory of Knowledge, se c o nd edition (Engl ewood Cliffs , 1\: :J . : P re n ­ tice-Hall, 1 97 7 ) , 88: "A p ro p o s i ti on , we 1nay say, is trW' if and o n ly if it obtains . '' \t\'hi k i t may b e ap p rop ri a te to s pe a k o f a p ro p os i t i o n "obtaini ng" o r t o say that a n axiom "holds , " tal k of the " ob tai n i n g " o r " h o ldin g" it�e lf is awkward . The d i ffi c u l ty, of course . is fi nding s u i ta bl y i l l uminati n g co;ynonytns fo r ' true' and ' truth , ' syno nyn1 s that w o u l d tran slate "gelten" and " Gel t u n g . '' 8 7 Ac c o rdi n g to Liebert, Lotze 's i n te rp r e ta ti on of the P la ton ic doctri n e of i deas i n fl ue n c ed Hennan n Cohen , Paul Natorp , Nicolai Hartm an n , Bruno Bau c h , Karl VorHinder, and Wilhe l m Windelband; c-f. Liebe rt, Da fi Problem dn- Geltung, 205 n. 1 . In certain respect�. even H ei d e gg e r 's own late r, crit i c a l i n terpre tati ons of Pl a�o 's d o c t r i n e of t r u t h reflect a

84

LotLean readin g of Plato.

T H F. L O G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N O F T R U T H

39

overlooked, since the essen tial elemen ts of Lotze 's epistemology be­ come evident there in the course of his attempt to mount a method­ ological refutation of skepticism . In that first chapter Lotze undertakes "to uncover the intrinsic un­ tenability of th at wondrous worry about whether, in the end, everything may be in itself different from what it must seem to us in accord with the necessity of thinki ng." He argues that the question itself is fraudu­ lent si nce any decision regarding it "presupposes the recognition of the competence of th inki ng." Moreover, the question dubiously presup­ poses as well "that our knowledge is determined to mirror a world of things." In order to deconstruct this presupposition , Lotze attempts to show "that nothing else but the connection of our representations with one another can constitute the object of our investigations" (Lotze

48gff) . Heidegger's exposition of Lotze 's treatment of skepticism is not com­ pletely fai thful . AS Yet the inexactness of the exposition on some counts does not affect its central aim, namely, to call attention to th e funda­ men tally Cartesian stance of Lotze 's reflections. On this point, more­ over, Heidegge r is certainly right. Lotze 's argument against the skeptics (such as Sextus Empiricus) rests upon the basic thesis that represen ta­ tions form "the only thing that is immediately given, from which our knowledge can begin" (Lotze 493 , 498; L 64 £) . This basic thesis has pre­ dictable consequences for Lotze 's conception of truth. Thus, the truth is not to be discovered by means of a comparison of representations with reality "which , as long as it is not known, is not on hand for us but, as soon as it is represented, is subj ect to the same doubts that obtain for all other representations as such." Instead, the truth consists "solely i n universal laws o f combination . . . that find themselves confirmed in a definite majority of representations without exceptions as ofte n as these representations repeatedly surface in our consciousness" ( Lotze 4 97£) . Lotze concludes with th e obse rvation that he regards the representa­ tions themselves - not their alleged relation to a world of things - as the as attempting to ')how that the conception of truth underlyi ng skep­ ticism is a prej udice. But that is l i te rally not the case : in th e first place, Lotze does not directly speak of "truth ," but of "knowledge"; in the second place, talk of knowledge as "mirroring" is deemed by him a "presupposition ," not a "prej udice ." The independence of th e world is also a "presupposition" that, n1oreover, can be righ t or wrong. Lotze does asc ribe to skeptics l i ke Sextus Empiricus th e prej udice "of the on-handness [Vorhanden­ sein] of that world in itse lf, opposite w h i c h kn owing is placed"; cf. Lotze 502 , 490.

88 H e pre�ents Lotze

HEI DEGGER' S

C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

"material" of his work. The work itself, including his n ext chapter on "The World of Ideas, " is supposed to ascertain where, wi thin the repre­ sen tations, "the original, fixed points of certainty lie" ( Lotze 503£) . According to Lotze , those "fixed points of certainty" wi thin our world of representations are precisely what Plato sets his sights on with his doctrine of ideas. He stresses once again that this sort of certain ty has nothing to do with the question of an agreement with some presup­ posed essence of things (Lotze 5o6f) . Decisive in Lotze 's eyes is Plato 's claim that mental stirrings, for example the sensation or the impression of red, a sensation or impression that we receive, can be distinguished in a fundamen tal way from the content that we en tertain or represent to ourselves. At the outset of his Logic, Lotze describes the transform ation of an impression into a representation , a transformation tha t takes place by means of naming. "We now place before ourselves that which can be sensed, placing it before ourselves no longer as a condi tion of our suffering, but rather as a world of ideas that is in i tself what it is and means what it means and con tinues to be and mean this, regardless of whether our consciousness is directed at it or not" (Lotze 1 5 ; see also 507 ) . Despite the constant alteration of both the inner and oute r world, one thereby obtains ideas that are "not fleeting, but rath er etern ally self­ same and indepe ndent. " As grounds for "eternally val i d , true claims" ("Sweetness itself does not become sourness" ) and th ereby "an unal­ terable system of thought," those ideas form "the first worthy an d fixed obj ect of an immutable knowledge" ( Lotze 508£) . Lotze 's assumpti on that consciousn ess and representations consti­ tute Plato 's point of departure much as they do Descartes 's is, He ideg­ ger rightly notes, as erroneous as it is anachronistic. Moreove r, wi th its close kinship to the already mentioned ambiguity of the term ' psy­ chology, ' this assumption abets the general approval accorded the log­ ical prejudice . However, what especially roots the logical prej udice in the minds of many is the con cept of truth that Lotze works out on the basis of his in terpre tation of Plato . On th is in terpretation , ' true ' desig­ nates the ideas, for example , the color as such and th e sotlnd as such , in other words, the constan t and self-same con tents th at are always at hand in con trast to their instan tiations, whether cogn i zan ce is taken of them or not. To his credi t, Lotze does not shy away from the key question that emerges from this interpretation , namely, what sort of thing is an idea? Is there "still some predicate, difficult to determine" appropriate to it? I s i t "sotn e sort of being o r ac tuality''? Lotze observes that an idea i s

T H E L O G I C A L CON CEPT I O N OF T RUTH

"something" and "not nothing" since one idea is distinguished from another; but that at the same time th is "some thing" is not the actuality of a thing that is purely of itself even when it is not an object for any­ one. Ideas are characterized, he maintains, by "a certain element of af­ firmation" or "affirmedness" (Bejahtheit) that remains even when any sense of being-a-thing is denied them . 89 "Mfirmedness" here is not sup­ posed to designate something produced or posi ted. That something is "affirmed" says instead that in some sense it is already there and is rec­ ognized by means of the affirmation . As these qualifications make clear, the expression ' affirmedness' is obviously misleading, in addition to bei ng contrived. For this reason Lotze proposes a corresponding word in common currency. For the designation of this in German , the word ' actuality' serves here . We label "actual" a thing th at is, also an event that happens, a re­ .

.

.

.

.

.

lation that obtains ; finally, we label "actually true" a sentence that is valid, in contrast to one the validity of which is still questionable yo .

.

.

Every actuality takes one of these four forms, "none of which 1s re­ ducible to the other" (Lotze 5 1 1 £) . Lotze thus distinguishes four irreducible forms of actuality: ( 1 ) the being of things, ( 2 ) the happening of events, ( 3 ) the obtaining of rela­ tions, and (4) th e validity of sentences ( truths) . The distinction is, to be sure, questionable in several respects . Neither what distinguishes the forms from one another nor what renders them similar ( "actuality" or, equivalently, ''affirmedness" ) is clarified. Is not a sentence in a certain respect a relation? How is a th ing to be distinguished from an event? Can 't a relation happen? In these and other ways, as Heidegger re­ marks, the distinctions overlap (L 7 4f; ZBP 1 99 ) . Particularly striking as well is the restriction of 'being' (and ' real ' ) to things in the sense of 'sensory or material th ings. ' Lotze declares that the actuality of being "could only be ascribed to an enduring thing'' and that it is proper to "the individual thing alone" ( Lotze 5 1 6ff) . In this way, Heidegger ob-

8g Heidegger sup poses in his logic lectures that this use of 'Bejahung ' can be traced back

to Lotze ' s co nfro n tati on with Herbart; cf. L 68 . B u t see also Heid egger's re mark on Rick­

en's ':J asinn" i n FS 1 76 n . g as we ll as his discussion of a related sense of affi rm ation fo r Kan t in GP 5 2-5 7 . g o Lo tze 5 1 1 : "Fur d i e deutsche Bezeich n u n g d ien t h i e rt.:u das Wort Wirklichkeit. Den n wi rkl ich nennen wir e i n Di ng, wel ches ist, . . . auch ein Ereign i B , wel ches geschieht, . . . ein Verhaltn is, welches bestf'ht . ; e nd lich wi rklich w a h r n e n nen wi r einen Satz, welcher gilt, im Gegensatz zu d e n1 , dessen Ge l tu n g n oc h fragl i c h ist. " .

.

' HEIDEGGER S

C O N C EPT O F TRUTH

serves, Lotze makes a silen t but decisive concession to the prevailing naturalism of the nineteenth century, which he otherwise so energeti­ cally con tests . This naturalistic orientation of the uses of ' being' and 'actuality' is fatally shared, in Heidegger's view, by the subsequent gen­ eration of critics of psychologism, including Husser!. That concession has a direct and major bearing on Lotze's influen­ tial interpre tation of Plato's doctrine of ideas. Lotze is of the opinion that, when Plato speaks of the eternity of the ideas and their inde­ pendence from things and minds, he is not thinking of the actuality of a thing that also continues to exist in the absence of human conscious­ n ess. "Plato wanted to teach nothing else but . . . the validity of truths," Lotze insists. Plato 's talk of the being of ideas is to be attributed, ac­ cording to Lotze, to the lack of a corresponding term (for 'validity' : Gel­ tung) in the Greek vocabulary and not to the view that ideas are like thi ngs (Lotze 5 1 3ff; FS 1 1 1 f) . This way of excusing Plato 's talk of the being of ideas proceeds from the premise that 'being' for Plato otherwise designates the actuality of things, that is to say, the fi rst of the four forms of actuality distinguished by Lotze . But in this way, Heidegger protests, Lotze ascribes to Plato an anachronistic use of 'being, ' a use weighed down by the naturalistic prejudices of Lotze 's age. In fact, Heidegger main tains, 'being' (ousia) designates for Plato not tl1e being of a thing, but rather ''presence , the always on hand; thus the term is i n the highest degree adequate to what Plato meant. " 91 This last objection to Lotze 's interpre tation of the doctrine of ideas i n troduces Heidegger's m ost telling criticism of the conception of truth that emerges from Lotze 's Logic and prevails i n the critique of psychol­ ogism . However, the scope as well as the strength of Heidegger's cri ti­ cism first becomes evide n t only when the consequences of Lotze 's dif­ ferentiation of the for1ns of actuality are elaborated. Essential components of the logical prej udice unfold from Lotze 's outline of th e four forms of actuality. First, a sentence or proposition is regarded as the site of the truth. Second, th e truth of a sen tence is equated wi th its validity, its "obtain ing" or "holding. " Third, this "validity" ( "truth " ) of the sentence means th e constancy and independence of its content. Fourth , in view of this constan cy and independence, the actuality of the true sentence is fundamentally different fro1n the actuali ty of a thin g ( an actuality that may be an instance of that truth ) and the ac tuality of =

91

L 7 1 ; <.L La�k , /Jjp l.o.s..rili

der Philo.\Ophu',

1 �f,

and LU I I / 2 1 � 2

n.

TH E

LO G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N O F T R U T H

43

an event (an actuality that may be the knowing of that truth) . The dif­ feren tiation of the actuality of the " true sentence" from th e other forms of actuality is an on to logical difference. 92 Heidegger advances three objections to Lotze 's account of truth as it emerges from his on tological differentiation : first, the distinction among forms of actuality says nothing ( that is to say, nothing positive ) about the truth as such; second, the supposed equivalence of a sen­ tence 's validity and its truth amoun ts to an equivocation; and third, the alleged inexplicability of the concept of validity betrays a traditional neglect of the question of what it means "to be" (what Heidegger calls "the forgottenness of being" ) . None of these criticisms is itnmanent, and they are not all equally trenchant. Nevertheless, they reveal the es­ sential elements of th e presuppositions, reconstructed by Heidegger, that in his view underlie the cri tique of psychologism , in cludi ng the cri­ tique based upon Husserl 's phenomenology. For that reason , each of these criticisms deserves comment. One of the most striking features of Lotze 's differentiation of the forms of actuality is th e fact, duly noted by Heidegger, that the truth it­ self remai ns undetermined by i t, that is to say, that it is not explici tly as­ cribed to any of the forms of actuality. While Lotze deems a th ing "ac­ tual" insofar as it is, an event insofar as it happens, and a relation insofar as it obtains, he labels a sentence not merely "actual," but "actually true" insofar as it is valid. But in this manner - and this is Heidegger's first objection - the sense of 'true ' is not explained but simply presupposed. In Lotze 's elaboration of the forms of actuality, it becomes clear that, despi te the initial formulation ( "actually true " ) , his intention is in fact to speak of the actuality of a true (valid) sentence and not of its "actual truth ." The actuality consists in the fact that the sentence is valid or, as he formulates it in this connection , "the truth is valid." But in this way he con tinues to presuppose some sense of the tru th . In sum , he distin­ guishes truth from the actuality of a thing, but this ontological differ­ entiation provides no ontological clarification of truth i tself ( Lotze 5 1 2 f; L 7 3£) . The concept of validity says nothing about the truth as such , but at most about what is true - unless, of course , it is assumed from the out­ set that ' truth ' and 'validity of a sentence ' can be equated. Lotze 's ar­ ticulation of the fourth form of actual ity is in fact tan tamount to this as92 L

64:

"The ideal is \'al i d , the rea l i s"

G�gc n�tand

d e r E rk t> n n t n i s , " xi-x i i :

( "Das I deale gil t, da" Reale ist" ) ; cf. Rickert, "Der "Da'i Logi "ch e e x i " t i t- rt n i c h t , �" gilt. "

44

' H E I D E G G E R s C O N C £PT OF TRUTH

sumption. As a result, from Heidegg er "s vantage point it provides a kind of ontological fortification of the logic al preju dice. Heidegger maintains fu rther - and this is his second objection - that the equivalence of truth and validity is traceable to an ambiguity in the expression 'Wahrsein, ' an equivocati o i1 that might be conveyed in En­ glish by the diffe rence between 'being true ' and ' true being. ' 'Wahrsein ' in the sense of 'being tru e ' can be us ed to indicate that a sentence is valid and in that sense actual. Thus, fo r example , the predicate ' is true ' i n the proposition 'p is true ' signifies that p is true o f ( or obtains for) some state of affairs, and so obtainin g is precisely its "actuality. " But in the second sense , it would be used to understand what the truth itself is, thus, 'true being' in the sense of ' the truth 's being. ' In Lotze 's for­ mulation, Heidegger charges, these two usages are confused or even fused into a single mean in g. " Wahrseirl in th e sense of the being-actual of true sentences and Wahrsein in the sense of the essence of truth [We­ sen der Wahrheit] are iden t ifie d here and, because the first is identified as validity, one says at th e s ame time that the essence of truth is validity" ( L 74) . Herein lies, Heidegger adds, "a seductive ambiguity to which modern logic, the logic of validity, has thoroughly fallen prey'' (L 7 4) . Al though Lotze does appear to equate the actuality of truth with the validity of a sentence , th is talk o f ' Wahrsein' - ambiguous or not - does not, to my knowledge, ste m literally from Lotze 's Logic. This second ob­ jection seems to be directed as much at specific authors who appeal to Lotze as it is at Lotze himself. Yet Hei d e gger does not provide any clues on who they might be . Nevertheless, for Heidegger's attempt to expose the presuppositi ons underlying the criti que of psychologis m and, indeed, their feebleness, it is important to show th at the distin ction between the real (actuality of a thing or event) and the ideal (ac tuali ty of the true sentence ) goes hand in hand with the logical preju dice (equati on of a sentence 's va­ lidity with the esse nce of truth ) . Confusion of the empirical act of think­ ing with the ideal content o f thought is avoided by Lotze and his fol­ lowers at the cost of any fu rth er inqui ry into the essence or, if preferred, the ontological status of truth . Given Lotze 's ontological differentiation of the true sentence from th ings, events, and relations, attempts to in­ quire further into the se n se or actual ity of the truth are a clear indica­ tion that the differentiation has been misunderstood. Like actuality (af­ firmedness) and the other forms of actuality ( thing, event, relation) in general, the elaboration of truth as validity repre sents the end of the

T H E LO G I C A L C O N C E PTI O N O F TRU T H

45

analysis or, in Lotze 's own words, "a fundamental concept resting thor­ oughly on itself alone" ( Lotze 5 1 3 ) . In his third and final obj ection to Lotze 's conception of truth and differentiation of the forms of actuality, Heidegger takes particular ex­ ception to Lotze 's claim that those forms are indefinable. Heidegger is ready to concede that it would be senseless to want to define truth or validity in the same way as one might define specific things, for exam­ ple, by indicating their components. But, he charges , it does not follow frotn this consideration that no philosophical reflection on the sense of ' truth ' is possible. Yet Lotze 's failure to explain the genesis and possibility of the forms of actuality or what they have in common ( "affirmedness") is not the genuine core of Heidegger's final objection . His main concern is to show that, contrary to what Lotze himself maintains, a specific understanding of being underlies Lotze 's conception of the forms of actuality. The ac­ tuality is a "presence," be it something that is affirmed or recognized in the case of a thing, an event, a relation , or a true sentence. The actual­ ity is the "onhandness" ( Vorhandensein) of what does not in fact depend upon this affirmation . This understanding, moreover, did not fall from heaven. It corresponds to the Greek conception of being, a conception that is very much oriented to the world and to what one can say about the world and nature (L 75, 7 7 ) . In a certain respect (as Gethmann ob­ serves ) , Heidegger's later interpretation of this understanding of being (namely, "as a fate weighing upon the West" ) is in the end "a criticism of Lotze, highly stylized into a generality about the history of philosophy." 93 In the framework of his sketch of Lotze 's conception of truth , Hei­ degger neither documen ts nor further elaborates these familiar reflec­ tions . But he brings them to a head when he emphasizes that in Lotze 's 93 Gethmann, uHeidegge rs Wahrheitskonzeption ,'' 1 1 0. But Lotze also anticipates Hei­ degge r's battle wi th the logical tradition and, in deed, i ts Greek roots , as the followi ng passage am ply demonstrates; Lotze , Mikrokosmos, vol . 3 (Leipzi g : Hirzel , 1 8 64) , 24 3f: "Das Wesen der Dinge besteht nich t in Gedan ke n , und dac; Denken ist nicht imstan d e , e s z u fasse n; aber der ganze Geist erlebt dennoch vielleicht i n anderen Fonnen seiner Tatigke i t und sei nes Ergriffenseins den wese n tlichen Sin n alles Seins und Wirken s ; dan n dient ihm das D e nk e n als e i n Mittel , das Erlebte in j enen Zusammenh ang zu brin­ ge n , den sei ne Natur fordert, und es in tensive r zu erleben in dem MaBe, als er dieses Zusammenhanges machtig wird. Es sin d seh r al te I rrtumer, die diese Einsicht entge­ ge nstehen . . . der Schatten des Alte rtu ms, seine unheilvolle U berschatzung des Logos, liegt noch breit tiber uns und hUh uns weder im Realen noch im Idealen das bemerken, wodurch beide�i mehr ist a b aile Ve rnunft. "

H EI D E GGER' S

C O N C E PT O F

TRUTH

differentiation of the fo rms of actuality (including the true sentence, as one such form) the leading sense of 'being' is nothing other than the universal correlate (presence) of what the Greeks asserted about the world and what they understood as " the sole and genuine being. " As­ sertions about natural things in general are first possible thanks to the presence ( onhandness) of them. This insight, H eidegger adds, exposes "the genuine roots" of the psychologism debate ; from these roots comes " th e driving force of the inquiry and the answer surrounding the cri­ tique of psychologis m " (L 78 ) . The discoveries made by Husserl's phe nomenology - the subject of th e next chapter - shed further light on the m eaning of those "genuine roots" which lie deeper than Lotze 's Logic, namely, the Greek under­ standing of being. However, before attention shifts to Heidegger's pre­ sentation of the accom plishments and failures of Husserlian phenome­ nology, i t may be useful to sum up Heidegger's assessment of Lo tze 's meaning for the critique of psychologism . Lotze 's determination of the truth as validity (Geltung) enthrones the logical prejudice in an ideal , unassailable sphere all its own , far from the ever-changing reality of thit1gs; yet nothin g is gained by this determi nation, nothing beyond the "positi ng of an empty problem. " In the "seemingly so illuminating sep­ aration of the real and the ideal" lies, Heidegger claims, " the core of the problem" (L 9 1 ) . Such a claim might be construed as a vindication of the psychologistic point of view, and there is a sense in which Hei­ degger is , indeed, trying - once again like Husser! - to rehabilitate a genuine insigh t u nderlying psychologism . Btlt th e claim is mean t to un­ derscore, on the one hand, the hopeless yet artificial problem that arises when Lotze 's ontological differentiation is taken seriously and , on the other hand, the questionableness of that differentiation itself. In view of this questionableness , Heidegge r comments that it is not for nothing that reaso nable defenders of psychologism have never ac­ knowledged having been refuted (L 9 2 ) . As far as that artificial problem spawned by Lotze 's differentiation is concerned, Heidegger shows nothing but disdain for it. "The appar­ ently profound question of bridging the gap between the real and th e ideal" is, in his eyes, a " narrow-minded, bou rgeois undertaking. " 94 The 9 4 L 9 2 ; Heidegger's use of "Sch7 ldbiirgerunternehmfn ' p robably plays on th e more com mon 'Srh zldburge-rstrezrh, ' a tri c k orjoke played by an d/ or, perhaps i n this case, on th e 'Srhild­

burgn: ' Traceable to a 1 5 9S wo rk by 1-Ians Kre mer, 'Srh ildhiirger ' is presumably of earlier

origi n th ough with a m e a n i n g "im iJar to 'SpiejJhurger, ' mean i n g ' pri gg ish , u l tracon�� rva­ tiH � , narrow-n1 i n ded bourgeois ' ; c f. Kl uge 7 2 1 .

T H E LO G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N

OF

TRUTH

47

act of thinking as a real event is so severed from what is though t as some­ thing ideal that the question of their relation ( "Is the relation of the ideal to the real a real relation?") could not be answered, even if the question were at all meaningful. Th e relation can be construed neither as real nor as ideal , even though concrete thinking and what is con­ cretely th ough t about are in the end 'just as actual as the real thinking on the one side and then , separated [from it] , the ideal as what is though t = what is validating is on the other side" (L go) . If there is no "thoughtless thinking" in the literal sense of the expression , then this relation is, in Lotze 's words if not in his sense , "the most livi ng reality" (die lebendigste Wirklichkeit) , sin ce both thinking and what is thought are simultaneously real in it ( L go) . It is, in Heidegger's view, Husserl 's great service to have taken the decisive step toward clarifying this "actuality," by virtue of his account of intentionality. What this step accomplishes, above all , is to expose the questionableness of the widely accepted Lotze an way of posing the problem (L g 2 : "the core of the problem" ) . However, it would be wrong to regard Lotze 's philosophy as merely a stop on the way to Husserl 's phenomenology. Precisely by prefacing his interpre tation of the phenomenological analysis of intentionality with a critical review of Lotze 's ontological reflections on the notion of truth , Heidegger provides an initial clue to what, in the end, he finds objectionable i n Husserl 's phenomenology. To be sure, as is elaborated in the following chapter, Husserl 's accoun t of intentionality represents for Heidegger a breakthrough in understanding the relation obtaining between thinking and what is though t, an understanding that does not merely elude the gap projected by Lotze between real thinking and th e ideal character of what is thought, but also establishes the artificiali ty and ttntenability of such a gap. Nevertheless , for all the implausibility of Lotze's claim that the concept of ac tuality is indeterminate and de­ spi te the dearth of substantiation for his differentiation of the forms of actuality, Lotze does not lose sight of the question of being ( or, as he would likely say, the question of "actuality" ) and its inner connection wi th the question of truth . The same, Heidegger maintains, cannot be said of Husserl.

2

T H E P H ENOMEN O LO G ICA L CO NCE PT IO N OF TRUTH : T H E CRIT ICA L CONF RONTATION W ITH H USS ERL

It hardly needs to be acknowledged that even today, opposite Husserl, I consider myself a novice. Heidegger, 1 9 2 5 1

" . . . and Husserl gave me my eyes." 2 The words are Heidegger's to his students in the spri ng of 1 9 2 3 . From the fall of 1 9 2 1 to the spring of 1 9 24, not a single semester goes by when Heidegger is not holding a seminar or study session on either HusserI 's Logical Investigations or Ideas I. In the summer of 1 9 2 5 he confesses to his students that, opposite the founder of phenomenology, he still considers himself a novice; the fol­ lowing semester he extols the author of the Logical Investigations for bringing the great tradition of Western philosophical though t to com­ pletion. Mter stating that the investigations in Being and Timewere "only possible on the foundation laid by Husser} ," especially in the Logical In­ vestigations, Heidegger publicly expresses his gratitude to Husserl for helping him in his early teaching stint at Freiburg to become adep t "in the most diverse regions of phenomenological research ," help that, in Heidegger's own words, took the form of '' intense personal direction" and " the freest access to unpublished manuscripts." Not surprisingly, i t would seem , Being and Time i s dedicated to Edmund Husserl "in rever­ ence and friendship." 3 I p 1 68 . 2 The ful l quotation deserve� citi ng; cf. 0 ;; : "Accom panyi n g m e i n searching was the young Lu ther and th e parago n Aristotle , whom he hated . Kie rkegaard provided i m pulses and

�

H usse rl gave me my eyes. "

For texts q uoted i n th is and the p rece d i n g sen ten c-e(), see S Z V, 3 R n . 1 , a n d L 8 8 . See al'jo

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E P T I () N O F T R U T H

49

Yet in those same lectures during th e summer of 1 9 2 5 Heidegger completes an extensive review and criticism of H usserl 's thought and his analysis of truth in particular, leaving no mistake that he is ben t on giving phenomenology a quite different meaning and direction. These lectures con tain an "immanent critique of th e progression of phenom­ enological research ," as a means of raising questions allegedly never posed - at least expressis verbis - by Husser! himself, not even, Heidegger tells his students , in those unpublished manuscripts to which Husser! had so generously given him access ( P 1 24) . In his lectures in Freiburg right after the war, if not to Husserl 's face, Heidegger makes no secret of his misgivings with the primacy that Husser! accords theoretical con­ cerns, exemplified by an identification of intuition with a theory-laden description. 4 Heidegger's first lectures in Marburg (winter semester, 1 9 2 3/ 24) are devoted to exposing the historical roots of the "fatal" direction that Husser} gives to phenomenological research (EpF 2 70 ) . In 1 9 2 6 Heidegger confides to Jaspers that if Being and Time is written against anyone, then it is Husse rl. 5 In Heidegger's eyes, Husserl 's Logical Investigations and the analysis of truth i t contains are not merely the high point of philosophical reZSD 8 2- 8 7 . The dedication to Husser} was deleted from the 1 94 1 edi tio n, due, Heideg­ ger claims , to the publisher's fear that its retention would endanger publication. Hei­ degger says that he agreed to its omission only on the condition that the note on p. 3 8 , which explai ns the reason for the dedication , be retained; cf. US 26g. Fo r a review of H ei­ degger's study sessions on Husserl's work, see Th eodore Kisiel , "On the Way to Being and

Time: Introduction to the Translation of Heidegger's Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs," Research in Phenomenology 1 5 ( 1 98 5 ) : 1 96. 4 Husserl apparently did not realize just how much Heidegger differed with him u n til the publication of SZ. In a letter to Ingarden in late 1 92 7 , after noting that "there is still no bridge" between him and Heidegger that their common s tudents might cross, he adds: "Unfortunately, I did not de termine his philosophical upbringing. H e was obviously al­ ready into his own way of doing thi ngs when he began studying my writings . " Edmund Husserl , Briefwerhsel, ed . Karl Schuhmann ( Dordrech t: Kluwe r, 1 9 94 ) , vo l . 3, 2 34, also

2 36 and 457ff. See , too , H usserl 's poignant, rueful, and even pathetic letter to Alexan­ der PHinder, Jan uary 6, 1 93 1 , looking back on his relationshi p to Heidegger, in Briefwech­ sel, vol . 2 , 1 8 o- 1 84 , esp. 1 8 2 : " I h ad been warned often enough : Heidegger's phenome­

nology is something completely different from my own . I ns tead of furthering the developmen t of my scien tific works, his university lectures and book are open or veiled assaults on my works, aimed at discrediting th em on the most esse ntial points . When I

would bring such thi ngs to Heidegger's attention in a friendly way, he would just laugh and say: Non sense! " For an informed review of Heidegger's early o�jections to Husserl 's theoretical orientation as well as their relationsh ip, see the General Introduc tion to PTP,

2-3 2 , esp. d � n . 66 . Burt C. Hopkin s's translation of the January 6, 1 93 1 letter to P!an­ der is incl uded a.., Appe ndix Two of PTP, 479-483 . 5 Marti n H e i d e g ge r an d Karl .J aspers, BriefwechJel I 9 2 0- I 9 6J, ed. Walter Biem el and Hans San e r (Frankfu rt am Mai n : Klosterman n, 1 990 ) . 7 1 , 64 , 42 .

so

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

flection on logic in the early twen tieth century. They represent a gen­ uine "breakthrough ," even if with few exceptions (Dilthey, Lask) they barely found anything like the proper resonance among his con tem­ poraries. Mention has already been made of Heidegger's view that, wi th the Logical Investigations, Husserl has "thought the grand tradition of Western philosophy to an end. " 6 This claim is a two-edged sword, to be sure , exposing not so much a conflicted attitude toward Husserl 's work as a join t appreciation of its accomplishments and fundamental limita­ tions. The no tion that the Western philosophical tradition has been "thought . . . to an end" means that the insights underlying and guid­ ing it have allegedly matured and attained a certain comple teness in the /Jogical Investigations. Insofar as these insights have been articulated more lucidly there than anywhere else , this work provides the ideal means of investigating and grasping the significance of the roots of the tradi tion. Husserl 's breakthrough is precisely the recognition that west­ ern philosophical conceptions of truth and being are ultimately mat­ ters of intuition or perception , and not ofjudgment. 7 At the same tim e, the Western philosophical tradition achieves a cer­ tain closure in Husserl 's Logical Investigations and subsequent work, ac­ cording to Heidegger, precisely because Husser} remains true to this tradition and its preconceptions. Husserl 's pathbreaking research in the Logical Investigations and later efforts fall prey to the same on tolog­ ical commitments that underlie the logical prejudice and dominate the tradition, sealing its obliviousness to being (Seinsvergessenheit) and pre­ venting phenomenology from realizing its genuine potential. Husser! is accordingly portrayed as the "Moses" of traditional philosophy, its lib­ erator but also its captive, who th rough his analysis of intentionality shows the way out of the wilderness , without himself being able to en­ ter the promised land of existential analysis. Lotze 's conception of truth , as the preceding chapter showed, ex­ emplifies how the logical prejudice goes hand in hand in Heidegger's eyes wi th a certain ontological naivete, obliviousness, or amnesia ( the "forgo ttenness of being") . Heidegger finds a similar scenario unfolding 6 P 30; L 1 1 4 , 8 8 . The te rm ' breakth rough ' s te m s from H usserl ; cf. LU I vi i i : " D i e ' Logj­ s c h e U n tersuchungen ' waren

fur mich e i n Werk des D u rc h b ruchs und somi t n i c h t <:> i n ,

E n de, sondern ei n Anfang." H u sserlian p h e n om en o l ogy re p resen ts a breakth ro ugh for

H ei d e gge r

pre ci s ely because it rea l i zes and thus

"

b ri ngs

to

a

close" the origin al project

an d pote n tial of p h i l oso p h izing i n t h e Wes tern tradition . 7 VS 1 1 5 ; Jean Beaufret , Dialogue avec Heideggn; vo l . 3 ( Paris: Ed itions de Minui t , 1 9 7 4 ) , l � 6.

T H E P H E N O M E N O LO G I C A L C O N C E PT I ON O F T R U T H

51

in Husserl 's case . In Heidegger's Marburg lectures he advances two al­ legedly immanent criticisms of Husserl 's phenomenology, as it had de­ veloped up to that point (c. 1 92 5 ) . He charges, fi rst, that Husserl 's phe­ nomenological analysis of truth remains enmeshed in a version of the logical prejudice and, second , that Husser!, contrary to his principles, fails to inquire into the manner of being of intentionality or, for that matter, into the sense of being at all. Instead, according to Heidegge r's critique, Husser] takes over the conception of being as "presence," a conception that is not only anchored in ancient metaphysics and still held fast to in the natural sciences, but also calls for a particular con­ strual of in tentionality. Husserl 's reaffirmation of the primacy of intu­ i tion , especially his doctrine of categorial intuition , unveils a dynamic, prereflective notion of truth that underlies the truth and falsity of propositions and j udgments; to this extent, he points the way to un rav­ eling the logical prejudice . Yet, Heidegger submits, that notion of truth is suppressed or left undeveloped ( at least in Husserl's early writings) precisely because Husserl appreciates the tradition-defining intuition only too well, construing it as the vehicle to an absolute science where all verities are presences, e ternally on hand and potentially available as such to the appropriate intuition or perception. Heidegger's critique of Husserl 's philosopical investigations in gen­ eral and his analysis of truth in particular plays a pivotal but little-un­ derstood role in Heidegger's development of his own distinctive con­ ception of truth in the 1 92 0s. The aim of the presen t chapter is to shed some light on that role by examining Heidegger's critique of Husser­ lian phenomenology - at least with respect to the sta te of it available to Heidegger prior to 1 92 5 . To this end, the examination begins with a consideration of the reasons why Heidegger pays Husser} the tribute of having "thought the grand tradition of Western philosophy to an end. " Heidegger's reasons are to be found pri ncipally in the first half of his le ctures in the summer semester of 1 92 5 , the clearest and most exten­ sive document of his considerable understanding and appreciation of Husserl 's phenomenology. In the Prolegomena Lectures Heidegger p resents what he considers the three "decisive " discoveries of phenom­ en ology: intentionality, categorial intuition , and the original sense of th e a priori. Heidegger's exposi tion of Husserl 's decisive discoveries aims at " procuring an understanding of phenomenology as research, " whereby Husserl 's ph enomenol ogy is presented only as a beginning and his dis­ c ove ri es are fundam t=> n tal l y rethough t . I t bears em phasi zing that H e i-

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

degger i n an important sense holds fast to the fundamen tal phenome­ nological proj ect of returning, not to Kant, but to the things themselves and that means ide n tifying and adequately interpreting the basic given­ ness of thi ngs. Husserl himself repeatedly characterizes phenomenol­ ogy as a form of research in just this sense . 8 In these respects phenom­ enology is for Heidegger, as it is for Husserl , differen t from any ontic science . Such a project is very much a work in progress, even when - or, indeed, precisely because - that basic givenness is finally deemed "be­ ing" and its sense or horizon "time.'' Nevertheless, H eidegger's strategy in his lectures is to introduce his students to phenomenology as re­ search into the givenness of th ings ( the being of beings, the way that they fade in and out of presence ) , research that, wh ile very much in the spirit of Husserl 's conception of phenomenology and drawing on its de­ cisive discoveries, moves beyond its theoretical framework. For it is pre­ cisely that framework, Heidegger argues, that remains en tangled in the logical prejudice and preempts research into the sense of the underly­ ing givenness ("being" ) of things. 9 By presenting phenomenology as a research proj ect in his Marburg lectures, Heidegger makes unmistakably clearjust h ow deeply and thor­ oughly his own thinking draws on Husserl 's insights. However, because Heidegger singlemindedly pursues his own hermeneuti cal strategies and goals, it is also possible to identify important deletions, contortions, and even distortions in the presentation , all of whi c h make the evalua­ tion of his critical confrontation with Husserl 's p henomenology ex­ tremely difficult. As soon as one asks about the tren chancy of Heideg­ ger's criticisms of Husserl 's conclusions, one is faced with the question of whether or to what extent these criticisms rest upon a shift in subject matter and the use of certain terms together with a less than generous neglect of relevan t and mitigating passages. 8 See Id I 2 0 1 : "Our way of proceeding is that of someone on a research trip in an unknown part of the world, carefully describing what presents it�elf to him on his uncharted paths, which will not always be the shortest." See, too, ld I 1 07, 1 2 2 ; D R 8f; LL' I viii-ix; LC I I / 2 iii-v; and Husser! , Idee der Phiinomn wlogie, ed . Pau1 Janssen ( Ham burg: Mei ner, 1 986) , 1 4 , 4 5 , s6-s8, 6 2 . 9 E pF 93 ; cf. Jean-Luc Marion , Reduction et donation: Rerherrhes s ur Husser!, Heidegger PI La phhwmenologie (Paris: Presses universi tai res de France , t g8 g ) , 7 3-7 9 . Ci ting the 1 9 2 5 lec­ tures, Marion notes a shift frcnn concern for entities to a concern for being (P 1 o z f) , made possible by Heidegger\ emphasis on phenome no1ogy's proper object: not th e ph e­ the way in which the�' nomena as such but the manner of their identifi cation or, better, .

avail them5e1ves (A rt

dn- A ufweintng) ( P 1 1 8 ) .

T H E P H E N O M E N O LO G I C A L C O N C E P T I O N O F T R U T H

53

One of the ancillary objectives of this chapter is to identify ways in which Heidegger's basic criticisms of Husserl 's phenomenology, while not unfounded or without merit, nevertheless remain seriously and , in­ deed, suspiciously wanting. In this connection two lines of research un­ dertake n by Husser} prior to 1 9 2 5 are particularly important: his in­ vestigations of inner time-consciousness and the lectures on logic regularly given by him in Freiburg after 1 9 1 7 . In Heidegger's exposi­ tion , he strangely leaves these latest lines of HusserI 's research out of consideration, even though he was well aware of them and in fact men­ tions some of them to his students. In addition to weakening the force of some of Heidegger's criticisms, Husserl 's investigations of time-con­ sciousness and prereflective experiences underlying logic also antici­ pate in significant ways Heidegger's own efforts to develop a funda­ men tal ontology. Fundame ntal ontology is supposed to show, from the paradigmatic case of the pre thematic sense of "being-in-th e-world," that the sense of being is time. From Husserl 's account of an absolute, time­ constituting consciousness and from his efforts to give an analysis of the pre the oretical, sense-constituting experiences underlying logical acts , it can also b e inferred that time in some manner constitutes the sense of being and, indeed, that that sense is not equivalent to "presence . " The chapter is divided into four sec tions. The first sec tion ( 2 . 1 ) re­ views at length Heidegger's presen tation of the decisive discoveries of Husserl 's phenomenology. This presentation is considered with an eye to determini ng the extent to which it departs from and corresponds to Husserl 's own conception. In the second section ( 2 . 2 ) Heidegger's cen­ tral objections to Husserl 's phenomenology are elaborated in detail. In addi tion to the purported internal or immanent criticisms already men­ tioned, Heidegger also mounts an external criticism by way of elabo­ rating what motivates Husserl 's phenomenology. While the immanent obj ections are meant to demonstrate how Husserl 's thinking is victim­ ized by an ontological commitment underlying the logical prejudice, the motivation for making that commitment is , Heidegger maintains, a fear or anxiety of being-here . This explanation of Husserl 's motivation is the subjec t of the third section ( 2 . 3 ) . The final section of the chap­ ter ( 2 .4 ) confronts the question of the legitimacy of Heidegger's cri­ tique , especially in view of what he ignores in his prese ntation of Husserl 's phenomenology, circa 1 9 2 5 . In conclusion , an attempt is made to weigh the validity of Heidegger's criticism and its import for h is own developing conception of truth .

' H F. I D E G G E R S C O N C E P T

54

OF

TRUTH

2 . 1 The Three Discoveries o f Phenomenology

The second half of Heidegger's lectures from the summer semester of 1 92 5 , as their edi tor Petra Jaeger remarks (P 444f) , contains "an early draft" of Being and Time, a draft that accordingly has the advantage of being presented as th e n e cessary outcome of a critical confron tation with Husserl's phenomeno logy, a confrontation presented in the first half of the lectures. Heidegger apparen tly thought that, in order to es­ tablish the need for a more radical conception of phenomenology, it was necessary to explain why Husse rl was essentially held back from the consequences of his own discoveries. Heidegger's presentatio n of Husserl 's three discoveries is oriented thematically to the First a n d Fifth, but especially the Sixth of his Logical Investigations. Heidegger n o neth eless freely intersperses his accoun t with termi n ology and the1nes stemming from th e Ideas for a Pure Phe­ nomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy as well. Of the three ''deci­ sive" discoveries, intentionality is not only the first, but also the most im­ portant since it makes the subsequent discoveries possible. As Husserl himself remarks: "The titl e of the problem that encompasses all of phe­ nomenology is in te ntionali ty ( ld I 303 ) . '

'"

2. II

Intentionality and the Repudiation of a Cartesian Cognitive Model. ' Intentionality' signifies the way i n which every act of a human being is directed at something directly corresponding to that act. In the expe­ rience of any such act - be it opining, thinking, perceiving, loving, ex­ pecting, regretting - there is the experience of sotnething to which it is directed. This intentional structure is characteristic of experience in general. Someone who dreams dreams someth ing; the dream has a sense ( though the sense an d what is drea1ned are not identical) . If someone deceives herself in the course of perceivi ng, such that the obj ect does not in fact stand opposi te her, it is nevertheless "mean t. " Inten tionality is not, however, to be construed as an occasional prop­ erty of consciousness. Echoing Husserl's own attempt to ward off mis­ i nterpretations of i nten ti o nality occasioned by som e of Bren tano's ways of depicting it, Heidegge r observes: "Intentionality is not a relation to something not-experien ce-like, accruing to experiences, now and agai n occurring to them; rath e r the experiences themselves as such are in­ tentional." 1 0 Thus, if inte n tionality is the structure of experiences in 1o

PS

4o ;

d . also P �1 7 ;

LL: II/

1

:1 7 2 :

".

. . cs bt n i c h t d c r Gege n s ta n d e rleht

u n rl d t-i n e ht> n

THE

P H E N O MENOLO G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N OF

TRUTH

55

general, then experience (Erlebnis) o r consciousness i s not some men­ tal event that might in certain cases happen to be intentional. Moreover, given the intentional structure of experiences, anything like the famil­ iar picture of a mental complex composed of an ego and ideas con­ strued as repraesentationes - righ tly or wrongly labeled "Cartesian" - is un­ tenable. Even if one remembers or imagines something, that "something" is th e subj ect matter itself ( die Sache selbst) and by no means a picture, representation, or concept of it. If one starts, by contrast, from the assumption that the experience from the outset is preoccupied with the contents of its own consciousness or mental state, the result is a pair of familiar dilemmas that are as unsolvable as they are false: the dilemma of coordinating the actuality "within" consciousness and the actuality "outside" it - or, equivalen tly, a men tal event ( res cogitans) and a real object ( res extensa) - and the dilemma of relating mental contents to a mind that "possesses" them. In Heidegger's view, the elimination of this pic­ ture, wi th its fatal consequences for epistemology as well as for psychol­ ogy, is one of the most important results of the discovery that inten­ tionality is the basic structure of experiences in general. 1 1 As noted i n the last chapter, Lotze 's epistemology (in his answer to skepticism as well as his interpretation of Plato's doctrine of ideas) pre­ sents a paradigm of the represen tationalist model of cognition , ac­ cording to which something ( e.g. , a represen tation or idea) is erected between consciousness and the reality of which one is conscious. Husserl 's analysis of intentionality demonstrates that this appeal to some intermediary realm of representations is completely contrived and , indeed, utterly inadequate when it comes to understanding m en­ tal phenomena. Heidegger accordingly repeats Husserl 's own insight that the critique of psychologism , emerging from th e determination of intentionality, must also take the form of a critique of psychology, a cri­ tique that consists not in rej ecting the legitimate investigations of ex­ perimental psychology but in ''fundamentally clarifying the field" of mental phenotnena. 1 2 auf ihn rich te t; es sind auch n ic h t zwei Sachen i n dem Si n n e, wie Teil und u m fasse nderes Ganzes, sondern nur Eines ist pdisent, das i n ten­ tionale Erlebnis, desse n wesentlicher de�kriptiver Charakter eben die bezuglic he I n­ te ntion ist." P 40, 5 5 f; L U I I / 2 2 04f; Id I 7Hf, 97f, 1 8 6 . Wi th h i s conc eption of the " transcendence

das int�ntionale Erlebnis, das sich

1 1

12

of Dasein" as b e i n g-i n -the-worl d , H e i d egger explicitly fas te ns on to th is "disc overy" of i n­

see GP 4 2 H , Ho-g 1 . L H �-99 ; EpF 65f. \\ i th o u t denyi ng the val ue of modern psychol ogy, Husserl claims that h e m e re l y "�x ro��� c e rt Cl i n rl t' fi c i t�ncie� . rlefi c i en cie"i th a t a rc , in a li teral se nse , rad ical " ;

te n t i o n al i ty ;

'

' H E I D EGGER S CONC EPT

OF

TRUTH

The structure that corresponds to intentionality encompasses an act, an object ( that at which it is directed) , and the matter ( the way in which the act is directed at the obj ect) as well as the indissoluble and recip­ rocal bond among them. Husserl 's "breakthrough , " in Heidegge r's eyes, is his articulation of the fact that, corresponding to the various sorts of intentional experiences or acts directed at objects (for exam­ ple, thinking x, imagining x, perceiving x, and so on ) , allowance must be tnade for the various ways in which those obj ects are intended ( for example, x as it is thought, the imagined x, the perceived x, and so on) , ways which , like the intentional acts to which they essentially and re­ spectively correspond, are to be distinguished from the objects th em­ selves. There is, accordingly, a basic unity to the concrete intentional experience, a unity such that, to every inten tional act, there is a specif­ ically corresponding inten tional tnatter. In the terminology of Ideas I (which Heidegger freely uses to gloss the doctrine of the Logical Inves­ tigations without indicating that he is doing so) , the full intentional makeup of an intentional act (noesis) is composed not simply of its obj ect, but also, and indeed primarily, of its "sense" (noema) , the way in which the obj ect is "intended" ( en tertained, in1agined, perceived, etc . ) . Moreover, as already emphasized, that sense is not a mental image of the object. In perceiving a tree or even registering the fact that the tree is an oak, I do not typically form an image of the oak tree. Rather the tree itself or that fact about the tree is perceived through a ''sense" of it. Indeed, even imagining a tree requires a sense of the tree. In the Logical Investigations Husserl distinguishes the "quality" of th e act ( e.g. , wishing, asking, doubting, judging, etc . ) from the manner in which the object is intended ( the "matter" or "sense of the objec tive ap­ pre hension" ) and the sensations experienced therein ( the "appre­ hended" or "represen ting" content) . In his Marburg lectures Heideg­ ger does not mention these specifics of intentionality, as presented i n the Logical Investigations, or HusserI ' s extensive revision o f the same in Ideas I ( in terms of noetic, noematic, and hyletic moments together with the notions of the thetic character of consciousness, the noematic core, and the noematic sense) . 1 3 Not tin related to this revision , Ideas I also phe nomenology i� supposed to consti tute "the essen ti al eidetic foundation of psychol­ ogy"; see I d I 2 , 34 , 1 t 6; LU II/ 1 7, 1 7 f; PasW 3 0 2 ff. 1 3 LU I I / 1 4 1 5 : "Die Qualitat b e s ti m m t n ur, ob das i n besti m m ter We i s e bereitl) 'vo rstel­ lig Gemach te ' als Erwu nschte�, Erfragtes, urte i lsmaBig Gese tl.tes u. dg. in te n tional gegenwartig �ei . Darnach JnuB u ns d ie .1\llateriP als dasjen ige im Akte gelten , was i h m all ers t die BeLieh un g auf Gcgenstandlic hes verlcih t, und zwar diese Be1ieh u ng in so

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

57

in troduces a conception of a transcendental ego and a transcending obj ect for reasons that are also largely ignored by Heidegger. 1 4 The sig­ nificance of the fact that these nuances and changes in Husserl 's ear­ lier determinations of the intentional "essence" are not considered by Heidegger is addressed in the final part of this chapter. However, these nuances aside , what is decisive for Heidegger is Husse rl 's insight into the possibility and the necessity of a thoroughgoing analysis of inten­ tionality, understood as encompassing a relation between the act of in­ te nding and the sense of what is thereby intended (or, alternatively, the manner in which something is i ntended by that act) . Heidegger's ques­ tion of the sense of being and truth takes its start from this intentional relating or comportment ( Verhalten) , reconfigured as the sight of the ontological difference ( of which more will be said later) . Credi t for establishing or, bette r, rediscovering that intentionality is the basic character of experiences and for determining diverse types of intentional relations must go to Husserl 's teacher, Franz Brentano. In the published portions of his Psychology From an Empirical Point of View intentionality is iden tified as the mark of the mental (in contrast to the physical) , in terms of which the allegedly basic types of mental phe­ nomena ( representation, j udgment, interest) can be classified. 15 With his claim that inten tional relations are not strict relations, that is, rela­ tions where both relata must exist, Brentano focuses attention on the "intentional inexistence" of the object of consciousness. However, i t is precisely uncertainty about this "intentional in existence" that is symp­ tomatic of the limitations of his accoun t of intentionality, according to Heidegger. Essentially repeating the misgivings expressed by Husserl in the Fifth Logical Investigation , Heidegger claims that Brentano wavers between characterizing the entity itself and its manner of being grasped voll kommener Besti m m theit, daB durch d ie M a te rie nicht n u r das Gegenstandlic he uberha upt, welches der Akt m e i n t, sondern auch die Weise, i n wel ch er er es m e i n t , fes t besti m m t i s t . " A l s o LU I I / I 46, 4 1 6 , 445 ; LU Il/2 86-g4; I d I 2 0 1 ff, 267, 2 7 4. Acco rd­ ing to LU , a se nsory representative , despite be ing i n tim ately u n ited with the " matte r" ( "se nse" ) in straigh tfo rwa rd perceptions, can re m ai n constant while the "matte r" varies and vice ve rsa, th us confirm i n g the distinction between them . Fo r exam ple, I can see the same sen sory represen tative as a rabbit, then as a d uck, or I can appre h e n d the same d uc k-rabbi t i m age in two diffe re n t d rawi ngs of it ( LLT II/ 2 1 6 8£) .

1 4 Brush i ng aside the debate over t h e c o r rectness of a " realistic" or "idealist" transcen­ den tal concep ti o n , H e i degge r cou nte rs th a t the real problem is wh ether i t is righ t to se t up pheno menology as the basic scie nce fo r philosophy "without havi n g a radi cal c o n­

15

cept of phil oso phy''

( PAA

�1).

Franz Bre n ta n o , Ps_)·rhologie vom empirischPn Standpunkt, 2 vo ls. , ed. Oskar Kraus ( Ham­

burg: �1 ein er, 1 9 2 4 - 1 9 2 5 ) ,

I:

1 2 4f; l l : 3 3 ff. See

also P 2 3- 2 8 , 34f.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

as the intentional object (P 6 1 ; L U ll/ 1 370-37 3 ) . For the most part, Heidegger avers, Brentano overlooked what is ultimately decisive and significan t for the phenomenological conception of intentionality, namely, that th e noema or in tentum is not some thing simply given but rather something that is to be determined in terms of the respective way in which it is intended or meant: "We can accordingly distinguish: the entity itself . . . and the entity in the manner of its being-intended" ( P 5 3 ) . In th is way Heidegger is obviously transcribing and thereby reinterpreting with an ontological accent Husserl 's explanation : "In relation to the in­ ten tional content understood as the object of the act, the following is to be distinguished: the object as it is intended, and simply the object that is intended" ( LU II/ 1 4oo; ld I 2 7 0-2 73) . The actual intentional structures depend upon the specific types of experience involved, a fact well appreciated by Brentano, as exempli­ fied by his classification of men tal phenomena. Thinking of some thing in the course of a conversation about it, without seeing or even imag­ ining it, is different from th e intentionality of perceiving wh at is given "in person" or "in the flesh" ( leibhaftig, to use one of Husserl's favorite expressions ) . At th e same time, however, one and the same object - by virtue of a coinciding sense (or matter) - can be mean t as well as given (intuited) and can be identified as such (LU II/ 2 1 2 2f, 3 5 , 64, 86£) . The clarification of this dynamic process, dependent as it is upon the determination of the noema or in tentum, is Husserl 's singular ach ieve­ ment, according to Heidegger, and the reason why he speaks, somewhat defiantly, of Husserl 's "discovery of intentionality" and stridently con­ tests the view that Husserl merely takes over Brentano's account of the intentional structure of mental phenomena. 1 6 Brentano 's enterprise in Psychology From an Empirical Point of View, it bears recalling, is to distin­ guish mental from nonmental phenomena and to classify the types of mental phenomena. Heidegger's point here is not merely that Brentano's psychological enterprise fails to elaborate the significance of inten tionality for questions of knowledge and truth , but far more im­ portantly that th e embedding of the account of intentionality in such 1 ()

Heidegger disputes t h i s wi dely h e l d dew, s pread by H ein r i ch Ric kert, Oskar Kraus , and the Marburg s c h oo l ; P 3 5-46 , 6 1 ff, 6 7 . As Hei degge r notes (L 95 ) , H usser} de al s hinl­ se l f w i th the i nsuffi c ien <"y of Brentano's a cc o u n t of i n te n tional i ty ( L U I I / 1 364-3 72 and LO I l / 2 2 2 2 - 2 44 ) , though it i s also true that Husserl origi nally conceived hi s pn�ect i n L C in Bre n ta n i a n terms. Fo r t h e novel ty of H usserl 's con ception of i n te n tion a l i ty in <" O n tra�t to M e i n o n g \ as wel l a s B re n tan o 's co n ce p t i o n s , see T 2 8-3 2 ; also Ludwig Lan d­ grt>hc, Phiirwmnwlogie und All:'taphy.\ik ( H a1n b u rg: S<"h rodcr, 1 94 9 ) , sg-(ig.

T H E P H E N O M EN O LO G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T RU T H

59

an en terprise forecloses th e "new considerations and changes" re­ quired for intentionality to be made a genuine matter of research. 1 7 Thanks to the respective structures of experiences, there is a dy­ namic connection among them, such that what in one experience is merely mean t refers of itself to the intuitability or "fulfillment" of its sense (P 58f; L 1 o7 ; LU II/ 2 76£) . In presenting Husserl 's phenome­ nology to his students, Heidegger speaks chiefly of what in the Logical Investigations are deemed "obj ectifying" acts, namely, those belonging to the sphere of logic. These acts form only one class of intentional ex­ periences, which, as in the case of expectations, wishes, hopes, and the like, are "characterized by the distinc tive property of being able to found relations of fulfillmen t." The objectifying acts, however, are dis­ tinguished by virtue of the fact that, first, it is not essential for them "to be directed at a future occurrence" (as it is, e .g. , for an expectation ) , and, second, their fulfillments consist merely in the identification of an objective correlate . 1 8 2 . 1 1 1 T H E E N T E L E C H Y O F I N T E N T I O N A L I T Y A N D T H E S TA G E S O F FU L F I L L M E N T . There are several possible reasons why Heidegger largely ignores the just mentioned distinction between objectifying and nonobjectifying acts. In the first place , as Husserl himself emphasizes, every intenti onal experience, if not itself an objectifying act, has "such an act as a ' foundation "' ( LU ll/ 1 493£) . Objectifying acts are, more­ over, the sorts of acts cen tral to logical investigations. Husserl 's account of them is, for j ust these reasons, far more developed than his accoun t of nonobjectifying acts. But the reason why Heidegger ignores the dis­ tinction between objectifying and nonobj ectifying acts probably lies elsewhere. By ignoring the distinction Heidegger is giving a sanitized reading of Husserl 's insigh t into inten tionality. For the very schema im­ plied by objectifying acts is in Heidegger's view inadequate , indeed, a source of confusion on Husserl 's part when it comes to the analysis of tru th . Perhaps one should infer from this not that Heidegger considers nonobjectifying acts (at least as Husserl construes them ) to be founda­ tional, but rather that in his opinion something is basically awry, if not 1 7 P 3 5 f, 6 1 fl. Heidegger ultim ately levels a n analogous charge against Husserl ian phe­

nomenology, as disc ussed in 2 . 2 2 below. Heidegge r's criticism of Brentano 's analysis of inte ntionali ty is directly related to Brentano 's identification of it with the n1ental (in keeping wi th Brentano's project o f establishing th e distinctive subject matter of psy­ chology) . Accord ing to Heidegger, this iden tification turns out to be a crucial liabil i ty, resurfacing in Hu�serl ia n p h e n omenology; cf. P 6 2 ; EpF 2 6of. d � For citations in tht' la';t two sen ten ces, see LU I I / 2 �gf. 4 9-5 � : LlJ II / 1 3 7 9 · 4 7 9-1 Rg.

6o

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

with the distinction itself, then at least wi th the way it functions in HusserI 's analysis. Nevertheless, the distinction, for all its question­ ableness, is the vehicle of what in the foregoing sec tion is called "Husserl 's singular achievement" in discovering the significance of in­ ten tionality. More needs to be said about this achievement and , to that end, it may be h elpful to speak of an entelechy of intentions. The word 'entelechy' is employed here because Husser! grasps the acts of consciousness not simply in isolation from one another but also in their connec tion with one another, that is, in the life of consciousness. This en telechic char­ acter operates on two interrelated levels, namely, in eac h intentional act and in the unity of these acts in consciousness as a whole (what Husserl also calls "the monad" ) . Corresponding to the life of consciousness, the intentions tend to their fulfillment (their "telos") . The focal point of Heidegger's presentation of Husserl 's phenomenology is this "new" con ception of the fulfillment of an intention , a conception that can be traced back to H usserl's "Psychological Studies." 1 9 What is merely meant or emptily entertained (for example , what is signified by an ex­ pression ) is intuitively "fulfilled" to an extent in the imagination and "fully realized" when given "in the flesh" in a perception ( LU II/ 2 76) . One might, for example, speak of the Eiffel Tower, imagi ne it, or look at it from a window in Paris. Although talk of the Eiffel Tower can be fulfilled in various possible ways and to different degrees, perception or, more precisely, the way that something is given in a perception is "a paradigmatic [ausgezeichneter] case of intentional fulfillment, " or as Husserl puts it: "The perception as presentation grasps the content pre­ senting itself and does so such that with and in it [ that content] the object appears as given itself." 20 As a means of underscoring that there are different stages of fulfill1 9 As Landgrebe points out, Husserl 's earliest psychological studies of number and arith­

m etic require a conception of conscious ness as a strivi ng that is directed at an accom­ plishmen t, a dynam ic transition from symbol ically, not genuinely ( uneigentlzrh) , i n tend­ ing something to doing so intuitively, genuinely. See Lan dgrebe, Phiinommolgie und metaph)·sik, 6 2 ff; and j . N . Mohanty, "The Developme n t of Husserl 's Though t," in ThP Cambridge Companion to Husser[, ed . Barry Smi th and David Woodruff Smith (Cam bridge : Cambridge U niv. Press, 1 995 ) , 4 7-5 1 . For Husserl 's own talk of the "di rectedness" and even "teleological" con nection in th is regard, see PasW 30 1 and LLT II/ 2 1 6 , 1 8f, 24, 3 2 . 20 P 59; L U I l / 2 8 3 ; see also L U I l / 2 3 7f, 5 6 , 7 6 , 8 2 f, 1 t 6- 1 2 0 , 1 3 0; a n d l d I 43 , 7 o f, 74f. Cf. Hermann Ph ilipse , "Transce ndental Idealism ,'' in CamhricJge Companion to Hus!Jerl, 2 3 9-3 2 2 , esp. 2 64: "What p recisely is the o�jectifying i nte rp retation which allegedly is t"'i")t'n tial to the pe rceptual act?"

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61

ment, Heidegger calls attention to the difference that Husserl draws be­ tween "being given in person " and "being given itself." If someone in Tokyo imagines the Eiffel Tower in the sense of "simply re-presenting" it, the Eiffel Tower i tself (and not simply a picture , image , or phan tasm ) is given and yet it is not given "in person." The Eiffel Tower is given in person only if someone stands before the tower in Paris and perceives it. "Bei ng given in person [Leibhaftigkeit] is a paradigmatic mode of the givenness of an entity itself [Selbstgegebenheit] . " 2 1 Wi th this account o f imagination as a "simple re-presentation" ( schlichte Vergegenwiirtigung) that is neither picture nor phan tasy, Hei­ degger presents his students with Husserl 's revised conception of the imagination, developed only after the appearance of the first edition of the Logical Investigations. While Husserl in that fi rst edition equates ' re­ presentation ' and ' image-consciousness' (Bildbewuj3tsein) , he construes imagination (Phantasie) in Ideas I, in contrast to image-consciousness , as "simple re-presentation, that offers itself in its own essence, curiously enough, as modification of another, " namedly, a perception ( ld I 2 09 ) . The structure of consciousness is completely different in the case of im­ age-consciousness when, for example , someone imagines the Eiffel Tower by means of a replica of it ( Heidegger's example: a picture post­ card ) , whether in the form of a perception or representation of such an image. In this case the representation ( Vorstellung) of th e Eiffel Tower depends both on the similarity of the picture to it and on a com­ parison of the picture with it. 2 2 The point here is not only that there is a way of imagining something or fantasizing about it without the medium of an image or picture, but also that this is a way for it to be "given itself" ( Se/hstgebung) . The latter thesis, in particular, is controversial. Tugendhat, for example, regards this thesis as false (from Husserl's standpoint) and even as rightly con­ tradicted by HusserI himself. "HusserI allowed himself to be misled in the Ideas into understanding the 'self ' on the basis of the contrast with the image . . . . In this sense [namely, in contrast to the image] the 'self ' comes to be directly represented even in the empty intention of meaning. " 23 2 1 P .r:, 4 � LU I I / 1 44 1 f; Id I gg, 1 2 6 ; Zb 4 1 6; A p S 430f. E l s ew h e re , however, H usserl s e e m s to reserve talk of the o �ject "'givi ng i tself"

footnotes.

LU

for

the ac t of perce p tion; see the next two

I l / 2 5 5 f, 1 1 6 � l d I 1 79 � T 66f; Ro be r t Sokol owski , Husserlian Med­ I l l . : l'\orthwes te rn U n iv. Press, 1 97 4 ) , 2 4 ; Mo han (}', "Deve l opm e n t of H usserl 's Though t s , " 59· 23 T 07 : � e f" also ;> H : . . . dPr A k t der blo Ben I n te n tion i s t auf dit> Sac h e .vUJ.\l ge richtet u n d

22

P 55f; LC I I / 1 3 7 ;

itation.5 ( Evan s ton ,

"

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT O F T R U TH

Tugendhat may well be right abottt Husserl 's erran t usage of the term ' se lf' in the Ideas (and if he is right, it indicates once more Heidegger's reliance on the latter text in presenting Husserl 's views) . Yet it is not cle ar that this usage, even if errant in some respects , has any bearing on the issue in question . In the simple or straigh tforward re-presen tation ( Vergegenwiirtigung) of which Husserl and Heidegger are speaking, what is m eant is "intui ted or observed as ' itself, "' not by means of an image but "immediately, " though in "th e modified character of 'something vaguely hovering before us' ( Vorschwebendes) " ( Id I 79) . Sin ce the same doe s not hold for the empty meaning-intention , there is reason for Hei­ degger, following Husserl, to speak of a stage of self-givenness in regard to s imple re-presen tation . Moreover, even if Tugendhat righ tly main­ tai ns that the "self" remains "without furth er qualification even in the latest writings [of Husserl] the characteristic of the genuine presence of what is mean t, to be attained only in the evidence of perception ," he also recognizes the fact that "from now on when Husserl wan ts to be ex­ act in his terminology, he names the self-given n ess of perception ' given­ n ess in person ' or ' originary given ness' in order to distinguish it from the self-given ness of the imagination ." 2 4 However the givenness in a re-presentation is to be understood, the iden tification of what is mean t wi th something intuited or perceived forms the basis of the phenomenological clarification of knowledge and its repudiation of mimetic accounts of knowledge and truth. As Tu­ gendhat accurately describes this insigh t: "Only because we have the re­ markable possibility of meaning something that is nevertheless not 'di­ rectly' given to us and because this same thing meant can be directly given in turn , does the talk of true and false have any sense. " 25 The fulauf keine andere, aber si e ist i h m nicht selbst gegeben. " LLT II/ 2 ::> 6 : "Gegenii ber der Imag­ i nation ist die Wahrnfhmung, wie wi r es auszudriicken pflege n , dadurch charakte risiert, daB i n ihr der Gegenstand 'selbst' und n i c h t bloB ' im Bi lde ' ersc hei n t. " Zb 404 : "Nic h t selbst z u geben ist j a gerade das Wese n d e r Phan tasie . " 24 T 6 7 ; ld I 1 26. Perhaps what underlies Tuge ndhat's conte n tion is t h e fac t that what i s given i n t h e inlagination does not direc tly stein from the given itself, b u t also fro m the one in1agining or fronl sotne unknown source. HoweYe r, the talk of se lf-give n ness ( by Husserl and Heidegger) refers not to the source of the give nn ess but simply to what is give n in con trast to what is mean t. H usse rl speaks of the self-givenness i n the imagi n a­ tion , as Tuge ndhat righ tly no tes, in order to distinguish the re-prese n tation from the c onsciousn ess of an image or ropy. In the " re-presen tative" imagi nation , what is mean t itself i� given , albe i t not " i n the flesh ," and not merely meant. �5 T g o; see also T 49 and Sokolowski , Husserlian Meditation�, 2 2 : . "0nly when we are abl e to expe rience the obj ect i n its prese nce and in i ts abse nce do we encoun ter i t"i iden ti ty. "

( �f. LlT I l / 2

���� ,

3 7 f: l �)D- 1 o 7

TH E

P H E N O M E N OLO G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F TRUTH

63

filling-intention is not to be equated with the mere perception ; but it is also not something that is simply added on or adjoined to the act of meaning something. In the identifying fulfillment (for example , in the straightforward grasping of the Eiffel Tower as it presents itself "in per­ son" ) , what is mean t in i ts absence and what is in tui ted "coincide , " which i s t o say that they are identified. The same obj ect that i s at first mean t or signified ( mean t throttgh the use of a sign ) is now intuited and thus at the same titne identified. That coinciding, namely, the iden­ tification of what is meant and what is intuited, is not something that simply happens to occur; instead, in keeping with the general entelechy of intentionality, it is a way of fully executing what begins as the act of entertaining something in its absence. As Heidegger puts it in an in­ sightful sutnmation of the dynamic: "This very act of entertaining some­ thing in its absence lives in the identification, is the iden tification itself as self-identifying" (L 1 07 ) . Though drafted after the analysis of truth in the Logical Investigations, the noesis-noema structure of intentionality brings to relief the differ­ entiation yet iden tity presupposed by that analysis. Thus, the affirma­ tion of the truth of an assertion - the acknowledgment that what is as­ serted about something obtains or is present in some manner - is only meaningful becattse what is asserted can be entertained as possibly true or false, that is to say, in the absence of evidence of it. On this account, truth consists in the coincidence of two different ways or, as explained above, two different "senses" in which something, indeed, the same thing, is "intended" (or, what is the same , two different ways in which the same thing presen ts itself or is given relative to different conscious acts ) . Truth is thus initially defined by Husser! as the correlate of an identification, the identity of two senses: "th e complete agreement be­ tween the meant and the given as such" (LU II/ 2 1 2 2 ) In the case of a perception of a physical obj ect, the fact that the per­ ceived entity is "there in the flesh '' in the perception does not mean , of course , that all sides and aspects of what is perceived are present. If I look at the cabinet in my room, then "I invariably see - speaking of 'see­ ing' in a specific way - only one specific side and one aspect" (P 5 7 ) . The back side is obviously not seen and even the front is only seen from a particular perspective and thus along the lines of a partictdar profile (Abschattung) . Yet these sides, too , are meant ( "co-meant," as Husserl puts it) ( LU II/ 2 8o) ; the perceived thing is meant "in its entirety as a thing' (Dingganzheit) . The perception of the objec t is accordingly "a per­ .

c � pti on con �ttln tl y i n the process of al t�ri n g i tse lf� i t is

a

co n ti n u i ty of

HEIDEGGER' S

C O N C E PT O F

TRUTH

changing perceptions. " 2 6 So , too, "the thing profiles itself in its aspects" and, indeed, such that one does not mean those profiles but rather the thing itself perceived in them. 27 HusserI himself describes how, in see­ ing an incomplete pattern of a rug, the piece seen is bese t with inten­ tions that "point to" its complements . 2R Sufficient mention has already been made of the fact that H eideg­ ger's presen tation of Husserl 's theory of the stages of intentional ful­ fillment leaves out many of the nuances and developments in Husserl 's account. What alone appears to matter to Heidegger is conveying to his students the breakth rough that Husserl 's conception of the fulfilling in­ tention represents for the analysis of knowledge . For that purpose it suf­ fices to emphasize that the identifYing fulfillmen t is in a certain respect ''palpably" consummated in a perception or intuition , even if in other respects it remains quite incomplete. "What is striking, " Heidegger stresses, ''is that in such identification or fulfillment, a connection ob­ tains" (P 66; L 1 07 ) . Nor is the fulfillmen t something established after the fact by a second act that would itself need to be iden tified and thus require a justification , engendering a regress. In the iden tifYing fulfill­ ment, what is mean t in its absence and what is intuited "coincide , " and this "coinciding" is itself ''an inten tional affai r, " which Husserl also calls "evidence" or "act of identification" (LU II/ 2 34f, 6o) . As Husserl puts it: "What we characterize phenomenologically, with respect to the acts, 2 6 l d I 7 3-7 � ; LU I I / :.! 40, 1 1 6f, 1 4 �Hf; P 5 7 f, 65f; So ko l ow � k i , flusserlian Meditation.\, 86- 93 · 2 7 P 5 R , 6 s f. Heidegge r does not clea rly d raw the difference between sides and aspec ts ( o r profiles, ad u m b rat i o ns ) . I n this respect h e appears to fo llow Ideas /, wh e re sides are con­

Id I 8o, 2 � 6 ; T 7 1 f, 8 3 ; and Kevi n M ull igan , Pe rc e pt i on , particular is fo r a p ro fi l e to ap­ pear but this is n o t to be un d e rs t o o d as t h o s e the m issi ng p rofiles we re expe c ted or i m ag­ i n ed o r that aj udgm e n t i s rnad e th at it is a part ; rat her the e n tire o�j e c t is p e rc e i ved but t h is involves two partial acts; cf. D R 49-60, 8ofl . 28 LLT I I / 2 40; also LU I I / 1 3 7 8f. This po i n t i n g beyo n d i t�elf' i n trod uces t h e d iffic ul t q u e s ti o n of the re lation between so-called a u t h e n ti c a n d i n auth e n tic appeara n c es , that is to say, the question of h ow the nonperceived profiles a n d , i ndeed, the o�ject as a w h o l e fo rm part of the percepti o n . In t he LU Husse rl 's answe r is to construe the per­ c e p ti o n as a s u m of di ver s e so rts of re p resen tati o n s , s o that the same c o n t e n t� a re IT­ garded both in tuitively and signi tive ly ( i n the Jatter case, p o i n ti n g to the n o n i n tu i t ively represen ted s i d e "i of t h e th ing) . In Ding und Raum H u r.;�erl takes th i li a n swer to task fo r i ts m is t ake n suppo�i i t io n that se n �ations a re s i gns and it'i a p peal to the n a t u ra l , i . e . , ex­ traph enomen ologi caJ , consti tution of th e object ( al tho ugh , as Be rnet p oi n t s o u t, the la tter difficul ty pJagues th ose lectures as a whol e ) . See DR 49-60, t go- 1 9 7 ; Ru dolf Ber­ n e t, " Percepti o n , Th i n g, a n d Spac e , " i n An lntrodudion to Hu.�.�n-lian Phnwmenology, ed. Rud olf Berne t, l so Kern, an d Eduard Marbach ( Evan s to n , I l l . : N o r t h w e s t e r n U n iv. P re')s, 1 9�)� ) . 1 2 0 - 1 2 � : and M u l l i ga n , " Pe rce p ti o n , " 1 R � f. s trued as oth e r profiles; see

"

ThP CambridgP Companion to llusserl, 1 g 2 f. To perceive a

"

"

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

6s

as fulfillment, is to be expressed as experience of identity, conscious­ ness of identi ty, act of identification, with respect to the objects on both sides, the object intuited on the one side and the object though t on the other side" (LU II/ 2 3 5 ) . But this experience, this "act of identifica­ tion , " can only be adequately described when it is clearly distinguished from acts of meaning or mere sensation. In Heidegger's eyes, Husser} succeeds, like no modern thinker before hitn , in firmly grasping that distinction and thus providing a suitable analysis of human knowledge . In the process Husserl breaks through the Cartesian cognitive model , shattering the image of the "glassy essence" invoked over centuries to portray the human mind. 29 2 . 1 1 2 EVI DENCE, B E IN G- TR U E , A N D THE MEAN I NGS O.F ' BEI N G . ' In complete accord with Husserl, Heidegger draws from this phenome­ nological conception of evidence the conclusion that all attempts to trace the phenomenon of evidence back to a feeling or mental datum are fundamentally absurd. Evidence is a specific intentional act, but pre­ cisely the act the object of which is the identity of what is meant and what is intuited. Evidence is no act that the identification accompanies; it is rather "the very execution of the identification ," in other words, "the act of identification, that precisely understands itself as such" (L 1 o8 ) . This view of evidence is, of course, only intelligible on the supposition of the intentional character of evidence. Rickert's talk of a "feeling of evi­ dence" aptly illustrates the implications of failing to appreciate that in­ tentional character. The construal of evidence as a matter of feeling goes hand in hand, Heidegger submits, with Rickert's insistence that the con­ cept of intentionality is "dark, metaphysical , dogmatic." 30 Since evidence is a way of identifying some thing or state of affairs on the basis of its original presence ("to the things themselves ! '' ) , the sense , the manner, and the rigorousness of the evidence depends upon the respective field of things ( Sachfelcl) . Heidegger sees in HusserI 's ac­ count of evidence a corroboration of Aristotle's ancien t stricture against assuming that the sort of evidence accessible in a definite man­ ner in one region is transferabl e to that of another region. To be sure , the function of evidence is universal ; it can be found in all manners of inten tionality ( there is the evidence of asserting, but also that of lov2 9 Cf. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of 1Vature ( Prin ceton : Princeton U niv. Press , 1 97 9 ) , 4 1 -4.� , esp. 42 n . 1 o. 30 P 35f, 6 7 , 4 1 -46; T I 0 1 - 1 04. On the absu rd ity of tra c i n g evidence to a feelin g, s e e LU I I / 2 1 2 fif.

66

H E I D EG GER ' s C O N C EPT O F TRUTH

ing) . Along wi th this un iversali ty, however, the evidence i s always at­ tached to a corresponding region . 3 1 For the region of material things, the limitations are patent: even if we perceive such a thing lying right in fron t of us with utter clarity, i t still shows only one side of itself. At the same ti me, this partial and perspectival sort of evidence suggests the idea of "a fina l and thoroughgoingfulfilbnent, " a phrase employed by Hei­ degger probably to co nvey what Husserl in the Logical Investigations calls "evide nce " in the strict sense of the term : the act of "the most complete a n d perfect synthesis offulfillment, an act which provides the intention , for example, the i n tention of j udgmen t, with the absolute fullness of con­ tent, th at of th e object itself' (LU II/ 2 1 2 1 f) . The operative distinction i n this connection, duly noted by Heidegger, is the distinction that Husserl makes between a rigorous and a loose sense of 'evidence ' or, correspondingly, adequate and inadequate sorts of evidence. While a real object within the world can appear only "inadequately" to us, "ad­ equate " evidence can be found in two realms, that of inner perception ( about which Heidegger has nothing to say) and that of categorial in­ tui tion ( Husserl 's second major "discovery," of which , as discussed in the next se c tion , Heidegger has a great deal to say) . 32 Husser I 's account of evidence is particularly important for the pres­ et1t study, because it leads to a thematization of meanings of ' truth ' ( and its synonym in some cases: ' being' ) . Heidegger himself explicitly focuses o n thi s thematization in his Marburg lectures. According to H usser! in the Logical Investigations, to have evidence is to exp � rience the trt1th i tself or what is also dubbed "being" : the perfect identity of the meant and given object. 'The evidence itself is, we said, the act of that most complete synthesis of fulfilhnent. Like every identification , it 31 P

68 ; l d

I 2 88f, 309-3 2 3 . Surprisi ngly, i n Heidegge r's p resen tation, the disti nction

made by Husse r) betwe e n fo rm a l an d r e g i o n al o n tol ogi es is not address e d , th o ugh it i� occasion ally i nvoke d ; see , e. g . , EpF 2 7of; ld I 3 07-3 1 o. 32 P 6sf; L t o sf; I d I 2 � 5- 2 R 8 ; LU Il/ 2 2 3 9-24 2 . It be a rs n o t i n g that H u sser) takes ex­ c e p t i o n to the

Brentan ian notion of " i n n e r p erce p t i o n ( LU I I / 2 240) . On the rol e of in the an a lys i s of both the l.ogical lnvf!Jligations and Ideas I, see LL I I / 1 3 5 4ff; LU II/ 2 2 3 9 ; Id I Ro-R 7 ; a n d T 7 2 , 85ff, 1 0 5 . 1-leidegger al l u des (P 65-tiR ) to t h e difference betwe e n apodi ctic e vi den c e ( "see i n g [Einsehen] i n t o an esse n tial rel a­ ti o n " ) a n d asse rtoric evidenc-e ( " i nsigh t [Einsicht] i n to th e indivi dual r e l a tio n of th ings [ o r s tate of affa i rs: Sachverhalt] ) , as \Ve il as th e i r con nection with one a n o th e r He th e reby revi �es th e d o c t r in e in ldea5 I, where H u s serl d i s ti nguishec.; " th e �o to speak ' as­ serto ri c ' see i n g of an i n d i vi d u a l . . . fro m an 'apodictic ' see i ng, fro n1 see i n g i n to an essence or esse n tial re la tion ," an d declare� that h e i n te n d �i to u�e th e term ' i nsigh t ' o n l y fo r a po d i c ti c e"idence; c f. Id I 2 8 !) . " i n ner p e rc e p tio n

"

"

"

.

T H E P H E N OMENOLOG I C A L C O N C E PT I O N OF TRUTH

67

is an objectifying act and its objective correlate is called 'being' in the sense of truth or also ' truth' " (LU II/ 2 1 2 2 , 1 2 6) . The truth is "experienced" in the evidence and it is experienced as a fulfillmen t (or equivalen tly an identity) that, as noted above, is distinct from the " mere" perception of something. At the same time Husser} also distinguishes evidence as th e experi­ ence of the truth from an explicit perception of the truth - ''and in the case of rigorous evidence: from the adequate perception of the truth" (LU II/ 2 1 2 2 ) . In order to explain this distinction, Husserl points to the fact that "carrying out the identifying coincidence is still not an actual per­ ception of the objective agreement; rather it first comes to this through a separate act of obj ectifying conception , through a separate look at the truth on hand" (LU II/ 2 1 2 2£) . In this connection Husserl refers in the second edition of the I_Jogical Investigations to the addition to section eigh t of the work, in which the "identifying coincidence," precisely as evidence, is explained as something that is "experienced" without the intentional consciousness of iden tity, "in which the identity as the unity 1neant first becomes objective for us" ( LU II/ 2 36 ) . Thus, evidence does not consist in the fact that two objective things (features, aspects, states of affairs, etc . ) are distinguished and then their agreement established; rather this identity - or at least and more typically a partial identity - is experienced before it is itself explicitly identified and made an object of reflection . Thus, in anticipation of the discussion of the prethematic life-world in Husserl 's later writings, he in troduces a prethematic con­ ception of truth or, what is the same, the experience of a prereflective iden tification (synthesis) . In Heidegger's presen tation of th is doc trine of evidence, he corre­ spondingly e1nphasizes that the truth is experienced in the evidence even where the iden tity itself is not thematically grasped. " Hence, we have the peculiar connection , that something is experienced but not grasped, and that this is experienced precisely in the grasping of the obj ect alone as such , that is to say, in not grasping the identity" ( P 70) . Heidegger stresses this conception of the originally un thematic expe­ rience of the truth not least because his own account of truth essentially builds upon it. As discussed in greater detail in the next chapter of the presen t study, what Heidegger construes as the original truth is the dis­ closure of the sense of being, a truth that is "understood" prethemati­ cally both in the (unth emati c ) use of entities and in the (explicitly the­ mati c ) attempt to comprehend th em .

68

H E I D EGGER ' s C O N C EPT OF T R U T H

Husserl 's own view of evidence as the experience of the truth i s elab­ orated in the context of his explanation of the first of four concepts of truth. Since Heidegger addresses three of these four concepts, all four are reviewed here briefly. The first concept of truth , one of the basic in­ spirations of Heidegger's own view of truth yet also a principal target of his criticisms (see 2 . 2 1 below) , is formulated by Husserl in two ways. "As correlate of an identifying ac t," the truth is "a state of affairs" ( Sachver­ halt) and, as a correlate to a coinciding identification, it is an "identi ty [Identitiit] : the complete agreement between the m ean t and the given as such" ( LU ll/ 2 1 2 2 ) The first formulation ( namely, as a state of af­ fairs) is likely meant to indicate that "truth" or, equivalently, "being'' is the obj ect of an act of identification, that is to say, the same obj ect or state of affai rs intuited and mean t. Truth may, h owever, just as well be defined as the identi ty that is the correlate of " th e most complete syn­ thesis of fulfillment" (evidence) , in other words, the concurrence of the matter meant and intuited, where there is nothing in what is meant that is not perceived in what is given and vice versa. Tru th is accordingly a "state of affairs" that is at the same time "an identi ty: the full agreement between the meant and the given as such" (LU ll/ 2 1 1 8f, 9 1 ; P 66-7 2 ) . Husserl 's observation that represen tative content and represented con­ ten t are iden tical in this representation suggests that he has inner per­ ception in mind when he articulates this ideal of a final fulfillmen t. Nevertheless, Heidegger repeatedly stresses that Husserl 's analysis of knowledge in the sense of a fulfilling perception ( " evidence" ) arrives at a level that is presupposed by the determination of truth as correctness or as the property of a judgment or assertion. The second concept of truth , construed by Husserl as a complement to the first, refers to the acts themselves. "Truth , " i n this second deter­ mination, is "the ideal relation, which prevails in the coinciding unity, de­ fined as evidence, between the epistemic essences of the coinciding acts them­ selves" (LU II/ 2 1 2 2 ) . Whereas the first definition presents truth as something obj ective corresponding to the coinciding unity of acts of meaning and perceiving, the second definition presents truth precisely as the relation ideally obtaining between those acts, as far as their epis­ temic natures are concerned. H eidegger stresses that this second con­ cept of truth is to be understood in connection with the first. If one takes the two conceptions togeth er, one gains a genuinely phenome­ nological and trenchant interpretation of the old scholastic definition of truth : veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus. In oth e r words, the original .

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sense of the truth entails both a state of affairs (Husserl 's first concept of truth ) and a knowing act ( his second concept of truth ) . 33 HusserI 's third concept of truth refers to the obj ect that is given in the fulfilling ac t. Talk of an object itself as "true" (for exam ple , ' a true friend' ) corresponds to this sense of truth . Heidegger comm ents that ' truth ' means here ''as much as rendering knowledge true" and , in that sense, it even means "being, actual-being" (P 7 1 ) . Husserl 's fourth concept of truth reflects the fact that one can speak of truth "as correctness of the intention (especially, for example, correctness of a judgment) , as its being adequate to the true obj ect" ( LU II/ 2 1 2 2 ) . This way of speaking of truth is as old as Aristotle : a sentence is true if it says what is actually the case, false if not ( Metaphysics 1 o 1 1 b2 7f) . In this way, however, Husserl adds, the logician merely articulates the "ideal" and, hence, "general " possibility that the meaning of a sentence can be fulfilled. This construal of truth as correctness thus depends upon truth in the sense of the first concept: "the full agreemen t be­ tween the meant and the given as such.'' Thus, Husser} makes a clear distinction between the mere correctness of a j udgment ( 'p is true ' ) and truth i n the primary sense of the term : the agreemen t experienced between what is mean t and what is given. This fourth way of conceiving truth is not mentioned by Heidegger, probably because Husserl himself declares it a subordinate conception of truth . In any case one should not inf� r from Heidegger's failure to cite what Husserl formally calls the fourth determination of truth that Heidegger overlooks or fails to appreciate the difference between these determinations . If Heidegger's criticism that HusserI 's analysis of truth falls victim to the logical prejudice in some sense ( th e identification of truth with propositional truth ) can be sustained, then the reason must lie elsewhere . Since Heidegger ultimately charges Husserl with the ontological naivete that makes the logical prejudice possible, it is also instructive that Heidegger takes due note of the similarity and difference between Husserl 's first and third concepts of truth. Their common feature is to be found in the fact that, in contrast to the two other definitions, they refer to "the obj ective correlate'' and are thereby understood as ''being 33 P 6gff. T h i s in terp retati on is dubious insofar a s t h e ideal relation, n o t t h e ac t� them­ selves, is the defining feature of this second conception . Tugendhat accordingly claims that the second concept of tru th is the "properly gen uine" o n e (T g6 ) .

H E I DEGGER ' S C O N C EPT

OF

T RUTH

i n the sense o f tru th ." Heidegger distinguishes the "true-bei ng" o r "be­ ing-true" that corresponds to the first concept from the "actual-being" or "being-actual" that corresponds to the third concept. While this ''ac­ tual-being" corresponds to the usual use of 'being, ' Heidegger empha­ sizes here that "a definite sense of being in the sense of 'being-true ' " is yielded by the fi rst concept of truth , a concept that, according to Husserl himself, i s m ore properly understood as a concept of being (P 7of; L 1 og) . This last observation deserves further comment. If Husserl 's third concept of truth refers to ' being' in the sense of the actuality of an en­ tity, the first and primary concept of truth demonstrates yet another sense of being. Husserl 's association of the primary sense of being with his first concept of truth as a relation between the meant and the given points to an understanding of being that goes beyond the Lotzean equation of ' being' with 'actuality' (in the sense of the 'presence ' ) of an entity. "Being-trtte is experienced as a special relation [Verhalt] , a re­ lation between the m eant and the intuited and, of course , in the sense of identity" (P 70) . The sense of being that proceeds from ' being-true ' is, in Heidegger's - not Husser I 's - terms, the disclosure of this special relation. Even this way of putting things is not quite right, however, if it suggests that the disclosure and the relation are distinct or that the re­ lation is something already consti tuted. Heidegger interprets Husserl 's conception of the primary sense of being and truth as, more precisely, the disclosing in which the "terms" of that relation and the relation it­ self are first defin ed. Corresponding to what is meant and given in Husserl 's first con c ept of truth are , respectively, the manners in which an enti ty or state of affairs is absent and makes itself present. The iden­ tity of what is mean t and given is, from the standpoin t of the en tity or state of affairs, its e mergence from absence into presence. In this fash­ ion , as Heidegge r sees it, Husserl 's conception of the primary sense of truth - a conception that, by his own accoun t, is tantamount to the sense of being - " breaks th rough" not only a Cartesian model of know­ ing, but also a conception of being as presence that allegedly haunts the en tire tradition of Western philosophy, beginning with Plato and Aris­ totle. The fact that Husserl himself does not grasp the full ontological import of his first concept of tru th lies at the heart of Heidegger's crit­ icisms of Husserl 's phenomenology (see 2 . 2 1 below. ) Heidegger makes one of these criticisms by exploiting Husserl 's use of th e expression ' state of affairs' in the first concept of truth, but the usage also i n trod u ces yet an o t h e r dimen �i on of Hu sserl 's a n c:� 1ysi s th at

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Heidegger considers part of the breakthrough that it represents. Be­ cause of this complication , a word about that usage is in order. The use of the expression 'state of affairs' in the context of the first definition of truth is, Husserl acknowledges, potentially misleading. Mter the chapter entitled "The Ideal of Adequation . Evidence and Truth ," in which truth is defined (LU II/ 2 1 1 5- 1 2 7 ) , HusserI declares that states of affairs are only given to categorial intuitions and, indeed, categorial in tuitions of the sort that correspond to acts ofjudging and fulfill such acts. Yet he also insists that the concepts of truth worked out in that chapter are valid for bo th "nonrelational" and "relational " acts (such as "naming" and 'judging" respectively) . "The nature of the matter itself, " H usser! avers, "demands that the concepts o f truth and falsi ty, a t least at first, are so broadly fixed that they encompass the entire sphere of obj ectifying acts" (LU II/ 2 1 2 5 ) . In this way he makes clear that truth is not only a question ofjudgment ( namely, an assertion-fulfillment, the corresponding state of affairs) , but also a question of "nominal acts" that find their fulfillment through the perception of "absolute" obj ects ( that are explicitly "not states of affairs" ) . H usser I thus makes it clear that the term ' state of affairs' in the first concept of truth is not etnployed to exclude other sorts of obj ects. His aim is to grasp the concept of truth presupposed by logic and he does so in such a way that the primary sense of ' truth ' is not equated with that of the truth of a judgment. There is accordingly no need, accord­ ing to Husserl , to concentrate expressly on j udgments. As he puts it in the same context, "nominal acts" will do j ust as well ( though it remains to be seen what it might mean to speak of the truth of "nominal acts'' or "nonrelational acts" ) . Th ese remarks make it even clearer, if it is not already, that H usser} is far from embracing any crude form of the logi­ cal prejudice . According to Husserl, "nonrelational , that is to say, one­ dimensional , monothetic acts" can be true. Moreover, Heidegger is more than simply aware of this aspect of Husserl 's analysis; he lauds it. Referring to Husserl 's doctrine of nonrelational acts, Heidegger claims: "Phen o menology accordingly breaks with the restriction of the concept of truth to relational judgments, acts." 34 While Heidegger does not elaborate this claim any furth er, it is sig34

P 7 3 · Heidegger obse rves that such relational acts are o nly one type of "being-true" of obj ec ti fyi ng acts of knowing i n gen eral ; however, he also rai s e s the stakes furth er by question i ng " whe th e r truth is to be conceived in an o riginal way in te rms of asserti ng or. b e t te r in tht> hroa der sense of obj ectifving ac tr.; " (P 7 � ) . .

H E I D EG G E R ' S C O N C EPT OF T R U T H

nificant for a t least two reasons. First, if there is anything to Heidegger's charge that Husserl 's phenomenological account of truth suffers from something akin to the logical prejudice of the tradition , the basis for the charge must lie in some oth er direction. Second, this talk of the truth of "nonrelational acts" ( that is to say, acts that are not judgments) also suggests a side to the phenomenological conception of truth that, while highly problematic from the poi nt of view of traditional logic, is exploited by Heidegger and adapted to his existen tial conception of truth . Unfortunately, the mean ing of truth in the case of those so-called nonrelational acts remains as obscure in Heidegger's presentation of Husserl 's analysis as it does in that analysis itself. The traditional objection to talk of the truth of names or "nonrela­ tional acts" rests on the commonplace that also underlies the logical prejudice, namely, the notion that truth cannot meaningfully be claimed for a single word or name ( 'Is the apple true? ' or 'Is it true that a red? ' ) but rather only for an explicit or implicit combination of words in a judgment ( ' Is "the apple is red" true? ' ' Is it true that the apple is red? ' ) (De interpretatione 1 6a 1 1 - 1 4 ) . Since nonrelational acts of naming and attributing are apparen tly by definition nonsyn thetic, it is not im­ mediately evident how they could deceive or be false, and hence what the alleged truth of such acts could mean (LU II/ 2 1 25 ; T 6off, 97 ) . What renders Husserl 's account of nominal acts obscure - at least prima facie - is that, while insisting on their difference from judgments, he nonetheless accords them a syntheticity that implies ajudgment. It is im­ portant to note in this connection that by ' names' Husserl does not have in mind merely proper names or even nouns but rather any words or word complexes that can perform a function akin to that of the gram­ matical subj ect of an assertion. A mere noun , devoid of an article, ac­ cordingly does not constitute a complete name. Husserl maintains that the article indicates a name or, better, nominal act in which the existence of what is named is posited and not merely entertained. In this way, while insisting that representing by way of naming or attributing remains es­ sentially distinct from judging, Husserl speaks of the derivativeness of "the nominal object" from the "state of affairs to which it belongs" ( LLT II/ 1 4 7 0) . According to Husserl, nonrelational acts of naming or at­ tributing "emerge " from the perception of a state of affairs that can it­ self be elaborated in the form of a judgment. As Tugendhat puts it, for Husser} "a nominal act is a positing only insofar as it implies a synthesis. " 35 3S See T

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T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

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Nevertheless, Husser} con tinues to maintain the difference between non relational and relational (predicative ) acts , a fact that Heidegger announces with considerable fanfare. According to Heidegger, as al­ ready noted, Husserl 's success in breaking with the tradition and un­ derstanding truth n ot only in the sense of th e truth of an assertion or judgment ( relational, predicative acts) is supposedly evidenced at least in some measure by the distinction between nonrelational and rela­ tional acts . Yet Heidegger offers scant rationale for his approval of this aspect of Husserl 's analysis of truth or, for that matter, for its supposed trenchancy. Heidegger apparen tly approves of the distinction because it anticipates his own conception of the originary truth of a "primary" understanding. Much as the truth is experienced ( ach ieved ) unthe­ matically, not in naming, but in the use of a name (LU II/ 1 464; II/ 2 1 2 5 ) , so being discloses itself - or makes sense - originally, according to Heidegger, in practical dealings with things that lie in advance of any explicitly relational (and - nota bene - objectifying) act. Heidegger thus makes a plea, very much in the spirit of Husserl, for expanding the concept of truth beyond its traditi onally conceived boundaries, namely, relational acts like assertions and judgments . At the same time the differences between the two thinkers remain enormous. Husserl ascribes to non relational as well as relational acts the possibility of truth and falsity, concepts that "encompass the entire sphere of objectifying acts" ( LU II/ 2 1 2 5 ) . By contrast, the truth that is original in Heidegger's view cannot be identified with any obj ectify­ ing act or any positing. The n on relational act is reinterpreted by Hei­ degger as a way of behaving ( Verhalten) , a so-called primary under­ standing that in a decisive respect - like sensations - cannot be false. This last remark is precipitous, introducing themes that can only be addressed with any clarity in the wake of a consideration of Heidegger's cri tical examin ation of the logical prejudice, with respect to both its on­ going influence on Husserl 's phenomenology and its alleged roots in Aristotle. Nonetheless , Heidegger's observation , cited earlier, about phen omenology "breaking with the restriction of the concept of truth to relational ju dgments" makes clear once again that his conception of j ekt einer Aussa ge , der meint das Genann te als seiend, er ' setzt' es also ( I I 463£) . Auch j ede schlichte, noch vorpdidikative Wah rnehm ung ist setzend und meint ihren Gegen­ stand als seie nden ( I I 465 ) , sonst konnte sie nicht durc h den wei teren Wahr­ n ehmungsve rlauf en ttauscht werde n (vgl . Ideen § 1 03 , EU § 2 1 ) . Tugendhat is refer­ ring to LU II/ 1 463-7 1 . In this con nec tion, see, too, H ei d e gge r s talk of a "surfeit of inten tions" even with respect to .. a sheer naming" ( P 7 7 ) . "

'

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74

an original truth self-consciously builds upon Husserl 's notion of in­ tentionality. 2. 12

Categorial Intuition. Prior to his discussion of the concept of truth Husserl notes that, when he refers to intuitions or perceptions, he is not thinking merely or even principally of sensory perceptions or intu­ itions . The other sort of intuition countenanced in the Logical Investi­ gations is a categorial intuition, and Husserl 's account of it is the second major discovery of phenomenology, according to Heidegger. Indeed , not only in the Prolegomena Lectures of 1 92 5 , but much later, in his 1 963 retrospective , Heidegger iterates this doctrine 's singular impor­ tance to hitn: "The significance of the distinction between sensory and categorial intuition worked out here [in the Sixth Logical Investiga­ tion] for the de termination of the 'manifold tneaning of being' [Be­ deutung des Seienden] became evident to me. " 36 A decade later, in the Zahringen Seminar, Heidegger is reported as saying that Husserl can1e close to the genuine question of being in the Logical Investigations, es­ pecially the Sixth Logical Investigation where "with the concept of cat­ egorial intuition he touches or brushes against the question" ( ZSD 4 7 ; VS 1 1 ) . If Husserl i s supposed to have thought th e grand tradi tion of Western philosophy to an end by recovering its genuine foundation and origin, namely, in tuition and not judgment, then it is above all his doc­ trine of categorial intttition that enables him to accomplish this feat. In the Logical Investigations Husserl presents his account of categor­ ial intuition after he has dealt with the concept of intentionality and, on the basis of the latter, the concepts of evidence and truth . Heideg­ ger follows th is same sequence in his exposition of Husserl 's discover­ ies. But Husserl must already presuppose a categorial intuition in his characterization of truth . As was noted above, HusserI employs the term 'state of affairs' ( Sachverhalt) in the first concept of truth , as a tneans of characterizing truth as the correlate of an identifying act ( i . e . , som e­ th ing experienced as agreeing with what is meant to such an extent that they are identified with each other) . However, the expression 'state of affairs' signals not a mere "nominal represen tation" ( ' the Eiffel To\ver' ) but the "meaning of an assertion as a whole " (Aussagebedeutung i1n Ganzen) ( 'The Eiffel Tower is huge ' ) ( LLT ll/ 2 1 2 8 ) . "In the broadest sense even general states of affairs are perceived ( ' observed, ' 'looked at' among th e evidence) . In th e narrower sense, perception applies :� 6

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only to individual, temporal being" (LU II/ 2 1 44) . While "se nsory or real objects" are defined by Husserl as potential objects of sensory per­ ception and sensory i magination, categorial intuition is directed at the sorts of objects that, like states of affairs, cannot be constituted in a sim­ ple , sensory act of perception . The truth of the entire assertion ' the Eif­ fel Tower is a radio station and an observation tower' is by no means the object or content of a simple, sensory perception. Its truth is instead an ac tual state of affairs that includes or, better, yields the sense of terms indicative of its categorial or logical form, namely ' the, ' 'is,' 'a, ' and 'and ' ; in other words, the copula, definite and indefinite articles, and conj unction (LU II/ 2 1 45f, 1 5 1 ) . In an assertion about a perception , there is "a surplus of intentions'' that cannot be identified by means of a "simple, straightforward perception of the matter" ( P 7 7 ) . The set of problems at issue here obviously does not first emerge in the context of phenomenology. The accoun t of categorial intuition is supposed to resolve a time-honored philosophical dilemma ( cf. Theaete­ tus 1 8sa- 1 86e ) . We avail ourselves of an array of parts of an assertion, to which nothing in a sensory perception direc tly corresponds. One need only consider (a) such terms as ' all , ' ' this, ' 'some, ' ' no t, ' ' or, ' and ' if, then, ' each of which - like the copula, definite and i ndefinite arti­ cles, and conjunction mentioned at the end of the last paragraph - is traditionally associated wi th the concept of logical form, (b) terms of comparison ( 'similar, ' 'greater' ) and position ( ' next to,' 'after' ) and, not least, (c) terms that designate classes, species, types, or universals as such ( 'water, ' ' protoplasm , ' 'humanity' ) ( LU ll/ 2 1 2 9, 1 3 7ff) . Since the meanings or functions of these expressions find no "fulfillment'' in a sensory intuition, the question presents itself as to whether and, if so , how they can be determined at all. The answer to this question is often sought in the thinking or know­ ing subject, apart from the se nsible world or at least in abstraction from any input from it. Subjectivity, so construed, is said to have a privileged access to categorial forms or simply to manufacture them. The sense of logical forms and thereby the truth of logical propositions are accord­ ingly ascribed either to a transcendent sphere accessible only via some sort of purely nonsensory intuition or to the immanent sphere of men­ tal ac tivities, the association or manipulation of sensory items that is in turn available solely through memory, introspection , or reflection. By con trast, the great vi rtue of Husserl 's doctrine of categorial intuition i n Heidegger's estimation lies precisely in provi ding a n explanation o f the oqjectivi ty of J ogi c� 1 fo rm s . an explanation t h a t does not confuse that

HEIDEGGER'S

C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

objectivity with the mind's workings and yet has nothing to do wi th a so­ called intellectual intuition . 37 Heidegger's exposition of Husserl 's doc trine of categorial intuition is considered in more detail below. But first it may be useful to pause and consider the distinctiveness o f that doctrine, given the sorts of philosophical claims that must be rejected if the doctrine can be sus­ tained. Some of the mist surrounding the notion of categorial in tuition can be traced to the translation. In German, the ordinary use of 'An­ schauung' is by no means equivalen t to Kant's use of 'Anschauung, ' nor does it convey some putative insigh t of the sort so trenchantly criticized by Peirce ( namely, cognition determined by consciousness alone and mediated neither by signs nor by any previous knowledge ) . 38 Instead, 'Anschauung'is simply a substan tive of 'a nschauen, ' meaning ' to look at, ' ' observe,' or ' examine. ' The range of the term 's normal usage is ex­ tensive, encompassing idle registeri ngs of what happens to cross one 's sensory field as well as con trolled, methodical attempts to detec t spe­ cific features or symptoms. Husserl 's use of 'Anschauung' and 'Wahr­ nehmung' (perception ) in equivalent ways underscores the importance of not investing the former term with any extraordinary men tal power (LU II/ 2 1 3 8 , 1 42 ) . His doc trine of categorial intuition draws instead on ordinary usage of these terms in the context of observation or ex­ amination. A few typical examples may help . Sometimes verbs like ' observe ' or ' examine ' are used in connection with reporting or with investigating some level of complexity, as i n ' Did you observe what happened? ' or 'I examined the patient. ' In such cases , observing or examining entails re­ lating things or parts of a thing to each other or relating one or more of them to the entire set of them G ust as examination of one thing is typically a matter of relating one or more features of it to other features or to all of its features as a whole ) . Merely attending to a Sach-verhalt, the relation (difference and unity ) making up a th ing or fact is a "cat­ egorial inten tion," the object of which is, as Sokolowski deftly puts it, "not a simple perceptual obj ect, but an obj ec t infected wi th syn tax, " 3 7 Descartes, AT 1 0 : 3 6 8ff; G . v\'. F. Leibniz, Discours de metaphysique ( Paris: Vri n , 1 98 3 ) , 6gf; Baruch Spi noza, Ethica, Part I I , Propositi o n 4 0 , Scholium 2 in opera, ed . C. Gebh ardt ( H eidelberg: Wi n ters, 1 97 2 ) , 1 2 2 ;

J. G.

Fichte, Werke I, ed. I. H. Fic h te ( Be rl i n : de

Gru y te r, 1 9 7 1 ) , 463 . B y n o means s h o u l d one conclude from this list that the term ' i n­ tuitio n ' is used i n the same way b y these t h i nkers. Peirce, " Questions Co n c e rn i n g Ce rtai n Fac ul ties Claimed fo r Man , "

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while actually perceiving or observing that Sachverhalt is equivalent to "registering" a fact. 3 9 While the capaci ty for "categorial observa­ tion," the ability to register facts , is commonplace, it is hardly uniform , attesting at the very least to a degree of expert knowledge in some arenas. However, even for the least expert or most humdrum sort of knowl­ edge , there is another and equally significant use of these evidentiary verbs, as they might be dubbed. Consider the uses of such verbs in the following two sentences: ' I ' d heard that he's a fabulous raconteur, but until last night I hadn 't had the pleasure of observing him in action ' ; 'The guy says that his brakes failed but I have to examine them for my­ self. ' Observation of a gifted raconteur working a room obviously is not the same as hearsay to that effect or a mere sighting of the event. So, too, it is one thing to believe someone's testimony and quite another to look for independent corroboration of it. Moreover, like the difference just noted between an observation and mere sightin g of the raconteur in action , examination of a car's brakes can involve a lot more than look­ ing at each wheel 's mechanism and checking the brake lines for leaks. In fact, even whe n this look is enough to tell whether the brakes are faulty, seeing that they are faulty is worlds apart, not only from thinking or conjec turi ng that they are, but from merely seeing the brakes. In each of these cases, thanks to the observation or examination, what is otherwise simply given changes in stature, becoming something much more, as it is revealed to be the case. While the observation does not make the racon­ teur hold his audience captive any more than the examination makes the brakes faulty or not, the reality of the respective situation only pre­ sents itself to categorial intuitions of this sort. The categorial intuitions corresponding to the two uses of ' observ­ ing' and 'examining' exemplified in the last two paragraphs both fall unde r one of two kinds of categorial intuition identified by Husser!. Heidegger presents the doctrine of categorial intuition by exposing each kind separately. The details of that exposition are elaborated in the next two sections, but it should already be clear that Htisserl 's ac­ count of categorial intuitions works against competing theories on three fronts: positivist, Platonist, and Kantian. The possibility of a cate­ gorial in tuition clearly con tradicts an empiricist or positivist program of reducing all meanings and all truths to sensory intuitions and stipu­ lated systems of particular types of such perceptions ( signs ) , in other 39

Sokolowski , llus.\erlian Meditatzon�.

� t f.

' HEIDEGGER s

C O N C E P T OF T R U T H

words, the "two dogmas" of reductionism and analyticity. At the same time, H usserl 's doctrine dispenses with the disputed claim to an intu­ ition , in dependent of sensory intuitions, that affords a human being im­ mediate access to th e "really real" ( ontos on) . O n both these fronts, Husserl is a loyal Kantian . He shares with Kant the view that human beings can think much more than they can know or observe (LU II/ 2 1 9 2 ) , that they have no intellectual intuition at their disposal, and that there are , nevertheless, "a priori laws" of their thinking, that is to say, laws that cannot be given in any sensory per­ cepti o n and yet lie ( transcenden tally, not metaphysically) at the bottom of a11y determination of experience and any conventionally regulated system of signs . Despi te these agreements, however, Husser] 's doctrine of categorial intuition is incompatible with the epistemological princi­ ples of Kant's transcendental philosophy. In the first place, Kant con­ siders all intuitions sensory, whether they be, in his sense, empirical or pure . While there is a certain similarity between what Husserl and Kant respectively include under "sensory" perception , the conception of a categorial intuition remains utterly alien to Kant. In the second place, Kant undertakes to derive the categories as pure structures of thinking ("pure concepts of the understanding" ) solely from a presupposed list of logi cal forms ofjudgment, independent of any possible intuition (as he unde rstands the notion ) . By contrast, HusserI assumes neither the indep endence of th e understandi ng from se nsoriness nor the basic comple teness of logic. Thanks to the categorial intui tions ' analogous­ ness to sensory intui tions, he is able to regard categories , their contents, and obj ects as something give n just as much as the obj ects of sensory perc e p ti ons are. Moreover, far from being spontaneous but fixed and presu p p osed produc ts of thought, categories are open to examination with res p ect to precisely how they are given . 40 Husserl's doctrine of categorial intuition thus stands critically at odds wi th these three traditional positions.

2. I 2

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Husserl 's doctrine of categorial in tuition aims at solving the question of logical truth, that is to say, the truth of claims about logical form and the formal parts of an assertion , as well as the question of the truth cor­ respo nd ing to entire assertions, indeed, even th e seemingly most ele40 Cf.

VS

1 1 4; see, too , L U I I / � 203 for H usserl 's c ri tical remark� about Ka n t ' s critique of

reas o n .

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mentary empirical assertions. 4 1 The discovery of intentionality and the stages of fulfillment lends such questions a particular urgency. When the Eiffel Tower is mentioned, what is typically meant is something that can be given in a more or less straightforward way in a sensory percep­ tion. According to Husserl , the meaning of the Eiffel Tower, en ter­ tained or meant in its absence, can be fulfilled in the perception of the Eiffel Tower. But how do matters stand in the case of words like ' is' and 'and ' ? Is there a respective fulfillment for each term , corresponding to what each is intended to say? Can one speak of the evidence or truth of what is mean t by these expression s? In contrast to nominal terms, the so-called material of an assertion , such nonnom inal terms are charac­ terized as "form words" and "categorial forms ." Husser} accordingly uses the label ' categorial ' for the sort of intuition in which the mean­ ings of these categorial forms are fulfilled (LU II/ 2 1 4 2f) . As indicated above , however, in addition to explaining the formal or logical terms that indicate a synthesis of material within an assertion , categorial in­ tuitions also help explain how the very state of affairs expressed by an as­ sertion is given in a perception. What is en tertained in its absence, not only in the case of a nominal expression ( ' the Eiffel Tower' ) but also in the case of an entire assertion ( 'The Eiffel Tower is huge ' ) , can be pres­ ent and thus be found (fulfilled, realized) in a corresponding intuition or observation. Still, it is by no means clear in what sense the meaning of an asser­ tion as a whole and thereby that of its non nominal or formal tertns can be fulfilled. If one compares the simple sensory perception of some­ thing and an assertion about it, one finds, as Husserl famously puts it, a "surplus of in tentions" that are not iden ti � able in that sort of per­ ception . Indeed, following Husserl, Heidegger notes that such a surplus is presen t even in the case of "a simple naming, a nominal positing of the sort [of thing it is, for example, as] the yellow, upholste red chair," since the attribute 'yellow' means not only the visible color but also the invisible being-yellow. 42 4 1 LU I I / 2 1 2 8f: " [ S] o stellen wi r die Frage , wie di e Erfiillung der

ganzen Aussage ,

zumal

nach dem, was iiber ihre ' Materi e , ' d . h . hier iiber die no1n i nalen Term i n i h i nausreicht, zu verstehen ist? Was soli und kan n den Bedeutungsn1om e n ten , welche die Satzform als sole he ausmach te n , und wozu be ispielswe ise die Kopula gehort - den Momente n der 42

' kategorialen Form' - Erfiillung versc haffen?" P 7 7 ; LU II/ 1 4 7of; Ll! , I I / 2 1 3 1 . For a clear rej e c tion of the so-called surplus, see H u 1ne s Treatise of Hu man lVature, second edi tion , ed. P. H . Nidditch (Oxford: Clare n'

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C F: PT OF T R U T H

8o

Heidegger's exposition of the categorial intuition follows, in broad strokes, the presentation given by Husserl in the sixth chapter of the Sixth Logical I nvestigation. Yet Heidegger links the question of the cat­ egorial intuition to the question of truth much more emphatically than Husser} does. The reason for this greater emphasis is undoubtedly Hei­ degger's strategy; his exposition of Husserl's discoveries is designed to demonstrate how Husserl uncovers the basis and the limitations of the logical prej udice . But the link is by no means artificial. For, as Heideg­ ger was quick to see , the question of categorial intuition is precisely the question of the sustainability of the idea of truth , elaborated in the pre­ ceding chapter of the Sixth Logical Investigation , that is to say, i ts sus­ tainability with respect to assertions themselves. "The assertion ex­ presses what cannot at all be found by way of a [ sensory] perception. Must not the idea of an adequate fulfillment of assertions in general be given up and with it the idea of truth?" (P 7 8 ) . It has probably been iterated sufficiently that one looks in vain to a senso ry percep tion in order to find the presence of what is inte nded or meant by terms for categorial forms. In the case of categorial forms , there is nothing comparable to the presumed isomorphism between names ( ' the Eiffel Tower' ) and their fulfillments, " objects of possible sensory perception" (the observed Eiffel Tower) (LU II/ 2 1 3 9 ) . A pic­ torial parallelism is also not to be found in a perception of so-called in­ ner sense. Corroboration of the meaning of a categorial form ex­ pressed by words like 'is' or 'a' is, in con trast to concepts like "pe rception ," 'judgment," "inference," not yielded by reflection on certain mental acts. In other words, terms like 'a' and 'is' do not by any means stand exclusively for men tal acts or states. Objects of the inner sense do not fulfill or realize their meani ngs. As Husser} trenchantly puts the case against Locke : "The thought judgment is fulfilled in the inner intuition of an actual judgment; but the thought of ' is ' is not ful­ filled therein . " 43 What is meant by the use of terms for logical form is given , without doubt, only by virtue of certain mental acts, such as judg­ ing, but that is not to say that what is so given is the act ofjudging i tself don, 1 97 8 ) , 66f: "The idea of existe n c e , the n , is the very same with th e idea of vv·hat \Ve co n ce ive to be exi s te n t . To re flect on any th ing sim ply, and to reflec t on i t as existe n t , a re n o t h in g d i fferen t from eac h oth e r. That ide a , w h e n co�join ' d \\i th t h e idea o f any

o �j e c t , m a kes no ad dition to i t. 'Wh atever we conceive , we con ceive to be existe n t. Any idea we pl e as e to form is the idea of a bei ng; and the idea of a being is any idea we p l e a � e to form . ''

4� Lu

II/�

· � 9 ; P 7 8 f; LoLkt , .A n E�MIJ Conrerning l/u man

L'ndcr� tan ding,

I OJ .

THE P H EN O M E N OLOG I C A L C ON C EPT I O N

OF

TRUTH

81

or even its product. In other words, the meanings of ' and, ' 'a,' 'is, ' and other such expressions of categorial forms do not designate immanent mental events of asserting, but rather part of what is asserted, a specific state of affairs. In this way Husser I overturns the "ancient prejudice " of trying to interpre t what is not directly perceivable in a sensory way as something immanent within the subject. Heidegger rightly adds that th is accomplishment of Husserl is based upon his discovery of inten­ tionality (P 8o, 97 ) . Husserl thus excludes any "pictorial" parallel between the meanings of categorial forms and what "fulfills" them. Nevertheless, a parallelism of sorts is retained, even if Husserl rejects any recourse to an intellec­ tual intuition. ( Like Kant and the mature Hegel, Husserl does not coun­ tenance any sort of intellectual intuition , that is to say, any immediate apprehension or cognition independent of any sensations or, for that matter, any sensory intuitions. ) "It is the nature of the matter that ulti­ mately everything categorial rests upon sensory intuition, indeed, that a categorial intuition, an insigh t of the understanding, a thinking in the highest sense of the term, is an absurdity without a sensory foundation " ( LU I I / 2 1 83 ) . What i s meant in the form o f a n assertion i s identified in a categorial intuition that is itself grounded in a straightforward, sen­ sory perception . Thus, between "the meaning-in tentions and those acts founded on perceptions," there is a limited parallelism in the sense that "purely signitive acts can correspond to all acts of categorial intui tion with their categorially formed objects " - but not vice versa. 44 Or, to put the matter more broadly, every categorial intuition, every "sigh ting" of a categorial form , every "registering" of a state of affairs, presupposes an act of thinking, meaning, or sign ifying that same form or state of af­ fairs. But we can think and mean a great deal more than we can "cate­ gorially" perceive. The essential difference between categorial percep­ tion and categorial thinking lies precisely in the fact that the former builds upon or includes sensory perception . In other words, while Husserl supposes that a possible categorial intuition corresponds re­ spectively to every true assertion , every categorial in tuition must itself be founded upon sensory intuitions. Accordingly, his first step towards a positive explanation of categorial intuitions is to se t them off sharply from the founding perceptions. The act of a "sensory," " straightforward" perception is "a homage44 LU

I I / 2 1 3 2 , 1 9 1 ; P 64 , 7 7 ; Heidegger claims (P 94 ) that talk of th e fou ndedness of the

catego rial o n th e sen sorily in tuitive

is a

reformula ti o n of De

anima 4 3 1 a 1 6f.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R UTH

neous unity" that immediately ("in one stroke") presents (gegenwiirtigt) the obj ect with a specific con ten t (LU II/ 2 1 47£) . What is perceived in this "simple, straightforward" ( schlicht) fashion is thus neither held apart nor held together in this act; in other words, no relation is deter­ mined within it nor is it related to anything else. The possibility that what is so experienced may itself be divisible or structured is not thereby excluded. Yet however complex the content of what is immediately per­ ceived may turn out to be, the manner in which it is perceived is simple and straigh tforward . Furthermore , the obj ect of the sensory perception is given as a whole , but always only from one side th at is turned toward us. That an object is straightforwardly perceived, means only that it is " not constituted in acts of relating, con necting, and otherwise dividing it" (LU ll/ 2 1 45- 1 48 ) . The immediacy of the way an object is presented ("at a single stroke'') does not mean that the sensory perception happens at a single instant. As noted earlier, one and the same object is perceived "in the con tinuous course of individual perceptions," that is to say, "in the give and take of various profiles" (LU II/ 2 1 49; P 8 1 f) . The perception , in other words, is itself a progression with a phenomenological unity: the individual perceptions are directed at the same object and, indeed, such that they "fuse " into a simple, straightforward perception . If, for example, one perceives the Eiffel Tower by continuously looking at it, th is perception is not a sum or explici t synthesis of m any partial per­ ceptions, each of which means its own object, different from the oth­ ers. Husserl concedes, to be sure , that in this fusion the unity of an iden­ tification comes about. Yet in this fusion "identification is carried out, but no identity is meant" (LU II/ 2 1 50) . In other words, if Husser! 's analysis is correct, then no second act, separate from the continuous perception, is required. In the course of summarizing the sense of these simple, founding acts, Heidegger succinctly captures Husserl 's reflec­ tions. "This aspect, that the phases of perception are carried out in one act and that each phase of the sequence of perceptio n is a comple te perception, this is the character that we designate by the tertn 'straight­ forwardness' [Schlichtheit] or 'single-layeredness' of the perception. Straightforwardness means lacking the layered acts that only establish unity sub­ sequently" (P 8 2 ; see also LU II/ 2 1 4 8 ) . For the doctrine of categorial intuition it is crucial that this "straigh t­ forwardness" be understood wi th respect merely to the manner of givenness and n o t the makeup of t h e given object itself. While the en­ ti re object ( "in the sense of th e th ing's ve ry self in th e fl esh " ) i s given

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"explicitly" in a simple perception, the various parts, aspects, and pro­ files of that object are at the same time "implicitly" present. If, by means of a further perception , one aspect and its relation to the whole are sin­ gled out, then that simple, straightforward perception of the object "continues to work" in this separate act of perceiving and "coincides" with it (LU II/ 2 1 54 ) . 'Separative perceiving' (Sonderwahrnehmen) is Husserl 's term fo r the act of perceiving a part of something and thereby in some way its relation to the whole. This separative perceiving is founded upon a simple, straigh tforward, holistic perceiving ( Gesamt­ wahrnehmen) in the sense that the separative perception is directed at what is given merely implicitly in the latter. Herein lies the basic insigh t underlying the foundedness of a categorial intui tion . As Heidegger puts it, "the foun ded acts newly disclose the objects straightforwardly given," such that they are explicitly grasped for what they are (P 84) . If, for example, one sees that the Eiffel Tower curves gen tly outward to the ground, it is the same tower that one perceives "simply, straigh t­ forwardly" without directing one 's attention to this specific aspect. With the subsequent observation of this aspect, the perception of the tower as a whole does not fade from view. Rather the observation of an aspect or a part is founded upon the undifferentiated perception of the whole , a perception that, as it were , unfolds in and even complements that ob­ servation. At the same time, the fact that the object of the simple, straightforward act is a whole ( containing parts) only emerges from this founded fact. The perception of a whole (A) and the perception of a part ( a) can be distinguished, of course . "However," as Husser} empha­ sizes, "these two acts are not carried out merely at th e same time or suc­ cessively in the man ner of 'unconnected' experiences; instead they combine together into one single act, in the synthesis of which the A is first given as having in itself the a. " 45 There is, therefore , no third, subsequent conception that brings th e holistic and separative perceptions together or that implies their con­ nection (whole-part) . This separative perceiving is also not th e result of an analysis of the matter in its entirety, as if the state of affai rs as such ( "Th e Eiffel Tower extends outward to the ground in soft curves" ) were already grasped in the simple, straightforward perception . "The part is, of course , contai ned in the whole prior to all division and is grasped in the whole along with the perceptual grasp of the whole; but this fact, 45

LU I I / 2 1 5 3 ; P 8 5 ff; as th is exposi tion i n d i c a te s , the acc o u n t of cate gorial i n tuition pre­ su pposes a (· e rtai n mereologv, e laborated in th e T h i rd Logi cal l n\·estigation .

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF

TRUTH

that i t is contained the rein , i s at first merely the ideal possibili ty o f bring­ ing i t and i ts being-a-part into the corresponding, divided and founded acts of perception" ( LU II/ 2 1 5 5 ; P 8 2 ff) . Thus, i t would seem that the categorially perceived s tate of affairs is experienced but n o t grasped, not " th ematized" in the simple, founding perception . "The founded act of rel ating yields something th at will never be able to be grasped through simple, straightforward perceiving as such" (P 8 7 ) . Questions remain regarding what is given in this so-called founded act ( the categorial i n tuition ) and h ow it is given . In what sense is the state of affairs corresponding to an assertion given? To what extent is it meaningful to spe ak of the "intuition" or "fulfillmen t" of a logical form? These two questions are directed at the very make-up of empirical and logical truths, respec tively. The ove rarching question of the sense of the intuitedness of a categorial i n tuition in general and these "synthetic" forms of it in particular is addressed below. However, first an important alteration or even distortion that Husserl 's doctrine undergoes in Hei­ degger's exposition must be noted. Heidegger places so much weight on the role of categorial in tuition that the difference between i t and sensory intuition is obscured or even effaced.46 This slant is appare n t in Heidegger's claim that " the simple, straigh t­ forward perception , that one likes to designate as ' sensory perception , ' i s saturated i n itself with categorial intuition" (P 8 1 ) . For the basis of this claim Heidegger hearke ns back to the discussion of ' expression ' in the First Logical Investigation. ' Expressing' can signify, on the one hand, making some act or sta te of mind known , for example, a per­ ception or a wish , by way of manifesting it (LU II/ 1 3 3 ff) . But i t can also "communicate'' what is perceived. In the latter sense , an assertion ex­ presses not the occurrence of the speaker's percep tion but the enti ty en countered in the p e rception. More importantly, this expressibility ex­ tends, Heidegger claims, to every act that directly entertains or presen ts an obj ect, from thi n king to pe rception . "All our ways of behaving are 46 Long before the ti me that Heidegger is lecturing on these matters, Husserl had moved beyond the somewhat wooden account of the founding relation in LU. H is maturer, ge­ netic phenomenology focuses explici tly on the structure and genesis of the founding experience (e.g. , passive synth eses) . Here again, Heidegger has his fi n ger on an issue that Husser} recogni zes but develops along a quite different traj ectory. A� noted below, categorial in tui tions satura te th e perceptual f1eld for Husserl himself, even at the sup­ posedly ground-level relation of sensation (or sensory data) to sensory in tuition. Thu"i, in LU perception is said to take place thro u gh a certain apprehe nsion or grasp (A uf Jassung) of sensa tions, n ot to be confused with either an inference or an interpreta tion ( though

it i�

analogou� to the latter) ;

cf.

LLT I I / I

75f.

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OF

TRUTH

85

in fact saturated by assertions," a s h e puts i t, and that means that those actions are performed within the framework of a "specific expressibil­ ity" (P 7 5 ) . Mter i terating that ' expression ' here signifies not th e man­ ifestation of the act of perceiving but rather th e communication of what is perceived, he adds: "This sense of expressions transposes itself on to all straightforward acts that yiel d an obj ect" (P 7 6 ) . The implications of this remark are patent. If perceptions are "saturated" in some sense by the ability to express , that is, communi cate then1, then th e distinction between sensory and categori al intuition becomes little more than a distinction between tacit and explicit perception. For the "surplus of in­ ten ti ons" contained in expressi ons extends to the straightforward per­ ception , waiting to be made expl icit. Not surprisi ngly, then, al though the doctri ne of categorial intuition as a founded act depends upon the in tegrity of the sensory intuition (s) founding it and is so exposited by Heidegger, he makes no secret of the fac t that he regards the sensory intuition as an abstractum. "The con­ crete intuition that explicitly yields an obj ect is never an isol ated sen­ sory perception wi th a single layer, bu t rather is always a layered, that is to say, categorially determinate intuition" (P 9 3 ) . Heidegger accord­ ingly rej ects the notion that obj ects are somehow fi rst intuited and then subsequently discussed (named or classified ) . I nstead , in keeping with the idea that all perceptions are saturated by expressibility and thus cat­ egorial intuitions, he declares: "We see not so much primarily and orig­ inally the objects and things, but rather we fi rst speak about them; more precisely, we do not say what we see but rather, vice versa, we see what one says about the matter" (P 7 5 ) . Heidegger's rem ark suggests that the distinction drawn by Husser} between naming and judging (as discussed above) has its counterpart in an equally questionable distinction between sensory and categorial intuitions . In other words, just as the distinction between naming and judging turns out to be a distinction between impl icit and expl icit judg­ ing, so the distin ction between sensory and categorial intuitions turns out to be one beween tacit, prethen1atic, and explicit, thematic catego­ rial observations. I n any case , the claim that "the concrete intuition" is never the simpl e , straightforward intuition moves for the most part be­ yond the parame ters of Husser] 's own stated views of thi ngs in the Log­ ical Investigations (and arguably eve n Ideas I) . Heidegger's interpreta­ tion is not straigh tforwardly compatible wi th the doctrine of categorial intuition or at least not without much further ado . If "the simpl e , strai gh tforward percepti on . . . is saturated wi th categorial intui tion ,"

86

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C EPT OF TRUTH

how can the founding (sensory) a n d founded ( categorial ) intui tions be distinguished? Heidegger himself observes at one point (P 84) that an expression is a " new" way of obtaining access to " the straightforwardly pre-given object"; but th e sense in which it might be construed as "new'' must at least be qualified if the straigh tforwardly pre-given obj ect is al­ ready categorially "saturated" or mediated.47 (The founding relation , it bears adding, is not disestabl ish ed by Heidegger's interpretation but revised. That is to say, given his interpretation of the way sensory in tu­ itions are saturated by categorial ones, the difference be tween straigh t­ forward and complex intuitions does not coi ncide wi th that between sensory and categorial ones. ) Raising this query is not to say that the relation be tween foundi n g and founded acts is unproblematic in Husser!. What probably occa­ sioned Heidegger's interpretation was Husserl 's own explanation of the relation, men tioned above, betwee n a simple grasp of a whole and a sec­ ond act of perception, directed at a part; they are , Husser} stresses, not '" unconnected' experiences; instead they combi ne together into one 4 7 A dog has sensati ons and perceptions, i.e . , it i n terprets various sensations so as to relate

in one way to one object in its environment and in a different way to a differen t object. Whatever the m echanisms for th is interpretive capacity (e.g., instinctual , acquired) , they obviously do not include a natural language of the human variety. These animal perceptions, moreover, are not merely straightfon-vard, sensory perceptions but also cat­ egorial perceptions, e.g. , perceptions of states of affairs. So, too, for humans there are nonlinguistically mediated processes of synth esis and discrimination of sensations in havi ng perceptions. If there is anything to these ruminations, then it would appear that Heidegger conflates two issues in his exposition: ( 1 ) the saturatedness of sen sory intu­ itions with categorial intuitions and ( 2 ) the saturatedness of intuitions with expressions. I n defense of conflating these two forms of saturation , one might argue that most non­ li nguistically mediated processes are at an extremely margi nal thresh h old relative to our normal , conscious experience of the world, or more pointedly, that our perceptions are measurably predetermined by linguistic symbols. But this case must be 1nade and Hei­ degger simply does not address it. On the issue of the relation between perception and assertion ( expression ) , it s hould be born e in mind that Hu�serl ascribes to them an "in­ ner relation" without, however, suggesting that the perception requires the assertion or \ice versa. An assertion "expresses" a perception or, n1ore p recisely, what is "given " i n a perception ( LU II/ 2 1 6 ) . See LU II/ 2 2 1 : ''Die Wahrnehmung, welche den Gegenstand gibt und die Aussage , die ihn m ittelst des U rteils . . . denkt und au�driickt, sind vollig zu sondern . . . . " H usser!, i t desen,es noti ng, dismisses theories of perception in terms of signs ( LU II/ 1 70-7 5� Id I 7 8ff, 97- 1 0 2 ) . At the same time, if perceptual acts are to be distinguish ed from semi otic acts or structures, they are also linked to them - not through meaning or perceiving - but th rough knowing, and it is in terms of knowing as the "experience of transition" that the two act� "belong together" ( LU II/ 2 2 5 ) . "The i n ten tional es�ence of the act of intuition," Husserl declares, perhaps too cavalierly, ''ac­ commodates i tself ( more or less completely) to the meani ngful essence of the express­ i ng aL L" ( LlJ I I / � :j � ) .

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single act" (LU II/ 2 1 5 3 ) . Mo reover, given the problematic ch aracter, noted earlier, of Husse rl 's accoun t of the integri ty of nominal acts, and, further, given th e link he makes between nominal ac ts and sensory in­ tuition , it is not surprising to find a parallel problem besetting the ac­ count of sensory i n tui tion .48 In th e first edition of the Logical Investiga­ tions, Husser! relates that "it is part of percepti on th at something appears in it, bu t the interpretation makes out what we call appearan ce , be i t righ t or not. " The term ' in terpretation ' is replaced by ' appercep­ tion ' in the second edi tion (LU II/ 2 2 3 3 ) . Franc;oise Das tur ci tes the original wording of this sentence as evidence th at the Sixth Logical In­ vestigation provides Heidegger with " the idea of a prepredicative ex­ pressibility of percepti on , " thereby indicating "that there is n o simple seeing, that the structure of perceiving is already in itself hermen euti­ cal because it demands a surplus of meani ng, a surplus of categorial forms. "49 The text in question does, indeed , provide further textual support for questioning not only the firmness of Husserl 's own hold on the distinction between sensory and categorial intuitions, but, more sig­ nifican tly, its tenability. Thus, probably on the basis of suc h claims by Husserl as "I hear a barrel-organ - th e sounds that I hear are interpreted by me precisely as sounds of a barrel-organ, " 50 Heidegger concludes: "In 48 LU I I / 1 465: "In der Sphare der hierher gehorigen ansc haulichen Vorstellungen, die

nicht selbst nominal fungieren, aber den logischen Beruf haben, nominale Bedeu­ tungsin tentionen zu e rfullen, sind setzende Akte: die sinnliche, sich das Gegen­ standliche in Einem Strahl setzender Mein ung zueignende Wahrnehmung, Erinnerung und Erwartung." 49 Dastur, "Heidegger und die ' Logischen Untersuchungen , "' Heidegger Studies 7 ( 1 99 1 ) : 50. Dastur also notes Heidegger's departure from H usserl's account of "einstufige sinnliche Wahrneh m ung"; cf. ibid. , 49· In the Zah ringen Seminar Heidegger also ap­ pears to obscure if n ot obliterate the distinction between sensory and categorial intu­ ition. Heidegger is reported as claiming that what is "sensorily perceived" are "the sen­ sory givennesses themselves" and that with them "the o�j ect's becoming-visible is carried out in the pe rc e ptio n . " He goes on to emphasize Husserl 's departure from Kant in rec­ ognizing that the c ategorial is given over and above the "sensory affections" ( cf. VS 1 1 2 ft) . However, th is manner of presenting Husserl 's doctrine omits th e way in which s traigh tforward , senso ry perceptions intend an objec t and are not to be confused with sensations or, as Husserl puts it in LU , s e n s o ry representations. Dastu r claims that Hei­ degger's e1nph asis on the a n al o gy between sen")ory and categorial in tuitions is matched by a n e glect of the founding rel ation , o p en in g the door to a free-floatin g thinking and an un restrained excess of meaning "like the Platonic dove , of wh ich Kant speaks"; cf. Dastur, "Heidegger and die 'Logischen U n te rsuchungen ,"' 45 ; also jacques Taminiaux, Le Regard et Cexredent ( H ague : Nijhoff, 1 97 7 ) ; and M ulligan , "Perception ,'' 1 8 3- 1 9 1 . 50 LU I l / 2 2 3 3 : "Das Hau.� ersch eint mir - wodurch anders, als daB ich die wirklich er­ lebten Sin nesi nhalte in gewi s s er Weise apperzi piere . . . . Ich hore ein en Leierkasten - die ('m pfu n ct e n e Ton e rl e l l t f> i c h

�h�n

fll
t o o , l ct 1

I

31 :

"aH r�al

u n i-

88

HEI DEGGER ' s

C O N C E P T O :F T R U T H

fact i t i s also th e case that our most straightforward , simplest pe rcep­ tions and constitu tive states are already expressed, even more, th ey are i n­ terpreted in a definite manner" ( P 7 5 ) . (Husser} 's talk of "h earing the sounds as those of a barrel-organ " exemplifies what Heidegger calls " the hermeneutic ' as ' " of a primary or original sort of understanding ­ a theme discussed in the next chapter. ) Al though Heidegger's presentation diverges i n the manner indi­ cated above from the doctrine of categorial intuition in the Logical In­ vestigations, he gives a faithful rendering of Husserl 's answer to the chief question regarding th e intuitedness or obse rvedness of categorial forms. The question is: in what sense is something give n in a categorial intui tion? How is something that is mean t by an assertion realized ("ful­ filled" ) in a categorial intuition? These questions, it bears noting, do not consti tu te a request for a j ustification that the obj ectivity of a state of affairs or a logical form is in fact perceived. Nor do they comprise a demand for an explanation of such a perception, if explanation m eans specifying an explanans that is logically distinct from but causally re­ sponsibl e for a corresponding explanandum . The questions suppose that the investigation does not take leave of the confines of intention­ ali ty and , indeed , the given ness of various states of affairs and the rela­ tionships (including logical forms) in an intentional expe rience. Given these suppositions, h owever, the question is: what is the nature of that intenti onal experience? Or, equival ently, how are such objectivities ex­ perienced? Th e answer to these questions can lie nowhere else than in an analy­ sis and clarification of the performance of certain acts. There arise, namely, "acts in which somethi ng appears as actual and as given itself, of the sort that the same thing as appears h ere was not yet given and could not be given in the founding acts alone" (LU II/ 2 1 4 6 , 1 5 3- 1 5 6 ) . Ideal obj ec tivities - which cannot be experienced as obj ects of sensory, straightforward perceptions - consti tu te themselves when a syn thesis, direc ted at one or more obj ects of the simple, straightforward percep­ tion , is actually carried out. For example, only in such a synthesis is the ties are uniti es of sense." See Philipse, "Transcende n tal Ideal ism ," 2 3 9: "Seen from an analytical perspec tive, Husserl may appear to be a transitional thinker, well ahead of his time, who anticipated the linguistic turn ." Mulligan, "Perception, " 1 94: "On Husse rl 's view, then, perception is entirely direct and n ecessarily incomplete. Once again inter­ pretation is introduced in a black box fashion. It is what turns visual sensations in to a part of a un ified perceptual awareness of a three-dimensional object by orchestrating the com bination of genuine a n d n o n-ge n u i ne awaren e�s of ib �ides. "

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8g

state of affairs "the Eiffel Tower curves gently outward to the ground" able to be experienced. What is mean t by th e asse rtion and , indeed , meant in the absence of the Eiffel Tower (or some facsimile of it) can be re al ized, that is to say, given , poin ted out, and identified as such. However, it is thus give n and identifiable only in the actual peformance of a syn thesis (corresponding to the en tire asserti on ' the Eiffel Tower curves ge ntly to the ground ' ) . Such a state of affairs is given neither in a simple , straigh tforward perception nor in acts of meaning or ex­ pressing that state of affairs . In presenting this character of categorial intuitio ns to h is studen ts, Heidegger notes how i t is also exemplifed in regard to logical forms identified by Husserl as "collectives" and "disjunctives. " "I can pain t A and paint B, I can also pain t both in the space of the same picture. But I cannot pain t th e both, the A and B. Here the re is only one possibility, the one that is always open to us, namely, that, on the basis of both in­ dividual acts of intuition , we carry out the new ac t of conj oining (col­ lecting) and, by th is means, mean the togetherness of th e objects A and B" ( LU II/ 2 1 6 0 ) . If one were to speak, for example, of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and to mean , not merely the plurality, but rather the juxtaposition ( or conjunction ) of these obj ects, then the 'and' that is meant is not given or realized by any directly sensory percep tion. The j uxtaposition first constitutes itself, that is to say, i t becomes explicitly objective in the juxtaposing of those objects, the mere manifoldness of which (Eiffel Tower, Seine, Notre Dame, Sacre-Coeur, and so on ) can be given in advance in a simple , straightforward perception of the whole (such as migh t be afforded , for exampl e, by an aerial sigh ting or by an outlook from atop the Eiffel Tower or Sacre-Coeur) . "The ' and' establishes a new obj ectivi ty, that is founded in the first one, but first makes it explicit" (P go) . Merely mean ing th is juxtaposition or mean­ ing conjunction in some formal sense does not guarantee the objectiv­ ity of the juxtaposition or that formal sense , even though a juxtaposi­ tion or conjunction , if obj ective , can only presen t itself as such in view of an act of meaning. Yet neither the juxtaposition of the Eiffel Towe r and Notre Dame nor the logical functi on of conjunction presents itself to us merely by virtue of the fact that we mean thatjuxtaposition or that logical function . The "object'' of a categorial intuition is no "real" object; this epithet is reserved by Husserl for objects of sensory intuition (LU II/ 2 1 5 1 ) . What is given in a cate gorial i n tu i ti o n is an ideal obj ectivity that is pur­ portedly n o l ess objective th a n th e real ohje ct He rei n lies one of th e .

go

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

central itnports of categorial intuitions, according to Heidegger. I f the description of categorial intui tions does make sense of h ow states of af­ fairs, l ogical forms, and other obj ectivities present themselves within ex­ perience, a decisive blow is struck against the naturalist view that all objectivity must be reducible to sensory realities and the spatiotemporal and causal connections among the tn . By contrast, categorial intuitions make clear that "the objectivity of a thing is not exh austed j ust in what is determined as reality in th is narrowly defined sense , that objectivity in the broadest sense is much richer than the reality of a thing, even more, that the reality of a thing can only be understood on the basis of the full objectivity of the straigh tforwardly experienced entity" (P 8g) . As a means of explaining this ideal objectivity more precisely, Hei­ degger takes up Husserl 's example "a is brighter than b. " If one l ooks at two patches - a and b - of the same color, one sees withou t further ado whether the one patch is brigh ter than the other. That a is brighter than b is a real relation between the two patches, a relation that is ob­ vious from the sensory, straightfo rward perception , albeit only tacitly. But th e relation can also be articulated, "maki ng i t explicit in the as­ sertion: ' a is brighter than b. "' In this case the relation presents i tself "in the new objectivity of the predicate-me mber, that is to say, in the wh ole of an unreal relation" (P 88; LU II/ 2 1 5 5 , 1 59) . While the real relation is seen in the sensory perception , it becomes "explicitly present" only by the fact that the synthetic act of relating is ac tually performed and that relation presen ts itself objectively in an ideal , yet intuitive (not merely signitive ) way ( LU II/ 2 1 95 ) . What th us presents itself is th e " obj ect" of the categorial i n tuiti on , namely, the external relation: a is brigh ter than b. Its obj ectivity then obtains even wh en neither a nor b can be perceived. Here two essential aspects of categorial intuitions emerge quite clearly: the way they are founded upon straigh tforward, sensory intuitions and the way that the ideal obj ectivity of this rel ation consti tutes itself only in the categorial intuiti on - without being pro­ duced or created by it. "The categorial 'forms' are not something m ade by acts , but rather obj ects that in these acts become visible in th em­ selves" ( P 97) . Th e fact that a real relation be t:w'een a and b becomes (in th e way de­ scribed) an ideal objectivity corresponding to a categorial intuition does n ot mean that the relation is itself thematically grasped . For that an oth er act is required , in which the relation i tself is named and so re­ garded. Consider, for example, the explanation : " ' a bei n g brighter t h an b' depends upon the ti 1n e of day. " In this explanation th e real relation

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is thematized; as Husser! puts i t, "by way of bei ng named or in nominal fashion i t becom es obj ective" ( LU II/ 2 1 5 7 ; P 8g) . Th ree kinds or levels of acts can accordingly be distinguish ed: sen­ sory, un thematically categorial , and thematically categorial . On Hei­ degge r's interpretation , th e difference between the fi rst two is a matter of degree and context. By way of illustration , suppose that an object, say a mug, is on my desk. I can see it or, be tter, see something (straigh tfor­ ward, sensory perception ) , I can see i t as a mug (un thematic categorial observation ) , and I can see that th e mug is made of nonporous mate­ ri al ( th ematically categorial observation ) . Th e third way of "seeing" in­ volves nominal izing or obj ectifyi ng wh at is unthematically observed at th e second level . At the sam e time, none of th ese sightings accounts for th e fact that what is respec tively seen is there for th e seeing. 5 1 Nonethe­ less, th ey only afford themselves to the respective ki nd of perception or observation. Reference was made earlier to the way in wh ich th e accoun t of cate­ gorial intuition (presen ted in chap ter six of th e Sixth Logical Investi­ gation ) must already operate in Husserl 's account of tru th and being ( in chapter five of the Sixth Logical Investigation ) . 1'he exten t of the conn ecti on between th e two doctrines was clearly not lost on Heideg­ ger. The correctness of an assertion ( Husserl 's fourth concept of tru th ) depends not sim ply upon the perception of a corresponding state of af­ fairs but upon a concrete yet preth ematic categorial intuition of the iden tity - or, m ore simply, an iden tification - of the state of affairs m ean t and that perceived ( his first concept of truth ) . "In such founded acts lies the categorial [ch aracter] of in tuiting and knowing; in them the th inking that makes assertions, where it functions as expression, finds its realization [Erfiillung] : the possibility of th e perfect adequacy to suc h acts determines the truth of th e assertion as its correctness" ( LU ll/ 2 1 4 7 ; P 93 ) . Together, Husserl 's doctri nes of truth and categorial in tuition are seminal for Heidegger's own line of inquiry, as he never 5 1 H eidegger attempts to address th is c ru c i a l dimension with his account of an existe n tial­ h er m e n e ut i c 'as'-struc ture (noein) , the ontological counte rpart to an existentiel­

hermeneutic ' as-'structure (dianoein) of practical understanding and , more derivatively, the apophan tic ' as'-struc ture (apophansis) of theoretical assertions. The existential­ hermeneutic ' as ' -structure , incapable of falsehood as i t is, can be regarded as fu n c t i o n­ ally repl a c i n g H usserl 's co n c ept i o n of an adeq uate perception. Heidegger r�jects the prototheoretica] and Cartesian featu res of the latter notion, but not i ts fo u n datio n a l function. While Heidegger\ acc o u n t of th is 'as'-struc ture , wi th its Aris totel ian corre­ lates, is reviewed i n the next ch apter, it is p refigu red by his i n te rp r etati o n of Husser] 's doctrine of cate gorial in tui tion.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

ceased to appreciate. Husserl 's first and most basic definition of truth , which he himself regarded as more properly a conception of being, is experienced prethematically in a categorial intuition , as the identity of what is mean t and perceived , an identity that corresponds to an entity's emergence out of absence into presence.52 According to the existen tial analysis of Being and Time, a disti nctive te mporal presence and absence is understood preon tologically as th e basic sense and truth of ' being­ here . ' These remarks suggest that for Heidegger not only being, but also ti lne might be the "obj ect" of something analogous to categorial intuition . 53 By endorsing this accoun t, Heidegger i nvites the question of whe ther, despite the way that understanding gene rally displaces the role of intuition in his account, he nonetheless still appeals to some­ thing akin to, if not redescribable as, a categorial in tuition ( as sug­ gested, too, by his deliberate - albeit hardly exclusive - use of visual me taphors, e.g. , ' Vorsicht, ' ' Umsicht, ' and his early claim that "each care as such is a seeing") . 54 The categorial intuitions reviewed up to this point are distinguished by the fact they all are codirected at the very same obj ects that are sim­ ply and straigh tforwardly perceived. The ideal obj ec tivity itself comes to be given in the categorial intuition by means of a synth esis of th e objects given in the sensory intuition . The ideal obj ectivi ties are not ini­ tially obj ective; they first consti tute themselves as such in a syn thesis that must be rigorously distinguished from "a merely signi tive intention" ( LU ll/ 2 1 9 1 - 1 9 6 ) . As Tugendhat aptly puts the matter: "What is cate­ gorially formed is originally give n precisely in nonobjective form" (T 1 1 8 ) . This holds as much for states of affairs that underlie empi rical tru ths as for logical forms that underlie logical truths. The fact that the Eiffel Tower is across the Seine from Notre Dame is given but not ob-

5 2 On th is characterization of categorial intuitions of truth , as Jeremy Ryan points out,

some categorial intui tions are in fact foundational , rendering intentionality possible. 53 If something l ike a categorial intuition were operative in Heidegger's conception of tin1e, it would indicate another difference between him and H usserl , for whom time can be neithe r a sensory nor a categorial intuition . Time's unique status is precisely what makes it so difficult for Husserl and so pregnant for his subsequen t development. I am grateful to Nicolas de Warren for calling this point to my attention. 54 EpF 1 o4f: "Every care is, as such , a seei ng. That it is a seeing is not an external deter­ m ination , but given wi th its being. A [certain sort of] sigh tedness [ Sichtigkeit] is also part of being in the sense of being wi thin a world. This sigh ted ness is as such in each man­ ner of humanly being-h ere, in care. This sigh tedness has noth i ng �o d o with th eoretical knowledge but is instead a kind oJ exPcu.tion of the basic constitution of being-here, that is to be ide n tified as u ncovered ness .

.

.

.

" See , too, SZ 1 33·

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jectified i n a straigh tforward perception from atop the tower. But the corresponding empirical truth requires a specific synthesis of the objects yielded by that simple perception . Logical forms can presumably be distinguished from such states of affairs by the fact that the objects at which they are directed are arbitrary or freely variable . In other words, the particular material of a logical form ''can be varied with com­ plete freedom," while the laws governin g those forms remained unaf­ fected by "limi tless variation" in the material ( LU l l/ 2 1 8g, 2 oo ) . Yet for logical truths about logical form as well as empirical truths about states of affairs, the truth presents i tself thanks to a syn thesis of what is otherwise given in a sin1ple, straightforward perception. Employing Husserl 's own terminology, Heidegger dubs categorial intuitions of states of affairs, external relations, collectives, disjunctives, and so on "acts of syn thesis. " 55 2 . 1 2 2 " A C T S O F I D E AT I O N " A N D G RA S P OF T H E U N I V E R S A L . The set of categorial intuitions is not exhausted by the "acts of synthesis" sketched in the foregoi ng section, namely, the formal-categorial intu­ itions of a state of affairs (Fa) or of a group ( a and b) or other form that is part of the objective makeup of a state of affairs. In some categorial intuitions, the act is directed simply at the "idea" or "universal" (F) while " th e objects of the founding acts [simple, straightforward, sensory perceptions] do not enter along into the intention of the founded act" ( LU II/ 2 1 6 2 ) . A close relation conti nues to obtain between the obj ects of the sensory perceptions and those of this second sort of categorial intuition , but that relation is made known only in subsequent judg­ ments (Fx, fy, Fz, etc. ) . In this way Husserl in troduces his brief account of "universal intuitions" or "ideating abstractions," that are character­ ized by Heidegger as ''acts of ideation" in an almost literal paraph rase of Husserl's account. With this second group of categorial intuitions, Husserl aims to explain how "one and the same sort or type" (Art) , in contrast to instances of the same, comes to be "actually given" (LU II/ 2 1 62 ; P gof) . What is at stake is the ancient controversy over universals. But there is also an in-house problem with this second group of cate­ gorial intuitions, given the general theory that such intuitions are founded acts. Intuitions of this second group are founded upon pe r­ ceptions, but - in con trast to the "acts of syn thesis" - allegedly without being codirected at the objects of those perceptions. How, given the founded character of categorial intuitions, is this possible?

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This claim i s based upon the fact that consideration o f a specific type or sort of thing can involve consideration of individual objects of that sort but not in their individuality. An instance is all that matters and any instance will do. In such cases, as Heidegger puts it, the universal intu­ ition provides "what one initially and si mply sees in things . " When we drive down a residential street, for example, we typically see houses, rows of houses; we see each house not in its distinc tiveness but instead as a house . "This ' as-what, ' the universal character of house , is itself not expl icitly grasped for what it is but in the simple , straightforward in tu­ i tion it is already co-grasped as what here , to a certain extent, explains the given" (P 9 1 ; LU ll/ 2 1 6 2 £) . In perceiving something as a house , we also grasp the idea of the house and, indeed, as something univer­ sal that equally obtains for any arbitrary instance . As long as we are thinking, for exampl e , of the idea of red, it makes utterly no difference "in what concrete obj ects and with what nuances red is individually real­ ized" (P 9 2 ) . What Husser! calls an "ideating abstraction " is the act of lifting such an idea out from its multiple instan tiations (as opposed to abstraction in the sense of merely singling out some dependent " momen t" in a sen­ sory obj ect) . In repeated acts of this sort, he observes, we become con­ scious of "the identi ty of the universal'' and we do so, he adds, "in an overreaching ac t of identification that brings all such single acts of ab­ strac tion into one syn thesis" ( LU II/ 2 1 6 2 ) . In this way Husse rl simply describes (but again wi th no pretensions to explaining) what, as he puts i t, is "presupposed" in order for a type i tself, in con trast to instances of it, to be able to "stand before us as one and th e same. " The universal is said to "appear" only in such founded acts. "We do not think in a merely significational manner, as in the case of the mere understanding of gen­ eral names, but rather we grasp it, we inspect it" (LU II/ 2 1 6 2 ) . Thus, in the manners described, the universal intuition is based upon simple , straigh tforward sensory perceptions, yet without being directed at the objects of these founding perceptions. But the fact that ideation is not direc ted at th e precise objects of the founding perceptions means, too , that in some cases an imagined in­ stance is as sui table as a perceived one. There are cases where an ade­ quate perception of the universal is not in the offing, for example in the case of the idea of certain mathematical curves. In those cases an im agi ned pic ture or tnodel serves as the analogue of the intended uni­ versality. Accordingly, i n what amou n ts to a p revi ew of th e later doctrine

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of free variation , Husser} recognizes the role that imagination plays in ideation. 5 6 2 . 1 2 3 O N T O L O G I C A L I M P L I C AT I O N S O F T H E D O CTRI N E O F C A T­ E G O R I A L I NTU I T I ON . Mention has already been made of Heidegger's enormous regard for Husserl 's analysis of categorial intuitions. just how much Heidegger esteems the analysis can be gathered from the four­ point summary that he gives of its significance, a summary that, not un­ expectedly, emphasizes the ontological implications of Husserl 's analy­ sis. The first and "decisive" point in his view is the fact that there are acts "in which ideal components present themselves, that are not made by these acts, functions of thinking, of the subj ect" (P 9 7 ) . Husser} 's doc­ trine of categorial intuition thus signifies for Heidegger the definitive break with the attempt to explain what is not directly (sensorily) intu­ i ted as the result of a capacity of or a reflection by the human subj ect. In this way, the doctrine also distances itself emphatically from some Neo-Kan tians ( e.g. , Rickert) for whom an obj ec tivity first arises by virtue of th e fact that the understanding or intellect spontaneously forms some material received through the senses. Weighing in on the mean­ ing of the difficult notion of constitution, Heidegger stresses that the fact that a new obj ectivity constitutes itself in categorial acts does not mean "producing [something] in the sense of making and manufac­ turing it but rather letting the entity be seen in its objectivity'' (P g6f) . The second significant feature of the doctrine of categorial intu­ i tions follows from this first one and hearkens back to the theme of Hei­ degger's habilitation. "The concrete path of research into categories , genuine research that identifies th em," Heidegger maintains in an ob­ vious rebuke of Neo-Kan tian investigations of the categories, is only procured by means of categorial intuition . The process of "singling out structures" of the ideal components, a process made possible by the doctrine of categorial intuition , is equated with "working out the cate­ gories" ( P 97£) . Heidegger's third summary point concerns ideation . In his view, the 56 This aspect of H usserl 's doctri n e of i de a t i o n is n o t overlooked by Heidegge r th ou g h he has no sympathy for the distinction betwee n p e rc e i ve d and i m ag i n e d instances, i.e., for examples of ad e q ua te perception where the i magi n ation is u t te rly lacking. "Ideation is an ac t . . . fo unded on a re-presen tation [Vngegenwiirtigung] of a conc rete i n s tan tiation . Id eation is always and neces�arily carried out on the basis of an e xempl a ry i n tuition" ( P 1 3 0 ) . H e i d e gge r re lies on th i� aspect o f i d e a t i o n ( see S e c t i o n 2 . 2 below) i n critic i7i n g H us�erl ' s co n c e pt ion of the t>xemplari ty of the natural atti tude .

g6

H E I D EGGER ' s C O N C EPT OF

TRUTH

explanation o f this group o f categorial intuitions p u ts t o rest the time­ honored debate over universals . Previously, there were only two , equally un tenable al ternatives: either th e o bj ectivity of universals was denied on the assumption th at it was impossible to speak of th eir reality as one does about the reality of things, or th e reality of universals was main­ tai ned on the basis of the undeniabili ty of likenesses. The doctri ne of the acts of ideation , however, shows h ow the obj ec tivity of th e universal can be explained as the being of th e ideal, wi th out confusing it wi th th e reality of a thing given to sensory perception. Indeed, the doctrine of categorial intuitions introduces an expanded idea of obj ectivity. What is present in a categorial intuition - be i t a state of affairs, a logical form , or an idea - is "not . . . in the least l ess objective than so1nething that is al ready really given" (P 8g) . The fourth and last point made by Heidegger prefigures his wedding of on tology and phenomenology in Being and Time. "The objec tive ways" in which the reality of a thing as well as the ideal being of a state of affairs or a categorial form can themselves become genui nely obj ec­ tive are initially unth ematic. These obj ectivi ties are experienced with­ out being "nominalized" and the reby "thematically grasped" them­ selves ( P 8g) . Viewed from this van tage point, the doctrine of categorial in tui tion provides not only an expanded idea of obj ectivity ( poin t three above ) , but also the key to the way the various manners of being origi­ nally disclose th emselves and are , correspondingly, to be interpreted . The importance of this last poi nt for Heidegger can be gathered from his infe rence that, by means of it, the manner of investigation is pro­ cured "that the old on tology sough t. The re is no on tology next to a phe­ nomenology, but rather scientific ontology is nothing other than phenome­ nology" (P g8 ) . One does not move from being on th e inside to being outsi de , as though the oqjects of categorial intuitions remain within some sort of self-con tained subjectivity, bu t rather - given the always al­ ready accomplished categorial in tuitions - one is already "there . " As Heidegger puts it in his 1 963 retrospective : " In order for the question of the sense of being to be able to unfold at all, bei ng woul d fi rst have to be given'' (VS 1 1 6 ) . Husserl 's accomplishmen t, he continues , lies precisely in showing, by means of his doctrine of categorial intuition, how being is give n ( "phenomenally presen t in the category" ) . Being is prethematically given yet re trievable for Heidegger along lines struc­ turally parallel to th e way being is availed ( identified , experienced ) but not yet thematized in catego rial in tuitions th at saturate every level of ordin ary (qu otidian , everyday) perception . Just as we have se n sa ti o ns

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without taking note of them explicitly and yet have perceptions only by virtue of th em , so , too, we have perceptions in which real obj ec ts are given to us , wi thout explicitly taking note of (apprehending, articulat­ ing) the perceptions themselves or the complex ways in which real objects are given to us - and given to us veridically - in those perceptions. These perceptions presen t their objects "at one stroke , " that is to say, in a homogeneous unity that comes about "as the immediate fusion of par­ tial intentions and without the addition (syn thesis) of new act-inten­ tions" ( LU II/ 2 1 48 ) . At the same time Husserl 's questioning fatally comes to a stop at this point for reasons discussed below ( 2 . 2 ) . In the Marburg lectures, however, Heidegger is a bit more generous as he pays tribute to what he deems the third and final "decisive discovery" of Husserl 's phenomenology: the original sense of the a priori .

2. I 3 The Original Sense of the A Priori: ''Indifference to Subjectivity " and the Character of an Entity s Being. Heidegger's presentation of the first two discoveries of phenomenology corresponds approximately to th e se­ quence of themes treated in the body of Husserl 's Sixth Logical Inves­ tigation. That correspondence continues to hold in his exposition of the third discovery, what he dubs "the original sense of the a priori," as he recapi tulates cen tral themes from the eighth chapter of the Sixth Log­ ical Investigation: "The a priori laws of authentic and inauthentic think­ ing. " At the sam e time, Heidegger employs his own terminology m uch more freely than he does in his expositions of the other two discoveries, though his presentation of this third discovery is far briefer than either of those expositions. Yet in certain crucial respects this tersely worded account of the third decisive discovery of phenomenology points more directly than the others to the particular stam p he intends to give phe­ nomenology. While acknowledging that "phenomenology's begin­ nings" are responsible for working out the sense of the a priori , he ex­ cuses the economy of his presen tation wi th the obseiVation that "the a priori , in spite of the insights of phenomenology, is still little clarified" (P gg) . In this way he introduces his own take on Husserl 's notion that phenomenology is research , research that is still in the process of clari­ fying its subj ect matter. Heidegger presents this final discovery of phe­ nomenology in such a way that it effortlessly passes over into research tha t allegedly determines the task of phenomenology " more radically" by posing the fundamental question of the sense of being.57 '()7 P 1 o 2 f, 1 2 4 .

1

H fi :

se e .

too.

SZ 50 n . 1 .

g8

' H F. I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

Heidegger gives two further reasons for the brevity of h is presen ta­ tion of this final di scovery, reasons that in troduce his own sense of the a priori. The p resentation is shorter, he says, because the a priori "still remains thorough ly tied to traditional inquiries" and "above all , be­ cause the clarification of its sense presupposes precisely the under­ standing of what we are seeking: time" ( P gg) . These two reasons mi rror two central, overlapping themes of Heidegger's early hermeneutical ph enomenology: the equivalence of time, suitably in terpreted, to the sense of being and the need to deconstruc t traditional ontology in or­ der to reawaken th inking from i ts obliviousness to this equivalence. This deconstruction does not mean simply se tting aside layers of in ter­ pretation , but also ge tting to the bottom of them, disclosing their ori­ gins, the original historical meaning that makes i t possible to explain the emerge nce of th ose levels of mean ing. With the conside rable qualification j ust mentioned, Heidegger praises Husse rlian phenomenology for revealing the original sense of the a priori . As a means of clarifying what he takes to be Husserl 's ac­ com plishment, Heidegger draws attention first to a "derivative" but his­ torically influen tial sense of th e a priori. Since Descartes, the a priori is associated with subj ectivity. However, with discove ries of intentionality and acts of ideation , the a priori must be decoupled from cogn ition in­ te rnal and immanent to the subj ect alone ( res cogitans) . As Husser} him­ self puts it, the genuin e a priori is not defined by a relation to "human consciousness as suc h" or, for that matter, to "consciousness at all" ( LU II/ 2 1 97£) . The a priori conditions of knowing can be "researched apart from any relation to the thinking subj ect and to the idea of subj ectiv­ ity" ( LU I 2 3 8 ) . Nor is the discl osure of the a priori to be confused with a so-called aprioristic construction ( SZ 50 n . 1 ) . Un iversal meanings are realized in both ideal domains ( e.g. , uni ty, plurality, relation ) and real ones ( e .g. , color, materiality, spatiality) . Th e ideas of unity or space con­ tain nothing i mmanent, that is, n o thing adhering primarily in or con­ structed by a subj ect. l-Ierein lies, according to Heidegger, th e first de­ term ination ( or first two determinations) of the origi nal sense of th e a priori, for wh ich ph enomenology is responsible: "its universal reach an d indifference to subjec tivity. "5R ( Whatever is a priori thus presutn-

58 H e i degge r speaks of fo u r

as

we ll

as

th ree determ i n a ti o n s of the origi n al se n se

of t h e a

p riori . The d iscrepancy arises from t h e fac t that he con strue� ".the un ive r'ial re ac h '' and " i n d iffe ren c e u a tion of the

to

a

su�j ect ivi ty" fi rst

p1 iori;

sec

P

1 o 1 ff.

as

two determ i n at i o n s an d t h e n

a�

a si ngle de tenni­

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ably cuts across all ontological divides, includi ng that introduced by Husser! himself between experience or conscious-being and being-real. This last remark heralds a criticism elaborated subsequently in the Pro­ legomena Lectures and discussed in the following section . ) From the universal reach of the a priori and its indifference to subj ectivity, Heidegger deduces that the a priori is not something inferred. The manner of access to the a priori is a direct identification of it in a straightforward intuition , and therein lies for Heidegger the second de­ termination of the original sense of the a priori. His brief elaboration of this second determination , however, replays a now familiar confla­ tion or confusion, perhaps deliberate, of what Husser! distinguishes as sensory and categorial intuitions. Consider the key sentence in that elaboration . "Insofar as the a priori is grounded in domains of things and being respectively, it is identifiable in itself in a straightforward in­ tuition" (P 1 o 1 f) . The opening, relative clause suggests that the a pri­ ori and thus access to it are in som e sense , like a categorial intuition, founded. However, in the concluding, independent clause, the intu­ ition in which the a priori is identifiable is described as "straightfor­ ward'' ( schlicht) , the qualifying adj ective reseiVed for sensory intuitions. The a priori is supposed to be identifiable in a straightforward intuition. This claim presumably does not entail that the a priori is the obj ect of a sensory intuition. However, the way in which it is identifiable or demonstrable ( ausweisbar) - namely, "in a straightforward intuition" ­ could also hardly be called on Husserl's terms a "categorial intuition . " There are several alternative interpretations that might b e given for this account, depending upon whether the direct grasp of the a priori is to be construed as a categorial intuition or something else. 59 While 59

Heidegger may be c l a i m i n g that wh ile the manner of access to the a priori is direct bu t not itself an intuition, categorial or o therwise, the a priori is nonetheless directly grasped somehow in or with a straigh tforward (sensory) i n tuition without being i ts ob­ jec t. If, on the other hand, he means to suggest that access to the a priori comes by way of a categorial in tuition , the reference to i ts direct demonstrability "in a straightforward intuition'' m ay b e an allusion to the founded charac ter of the categorial i n tuition. Or by "a straigh tforward i ntuition" in this connection he may in fact have a categorial in­ tution in mi nd. In that case , th e employment of the adjectiYe 'straightforward' is an oversight or simply a different u�e of the term , perhaps intended to underscore the dif­ ference between an in tuition an d a n inference (or construction ) . The idea grasped in th e abs tract-categorial in tuition , for exam ple , the idea of the color green , is founded upon straigh tforward sensory perceptions (th e green fence, th e green leaf, etc. ) . In this founded act, however, the idea itself, the green as surh, is directly grasped (straigh tfor­ wardly but nonetheless cate g o rially intuited) , in con tras t not only to th is or that arbi­ trary i nstance of it but also t o any hypothetical infere nce to it.

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OF

TRUTH

a great deal in Heidegger's philosophical project ultimately rides on the issues broached by the analysis of the text in question, its context ­ his elaboration of the manne r of access to what he calls "the original sense of the a priori " - is far too schetnatic to provide keys to their res­ olution. However his elusive accoun t of the manner of access to th e a priori is to be understood, its main thrust is negative: the access is not inferential. 60 The universal reach of the a priori al ready testifies to the fact that it is nothing "specifically attached to reality, " whe ther the reality is some­ thing immanent or something transcendent. With this obseiVation , Heidegger alludes to the third and, indeed, for him decisive determi­ nation of the a priori, a determination, moreover, that in his mind points to the limitations of Husserl 's early phenomenology. From the sense of the a priori, it cannot be inferred what is prior. "The a priori is what is always already the earlier or prior for something . . . . It is not yet said what that someth ing is, with respect to which something like an ear­ lier can be found" ( P gg) . In a particularly revealing passage, Heideg­ ger accordingly deems unfounded the assumption that the a priori "concerns a knowing or a being-known or some other sort of behavior toward something" or, for that matter, that "it means an enti ty or being" (P 1 02 ) .

Heidegger appears to con tradict this last obseiVation in the same con text. He continues to protest not only the assimilation of what is a priori to the sphere of consciousness, but also its confusion with a de­ termination of any ordered succession in the sphere of en tities. Yet while he iterates that the "earlier" or "prior" in the original sense of the a priori refers neither to the "orderly sequence of knowing" nor to the "orderly succession of the emergence of one entity from an other, " he also claims that the a priori in the phenomenological sense is "a title of being' ( P 1 0 1 ) . So it seems that the meaning of ' a priori ' is not so inde­ terminate after all. While not synonymous with 'being, ' the 'a priori ' characterizes being in contrast to entities. This manner of speaking may be confusing to a fault, but it signals clearly the direction in which Heidegger is headed, namely, the inter­ pretation subsequently given of being and time. According to Heideg6o This claim echoes two poi n ts made in ch a p te r 8 of the Sixth Logical I nvestigation : ( 1 )

n o t explanation but clarification is requi red fo r t h i n k i n g, knqwi ng, and the i deas and

laws springi ng from them ; and ( 2 ) " the laws of categories as pure laws are not m e rely nH:ant but see n , gi ve n to u s wi th com plt»t(3 �rlt»CJH�cy" ( Ll J I l / 2 200) .

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ger, as noted above, the original sense of the a priori points to time that, while not to be identified with being itself, is its sense , the horizon in terms of which it is understood. The original sense of the a priori , pro­ ceeding from Husserl 's phenomenology, is thus understood by Hei­ degger in the Prolegomena Lectures as the " character of the entity's be­ ing, not the entity itself' ( P 1 o 1 f) . In other words, that character, in terms of which not the entity, but the entity's manner of being, is to be understood, is time. 6 1 2 . I4

Summary: Field, Aspect, and Manner of Treatment. Heidegger's "guiding purpose" in presen ting phenomenology's decisive discoveries is, he insists, " to obtain an understanding ofphenomenology as research. " 62 He elucidates this understanding by playing on the phenomenological maxim (itself conceived as the antipode to the "back to Kant" parole ) : "to the things themselves" ( zu den Sachen selbst) ! For phenomenological research , as Heidegger conceives it, it is necessary not only to determine what things or matters are to be investigated, but also to clarify in what respect and by what means they are to be investigated. The specifica­ tion of phenomenology's three chief accomplishments fulfills these re­ quirements. "Wi th intentionality, the genuine field of things [Sachfeltlj is procured; with the a priori , the aspect [Sachhinsicht] i n terms of which the structures of intentionality are considered; and the categorial intu­ ition, as the original manner of grasping these structures, presents the manner of treaunent [Behandlungsart] , the method of this research" ( P 1 og, 1 o3ff) . As was indicated earlier, intentionality designates a relation or, more precisely, a way of relating or behaving ( Verhalten) in which what is in­ tended and the way it is intended are necessarily and originally united. In Heidegger's further elaboration of this phenomenon as a "relating that means something" ( bedeutendes Verhalten) or "being-in-the-world, " i t becomes a "primary" understanding i n the sense o f "simply having something" ( schlichtes Haben von etwas) . 63 Intentionality, so understood, 6 1 The an1biguous presen tation of the thi rd discovery may explain Ge thmann 's reading of the "general l ine of Heidegger's critique of Husser!," namely, that Husserl confounds a mPthodologirally legitimate distinction with an investigation handed down by the ontolog­ ical tradition; see "Heideggers Wah rheitskonzeption," 1 o6. 62 P 1 03 ; see, too, H eidegger's fi r�t lectures in Marburg, entitled " I ntroduction to Phe­ nomenological Research." 6 3 SZ 1 3 2 . I n th is ph en o1n enon o f understanding, elaborated at length in the next chap­ ter, lies the answer to Bernet's question : "What has become of intentional ity in H ei-

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' H E I D E G G E R S C ON C E P T OF T R U T H

is to be investigated precisely with respect to what is thereby a priori in an original sense, namely, its manner of being or, more precisely, the sense of its manner of being. just as the truth is originally experienced but not grasped in a categorial intuition , so the sense of being discloses itself unthematically in the intentionality of being-in-the-world. " With this discovery of intentionality, the way for a radical, ontological research is given for the first time in the entire history of philosophy" (EpF 2 6o) . By presenting the three decisive discoveries of phe nomenology, con­ ceived as research, Heidegger is deliberately pursuing an artful , indeed , even fanciful strategy. He is not merely trying to establish how phe­ nomenology, while very much in its infancy, has succeeded in clearing away traditional h indrances to elucidating the phenomenon of know­ ing. In accordance with the strategy of his lectures, he portrays phe­ nomenology's discoveries in such a way that an ontological investiga­ tion appears as the necessary next step of its research. "That is to say, keeping the content of the matter [Sachgehalt] of the three discoveries present before our minds, we ask now: what matters have bee n grasped or, better, what matters does the tendency of this research go toward grasping?" ( P 1 os ) . The answer, for Heidegger, is transparent: the mat­ ter itself ( die Sache selbst) is the sense of being. Phenomenology remains research , a manner of investigation, the subj ect matter of which is far from being determined definitively. In a sense , Httsserl c <"? uld not have agreed more . However, for Heidegger the next step of that research , heralded but not addressed by Husserl, is ontological. More precisely, in the wake of Husserl 's discoveries, phenomenology must become fun­ damental-ontological research into intentionality ( Sachfelll) , with re­ spect to intentionality's a priori structure , that is, the aspect ( Sachhin­ sicht) that discloses itself originally in the unthematic act of categorial intuition (Behandlungsart) . The aspect of intentionality that so discloses itself and constitutes its a priori structure is the sense of its being. From Heidegger's ontological interpretation of phenomenology's th ree decisive discoveries, it follows that phenomenology dare not con­ tent itself with anything less than an inquiry into the sense of being. Be­ ing is the subject ma tter the sense of which has been taken for gran ted , not only generally, but by phenomenological research itself. Only by in­ vestigating the putatively self-evident use of ' being' can phenomenol­ ogy fulfill its self-imposed responsibilities and realize its full potential. de gger's phenotn e n o l o gy ? '' See Be rne t , " H u ss erl a n d Hei degge r o n I n te n ti o n alit y an d Bei n g , .. Jow nal of llu: /Jrili�h .\'o( if'f)' for Phenomr�nolog)' 2 1 ( 1 990) : 1 �3 fl .

T H E P H E N O M ENOLO G I C A L C O N C EPTION OF T RU T H

1 03

As Heidegger puts it in Being and Time: "Phenomenology is the manner of access to and the demonstrative manner of determining what is sup­ posed to be the theme of ontology" and "Phenomenology is the science of the being of the entity - ontology. " 64 Yet - and herein lies the core of the criticism of Husserl 's phenomenology that Heidegger sets before his students in 1 9 2 5 - Husserl himself does not recognize the force of this argument. As Heidegger sees it, Husserl is content to take over the traditional conception of being rather than pu t it in question . 2 . 2 The Critique of Husserl 's Phenomenology

In spite of his great praise for the accomplishments of Husserl 's phe­ nomenological investigations and, indeed, wi th respect to the sense of truth supposed by logic, Heidegger sharply assails the concept of truth elaborated in the Sixth Logical Investigation as well as the further turns taken by Husserl 's thought, especially in Ideas I. H eidegger cri ticizes the analysis of truth in the Logical Investigations for remaining enmeshed in the Lotzean tradi tion of the logical prejudice. The ensuing develop­ ment of phenomenology at Husserl 's hands is said to comprise one failed attempt after the other to master a problematic legacy. Those sub­ sequent attempts fared no better, Heidegger charges, because they failed to put in question the core of that legacy, namely, its under­ standing of being and truth . In his Marburg lectures, Heidegger advances two central objections to Husserl's p h enomenology ( though it should be noted that he voices these and other criticisms from the outset of his teaching career in Freiburg) .65 The first objection is directed at the conception of truth in the Sixth Logical Investigation , while the second is aimed chiefly at the understanding of intentionality in Husserl 's subsequent published and - at the time - unpublished writings. Both obj ections poin t to the same fundamen tal problem: an unclarified, yet definite and - for Husserl 's phenomenology - defining sense of being.

64 SZ 35, 3 7 .

Cf. Tam in iaux ,

I.e regard el l 'exrr5dPn l, 1 7 7 f:

" Po u r excedentai re

qu ' il so it, il se

don ne pourtant a une in tui tio n . La catego ri e ' e tre ' est done appare n te , elle est phenomene, et com1ne sa fo nction est fo nda trice par rapport a ce qui apparai t, on peut dire ' q u ' elle es t pl us apparen te que I ' apparent lui-me m e , ' q u ' e l l e est l e phe n omene de to u t phenomene, le phe nom ene p ar excellence de Ia ph enomenologi e , cel u i vers leq uel il fau t achem i n e r ce q ui bien tot s ' appel lera ' re d u c ti on . "' 6_, For a l ist of such c ri tic i s m � , see PTP 1 8 n . 6 , .

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H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

2 . 2 1 Being, State of Affairs, and State of Truth. Thanks to Husserl's ac­

count of the entelechy of intentionality, he succeeds in defining truth, in the primary sense of the term, as the identity of something meant and something intuitively given . Truth in this sense displays a dynamic all its own, though not unrelated to a teleological process of realizing a propensity or fulfilling a lack. In this way, Husser! manages to articulate a kind of truth more fundamental than propositional truth. On this ac­ count, a true assertion or declarative sentence is precisely a member of the relation that is defined as truth in the proper sense of the term : identity of what is at once meant (asserted, declared) and intuited. The logician regards the sentence as the site of truth because the sen tence represents what is iden tifiable and demonstrable in an intuition . By this means, a certain legitimacy is conceded to that tradition of antipsy­ chologism that, going back to Lotze , construes truth in terms of valid­ ity ( Geltung) as an irreducible sort of being. Yet at the same time the in­ adequacy of the determination of truth merely as validity becomes patent. "Validity in the sense of a sentence's being true is now led back to the genuine truth in the sense of identity" (L 1 1 1 ) . For Lotze, it bears recalling, the talk of a relation 's "obtaining" refers to one of the irre­ ducible meanings of ' actuality. ' Utilizing this Lotzean terminology, Hei­ degger summarizes H usserl 's accomplishment: "Becattse truth i n the sense of identity obtains [besteht], the sentence is valid [gilt]" (L 1 1 2 ) . Nevertheless - and this is at first surprising - Heidegger rebukes Husser! for not emerging from the shadows of the Lotzean concept of truth , traceable as it is to a definite , even if unclarified concept of be­ ing. In a further play on Lotze 's terminology ( "relations obtain") , Hei­ degger raises the question of how the "obtain ing" of truth as the rela­ tion (identity) of the mean t and the intuited is supposed to be understood. Heidegge r has his own ontological understanding of this relation , equating it with an entity's emergence out of absence into presence, a disclosure that he construes as the original trttth. Even apart from this consideration, howeve r, Heidegger insists that the truth in Husserl 's primary sense ( the first of his four concepts of truth ) is not a relation ( Verhiiltnis) betwee n a thing ( Sache) and its determinations, which is to say that it is not a state of affairs ( Sachverhalt: literally, ' a re­ lation wi thin a thing or between things ' ) typically mean t by means of a sen tence. The identity of what is meant and i ntuited is, as Husser! puts i t, th e correlate of an iden tification in wh ich they coincide . What is meant and what is i n tui ted are not related to one another as, for ex­ anlple, a th i ng ( "board " ) and i ts properties ( "black") a re i n the sta te of

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affairs signified by the sentence: "The board is black. " In order to un­ derscore the diffe rence between such a state of affairs ( Sachverhalt) and the relation obtaining between what is meant and intuited according to Husserl 's primary sense of truth , Heidegger calls the latter relation a "state of truth" ( Wahrverhalt) . 66 With this wordplay on two different "states" (Verhalten) , namely, that of a thing and that of truth , Heidegger ini tiates his criticism of Husserl 's conception of truth . Heidegger con tinues to regard Husserl 's analysis of truth in terms of the dynamic of empty and filled ( realized) intentions as a genuine breakth rough . Indeed, as noted above , he reconfigures that dynamic in his own ontological understanding of truth as an original disclosure. Yet he also maintains that, by characterizing truth as a "state of affairs," Husserl fails to follow through on his breakthrough . As noted in the last section ( 2 . 1 1 2 ) Husserl clearly distinguishes the correctness of an as­ sertion ( his fourth concept of truth ) from truth in the primary sense of the term. Hence , it is not immediately clear what the basis of Heideg­ ger's complaint could be. The immediate focus of Heidegger's criticism is Husserl 's use of the expression 'state of affairs ' for the obj ective cor­ relate of the intuition that, according to the first concept of truth , ful­ fills ajudgmen t. Characterizing truth - the identity of what is meant and given - as a ''state of affairs" implies that the relation is to be understood along the same lines as ''the state of affai rs ' S is p, ' ' the board is black, ' the relation of black and board" ( L 1 1 2 ) . Heidegger accordingly re­ proaches Husserl for confusing "the state of truth " (or the truth rela­ tion: Wahrverhalt) with "the state of affairs" (or the relation within a thing: Sachverhalt) . By construi ng the truth as a state of affairs, Husserl does not do justice to his own insigh t in to the dynamic of "the way truth behaves" : how it comes to be as the observable identity of what is meant and what is experienced. Despite the close attention paid to Husserl 's choice of terms in ana­ lyzing the con cept of truth , Heidegger's justifi cation of his criticism is extremely abbreviated. His whimsical wordplay on ' Sachverhalt' and ' Wahrverhalt' has a serious purpose, namely, to dramatize how Husser I 's analysis oscillates between static and dynamic conceptions of truth and being. 67 The members of the truth relation are not a thing and its prop66 L 1 1 2 f; P 7o-7 3 ; playi ng on H u sse rl 's own eq uation of h i s first concept of truth with the primary sense of being, Heidegge r dubs the re l ation �ignaled by this fi rst defini tion of tru th a Wahnein and Wahrorrhalt.

6 7 As

a means of i l lustrati ng th is diffe re n c e , Heidegge r calls atte n tion to diffe ren t wavs of

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OF TRUTH

erties, but rather the mean t and the intuited (where their identity i s cat­ egorially, even if prethematically, experienced ) . However, whe n the truth ( itself a dynamic relation ) is construed as a state of affairs , it is ef­ fectively mistaken - Heidegger is maintaining - for the static counter­ part to a proposi tion . States of affairs, it bears reiterating, are literally part-whole relations obtaining between a thing an d its properties. In­ sofar as these relations can be articulated byjudgments, can correspond to them, and, even more importan tly, can be iterated l ike the judgmen ts themselves , they seem to enjoy a kind of ideal status. The truth thus comes to be viewed as i tself a kind of thing (hypokeimenon) that possesses various, transient attributes (symbebekos) , that is, the state of affairs ( ideal proposition , type ) that remains the same despite different instantia­ tions (sentences, tokens) of it. Characterizing truth as a state of affai rs forfei ts the movetnent otherwise suggested by Husserl 's account of truth as the realization of empty in tentions. For the truth as that dy­ namic movement does not presuppose a permanen t identity, analogous either to a persistent subj ect (hypokeimenon) or to an ever-present essence (eidos) . If the truth is regarded as a state of affairs, the n it enjoys , Heidegger submits, "the same sort of being as the proposition , namely, the ideal sort of being, such that one grasps this identity as ideal being" (P 1 1 3 ) . But then, he contends, "one has curiously returned to the point of departure ," to Lotze (L 1 1 2f; P 70-7 3 ) . These last two con tentions requi re some elaboration. It is obvious to Heidegger that Husserl does not fall prey to the simpleminded logical prejudice of equating truths with judgments or even the Lotzean ver­ sion of the prejudice, according to which the actuality of truth is equated with the validity of a judgment. Neve rtheless, while recogniz­ ing the greater sophistication of Husserl 's accoun t of truth , Heidegger regards Husserl 's characterization of truth as a "state of affairs" as an in­ dication of the same sort of on tological commitment that underlies the Lotzean concept of truth as "the actttality of a trtte sentence . " Lotze , it bears recalling, distinguishes " the actuality of a true sentence" from that of real entities, even ts, and relations. What he understands as a truth expressi ng the �en tc n ce 'Th e c hai r

is yellow. ' Sotn e ti tnes the tenn ' i s· i s stressed ( ' t he

chair is yellow ' ) i n o rde r to emphasize that the chai r is "ac tually" or "i n truth" yel low. I n this case, the identi ty o f wh at is meant and intuited i s articulated. " Bfing- mean s here as rn uch a� the stan ding of truth , of the � tate of truth, th e stan din g of iden tity" ( P 7 0£) . But the emphasis can ju�t as well be placed on the tenn 'yell ow'. ( 'The chair i� _}1ellow' ) . In this ca'ie ' i � ' fu nctions as copula, poin ting not to the state of truth but to the state o f a f­ fai r � . nan 1 dy, that the ch ai r is yellow ( and not bl u e , etc . ) .

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N

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TRUTH

1 07

(or ''sentence that is valid" ) is precisely the ideal obj ect of scientific the­ ory, differentiated from those other actualities by its allegedly constan t onhandness. Similarly, for Husserl, a state of affairs is something that can be on hand and thus the object of a categorial intuition that can confirm ("fulfill" ) an emptyjudgment or assertion. Characterizing truth as a state of affairs in this sense reduces it to a standing presence, the coun terpart to an iterable j udgment or intuition, and forfeits the dy­ namic sense of truth otherwise layed bare by Husserl 's accoun t of truth. One migh t think that this criticism is misplaced for two reasons (al­ ready mentioned ) . In the first place, the term 'state of affai rs' is em­ ployed by Husserl in this context in a quite general way that does not exclude objects of straightforward, sensory in tuitions and the nonrela­ tional ( nomi nal ) intentions corresponding to them . Husserl 's concep­ tion of "being in the sense of truth " - as he puts it in the Sixth Logi cal Investigation - explicitly encompasses both "absolute objects" and "states of affai rs." As was noted earlier, Heidegger ignores and con tra­ dicts Husserl 's claims that merely nominal intentions can be realized ( that is to say, that "absolute objects" - not states of affairs - can thereby be given) . In the second place, the two expressions for truth in Husserl 's elaboration of his first concept of truth should not be equated, at least not without further ado. But Heidegger completely ignores this nu­ anced differentiation and its possible implications for his presen tation . Yet such rebuttals, while fair as far as they go , do not seem to under­ mine the basic import of Heidegger's criticism . Quite apart from all the particulars of Husserl 's concept of tru th that Heidegger fails to men­ tion , it remains true that Husserl oscillates between dynamic (indeed, in a certain sense pragmatic) 68 and static conceptions of truth, that is to say, between truth as the identification (what Heidegger calls Wahrverhalt) and as the enduring identity ( Sachverhalt) of what is meant and what is given . Moreover, there is every reason to think that this di­ vision in Husserl's conception of truth carries over to his understand­ ing of being, inasmuch as he associates " being in the sense of truth" 'With the fi rst of his concepts of truth. Husserl apparen tly understands " truly being" (Wahrhaflsein) in the Logical Investigations as the constan t pres­ ence of a state of affairs that can be equated with what is mean t in a true judgmen t or sen tence, even if it is not in fact the object of an actual 68 Gethmann, "Heideggers vVahrhei t';konzeption," 1 1 6 : "lndem Heidegger auf diesen op­ e rativen Gebrau c h B e z u g n i m m t , verstarkt er einen pragmatischen Grundzug, den H u ��e rl in �ei n e r W� h rhei t�ko rll:ept ion h e re i ts an gel e g t hat . "

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H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

judging. This constant presence i s that of the ideal being o f ( that is , des­ ignated by) a true sentence . As Husser! himself puts it: "If by j udgments one understands not only the inten tions of meaning that are part of ac­ tual asserti ons, but also the possible fulfillments, perfectly suited to th em , then it is certainly correct that a being can be grasped only in thejudg­ ing' (LU ll/ 2 1 40 ) . Heidegger summarizes th e two sides of Husserl 's analysis of truth in th e following man ner: "The sentence as a member of the relation is founded on the truth of the intuition of the identity; on the other hand, the identity itself as a state of affairs has the sort of being of a sen tence or the state of a sen tence [Satzverhaltes] : ideal being" (P 1 1 3 ) . In Husserl 's first and primary conception of tru th, it is construed on the one hand as the dynamic identity of empty and filled intentions or, cor­ respondingly yet more fundamentally, an entity's emergence from ab­ sence into presence. On the other hand, Husser! also construes the truth as a "state of affairs, " a presence corresponding to the meaning of an assertion and thus underlyi ng its truth ( correctness) . Heidegger ac­ cordingly infers that a version of the logical prejudice continues to shape and sabotage Husserl 's insigh ts into the nature of truth . Nor is Heidegger in doubt that this is a matter of prej udice, since Husser) does not even pose the question underlying his analysis of truth , namely, "whether truth is prim arily a phenomenon that is or is not to be grasped originally in the act of asserti ng or, better, in obj ectifying acts in the broader sense" ( P 7 3 ) . Husser! provides li ttle amplification of his first concept of " truth '' or the significance of his claim that it is equivalent to what is meant by "be­ ing. " This fact, while hardly conclusive , lends support to Heidegger's thesis that, not unlike Lotze 's wooden yet explicit inclusion of truth among the forms of actuali ty, Husserl 's talk of the equival ence of con­ cepts of "truth" and "being'' is tacitly and unreflectively orien ted toward a conception of a way of being that is proper to entities of a particular sort. Nor can th ere be any doubt that the enti ties in question are pre­ cisely those that form the objects of a certain kind of on tic scien tific the­ ory. The alleged inconsistency and blindness of this sort of orientation within phenomenology form the backbone of Heidegger's second ob­ j ection to Husserl 's phenom enology. 2.22

The Forgotten Being of Intentionality. In the Prolegomena Lectures

Heidegger sketches Husserl 's published and unpublished investiga­ tions afte r t goo . Heideggc r sees in these \vorks a "fundamental refle c-

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1 09

tion" that moves in essential ways beyond the perspective of the Logical Investigations. Heidegger's second central objection to Husserl 's phe­ nomenology is directed at this work of revision in the quarter cen tury following the publication of the Logical Investigations. 59 This is not to say that Heidegger does not appreciate the necessity and the profundity of that development. While the discussion of in­ ten tionality in the Logical Investigations moves "completely within the framework of the al ready delineated disciplines of psychology and logic and their questions," Husser! in Ideas I concentrates, to his credit, on dete rmining the field or domain within which intentionality "first be­ comes accessible" (P 1 3of; Id I 56) . Thus , in a sense, when Heidegger attempts to introduce phenomenology as research, the domain of which is far from fixed or circumscribed, he is following the lead of Husserl 's own developmen t. In Ideas I, moreover, Husser! also takes pains to elaborate the method proper to phenomenological investiga­ tion . "By means ofthe method ofbracketing, " phenomenology secures a field of investigation that is proper to it alone, a "new scientific domain" of pure consciousness with its pure correlates (P 1 3 1 , 1 36 ) . Nevertheless, in sharp contrast to the presen tation of Husserl 's "de­ cisive discoveries, " oriented as it is chiefly to the Logical Investigations, the tone of Heidegger's treatmen t of Husserl 's works in the ensuing years is severe . In a criticism (of which there are numerous reprises over the next fifty years) , Heidegger charges that these later works suffer ir­ reparably from the fact that the question of what i t means "to be'' is never raised in them . While such ontological obliviousness, if true , would be fatal enough for a philosophy, in the Marburg lectures Hei­ degger casts this criticism in the form of a phenomenological inconsis­ tency. As Husserl labors to establish the distinctiveness of in tentionality and the manner of access to it, he fails to address questions that have an immediate and necessary bearing on this project, namely, the ques­ tion of the manner of being of intentionality and the question of the 6g P 1 2 5- 1 2 9 . According to Heidegger's precis on these pages, after the publication of the Log;ische Untersuch ungen phenomenol ogy

is m arked by a decade ( 1 90 1 - 1 9 1 1 ) of "ex­ pansion of the field, fundamental reflection on its regional character and its demarca­ tio n from other re gions, the elaboration of the fundamental directions in which in ten­ tio nality could be researched. " In particular Heidegger cites ( 1 ) the enlargement of the p henomenology of perception so that it encompasses various domains, ( 2) the system­ a tic of logic , including a p h eno m eno l o gy of objective knowlege, notably, the judgment, ( 3 ) investigations of inner time-consciousness, ( 4 ) a shift in interest - u nder Dilthey's in fluence - to the specific object of the humanities, and ( 5 ) confrontation with the Mar­ burg Sc h ool , e"pecialJy Natorp's Einleitung in die P'iychologie.

I I

0

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT

OF

TR UTH

1neanings of 'being' as such. The two lines of questions obviously are in timately related. What sort of being is intentionality? Does inten tion­ ality have a distinctive way of being and if so, what is it? What does it mean to say that the sphere of intentionality exists? What does it mean to say of anything that it exists? Is there some horizon, context, or per­ haps a purpose that principally enables, frames, or even shapes our uses of 'being' and its cognates? Given Heidegger's general thesis about Western philosophy's oblivi­ ousness to being, any attempt on his part to mount an immanent criti­ cism must ring somewhat hollow. In an early lecture he even rej ects a " merely immanent critique" ( PAA 1 90) . Nevertheless, in his Prole­ gomena Lectures he styles his criticism of Husserl 's phenomenology as an immanent critique. Thus Heidegger argues that questioning what it means to be, precisely as he understands such questioning, is an oblig­ atory task of phenomenology according to Husserl 's conception of its task. In this connection, he singles out three essential features of Husserl's development of phenomenology that explicitly or tacitly re­ volve around the question of being. As a prelude to the discussion of those three features, Heidegger sketches the tnethod of reduction since each feature can be traced to a particular wrinkle on this method ( its presuppositions, its telos, its execution as well as point of departure ) . Heidegger draws attention first ( 2 . 2 2 1 ) to the questionable dualism that Husserl associates with this method (P 6 2 f, 1 3 1 - 1 39, 1 55ff) . He fo­ cuses next ( 2 . 2 2 2 ) on Husserl 's determinations of the "absolute being of pure consciousness" ( th e end point or telos of the reduction ) in or­ der to challenge the notion that these determinations are the result of a return to the matter itself ( die Sache selbst) in this case, consciousness itself. Finally ( 2 . 2 2 3 ) , Heidegger turns to the manner of proceeding and the point of departure of the epoche. In con nection with this third point, he argues that the question of being is "expli citly deferred" by the reduction , with the result that what it means "to be" in the so-called natural attitude , the point of departure for the method, is determined "from the outse t in a theoretically dogmatic way . . . as being in the sense of the reality of nature" (P 1 5 7£) . Heidegger charges that these three essen tial characteristics of Husserl 's phenomenology after t goo - in ef­ fect, the presuppositions, point of departure, and telos of the phe­ noinenological method - con tradict the phenomenological reduc­ tion 's claim of "procuring" and "assessing" the fun dam en tal structures of being in all th e i r purity ( Id I 1 4 1 f; P 1 5 7 £) . ·

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

2.22 1

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L REDUCT I O N A N D

ITS

111 QU E S­

In the natural attitude , Husserl 's point of departure in Ideas I, one is supposedly "a real object like others in the natural world," an object in which a stream of expe riences or manners of consciousness inheres in events in the real world ( ld I 5 8 ; P 1 3 1 ) . However, in an act of reflection on the experie nces themselves (for ex­ ample, the observation of an object, th e enjoyment of a concert, and the like) , one notices that they are immanent, that they belong to the san1e stream of consciousness as does the reflection itself. The thing perceived or experienced is, by contrast, transcendent. ''Every thing, that is to say, every real object, initially everything, the entire material world" is accordingly excluded from the stream of experience. 7 0 In a certain sense , to be sure , the transcendent world remains in the reflected experiences. Yet consideration of something as an obj ect of an inten tional experience is "no transcendent grasp of the thing itself' (P 1 3 5 ) . Insofar as the manner in which an object is apprehended or grasped is the issue, the concrete perception of it is disregarded. Thus , in the concrete perception of a tree, one's attention is typically focused on the tree. One does not so much experience the perception as one does the obj ect ( the tree) thematically posited in the experience or act. "Not going along" with either the purpose of the thematizing act itself or the object of the act (or, more precisely, the way in which it is meant by that act) , is the key to the epoche , the phenomenological method of bracketing or reduction (P 1 3 5£) . Once again , it bears iterating that "what is bracketed is not wiped off the phenomenological table , but in­ stead . . . provided 'With an index," as Husserl puts it ( ld I 1 42 ) . All the cases of transcendence - the individual transce ndencies of "the natural world , the physical and the psycho-physical" as well as the universal tran­ scendencies or essences of all eide tic sciences - are first put out of play or bracketed, in order to reduce them to and lay hold of inte ntionality itself in its complete structure. Then each moment that determines this structure as an individualized stream of experience of its own is brack-

TI O N A B LE PRES U PPO S I T I O N .

70 P 1 3 3 . Husserl also employs the term ' transcendent' in ways that range over more than the material world. N ot onl y the pe rceived obj ect, t h e person , and the mental life of the

person but also eidetic sphere'i , the ego , and even t he immediate past are "transcen­ den t" from c erta in poin ts of view, most nota b l y frorn what is given allegedly in an ab­ solutely clear way. In 1 907 he distin guishes two notions of "transcendence": what goes be yond the real within consciousness and wh at transcends the " absolute and clear given­ ness, self-give nnness in th e absolute s e n se ; ldn� der Phiinomenologie, 35; see, too, Id I t o q f: "eine Transze nde n :t in der Immanen:t," and I d I t o8- r t q. "

1 12

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT

OF

TRUTH

eted as a means o f highligh ting a pure field o f consciousness. T h e re­ sul t of these transcendental and eidetic reductions is an immanent sphere of what is essentially experienced and must be posited ab­ solutely, a sphere in which there is nothing left to be doubted. 7 1 Some researchers main tain that a phenomenological reduction , such as outlined here, is not to be found in Heidegger's own philoso­ phy. Mter all , discussion of the reduction is noticeably absent from Be­ ing and Time, even when Heidegger explicitly turns to the theme of phe­ nomenology. More importantly, if the phenome nological reduction means suspending all existential claims, there can be n o doubt th at the existential analysis undertaken by Heidegger is incompatible with the reduction . One need look no further than the opening pages of Being and Time where Heidegger (in an apparent rebuke of Thomistic meta­ physics) declares being-here to be the being that not merely is but whose very essence is such that it has to be. Ye t matters are more complicated. In the first place , Husserl would no more deny the existence of intentionality or its self-disclosiveness than Heidegger would that of being-here. In the second place , the point of the reduction is not to deny or disavow the existence of tran­ scendencies but rather to unpack the sense of them insofar as that sense is constituted via intentionality. In other words, phenomenological analysis does not suspend consideration of the existence of enti ties tout court but only insofar as that existence and its sense are merely pre­ sumed and not dete rmined through analysis of the intentional relation to the enti ties involved. In the case of each of the sorts of being con­ sidered in Being and Time, the question is not whether the one or the other sort of entity exists or obtains but rather what is the sense of be­ ing in each case , namely, ' being-here ' (Da-sein) , 'being-handy' (Zuhan­ densein) , or ' being-on-hand ' ( Vorhandensein) . In the third place , several specific aspects or steps of the bracketing called for by the reduction operate unmistakably in the existential analyses of Being and Time. Heidegger may well be alludin g to as much when , at the outse t of Being and Time, he declares: "The sort of en­ coun ter with being and structures of being in the mode of a phenom­ enon must first be gathered from th e objects of phenomenology. Thus , the point of departure [Ausgang] of the analysis as well as the access [Zu7 1 P 1 3 3 , 1 3 7f; see, too, Epf 79f. What Heidegger means by transcenden tal reduction ex­

tends to all that is included by H usserl under section 2 , chap ter 4 : "Th e Phenomeno­ logical Redu(· tions" ( Id I 1 o8- 1 1 g; see also Id I s60 ; by eidetic reduction, he is refer­ ri ng to the "Selbst-Ausschaltung des Ph anomenologen " ( ld I 1 2 1 0 .

T H E P H E N O M E N O LO G I C A L C O N C EPT I O N OF TRUTH

1 13

gang] to the phenomenon and the passage [Durchgang] th rough the pre­ vailing obscurances demand a methodical assurance of its own" (SZ 36) . Moreover, the same two general ways in wh ich Heidegger charac­ terizes Husserl 's phenomenological reductions (namely, as ''transcen­ dental " and ''eidetic" ) apply equally to the method followed in Being and Time. Thus, the reduction in Being and Time is transcendental insofar as the analysis of being-here, in the first place, explicitly sets itself off from an tic disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, and biology, and, secondly, brackets traditional concep ts of being (such as ousia, being­ on-hand, substance , and the like) . V\lhile pure and material eidetic dis­ ciplines are also bracketed, so, too, is the self of the phenotnenologist in a deliberate attempt to understand the distinctive eidos of Dasein, not as an instance of some species , but in its "respective mine ness" ( SZ 1 36) . There is even reason to posit a third level of epoche in Being and Time, what may be dubbed an "authentic" reduction , exemplifed in the second half of the work, that is carried out only in the wake of iden ti­ fying and then bracketing inauthentic existence. For all of the afore­ said reasons it m igh t be inferred that Heidegger clearly transforms, but by no means simply rej ects the phenomenological reduction . If this line of interpretation is correct, it helps explain why the Prole­ gomena Lectures reveal an equivocal , perhaps even conflicted attitude toward the reduction, later duplicated among his commentators. 72 In the lectures Heidegger defends the reduction from the frequent mis7 2 Arguments th at the re duction d oes not sun,ive in Heidegger's p henomenology can be fou n d i n Wal ter Biemel, "H usserls Encyclopaedia-Britan nica Artikel un d Hei degge rs Anm erkungen dazu , " Tijd�chrift voor Filosophie 1 2 ( 1 950) : 2 46-2 8 o; Richard Schach t, "Husserlian and Heideggerian Phenomenology," Philosophical Studies 2 3 ( 1 97 2 ) : 2 93-3 1 4 ; Wi lliam D . Blattn er, Heidegger 's Temporal Idealism (New York: Cambridge U n iv. P ress , 1 999 ) , 1 3- 1 6 . Among those who find the reduction o p erating in Heid egge r's thought are Francis F. Seeburger, "Heidegger and the Phenomenological Reduction ," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 36 ( 1 9 7 s ) : 2 1 2 - 2 2 1 ; Frederick Elliston , "Phe­ nomenology Rei n terprete d: Fro m H usse rl to H eidegger, " Philosophy Today 2 I ( I 97 7 ) : 2 7 3-2 83; John D. Ca p uto, "The Question of Being and Tran scendental Phenomenol­ ogy: Reflections on Hei degger's Relationship to Husserl , " Research in Phenomenology 7 ( 1 97 7 ) : 84- I os ; Mario n , Reduction et donation, 7 6 ; Taminiaux , Le Regard et l 'excedent, 66f, 7 1 ; Steven G. Crowell, "H usse r! , Heid egger, and Transce n dental Philoso p hy: Another Look at th e Encyc lo p edia Bri tanni ca Artic le , " Philosophy and Phenomenological Research so ( 1 990 ) : so 1 -s 1 8 . Seeburger, Ca p uto, and C rowell em p hasize that Heidegger radi cally reinterp rets but does not reject the reduc tion. Tu ge n dhat raises the question : "Warum fallt bei Heidegge r die E p oche weg?" an d promptly answe rs it: " Heidegge r benotigt die E poche nich t meh r, urn in die Dimension der Gegebenheitsweisen zu gelangen , weil er, nachdem sie von H usserl e roffnet wurde, von vornherein in ihr steht und sie n un aus ihren eigenen Ve rhaltnisse n h eraus - nicht mehr in ausschlielllicher O r i e n ti e ru n g auf

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H E I D EG G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

understanding that phenomenology, as a consequence of its method of bracketing, has nothing more to do with actual entities. At the same time, he does not hide the fact that he understands the method within the framework of his own ( albeit incipient) terminology and on tologi­ cal inquiry. The epoche is portrayed by him as though it were drafted precisely for the ontological question and were quite suited to it: "This phenomenological way of shelving the transcendent thesis has only the one function: to make the entity present with respect to its being." 73 From this last observation one might infer that Heidegger takes ex­ ception, not so much to the epoche as to Husserl 's construal of i t. But even apart from the fact that Husserl, as the originator of the reduction, enjoys a certain prerogative as to what it might mean, such a concltlsion would be precipitous. Heidegger's explicit attitude toward the reduc­ tion is, as noted briefly above, anything but unequivocal. Despite the positive appropriation just mentioned, he later claims withou t qualifi­ c ation in the same lecture that the reduction is fundamen tally unsuited for determi ning the sense of 'being' positively and, indeed, precisely because it does not attend to what ultimately is m eant by 'conscious-be­ ing' (Bewu}Jtsein) . Heidegger's j ustification for this claim is addressed below ( 2 . 2 2 3 ) . Initially, however, Heidegger directs his criticism not at the method itself but rather at the presupposition that afflicts H usserl 's conception of the reduction . Husserl presents the method by way of i nvoking a time-honored dualism. In Ideas / this dualism takes two forms. The first form is rooted in Descartes 's reelle distinction entre l 'ame et le corps de l 'homme; a distinction that, in Heidegger's eyes, H usser} never manages to transcend. 74 I nstead of grasping the difference between transcen-

eine vVelt von c;egenstanden - en tfalten kan n" (T 2 63 ) . Tugendhat's paradoxical re­ marks demonstrate n icely that the debate about the presence of the reduction in H ei­ degger's phenomenology is, if not moot, then mostly a matte r of accent. Certain fea­ tures o f the reduction are unmistakably at work in Heidegge r's existential analysis , others are not. In other words, commen tators on both si des of this issue can poi n t with justification to texts i n both philosophers to make their cases. More useful i5 sorti ng out the senses in which some aspects of the reduction survive , wh ile othe rs d o not, and why. 73 P 1 3 6. I n GP Heidegge r puts eve n greater distance between his and Husserl 's concep­ tions of reduc tion. vVhile Husse rl 's reduction is supposed to lead to th e noetic-noematic experiences in th e life of transcende n tal c o n sciousn ess the expe rience5 in wh ich olr ject� come to be constituted as correlates to consciousness, the point of H eide gge r s re­ duction is to s teer "phenomenological vision" ( ! ) from th e apprehension of an entity to the understanding of i ts being; see GP 2 9 . 7 4 AT 5 7 ; ld I 58; see , too, PasW 2 9 8 . ,

'

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dence and imman ence in a strictly methodical fashion , in keeping with the epoche, Husserl erects it into two spheres of being in one and the sarne consciousness: a psychophysical sphere wi th the sort of unity proper to an animal and a sphere fully separate from it, but at th e satne time constituting it ( as well as transcendence in gen eral) . This dualism is quite questionable for the phen omenological reduction, n ot only be­ cause of the poten tial aporia j ust n oted ( natnely, one conscious-being, yet belonging to two spheres of being) , but also because it contradicts in tentionality's achievement, presupposed by th e reduction . "This sep­ aration [of consciousness] into two spheres of being is then quite curi­ ous since precisely the sphere of imman ence, the sphere of experience, determines the possibility within which the transcendent world, severed from it by a chasm, can become objective at a11 . " 75 In Ideas I Husserl maintains that "a fundamental distinction . . . be­ tween being as experience and being as thing' emerges from the difference, underlying the epoche, between the immanent experiences attained through reflection and the transcendent perceptions of things ( ld I 7 6 ) . Although this formulation of the dualism is specified ( in contrast to the first one) in epistemological rather than psychophysical terms, both formulations ultimately come to the same questionable ontologi­ cal difference. In an apparen t replay of Cartesian dualism, Husserl in­ fam ously declares: "Between consciousness and reality a veritable abyss of sense yawns" ( Id I 93) . Each dualism calls forth the question of the sense and manner of be­ ing without posing it. The presumption seems reasonable that there is a concept or phenomenon on the basis of which the opposites can be grasped and their opposition ( their relation to one another) estab­ lished. The dualism with which Husser! i ntroduces the phenomeno­ logical method is thus a highly questionable presupposition from the stan dpoin t of the method since it bypasses the question of the concep­ tion of bei ng that the method invokes. In other words, as a consequence of the dualism, a sense of being is stipulated in a purely formal way as a concept spanning the opposite regions of being but unavailable for consideration itself through the phenomenological method. 76

7 5 P 1 34 ; for si milar obse lV'ation s see E. Fi nk, "Die phanomenologisch e Phi losophie Ed­ mund Husserls," Studien zur Phanomen ologie, ' 9 3 0- 1 93 9 ( H ague: N�jhoff, 1 96 6 ) , 79-85 ; P. Jans�en , Edm und Hussn-l: l!_'i nfiihrung in 5ein e Phiinomenologif (Freiburg: Alber, 1 9 76 ) , 6 8-7 5 · 76

Janssen,

A'dmund Hussn-l,

61

f,

74f .

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H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

I t may well b e - a n d Heidegger himself seems to b e of this opinion - that the dualism presented in Ideas I is supposed to have a more propaedeutic than systematic purpose. Nevertheless, the presupposi­ tion of this difference in being remains fatal since it continues to frame the inquiry "within which Husserl moves as he works out the phenom­ enological field of pure consciousness" (P 1 39 ) . The questionableness of the differentiation (being as experience, being as thing) becomes the questionableness of Husserl's inquiry. As Heidegger puts it, sum­ ming up this cri ticism : How is i t possible at all that this sphere of absolu te position , th e pure con­ sciousness, that is supposed to be separated by an absolute chasm from each transcendence, at the same time combines itself with th e reality in the unity of a real h uman being who appears himself as a real object in the world? How is it possible that the experiences constitute an absolute and pure region of being and at the same time surface in the transcen­ dence of world? ( P 1 39 )

Posing these questions, Heidegger concludes the first part of his cri­ tique of the subsequent developm ent of Husserl 's phenomenology. Ac­ cording to that critique , the questionableness of Husserl's inquiry ( his way of posing phenomenology's questions) can be traced to the ques­ tionable ontological distinction tha t he presupposes in his in troduction of the phenomenological method. Heidegger's elaboration of this cri­ tique serves at the same time as a springboard for his criticism of the re­ sult of the ph enomenological reduction , th e cornerstone of the tran­ scendental phenomenology sketc hed in Ideas I: the doctrine of pure consciousness . 2 . 2 2 2 T H E A B S O L U T E B E I N G O F P U R E C O N S C I O U S N E S S . Heideg­ ger's basic criticism of Husserlian phenomenology is that it neglects the theme of being and that th is neglect is both detrimental to and incon­ sistent with phenomenology. Intentionality is the "thematic m atter m ost proper" to phenomenology. Yet, instead of returning to the mat­ ter itself ( or, in vie"vV of "the principle of all principles," subjecting all c onsiderations to the intuition of this phenomenon ) , Husserl deter­ mines intentionality on the basis of traditional preconceptions. Hei­ degger's first step toward justifying this criticism is, as sketched in the foregoing sec tion , to point out the dualistic presupposition that Husser! makes in introducing the phenomenological meth od. Without clarify-

TH E P H EN O M E N O LOG I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

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ing the sense of being, " categorial differentiations in the entity are given ( consciousness and reality) " ( P 1 78 ) . In some respects this cri ticism is clearly precipitous and , to that ex­ tent, unfair. Bent on exploiting the dualist claims in terms of which Husserl introduces the project of attending to the given as such , Hei­ degger ignores much of Husserl 's careful co nsideration of what ' tran­ scendent' can mean within the epoche. The criticism is also unfair be­ cause it fails to engage Husserl 's actual doctrine of being, as it would have to emerge first from the epoche. It is not by the force of a pre­ supposi tion alone , but only through the execution of the phenoineno­ logical reduc tion that the sphere of pure consciousness, the sphere of "absolute being," is attained (Id I 8o-g s ) . In order for Heidegger to be able to sustain the charge that Husserl 's phenomenology is beset by an ontological amnesia or obliviousness (Seinsvergessenheit) , it is incumbent upon him to make the case on the basis of Husse rl 's determination of this absolute being. In the second section of Ideas / Husserl formulates what it means to assert that consciousness ( or, in keeping with the German , conscious­ be ing-Bewu}Jtsein) is "absolute ." Heidegger isolates fou r such formula­ tions, which are not themselves presented by Husser! in a systematic fashion. Consciousness is absolute in the sense that it is immanent, im­ mediate , spontaneous, and pure. In the next paragraph the precise for­ mulations of each of these features is presented, followed by Heideg­ ger's respec tive gloss. The being of consciousness is "absolute" for Husserl in the sense that it is "immanent" (ld I 8of, 1 40 ) ; Heidegger's gloss: "between the reflect­ ing experience and the reflected . . . a relation of being really con­ tained in one another obtains" (P 1 4 2 ) ; "given as ' absolute "' (Id I 77-8 7 , 1 43) ; Heidegger's gloss: "the re­ flected experience . . . is given in an originary way in its very self. Experiences . . . do not present themselves indirectly, symbolically"; "needs no 'thing' to exist" ( ld I 1 43ff: "nulla ' re ' indiget ad existen­ dum") ; Heidegger's gloss: ''every other being as reality is only in relation to consciousness, that is, relative to it" (P 9 1 ff) ; and "pure" ( ld I 5 7 , 8 5 , 1 2 1 f, 1 4 1 ) ; Heidegger's gloss: "not the individual instantiation of a concrete intentional relation , . . . but rather the ideal essence-being of consciousness itself . . . determines re-

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT 0 1' T R U T H

spectively a class-of-experience or, better, a structural-conn ection­ of-experiences" (P 1 46) . Heidegger singles out these four determinations in order to show that they are not gathered frotn the mann er of being of the entity itself, that is to say, from consciousness, but instead are attributed to it for a defi­ nite purpose. In certain respects , this claim in the presen t context is ten­ dentious, to be sure . Heidegger has not as yet shown what conscious­ ness's manner of being is, that is to say, apart from this allegedly prej udicial account. Husserl would undoubtedly protest that con­ sciousness presents itself in this fashion , regardless of any purpose. Yet Heidegger's case is not as weak as it m ight appear. His claim is that none of these ways in which Husser} characterizes consciousness (conscious-being) indicates its manner of being or does so only on the assumption that the region of consciousness ul timately coincides with that of an absolute science. Thus , the characterization of pure con­ sciousness as "immanent" refers to the relation between a reflecting act and what is reflected, but it says nothing about the ontological n ature or status of this relation. "Absolute givenness" determines how con­ sciousness is a possible obj ect of reflection , but without shedding the slightest light on its manner of being. The absolute a priori character expressed by the third characte rization refers to consciousness' func­ tion of constituting the object ("that tnust already be here so that it can announce itself as real") . However, the manner of being that is proper to ''what is already here" retnains obscure . ''Pure being, " the fourth of the so-called determinations of absolute consciousness, characterizes consciousness only in view of its essential conten t, detached from i ts concrete individualization and incorporation in a living entity. In other words, "purity" is attributed to the being of absolute consciousness pre­ cisely "because it is determined as ideal, that is , not real being. " 77 By means of this critical survey of Husserl 's ways of specifying the ab­ solute being of pure consciousness, Heidegger attempts to lead his stu­ dents to the conclusion that those determinations are not gathered from a consideration of th e manner of being of the matter at hand it77 P

1 46. This criticism is remi nisce n t of Dilthey's complai n t about the '"epistemologi cal school" of Locke , Hume, and Kan t: real blood does not flow through th e veins of the knowing subject as those thinker� construe it; cf. Wi lhelm Dil they, Einleitung in dif Gfis­ teswissenschaftm, vol. 1 , second edition in Gesamelte Schriften, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Teubner, J 9 2 3 ) , xviii. For a sterling argu ment that Oil they taugh t the you ng H e i d e gg er how to philosophize , see Robert C. Scharff, "Heidegge r's ' Appropriati on ' of Dilthey before Be­ ing and Timf, " journal oj the Hi5 tory of Philosophy 3 !> 1 1 ( 1 99 7 ) : 1 o .rJ - l 2 R .

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1 19

self ( human intentionality) . "The determinations of being are not gath­ ered in view of the intentional in its being itself, but rather insofar as it is placed in view, to be construed essentially as grasped, given, constitut­ ing, and ideating' (P 1 46, 1 48£) . By th ese means ( according to Heideg­ ger) Husserl aims, not at establishing the manner of being of con­ sciousness as such, but rather at "working out the experience-connection as a region of absolute, scientific observation. "78 In other words, Husserl elab­ orates these four characters of consciousness with a view to determin­ ing, not what it means for consciousness "to be," but what the structure of consciousness is insofar as it constitutes and encompasses the region of an absolute science. In response to such an obj ection Husserl would probably have replied that he obviously has a definite aim in characterizing the "ab­ solute being" of the intentional sphere . His phenomenological studies are ben t not on uncovering the manner of being of consciousness and certainly not the contingent being of an individual consciousness, but on showing how consciousness constitutes the domain ( not a region) of an absolute science capable of securing foundations for regional on­ tologies and specific sciences. According to Heidegger, however, this guiding motive is precisely what is phenomenologically inconsistent ( and curiously reminiscent of the Neo-Kan tian privi leging of scientific experience ) . Wh en Husserl construes and elaborates pure conscious­ ness as ''the thematic field of phenomenology," he violates his own phe­ nomenological principles by reverting, not to the Sache selbst, but to "a traditional idea of philosophy" (P 1 47; EpF 2 7 8 ) . To its detriment, Husserlian phenomenology continues to stand under the large shadow of Descartes, who first set in motion the modern idea of philosophy, with his own notion of an absolute science. 79 78 P 1 4 7. See also the criticism of H usserl 's overly epistemic determination of the basic structure of intentionality in EpF 8 2 , gof, 93 , 1 04f; MAL 1 6g . 79 In EpF Heidegger recounts five "fundamen tal differences" between Descartes and Husserl: ( 1 ) their paths ( unlike the Cartesian doubt, the H usserlian reduction s do not

aim to set the surrounding world aside "but to set- it in its original givenness") ( EpF 2 59) ; ( 2 ) their senses of self-reference ( the psychological cogito vs. phenomenological i n tentionality) ; ( 3 ) their determ inations of the absolute ( a foundation for deduction vs. a th en1e for investigation ) ; (4) their conceptions of the manners of being (esse crea­ tum vs. en� r�gionale, "a pos�ible region for a science" ) ( EpF 26 4 ) ; and ( 5 ) their orienta­ tions (rational foundation for a Catholic belief system vs . a self-supporting rational sci­ ence to establish "rules for a perfect1y free developm ent of humanity" ) ( EpF 266 ) . Despite these differences, Heidegger in sists that the same care animating Descartes 's pn�ject underlies and sabotages H usserl 's phenomenology, as exemplified by ( 1 ) its pre­ sumption of th� "self-evidentness" of the cogito, ( 2 ) i ts prt>t�nsion of extend i ng t h t" a l-

1 20 2.223

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

ES SENCE

AND MANNER OF

BEING:

THE

NEGLECTED

R E­

From the standpoint of transcendental phenomenology ( the point of departure for any immanent critique ) , the obj ection , raised in the last section , to Husserl 's dete rmination of pure con­ sciousness is unpersuasive. Within the framework of transcendental phenomenology, the question of being could only be adequately raised and addressed through the elaboration of pure consciousness as the domain of an absolute science. Access to this domain requires, to be sure, a bracketing of empirical realities ( including the empirical reality of consciousness) , but for the sake of then determining the same real­ ities in terms of wh at they are essentially, as they present themselves in pure consciousness. The aim is to provide, in this way, the scientific ba­ sis for the investigation of them . According to Husserl himself, "the en­ tire spatial-temporal world (to which the human being and the human ego attribute themselves as subordinate individual realities) is, as far as its sense is concerned, merely intentional being, thus, the sort of being that has the merely secondary, relative sense of a being for a consciousness" (ld I 93) . This sort of methodological determination appears expres­ sis verbis - to betray anything else but a "forgotten ness of being." Nevertheless, Heidegger con tinues to press the charge, doing so with respect to the bracke ting of the reality of consciousness in particular, construed by him as the factually existing human being. As Husserl might put it, this reality is to be bracke ted but pre cisely in order to be able to consider it, without preconception and prej udice , as it presents itself in pure consciousness. Although Heidegger in the Prolegomena Lectures, as already noted, initially regards the epoche in a positive ligh t, he later declares that the reduction is "fundamentally unsuited to determining the being of consciousness positively" (P 1 50) . It should now be clear, however, that much more needs to be said to jttstify this remark, given the fact that it is precisely the sense of the reduction "to look initially away from the reality, in order to be able to regard it then precisely as a reality, just as it manifests itself in pure conscious­ ness" (P 1 50) . Heidegger atterr1pt'i to demonstrate, in two steps, that the reduction, D UCTI O N .

-

leged certitude o f the cogito to a n absolute , all-encompassing region o f being, ( 3 ) its "up­ roo ting" of the cogtto from its underlyi ng on tological framework, and ( 4 ) its transfor­ Jnation of Cartesian care about certai nty into care abou t developing "the fun damen tal science of the phenomenology of c o n sc i ou s ne s s (EpF 266-269) . For more discussion of what H usserl cares about, see section 2 · 3 below. "

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121

as it is construed and elaborated by Husser[, in fact neither does nor can do justice to the question of the manner of being of intentionality. His first step is to show what the reduction proposed by Husser} persisten tly neg­ lects. His second step is to argue that the point of departure of that re­ duction is a theoretical contrivance that testifies to a fundamentally nat­ uralistic conception of being. Both steps serve one and the same goal: to demonstrate that Husserl 's conception of the epoche blocks and must block the way to questioning the manner of being of intenti onality. Heidegger undertakes the first step by pointing to the fact that the reduction , as it is used by Husserl, looks away "not only from the real­ ity, but also from the respective individualization of the experiences" (P 1 5 1 f) . The method guarantees that merely the essential structure of the acts , not the being of the act (Aktsein) as such , is thematized. The theme, in other words, is the essence, but precisely in the sense of the structural con tent of intentionality. Heidegger distinguishes this sort of inquiry from the question of the manner of being of consciousness. ( It bears notin g, in view of the ensuing existential analysis, that in the course of his Prolegomena Lectures Heidegger increasingly substitutes ' intentional behavi ors' - or, alternatively, ' stances' or ' comportments' or 'ways of relating' [intentionale Verhaltungen] for 'consciottsness. ' ) The essence in the sense of whatness is precisely "the grasped, given , consti tuted, " that, while well suited to the determinations o f pure con­ sciousness as a scientific object, reveals precious little of its way of be­ ing. The operative difference here is that between what something is and that it is. "From the 'what' I n ever learn something abou t the sense and the manner of the ' that' - or in any case only that an entity of this whatness ( extensio, for example ) possibly has to be in a definite way. What this manner of being its elf is, is thereby not explained." 80 Heidegger is obviously thinking of the old distinction , formulated by -

8o P 1 5 2 ; see GP 1 5 1 for Heidegger's inte rpretation of the meanings of 'essence ' (eidos, to ti en einai) in terms of the model of production. In light of these criticisms, it should be noted that, while Heidegger is clearly on the way to a transfo rmed conc eption of esse nce ( cf. VWW 26 ) , the no tion is a wo rkh orse in SZ. Being-here is the en tity whose "essence" consists in h aving to be its own being ( SZ 1 2) or, alternatively, whose "essence" is its ex­ istence (SZ 4 2 , 1 3 3 , 2 3 1 , 2 9 8 ) . H eidegger also maintai ns that it is the very "essence" of being-here to h ave an u n derstanding of being ( SZ 2 3 1 ) , to be possible (SZ 2 3 3 ) , to have death as as the defi ning possibility ( SZ 2 4 8 , 2 6 2 ) , to h ave a conscience (SZ 2 78) , to be capable of being auth e n tic or not ( SZ 4 2 f, 3 2 3 ) , and to be constantly unresolved ( SZ 2 36 ) . He also speaks of the esse nces of the respective exi ste n tials ( SZ 1 go, 2 g6 , ; p 4 ) , truth ( SZ 2 1 4 , 2 2 2 ) , care ( SZ 2 8 5 ) , nega tion ( SZ 2 8 5 ) , resoluteness ( SZ 2 98 ) , timeli­ ness (SZ 3 2 9, 3 1 R ) , a n rl history ( SZ 3 7 R) .

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H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

Aegidius Rom anus around 1 2 76 in this Theoremata de essentia and exis­ tentia (GP 1 45£) . Colors can be essentially distinguished, for example, from sounds withou t having to ask about the manner of being of either color itself or a particular instance of color. In other words, in the in­ terest of defining some essen tial character, it is quite possible to ignore questions about th e way in wh ich an entity (entitas) has that character and, at the same time, a manner of being that is distinguishable from that essence. In a corresponding way, as a consequence of the eidetic reduc tion , the existence of consciousness is left out of consideration in order to ascertain the alleged "whatness" of pure consciousness. "Thus, i n the consideration and formation of pure consciousness, the whatness is singled out alone, wi thout inquiring into the being of the ac ts in the sense of their existence" (P 1 5 1 ) . In the final analysis, however, the de­ termination of the essence does not succeed without a specific con­ ception of th e manner of being. As long as the manner of being of con­ sciousness is not its elf questioned, a particular concept of being - and, indeed, one that is possibly quite unsuitable - con tinues nolens volens to affect the determination of th e essence. From this perspective Husserl's version of th e epoche does not do justice to the question of being, be­ cause it does not carry out the reduction radically enough ; that is to say, it neglects to put out of play a traditional concept of essence (T 2 66) . A similar obj ec tion holds for the determination of the manner of be­ ing of any en tity. All empirical unities are , for Husserl , "indices of ab­ solute experiential-connections with a distinctive essential formation" (ld I 1 05 ) . The sense of being of each reality, so viewed, becomes noth­ ing else but the way that reality is grasped as an instance of some es­ sential content (some whatness) in the pure eidetic intuition of the thematizing consciousness. In this way, Heidegger explains h ow the n eglect of the question of intentionality's manner of being goes hand in hand wi th the neglect of the question of being as such. "If there were an entity, whose what is precisely to be and nothing else than to be, then this ideative consideration would be the most fundamental misunder­ standing in relation to such an entity" (P 1 5 2 ; SZ 4 2 ; T 2 65£) . Something like the existence of consciousness is undoubtedly rec­ ognized at least at the starting point of the phenomenological method. In the natural attitude the intentional is already experienced, even if it is not thematically grasped. The poin t of the reduction is to look away from this actuality initially, for the purpose , howe_ver, of being able to d e te rm i n e h ow i t consti tutes an d m a n i fests i tself in consciousness. What is attributed to th i s c o n sc io u s n e ss i s th e very tnan ner of be i n g of a nat-

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1 23

ural occurrence that is "built into the being of a material thing" (P 1 53 ) . According to this conception of the natural attitude, consciousness is presumably something that accrues to human beings as animate beings, appearing in the world as natural obj ects. But by this means, Heidegger complains, the point of departure of the Husserlian epoche in no way designates a natural mode of experi­ ence, but rather "a quite determinate theoretical stance . . . for \Vhich every entity is construed a priori in terms of a regulated procession of even ts in the spatial-temporal disjunction of th e world" (P 1 5 5 f; EpF 2 7 1 f) . In this connection Heidegger also makes the intriguing obser­ vation that n o attitude is original, but must first be obtain ed from a nat­ ural way of behaving. He submits , moreover, that it is not at all clear whether the "primary and genuine" character of the reality of human beings is to be understood as a "proto-theoretical" stance or a "natural" experience at all (P 1 56) . In view of the absence of a discussion of l ove in Being and Time, an absence that Scheler found debilitating for an ex­ isten tial analysis, it is noteworthy that Heidegger appeals to the phe­ n omenon of love to contest the suitability of the theoretical orientation for investigating human existence. "In the act of love I live ' in ' th e beloved, whereby i n this ac t the beloved is not an obj ect in the sense of a grasped obj ect; for that a n ew tnodification of the attitude is first re­ quired" (P 1 3 5 ) . In earlier lectures he is more blun t. Commenting on the privileged status acquired by consciousness , he remarks: "In itself it is, i ndeed, monstrous to design ate love as consciousness-of-something" (EpF 5g) . The gist of these considerations is that the conception of the reality of consciousness in the so-called natural attitude appears to be a the o­ retical contrivance. Indeed, in Heidegger's eyes, the conception of the natural attitude or, more precisely, the con tinuity between conscious­ ness in a natural and a philosophical attitude is decisive and fatal for HusserI 's phenomenology. For it shows unmistakably to what extent the task of that phenomenology, the determination of its thematic field, namely, the intentional sphere itself, is determined in advance by the aim of conceiving it as the domain of and for an absolute science. The condition of a human being in the so-called natural attitude is some­ thing that Husser} assumes , though i t is in fact, Heidegger submits, something that must first be gathered from a human being's manner of experiencing and, indeed , existing. This task is obscured, even blocked by the characterization of the prephilosophi cal attitude as "nat­ ural ." Heidegger s u m s up th is critical reservation in a rh etorical q u es-

1 24

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

tion: "Is this attitude really a natural attitude or is i t rather a ' naturalistic attitude' ?" (P 1 55 ) . Criticism of Husserl 's closet naturalism is voiced by Heidegger, it bears noting, in his first lectures at Marburg, given in the winte r se­ mester of 1 92 3 / 2 4 . For all of Husserl 's attempts to distinguish con­ sciousness from anything natural , his account of consciousness is "still naturalism" (EpF 8 1 ) . In view of phenomenology's brief history up to this point, no charge could be more damn ing or sound more outra­ geous . For years Husser! had been waging a campaign against the "nat­ uralization of consciousness" (PasW 295 ) . Yet while Heidegger does not charge Husserlian phenomenology with "naturalism" solely for sensa­ tional effect, it should be noted that Heidegger is not employing the term exactly in the senses criticized by his mentor. There is, for exam­ ple, a metaphysical sense of naturalism that Husser! deems self-refut­ ing: the theoretical pretense that everything - including, preeminently, ideas and consciousness - is a part of "nature," conceived as the en­ semble of empirical facts governed by laws uncovered by natural sci­ ence. 8 1 Husser! also rejects a specifically psychological version of natu­ ralism, a basic confusion of mental and physical phenomena, usually betrayed by the assumption that the success of experimental methods in natural sciences can be duplicated in psychology ( PasW 3 06-:-3 1 2 ) . These garden varieties of naturalism are not what Heidegger means by Husserl 's "naturalism ." In fact, his use of the term 'naturalism' is dif­ ferent from common contemporary construals of i t as a program of in­ terpreting all phenomena according to the methods and findings of natural sciences . Heidegger is referring instead to what he regards as HusserI 's effort to bring to a radical conclusion " the scientific tendency of naturalism," inherent in natural science, to absolutize itself by se­ curing unimpeachable evidence and certainty in the form of princi­ ples. 82 Heidegger thus faults Husserl for orienting phenomenology toward the idea of an absolutely certain science and construing con8 1 The claim is self-refuting and a p retense because it cannot j ustify itself; cf. PasW 294f, 2 g8f, 308. 8 2 EpF 7 2 f. Charging Husserl wi th naturalism because he shares "the scientific tendency of naturalism" n1ay seem a stretch. Mter all , differen t diseases can share the same sym p­ toms, in this case, th e sci en tific tendency (I am grateful to Jeremy Ryan fo r offering this reminder) . However, the maladies are ontologically the same inasmuch as t h ey share an ontological commitmen t that fo recloses consideration of the sense of individual , his­ torical existence. I n H e idegge r s view, Husserl 's e ffo rts to determ in� the s truc tures of consciousness and modes o f give n ness that are constantly on hand mi rror the natural sciences · pursu i t of p1 iHLipks that invariably go\'ern even ts in n a t u rP . For �v i d e n c e that '

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1 25

sciousness, its basic theme, too much in conformity wi th epistemologi­ cal and psychological approaches to it ( EpF 5 2 f, 58£) . The entire con­ text of Husserl 's inquiry is theoretical , Heidegger charges; it is sup­ posed to establish a new discipline "in place of natural science, " without asking "whether such a discipline makes any sense at all" ( EpF 8 1 f) . 2 . 23

A Summary of the Objections and Some Qualifications. Each of the two main objections reviewed in this section con tains a charge of a specific in consistency. Heidegger locates the first inconsistency ( 2 . 2 1 ) in Husserl 's otherwise pathbreaking elucidation of the concept of truth. In Heidegger's eyes, Husserl 's great accomplishment is to have recog­ nized the dynamic character of truth as the identity of the meant and the given, an identity initially experienced in an unthematic way as the correlate to an act of identification . On this account (which at a certain level Heidegger never relinquishes ) , truth is not itself a state of affairs or even the presence of a state of affairs, but instead - as Heidegger freely in terprets it - the unfolding of an enti ty's presence. 83 However, Husserl also construes truth as a state of affairs, the correlate of an objectifying act of judgment, as if the truth were, indeed, something on hand or, more advisedly but still quite questionably, the sheer presence or onhandness of something on hand. 8 4 Whether this second way of characterizing truth renders it identical to or merely a property of some state of affairs, it is inconsistent with the initial characterization. More­ over, since a state of affairs is always the possible correlate of an asser-

Husserl regards h is p roject in this li g ht, see PasW 293f, 2 g6, 308, as well as his remark about "true positivism" ( PasW 340) . 8 3 The interp retation is free but it should not be ove rlooked that Husserl h i mself con sid­ e rs 'b{'in g ' a synonym for 'truth ' in the p rimary sense of the term ( his firs t definition of truth ) . The te rm 'unfolding' here is a feeble a ttem p t to convey what Heide gger - also quite clun1sily - construes subseque ntly as the verbal sense of ' Wesen'; cf. VWW 2 6 : "Th e question of the tru th of essence understands essence in a verbal way and , still remain­ ing wi thin m eta p hysic-s' man ner of re p resenting, wi th this word [ ' essence ' ] th inks be­ ing [Seyn] as the p revailing distinction of ' to be ' and an entity [Sein und Seiendem] . Tru th sign ifies the illutninati ng concealing as the basic featu re/m ove of being [Grundzug des Seyns] . The question of the essence of truth fi nds its an swer in the sentence: the essmcf

of truth is the truth of ejsenre. "

8 4 The latte r se nse of truth is exem pl ified by th e medieval doc trine of truth as a transce n­ dental or d ivine attribute, always obtaining and th us ever- p resent, or by the noti on of " necessary truth" as it applies, on some interpre tati ons, to p ro p ositional descri p tions of known past and prese nt situations in con trast to future on es; cf. G. E. M. Anscombe , "Aristotle and the Sea Battle," i n A ristotle: A Collection of Critical Enayj, e d J M . E. Morav­ csi k ( Garde n City, N .Y. : Doubleday, 1 96 7 ) , � 4 , � of. .

.

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

tion or judgment, th e logical prej udice or, at least, some version of it is the source of th e inconsistency. 8 5 Th e second inconsistency ( 2 . 2 2 ) springs from the plan of phenom­ enology, in terms of which th e point of departure, the path , and goal of i ts tnethod are determined. Measured against this plan , Husser! has allegedly left out of consideration th e "theme or matter [Sache] most proper to it," namely, the manner of being of in tentionality and, wi th it ( thanks to the absoluteness ascribed to pure consciousness ) , the ques­ tion of what it means "to be" at all. Husserl lays claitn to "the most rad­ ical of all differentiations of being - being as consciousness and being as th e ' transcendent' being, ' manifesting' itself in consciousness." Phe­ n omenology is supposed to proceed from this differentiation and , via the method of phenomenological reduction , th is ontological differ­ ence is supposed to be "attained in its purity and evaluated" (ld I 1 4 1 ) . But if one asks further what ' being' means in this connection, "we look in vain for an answer and even more for an explicit posing of this ques­ tion itself' ( P 1 58 ) . Thus, while th e first obj ection may be said to turn more directly on an inconsistency in Husserl 's conception of truth , th e second turns on an inconsistency in his conception of being, th ough, ultimately, an on tological biconditionality obtains between uses of ' truth ' and 'being' ( ' (3x) Fx' is true H (3x ) Fx) . Heidegger contends that, as far as the questions of truth and being are concerned, Husser} remains in a certain sense Lotze 's disciple. By distinguishing clearly between th e act ofjudging and the ideal or valid content of what is at once intuited and j udged , Husser} succeeds more than any of his contemporaries in exposing the problems besetting psy­ chologism . But th e project of psychologism is by no means disestab­ lish ed. Husser! reproduces in much more sophisticated fashion Lotze 's differentiation between reality and ideality ( the actuality of a thing and th at of a true sen tence) , without getting out from under th e grave prob­ lem of th e differentiation itself. Being and validity (Geltung) continue to be regarded as completely distinct "actualities" and "irreducibly ba85 I say "a version of the logical prej udice" to co\'er certain permutations. For example,

while an idealist or pragmati�t typically construes truth as a property of asse rtion �,judg­ men ts, or beliefs and the like, and thus gives a straightforward example of the logical prej udice, a realist accoun t of tru th mi gh t em phasize that the tru th i s a property of states of affai rs, on the assum ption that they constan tly obtain wh ether or not they are at­ tended to . Howeve r, so long as what consti tutes a possible state of affai rs corresponds to a judgment, a ve rsion of the logical prej udke or, more precisely, the ontological corn nn trnent tradi tioHdlly i u funuing the p rej u d i c e i� still a t wo rk .

TH E

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1 27

sic concepts." But as long as the question of the sense of being is not asked, the difference and the relation between these "actualities" (in Husserl 's own formulation: between being as reality and being as con­ sciousness) remain obscure . 8 6 Referring to this obscurity, Heidegger observes "that the distinction , to be sure , is made between the real and the ideal being of the judgment, but that precisely the reality of this real [character] of the acts remains indeterminate. " As long as the being of the in­ ten tional is not determined, the possibility still remains of ''construing it in the sense of a mental, but natural occurrence'' (P 1 6o ) . Heidegger is demanding of phenomenology that it determine "the matter most proper to it" : the manner of being of the intentional sphere. He is requiring that consciousness be understood as it presents itself originally, not in the "theoretical" construction of the so-called natural attitude . Heidegger ackn owledges that Husser! addresses the is­ sue of intentionality's reality as, under the influence of Dilthey, he elab­ orates a conception of person and spirit, distinguishing the human be­ ing in the process from nature ( as its "subsoil" [ Untergrund] so to speak) . 87 This tendency toward a "personalistic psychology" (in con­ trast to a "naturalistic" one ) is already apparen t in Husser} 's Logos essay of 1 9 1 1 , "Philosophy as Rigorous Science, '' but becomes particularly pronounced after 1 9 1 4 , as evidenced, Heidegger notes in his 1 9 2 5 lec­ tures, by the course that Husser} is giving in Freiburg during the same semester under the title "Phenomenological Psychology" (P 1 6 1 - 1 64 ) . Heidegger claims that Husserl is taking his criticisms into account on the basis of acquaintance with Heidegger's Freiburg lectures as well as the Prolegomena Lectures and their conversations with one another. For this reason , Heidegger observes that the sharpness of his criticisms may have been blunted somewhat. So intensive and "yet so fully in flux" was Husserl 's preoccupation with the themes of consciousness and person at this time that Heideg­ ger h ad to confess: "I am not sufficiently apprised of the charac ter of 86 Geth mann, " Heidegge rs "''ah rheit�konzeption ," I 05 : H uss erl h abe - so laBt sich Hei­ deggers Kritik zusammenfassen - unbemerkt und darum ungerech tfertigt unterstellt, daj1 der A nti-Ps)'chologismus (die Un tersch eidu ng von Vollzug/GPhalt) nur als Idealism us (durch die Unterscheidung von real/ideal) zu hahPn .\ei." 87 ld I I 2 8o: " Gpist ist nirh t ein a bstraktes l c h d e r �tellungnehmenden Akte, so n dern er ist die vollR Personlichkeit, lch-Mmsch, der ich Stellung nehme, der ich den ke, werte , han­ dle, Werke vo l l b ringe etc . Zu mir ge h ()rt dan n mit ein Untergrund von Erlebnzs.5en u n d ein Untergrund von 1Vatu r C nt e i n e Nauu' ) , die sich in dem Getriebe der Erlebnisse bekun­ det. " For H usse rl 's acknowledgtn e n t of D i l tl1ey's inceptive i nsigh t i n to the insufli c i e ncy of a n a t u ra l i s t i c psvc h ol ogv, see l d I I I 7 � f. "

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

the content o f his [ Husserl 's] present investigations" ( P 1 67 ) . But this did not stop him from holding forth about the investigations that were known to him . To the extent that he is familar with Husserl 's elabora­ tion of a personalistic attitude, Heidegger finds no reason to withdraw or revise his criticis1n . In each of Husserl 's new drafts, his "division of being" resurfaces ''under another title . " In the Logos essay personhood is attributed to human beings, thus a kind of being different in princi­ ple from the thingliness of nature , while the positive sense of this per­ sonal being remains "the immanent unity of life of the respective stream of consciousness" (PasW 3 1 9f) . Later Husserl explicitly strives to conceive the complex of experiences as much more than an annex to physical things and even to subordinate the naturalistic attitude to the personalistic one. But even in this approach the being of con­ sciousness (Sein des BewujJtseins) is construed as something that is ac­ cessible to human beings in an immanent way and independent of nature, while the full personality is said to proceed from the in terpen­ etration and differentiation of the personalistic and naturalistic atti­ tude (in short, soul and body) . R 8 In this connec tion Heidegger also mentions Ideas II, confiding that Husser}, in a letter accompanying the manuscript, speaks of "a com­ pletely new elaboration with - in part - comple tely changed con tents," leading Heidegger to caution his students once again that, as a result, his characterization of Husserl 's phe nomenology "in a certain sense is already somewhat antiquated" (P 1 68 ) . Mter reciting titles of the three sections of the book, Heidegger recounts HusserI 's clear assertion that the naturalistic atti tude is subordinate to the personalistic (but nonetheless "natural") one , despite the fact that we glide so easily from the one attitude to the other. Heidegger's very brief exposition - often a mere paraph rase if not a lite ral transcription - comme nces with the opening pages of the third section 's first chapter ("Con trast Between the Naturalistic and Personalistic World" ) . R9 He refers specifically to Husserl 's accoun t of the soul ( "in the widest sense of the te rm" ) as the localization of the mental, an accoun t that Heidegger deems 'justified," based as it is on the inner connection of the aesthesiological with the 88 Heidegger's brief re fe re nc e i n the Prolegom ena Lectures to H usse rl 's d raft� of the pos­ i tive sense of th e human being as a per�on (in Ideas II as well as in Phenomenological P5y­ rhology) corroborate Husser} '� development, tho u g h he does not succeed in moving, Heidegger c laiin s , beyond a psychophysical model. H9 vVith his re fe re n c e to the run n i n g cat and "the inner connection of the aesthesiologi­ cal wit h the physical;· He idtggt:• 1 n ost likely has I d II 1 7 :Jf in mind.

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physical dimension . At the same time, he acknowledges Husserl 's ef­ forts to introduce a personalistic attitude that is not naturalistic but nat­ ural in the sense of being "a mirror of nature so to speak" (P t 6g; Id II 1 80, 1 8 3f) . Yet Heidegger is not dissuaded from his basic criticism, though he rests his case essentially on just two sections of the third part of Ideas II: section 54, "The I i n the Inspectio Sui " ; and the final section of the book, section 64, "Relativity of Nature , Absoluteness of Spirit." As the title of section 54 plainly suggests, the so-called personalistic attitude and ex­ perience continue to be defined, he submits, in Cartesian terms . Any doubt about the basically Cartesian character of Husserl 's conception of the person is removed by the concluding section 's insistence on the individual spirit's immanent given ness to itself as well as the primacy of that givenness over all appearances, the world, and even nature . For all the insights presented by Ideas II, Heidegger suggests, it remains ul ti­ mately an iteration of Husserl 's fundamental ontological distinction , based as i t i s upon privileging what is allegedly given i n an immanent way and isolating th e same pure consciousness that is the residue of the world 's annihilation . Once that distinction is countenanced, the delib­ erations take the characteristic course of elaborating the relations be­ tween body and soul , spiritual and physical nature ( P 1 6gff; Id II 2 1 1 -2 1 5 , 297-302 ) . Heidegger is n o t denying that Husserl 's attempt to provide a phe­ nomen ological foundation for a personalistic psychology is, as Heideg­ ger himself puts it, a "positive" development in certain respects. How­ ever, as far as the issue of intentionality's manner of being is concerned , the attempt does far more than simply leave the question unaddressed; it obstructs the question . Using Husserl 's termi nology, Heidegger main­ tains that one reason why the question of the "person 's manner of be­ ing" does not come into play is the very con text in which the personal or spiritual dimensions are considered. That context is predetermined by the overriding concern of Ideas I, namely, establishing how an entity presents itself as a real object within the stream of experiences. Against this background, the personal or spiritual dimension is then examined insofar as it can be constructed or even superimposed on such a natu­ ral reality as the "fundamental level." As a result, despite Husserl 's em­ phasis on the naturalness of the personalistic attitude, "the being of the person is not experienced as such primarily" ( P 1 7 2 ) . Moreover, even if ontological considerations shaped this analysis of the person , the question remai ns whether what it means for a person or concrete h u-

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

man being " to be" can b e constructed from these various levels as though it were the product of them. The problem is that this very ap­ proach , by construing the person as "a multilevel thing within the world," can neve r arrive at the person 's being. What remains is the sort of being of some real object, given in advance. ''In the last analysis," Hei­ degger submits, Husserl 's on tological horizon is "being as objectivity in the sense of being-an-object for an observation. "90 Heidegger's two objections to Husserl 's phen omenology form a tan­ dem: the logical prejudice goes hand in hand with a tendency to neg­ lect or even forget to address the theme of being. In other words, as long as the assertion (sen tence, proposition , etc . ) is regarded as th e site of truth and thus the end of the analysis of truth , being is conceived nolens volens as the presence of something making itself present ( being in the sense of the onhandness or potential onhandness of a thing, an obj ect, a state of affairs) . Something similar holds in reverse as well: as long as an objec t's "being" and its "on-hand givenness'' are equated, truth is understood as the truth of an assertion or as that which, when present and pointed out, realizes what is otherwise merely thought, that is to say, entertained in its absence. Because Husser I conceives truth primarily as a realizing (or fulfill­ ing) intuition , he distinguishes truth in this primary sense from the mere correctness of a sentence . Yet precisely because his analysis of in­ tentionality - particularly in the Logical Investigations - aims at differen­ tiating logic and epistemology from psychology, he is primarily con­ cerned with objectifying and positi ng intentions , the signitive and relational form of which is a declarative sen tence or assertion . The con­ ception of intentionality is teleological , that is to say, it is oriented to­ ward its realization or, more precisely, the realizing or fulfilling inten­ tion ( tru th ) . But the realizing in tention, in Husserl 's scheme, is itself the intui tive iden tification of something on hand as that upon which the truth of an assertion typically depends. 9 1 Herein lies the irony of Heidegger's encomium that Husserl has "thought the grand tradition ofWestern philosophy to an end'' ( L 1 1 4 ) . Thanks to HusserJ 's analysis of the intentionality of the intuitive truth that underlies the correctness of an assertion or judgment, it is clear go P 1 7 3 . H eidegge r also c ritic iz{'s H usserl for re ga r d i n g the ego as the pole of act�, " th e subject t h a t pe rsist� , " but Heidegg er also ackn owledges t h a t H u�se rl \ analysis o f tin1e attai ns a deeper leve l ; rf. P 1 7 2 . 9 1 I t could also real i�:e or fu lfill a n ame and n aming; see T 2 7 7f and B e rn e t "H usserl and ,

H e idegg e r

uu

I u L� n liunal i ty a n d Bei n�,"

1

:J O .

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131

that the latter is not the "si te" of truth , at least not in the primary sense of the term. But that same analysis also demonstrates just how intri­ cately the two concepts of truth are interwoven with one another and with a "flattened-out" conception of being ( "onhandness") . Husserl 's analysis of truth exposes the basis of the logical prejudice , namely, the reason why i t is traditionally taken for gran ted that truth is preemi­ nently propositional or at least equivalent to the truth of an assertion or judgment. Yet HusserI himself remains enmeshed in a version of the same prejudice in that he grasps th e truth ( "state of affai rs") as an ideal presence correlative to an assertion or judgmen t. 2 .3 What Husserl Cares About: Knowledge Known

and the Fear of Being-Here The criticisms reviewed in the previous section ( 2 . 2 ) are quasi-imma­ nent. They can not be considered strictly immanen t in the sense of es tablishing inconsistencies based solely on Husser I 's understanding of his own terminology. It should be obvious by now that, in presenting and criticizing Husserl 's treatments of the themes of truth and being, Hei­ degger is constantly invoking his own unde rstanding of these the1nes. Yet characterizing his objections as "quasi-immanent" is not mean t to suggest that only the semblance of an immanent criticism is observed. Heidegger formulates his main objections on the basis of claims that Husserl makes for phenomenology, its method and task, and even though Heidegger appeals to connotations that are not explicit in Husserl 's texts , it would be foolish to reject those connotations out of hand or suppose that there is no common ground between the two philosophers. People typically say more than they mean and what they say may have meanings that con tradict what they meant to say. To the extent that Husserl 's use of the term ' state of affairs ' to characterize truth suggests a standing presence, it conflicts with the dynamic in ter­ p lay of presence and absence otherwise implied - at least on certain readings - by his account of truth. So , too, the scientific horizon for con­ struing consciousness as absolute and privileging perception seems to p reclude certain considerations of phenomenology's theme, conside r­ ations called for by its project of returning to the original given ness of things. Yet if Heidegger's criticistns, for all their tenden tiousness i n various respects, cannot be dismissed as purely external , two mitigating features of th e cri ti ci s m s rl �s� rv� to h� n n tF"rl Fi r�t , t h e (' ri ti t:- i " m " poin t to a neg-

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

l e c t or insufficiency, a t most a confusion of regional and fundamental ontological considerations, but not the speciousness of Husserl's phe­ nomenological analyses. 92 Nor is it clear, especially given Heidegger's touting of phenomenology's decisive discoveries, that the supposed neglect or confusion is terminal or endemic. In other words, Heideg­ ger's critique of what Husserl has made of phenomenology suggests strongly that there is another trajectory for phenomenology, but h ardly one incompatible with Husserl 's undertaking. Second, it is also appar­ ent that Heidegger's principal reason for drafting these criticisms is not to demonstrate that Husserl's conception of phenomenology is self-re­ futing. His main objective is to persuade his students that phenome­ nology, as a philosophical method, has a different destiny. 93 This objective is particularly evident in Heidegger's most irreverent treatment of his mentor's thottght. It is probably not a coincidence that this treatment is to be found in Heidegger's first Marburg lectures ( i . e. , no longer under Husserl's shadow at Freiburg) , aptly entitled "Intro­ duction to Phenomenological Research. " In these lectures Heidegger supplements his other objections to Husserl 's conception of phenom­ enology with an explanation of its motivation. The largest segment of these lectures, it bears noting, is devoted to Descartes as the begi nning of a transformation (Umschlag) , prefigured by the Greeks and brough t to completion by Husser!, in which scientific method takes precedence over content and consciousness replaces being as the basic theme of a science with foundationalist pre tensions (EpF 44, 4 7 , 49 , 5 2 ) . Heideg­ ger's explanation of Husserl 's motivation is thus part of a much longer story. 9 4 According to Heidegger, Husserl's climactic role in this drama can be gathered fro m his objections to naturalism and historicism in the es­ say "Philosophy as Rigorous Science . " Husserl 's criticism of attempts to 92

93

94

Heidegger takes exception to the completeness of H usserl 's phenomenology of reason, bu t apparen tly not to the adequacy of its analyses for specific regions. If anything, Hei­ degger is challenging the distinction between formal and regional ontol ogy, since the claims to the universality of th e former are tied to an a l l eged ly aU-too-regional concep­ tion of intentionality. Cf. Id I 3 0 7-3 1 3 . It must also be borne i n mind that H eidegger's critici45ms of his mentor were not pub­ lished at the tim e , but i nstead were prese nted with in the presumably nonhostile , less in­ hibited confines of a semi nar. EpF 4 4 , 4 7 , 49 , 5 2 . Heidegger's account of H usserl 's relationship to Descartes is re­ viewed in n. 79 above . On the necessity of th e historical tun?-, undoubtedly a preview of the plan for th e second part of SZ, see EpF 1 o6f, 2 7 1 .

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naturalize consciousness takes the form o f clarifYing the phenomenon and the manner of treating it. Heidegger describes this clarification as a matter of "cleaning up" or "sanitizing" (Reinigung) the concept, purg­ ing or purifying it from confusion with the sort of facts and phe nom­ e na investigated by natural science (EpF 79f; PasW 2 96f, 30 2 , 3 1 8 ) . For Heidegger's purposes , the image of a Reinigung - which can also stand for ' laundry' or ' cleaners ' - aptly suggests that consciousness , the theme of Husserlian phenomenology, is already established and merely needs a "good clean ing" in order to secure the foundation of philosophy as rigorous science (EpF 7 1 f, 79£) . Husserl 's transcendental laundry pur­ portedly remai ns very much in the business of naturalism since it rids consciousness of eve ry factuality in order to secure the sort of lawlike , universally binding character that is paradigmatic in a mathematical sci­ ence of nature (EpF 64f, 7off, 8of, 82£) . Moreover, just as the cleaning, culminating in the transcendental reduction , involves "turning off' (Ausschaltung) any supposition of natural features, so, too, it requires bracketing historical facts. Holding fast to a rigid Lotzean differentia­ tion of factuality and validity, Husser! cancels (ausschaltet) history and historical sciences as "unimportant'' (EpF 94ff, 300) . A "superstitiousness about facts ," as Husse rl puts it, is common to the naturalism and h istoricism that he criticizes ( PasW 3 2 3 , 33 6; EpF 7 2 , 94 ) . Seizi ng on this poi nt, Heidegger observes that Husserl 's criti­ cisms are made in the interest of a normative science, grounded in the Lotzean idea of validi ty ( EpF 8 1 f, 86f, 96; PasW 3 2 5ff) . Husserl is ac­ cordingly committed to the Lotzean version of the logical prejudice , or at least its presupposition of an ac tuality all its own , in con trast to th ings that are , events that happen , and relations that obtain (see 1 . 3 2 above ) . Yet Husserl does not have any In ore justification for the oper­ ative distinction between being and validity, real and ideal, than Lo tze does (EpF 94f, g g , 30 2 ) . Since Husser! appeals prec isely to an eidetic intuition to establish the distinction ( Id I 9; PasW 3 1 4£) , Heidegger is, in effect, rejecting the force of such an intuition - at least wi th regard to somethi ng as fundamental as an ontological difference. But if Husserl 's appeal to eidetic intuition goes, so, too , does his idea of a rig­ orous science wi th some sort of ultimate foundation. Even apart from questionable appeals to intuition, the lack of an ultimate foundation can be gath ered , in Heidegger's view, from the would-be normative dis­ cipline 's disregard of what is supposed to be determined by its norms and , as a result, i ts failure to consider the ve ry sense and possibility of

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1 34

normativity ( EpF 86f; PasW 3 1 6) . Correspondingly, in the wake of its critique of historicism , it is committed to neglecting, indeed, foreclos­ i ng any consideration of historical existen ce , the very being of con­ sciousness . 95 What, then , motivates Husserl to assume the Lotzean distinction , to construe consciousness in a primarily epistemic, nonworldly manner, and, in the process, to neglect the h istorical reality of individual h uman existence i tself? Heidegger explains Husserl 's motivation as a form of care . By ' care , ' Heidegger has in mind something presubjective and preconceptual, the Arch imedean point of philosophical analysis ( though these fea­ tures are not sufficient to consider his use of the term in this context equivalent to his use of it three years later in Being and Time) . "Care is nothing subjective and does not dissimulate what concerns it; instead it lets it come to its authenti c being." 96 Heidegger employs this notion of care, it bears emphasizing, in order to determine what ' consciousness' means for Husserl or why he even regards it as a theme for philosophy. What makes consciousness philosophically interesting, Heidegger is proposing, is the interest that speaks through consciousness. In other words, he supposes that what consciousness means for Husserl depends upon and thus reveals itself i n what Husserl cares about. But care can also be deficient in the sense that it does not attain what is i ts genuine concern ( EpF 8gf) . Indeed, Heidegger goes so far as to declare that every care is a form of neglect ( EpF 8 5 ) . "Among other things, care takes care to leave something out" ( EpF go) . There is accordingly a care underlying Husserl 's neglect, discussed above , of the individual histor­ ical existence that is allegedly subject to the normative science. This dual use of ' care ' is similar to Hegel 's disti nction between what is "for consciousness" i tself and what is "for us" who study th e emergence of 9 1 ff; PasW 334· EpF 93: "Care about kn owledge k n own has excluded h uman exis­ tence as such from th e poss ibility of bei ng encountered." A similar po i n t is u rged by Heidegge r a few years late r i n notes to Hus�erl 's En cyclopedia Britan n i ca article: "Does not a pure ego have a world?" Cf. Edmund Husserl , PhiinomPnolo,IJ;l 5rhe P5)1thologie, ed. Walter Biemel ( Hague: NU hoff, 1 96 2 ) , 2 74 n . 1 . g6 EpF 5 7 . Th is tex t suppo rt� the vit>w that the discl osed ness of bei ng-here , like the tru th discussed by Aristo tle in 1\1etaphysirs, Theta 1 o, con�ti tutes the limit of bival enC"e. I n other words , a co rresponding fa l s i ty cannot be meani ngfully conc;; i dered. See, too, Hei­ degger's discussion of the seeing, proper to care, that "has noth ing to do with theoret­ ical knowl edge" ( EpF 1 o4f) . On Heidegge r's version of "phenomenological seein g , " s e e Friedrich-Wilhelnl von H e rnn an n , J)Pr Begriff der PhiinornPnologie bn HPidPggn- und Hus!,n-/

95 EpF

( Fra n kfu rt

an1

IV1a i n :

Kl o�te 1

n1a n n ,

1 9H

1 ) , 1 4.

T H F.

P H E N O M EN OLOG I C A L

C O N C E PT I O N

OF

T R UTH

1 35

that consciousness. 97 Care is originally disclosive but can also lose itself in a certain sense in what it cares about, and it is precisely this dynamic, according to Heidegger, that takes place in Husserl 's case . What does Husserl care about? What motivates h im to develop an e pistemic consciousness as the theme of phenomenol ogy? According to Heidegger, what Husserl cares about is "knowledge known ," that is to say, "knowledge justified by knowledge" or "scientific knowledge" that is absolutely binding ( EpF 1 oof) . Indeed, so powerful is this con­ cern that fashioning knowledge of this sort is more important than what is known. "Care about obtaining an absolute securing of knowledge is what determines the entire critique in the ch oice of themes and treat­ ment" ( EpF 8g) . What matters to Husserl is, to be sure, "the highest in­ te rests of human culture," but these interests require, he submi ts, " the development of a rigorously scientific philosophy" (PasW 2 93 , 340) . This concern for scientific knowledge as a means of "securing existence [Dasein] and culture" is, in Heidegger's view, a "deficient" or "lapsed" sort of care ( EpF 6o, 6 2 , 7 1 f, 84, 1 05 ) . For, in its pursuit of absolutely binding and justified norms for "an ideal cultural formation as the au­ thentic comple tion of the idea of humanity, " Husserlian phenomenol­ ogy neglects to consider its auth entic concern: human existence itself ( EpF go) . "What is neglected is what is genuinely of concern : human existence. Inquiry is not made into what it is, but instead the idea of hu­ manity and the concept of the human being are left in an average con­ tingency" ( EpF 9 1 ) . This deficiency is poignan tly revealed, in Heidegger's estimation, by the way in which Husserl contests h istoricism . While Husser! h imself ex­ plicitly acknowledges the necessity of challenging not merely the con­ seque nces, but also the method and principles of naturalism, his re­ buttal of historicism is largely directed at its consequences. As Husse rl puts it: "Historicism , if consistently carried out, carries over into ex­ treme skeptical subjectivism . The ideas of truth , theory, and science would then, like all ideas, lose their absolute validity. . . . There would be no unqualified validity" ( PasW 3 2 5 ) . The genuine force of the ar­ gument lies, Heidegger maintains, in the counterfactual ("what human exi stence would be , if there were no absolute validity" ) , in effect, an ap­ p eal to what is otherwise neglected: a historical and concrete, not merely theoretical and detached , existen ce ( EpF g 6 ) . The key, however, 97 G. W. burg:

F.

Hege l , Phiinomnwlogu' drs Gri'ltes, ed . W. Bo nsie p en and Rei nhard Heede ( H am­ 1 DHo ) . flfiff.

M e i n e r,

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

is the nature of the appeal . The possibility of an uncertain , insecure hu­ man existence is raised but only as something to be rejected. The gen­ uine sense of the argument - indeed, any argumen t - against skepti­ cism is clear: "Care about knowledge known is nothing else but A ngst in the face of being-here. " 9� This ad hominem criticism deserves commen t, but first i t should be noted that Heidegger repeatedly links Husserl 's "care about knowledge known" to the logical prejudice . "Everything that one characterizes as the concrete instan tiation of a j udgment is tuned out as merely a form of appearance of the valid. On this small basis the distinction between the valid idea etc . is obtained and . . . transposed on to every conscious be havior" (EpF 8 7 ; see also 75f, 94£) . The idea of truth is equated with the idea of valdi ty to the extent that nothing is coun tenanced as scien ce "if the idea of validity is not secured absolutely" - even though, Hei­ degger adds, the idea might be senseless and "science possible in spite of this or rather precisely because of it" ( EpF g6) . According to Hei­ degger (in what is essen tially a reprise of his cri tique of Lotze) , the in­ terpretation of truth as validity is not self-evident, but even more im­ portantly, it forecloses "the decisive problems of existence" ( EpF g6; see also ggf, 302 ) . However, if some version of the logical prejudice goes hand in hand with an overriding care about knowledge known , Heidegger is rooting it in a more basic, albeit lapsed or deficient sort of care . The equation of truth with validity (an ideal proposition or its corresponding state of affairs) remains in Heidegger's opinion a prej udice , which is to say that it is assumed wi thout adequate justification , but it is not unfounded if he is right about the care underlying it. Motivating the view that a true proposition or a set of true propositions forms the end of the analysis is a certain Angst. The two quasi-immanent objections to Husserl 's thought reviewed in the last section ( 2 . 2 ) are of one cloth with the so­ called care abottt knowledge known , a care that Heidegger alleges is motivated in tttrn by fear and dread of existence. This claim need not be interpreted only as a pe rsonal, ad hominem assaul t on Husserl. Indeed, generosity toward both Husserl and Hei­ degger would seem to warran t that efforts be made to construe it in g8 EpF 9 7 ; 99f. The term 'A ngs t' is en1ployed here because I am not sure of the extent to which Hei degge r is al ready differen tiating dread or an xiety (A ng.�t) from fear (Furrht) . For the same reaso n , I am unsure of th e force of h i s argu me)1t. I t is one th i n g to expl ain th e r�j ection of skepticisn1 on the b as i s of fear of its conseq uences, and quite another to explai n it on tht ba�i� of e:xi�tc..> n tial anxiety.

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other ways. But if i t is wrong to take it merely as a form of character as­ sassination , it is also off base to construe it simply as an indictment of a culture i n decay (ringing of Nietzsche or even Spengler) or, more straightforwardly, as nothing more than a sober plea for paying atten­ tion to the motivation for leaving certain complicating presuppositions unexamined. Heidegger is lampooning Husserl 's embrace of th e logi­ cal prej udice and pursuit of an overriding scientific ideal as sympto­ matic of a failure of nerve. 99 This claim obviously is not limited to Husserl or even Husserlian phenomenology. However, in h is criticism of Husserl, Heidegger takes no pains to j ustifY the claim either gener­ ally or as it applies specifically to Husserl. But then how is the claim to be assessed? The claim in question is Heidegger's explanation for the direction that Husserl gives phenomenology, a direction that Heidegger attrib­ utes to a lapse. The suitability of this explanation , like any other, de­ pends upon th e adequacy of the characterization of the explanandum ( the direction of Husserlian phenomenology) as well as the accuracy of the connection drawn between it and the explanans (its supposed mo­ tivation) . There are , accordingly, two levels on which Heidegger's claim is to be assessed. On the one level , if the account given of Husserl 's phe­ nomenology and its alleged shortcomings does not stand up, then the question of an underlying anxiety is moot. The tendentiousness of Hei­ degger's presentation of Husserl 's published views circa 1 9 2 5 has al­ ready been amply noted (see 2 . 2 ) , and the next section ( 2 .4 ) attempts to sort out several additional ways in which Heidegger gives a distorted picture of Husserl 's phenomenology. At the same time, as suggested at the outset of the present section, Heidegger's objections are not purely external. In oth er words, there is a genuine sense in which the scien­ tific trajectory that Husserl gives phenomenology appears to hinder it from adequately attending to certain phenomena in all their raw given­ ness (e .g. , the worldly and historical givenness of intentionality's timely manner of being) . Ye t even if there is some warrant for this objection, Heidegger has not made the case for h is explanation of these shortcomings or the di­ rection that Husser! gives to phenomenology. His charge that a refusal to accept the uncertainty of existence underlies Husserl 's rejection of 9 9 Again , as noted in the preced i ng foo tnote , th is "nerve" can be un de rstood existentielly or existentially, though i t is n o t clear that Heidegger h as worked out th is difference, at least not in so m any words. at the ti me of the cri ticism ( late 1 9 2 3 ) .

HEI DEGGE R ' S

C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

skepticism and his "care for kn owledge known" is based upon a h ighly exaggerated reading of Husserl 's brief remarks about the consequences of countenancing historicism. While Husserl recoun ts the conse­ quences of collapsing various ideas and principles into the contingent validities of an historical period, his focus is on the consequences for those ideas. No reference is made to the fearfulness or anxiousness of such a scenario. Heidegger's observation that Husserl 's care for knowl­ edge known is nothing else than anxiety in the face of being-here un­ doubtedly tnade for great theater in the seminar, but it is little more than speculation . Heidegger has a stronger, less speculative case to make , though it is made at a more general level, that is, without being directed explicitly at Husserl 's phenomenology. In order to show that care for knowledge known, at least insofar as it becomes overriding, is an expression of "de­ ficient care," it is necessary for him to demonstrate what it means to care in an authentic, nondeficient manner and what difference this au­ thentic care makes to philosophy ( phenomenology) . If authentic care presents a theme and manner of realization, consideration of which is precluded by concerns for a certain ideal of scientific knowledge , then a case for the deficiency of those concerns can be made. This strategy is pursued by Heidegger himself in Being and Ti,me and its trenchancy is considered in Chapter 4 below. 2 .4 The Distorted Picture of a Maturing Phenomenology

Are Heidegger's cri ticisms of Husserl 's phenomenology trenchant? As has been shown , Heidegger provides extensive corroboration for his objections with references to Husserl 's published and even unpub­ lished writings . Indeed, a great deal in both the Logical Investigations and Ideas I speaks for his basic criticism . The phenomenological analy­ sis in these works is stamped by certain structural assum ptions that hamper if not block the way to a further determination of the manner of being of in ten tionality. Principal among such assumptions are those expressed by the so-called act-object and apprehension-content schemata. At least in the early period of his work, Husse rl employs these schemata to explain intentional relations to objects generally, but above all the objective accomplishments of ac ts of knowing. In the process, he isolates the notion of truth that underlies log i c, setting it o ff frotn psychology. According to the doctrine o f the Logical Investiga­ tions, consciousness of ol�j ec tivity comes about through an objectifyi n g

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act of a specific quality (e .g. , perceiving, judging) that apprehends and "animates" certain sensory contents ( that are themselves nonin ten­ tional ) in view of a specific matter or sense. In accordance with the quality as well as the sense of the in tentional ac t, the object presents i t­ self in the inte n tional ac t. In this way Husserl 's analysis presupposes acts and senses, contents-of-apprehe nsion, and objects that presen t thetn­ selves, and it presupposes them without inquiring in to their possibility or genesis. 1 00 As long as such schemata and elements are taken to constitute the end of any analysis of intentionality, it would be absurd to ask for fur­ ther clarification regarding their origi n and sense . Yet precisely at this juncture, according to Heidegger, a serious oversigh t is committed, since a specific conception of being is implicated in these sch emata or, more precisely, in Husserl 's uses of them for the purposes of inten tional analysis. On account of these schemata, i t is taken for granted that the given ness ( the being of the given: Gegebensein) corresponding to the act, namely, an object's onhandness ( being-on-hand: Vorhandensein) , ex­ hausts the sense of being. Herein lies the basis of Heidegger's charge that Husser I fails to raise the question of the manner of being of the in­ tentional sphere . Insofar as Husser! analyzes intentionality as an act that is directed in one way or another at the onhandness of an object, this conception of being prevails and Heidegger's criticism is not unjusti­ fied. Furthermore , Husserl 's determinations of the absolute being of pure consciousness reveal the same operative conception of being, thtts demonstrating its force even when the act of consciousness is directed at itself (T 2 68 ) . The characterization of truth as a "state of affairs'' or, more precisely, the givenness of a state of affairs corresponding to an assertion or judgment, testifies further to the dominance of this con­ ception of being. At the same time, however, Heidegger downplays the decisive role that H usserl assigns to merely entertaining something (and thus to the absence of what is entertai ned) in the consti tution of the primary se nse of ' truth ' and 'being. ' Th rough his interpretation of the entelechy of in ten tionality and the interplay of empty and filled intentions, Husse rl anticipates a good deal of the ontological dynamics that Heidegger ac­ cords to the primary sense of truth as disclosure. Indeed, Husser} can be said with reason to have shown Heidegger the way for the determiI

The Forma tion of Hu. Hn-l '\ Con cept ofCon5titution ( Hague: N ij h off, t 6 2- d )6.

o o See Robert Sokolowsk i , J g6 6 ) . 5 9f. 7 2 f.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

nation of the respective interacting structures of absence and presence that enter into the manners of being (being-handy, bei ng-worldly, be­ ing-here ) primarily i nvestigated in Being and Time. These observations considerably weaken the force of the objections that Husserl under­ stands being simply as presence and that he confuses intentionality's manner of being with the way in which a thing is on hand. It is certainly true that Husserl does not raise expressis verbis the question of being, at least as Heidegger sketches it. But if one takes Husserl 's comple te doc­ trine of intentionality into accoun t, it seems unfair and even forced to conclude from Husserl 's characterization of truth as a "state of affairs" that he construes truth (and thereby being as truth ) only in the sense of the presence correlative to a true assertion or judgment. Moreover, in the case of perception of " transcendent objects," Husserl recogn izes that they can not be perfectly given, that part of them always eludes us, and, hen ce, that the complete transparency of them can only be a regulative idea (ld I 2 97£) . It is important to add that this ontological elusiveness of things, in the first place, is not the excess availed in a categorial intuition 1 0 1 and , in the second place, ex­ tends to the entire range of possible experiences of them , "an indeter­ minate, but determinable horizon ," "changing but always co-posited . . . [ and] by means of which th e thesis of the world acquires its sense" (ld I 8gf) . These claims, too, would seem to vitiate at least some charges that Husser I is unmindful of the distinctive question of what it means for things "to be," or that he simply equates their m anner of being with their presence. There are several reasons why i t is difficult to give a precise assess­ ment of Heidegger's objections. Though the Prolegomena Lectures present Husserl's discoveries roughly in accordance with th e sequence in the Log;ical Investigations, Heidegger regularly employs terminology and conceptions that stem from Husserl 's subsequent treatments of the same them es, especially the treatments found in Ideas I and the revised portion of the second volume of the Log;ical Investigations. This liberal use of Husserl 's changing terminology reveals Heidegger's acquain1 0 1 Taminiaux righ tly criticizes Heidegger's later alignment of the excess in H usserl 's no­

tion of being with the excess articulated as a category of substance; cf. Ziihringen Semi­ n ar, 1 1 3 , and Le Regard et l 'excedent, 1 7 5- 1 78. See, too, Taminiaux 's account of how the question of be i n g far from bei ng bracketed, takes center stage wi th Husserl 's intro­ duction of the reduc tion in Fiinf Vorlesungen in "Immanence, Transcendence , and Be­ ing in H usserl 's Idea of Ph enomenology," in The Collegium Phaenomenologicum, ed.John Sal lis c t al. (Arn�le r da1u : Kl uwe r, t g88 ) , 44-7 5· ,

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141

tance with many of the turns that led to those changes. But it also shows that he is making no attempt to give an exposition of Husserl 's phe­ nomenology that would be terminologically or chronologically faithful to its development. Especially in the Prolegomena Lectures, he pres­ ents a streamlined and, in some respects, even generous account of Husserl 's accomplishments. When he skirts or even deletes considera­ tion of certain complications, they are often issues that Husserl has him­ self subjected to considerable revision by the 1 9 2 0s. At the same time, his sketch of Husserl 's work after 1 goo ignores several crucial turns even in Husserl's early works. l 0 2 Within the framework of lectures designed to introduce students to phenomenology, Heidegger's trun cated presentation is understand­ able. He provides a general, systematic, and highly critical overview of Husserl 's doctrine only as a tneans to the main business at hand: intro­ ducing phenomenology as an ongoing research program . His aim is to convey that phenomen ology is a form of research (predominantly on­ tological research) and not to trace its genesis and development. In this respect Heidegger is faithful to the spirit of his mentor's endeavors. Husserl 's phenomenology is the work of an indefatigable thinker, some­ one who by no means stood pat and whose doctrines i n fact never at­ tained systematic closure or definitive expression. Heidegger's remark in the summer semester of 1 9 2 5 to the effect that Husserl's thinking is "still fully in flux" is certainly accurate. Nor can a reader of the Marburg lectures forget that Heidegger's understanding of Husserlian phenom­ enology was based at the time upon Husserl 's published and unpub­ lished writings as well as conversations with him. His critical posture to­ ward Husserl 's phenomenology in th ese lectures is obviously limited to the shape of it before 1 92 5 . Wh e n all these qualifications are taken into accoun t, it becomes cle ar that Heidegger's treatmen t of H usserl's phenomenology works on at least two levels. On the one hand, many significan t details of Husserl 's ph enomenology, significan t at least for a stage of its development, are 1 0 2 Heidegger i s mum , for example, on H usserl 's p i votal distinction between the positing and the neutral character of some acts (LU II/ 2 1 2 of) , on Husserl 's changing attitude

toward the ego, and, indeed, on the import of the transcenden tal turn . The way in which Heidegger ignores H usserl 's studies of time-consciou sness, passive synthesis, and embodiment is discussed below (section 2 .4 ) . H eidegger indicates a doctri nal dif­ ference between LU and the later works only in regard to th e reworking of the con­ cept of sensoriness ( P 95£) . For H usserrs se)f-criticism , see Janssen 's introductio n to Husserl 's Die Idee der Phiinomenologie, ix-x; and Berne t, " Husserl and Heidegger on In­ t�n tion a l i ty a n rl BPi n g, " 1 4 2 .

HEI DEGGER ' S

CON C E PT OF

TRUTH

passed over or construed from another perspective and with different terminology, though it is clear that Husserl in 1 9 2 5 would h ave con­ curred with many of the liberties taken by Heidegger in presen ting phe­ nomenology as a research project. On the other hand, various c oncep­ tions are also reinterpreted for th e purpose of, if not rejecting, then at least radically transforming phenomenology into something that in crucial respects is quite alien to what Husser} envisioned. Within the framework of the present study, it is not possible to give an adequate answer to the daunting question: what mean ing did Husserl 's development of phenomenology have for Heidegger 's fun­ damental ontology? 1 03 As has been pointed out, in Heidegger's pre­ sentation as well as in his critique of Husserl 's phenomenology, he ig­ nores various themes, accents, and turns central to it. Any genuine investigation of tl1e relation between the two developing phenomenolo­ gies would have to explain the extent to which Husserl 's phenomeno­ logical investigations become a victim of benign neglect. Hanging in the balance are not only the accuracy and trenchancy of Heidegger's critique and explanation of Husserl 's motivation, but also the legiti­ macy and novelty of the new direction that Heidegger charts for phe­ nomenology. The aim of the following section is limited to noting some key ways in which Heidegger presents a distorted picture of Husser! 's phenom1 03 Giving a complete answer to this question would require examination of several other Husserlian texts from this period, presumably available to Heidegger in manuscript form , as well as the corpus of Heidegger's lectures and wri tings as of 1 92 5· Although the work of Berne t, Prufer, and Marion contribute much in this regard, they merely provide points of departure for an explanation of the relation between the two phe­ nomenologists . See Bernet, " Hu sserl and Heidegger on Intentionality and Being," 1 36- 1 5 2 ; Bernet, "Die ungegenwartige Gegenwart. Anwesenheit und Abwesenheit in H usserls Analyse des Zei tbewuBt�eins," i n bit und bitlirhkeit bei Husser! und Heideggn; ed. E . W. Orth ( Freibu rg: Alber, 1 9 83 ) , 1 6-5 7 ; Bernet, "Die Frage nach dem U rsprung der Zeit bei H usserl und Heidegger," lleidegger Studies ( 1 98 7- 1 C)R8 ) : 8g- 1 o4; Bernet, Introduction to Edtn und Husserl , 1rxte zur Phiinommologie dP.\ in neren 7--eitbeu.JujJt.�Pi n!J (I 8yJ - I 9 I 7) ( Hamburg: Meiner, 1 9R5 ) , xi-lxx\ii ; Thomas Prufer, "Heidegger, Early and Late , and Aqui nas," in Edmund Hu.Ht:rl and the Phenomenolof.,rical Tradition, ed. R. Sokolowski (Washington, D. C.: Catholic Cniv. of America Press, t g8g) , 1 9 7-2 1 5 ; 1\tar­ ion, Reduction et donation; and ]. C. Morrison, <' Husserl and Heidegger: The Parting of the \Vays," in Heidegger 's Existential A. nal),lir, ed. F. Ell iston ( Hague: Mouton, 1 �ri H ) , 4 7-59. For val uable studies of H u�serl and Heidegger with em phases diffe rent frorn the present investigation , see Timothy Stapeleton, Husser! and Hfidegger: rFhe Qufstion ofa PhPnomenologiral Beginning (Albany: State C niv. of New York, 1 9H 3 ) ; R. Philip Buck­ ley, Husser!, Heidegger, and the Cri.\ is of Philosophical Re!Jponsibilit)' ( Dordrecht: Kluwe r, 1 992 ) ; and Burt Hopkins, In tentionality in Hu��erl and HPidegger ( Dord rec h t: Kluwer, 1 99 3 ) ·

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1 43

enology. The distortion results from an oversimplification of Husserl 's early analysis of intentionality and from a highly uneven treatment of the way in which Husserl later conceives that analysis. In conclusion, an answer is suggested to the question of the motives behind this distorted picture . For all the twists and shifts that Heidegger gives to Husserl 's terms, his systematic reconstruction and critique captures much of the general trajectory of Husserl 's published accounts of phe nomenology from 1 900 through 1 9 1 3 . Heidegger's critique curiously breaks off, however, at a point that Husser} had long since moved beyond. In the Investiga­ tions of Inner Time-Consciousness and the Analyses of Passive Synthesis, Husserl conducts what amounts to an extensive criticism of his earlier analysis of intentionality as he proceeds to unpack basic fortns of in­ tentionality, for which neither the "act-object" nor the "apprehension­ con tent" schemata are suited. If Heidegger's presentation of the three decisive discoveries of Husserl 's phenomenology is countenanced, then the analysis of time-consciousness would have to be considered the fourth decisive discovery (or the underlyi ng meaning of the third dis­ covery, the original sense of the a priori ) . But this discovery leads to new intentional analyses, to a gene tic phenomenology and eve n a genetic phenomenology of embodiment. In Heidegger's lectures, however, he pays no attention to these new developments and orientations of phe­ nomenology, where the investigations of both thinkers move palpably closer to one another. This development of Husserl 's phenomenology (even before 1 92 0 ) raises a t least two questions: to what extent d o Husser} ' s investigations anticipate Heidegger's objections and mitigate, if not nullify, th eir force? Why does Heidegger fail to treat these (at the time ) latest devel­ opments of Husserl's phenomenology, given that he was well ac­ quainted with them and does not flinch in his lectures from discussing some of Husserl 's other unpublished investigations?

2 . 4 I Altered Meanings, Neglected Matters, and the Question of Sensations. In the Logical Investigations Husserl focuses primarily on the objectify­ ing acts that underlie logic. Intentionality is investigated in terms of an " act-object" schema for the sake of clarifying the structure of those acts and th e relations between them. The preeminent such act, the telos of the others, is the categorial intuition that a j udgment holds (is valid ) or, what is the same, the observation of the identity of someth ing meant and something pe rceived . Acc ording to Heidegger, th is analysis pre-

1 44

H E I D :E G G E R ' s C O N C E P T O F T R U T H

supposes being in the sense o f the onhandness of an object, corre­ sponding to the obj ectifying acts, and does so wi th out so much as an in­ quiry into the manner of being of the intentional sphere as such. Husserl allegedly fails, even more fundamentally, to ask "whether in the context of 'being true ' and the corresponding ' being actual, ' one can conceive the concept of being in an original way at all and whe ther truth is primarily a phenomenon that is to be grasped originally in the asserting or, better, in the wider sense of objectifying acts or not" ( P 73 ) . This observation clearly suggests that Husser} ' s tendency to forget or overlook the question of being can be traced in part to the fac t that he holds fast to the structure of objectifying acts i n his analysis of inten­ tionality. Given this view of the way Husserl 's concen tration on objectifying acts straitjacke ts his analysis of intentionality, the basic revision intro­ duced by Heidegger in his characterization of that analysis is under­ standable. The revision is a consistent rewriting or rewording of the "act-object'' schema. He substitutes ' intentional behaviors' (or 'onto­ logical relation to an entity' ) for 'act' and 'entity according to the man­ ner in which it is respectively encountered' for ' o bject' ; ' intuition ' be­ comes ' presen ting and having an entity in person ' (L 1 1 3 ; P 1 49, 1 5 2 ; T 2 70) . In this way Husserl 's analysis is appropriated, but i n a manner no longer rooted in the question of how logic and episte mology can be differentiated from psychology. As a result, the obj ectifying acts and the concepts of truth and being that correspond to such acts are no longer paradigmatic. This alteration has the effect of d e taching Husserl 's phe­ nomenology from the logical prejudice and i ts on tological presupposi­ tions. Before explicitly addressing the meaning of the term 'act' ( the pre­ ferred term of the Logical Investigations) , Heidegge r explains the mean­ ing of ' in tentionality' in the sense of ' experi e n ce ' (Erlebnis) . 1 04 Em­ ploying the tertninology of Ideas I, though without its precise sense, Heidegger thus in troduces yet another alteration. For his claim that 'each experience, each mental comportment is directed at something' is simply inaccurate, if Husser} is taken literally. 1 05 In Ideas I 'act' is not 1 04 P 4 T "What matters is the concept of the act." Heidegger en1ploys the term ' Akt' in h is presentation of intentionality ( P 5 2 , 5 5 , 5 7 , 6o ) an d categorial i n tuition (P 6s-g R ) ; see, however, Be rn e t, "Husser} and Heidegger on Inte n tionality and Being,'' 1 37 : "Hei­

degger also systematically avoids any mention of i n ten tio nal 'acts . ' "

1 o.r=; P 3 7 ; L U II/ 1 369 : "DaB nic h t a l l e Erlebni'ise i n tentionale sind, zeigen die Empfind­ ungen und Empfindungskomplexion en''; �ee , to o , LU I I / 1 34 jf, 36:1 ; Id I 1 7 1 ff.

TH E P H E N O M EN O L O G I C A L C O N C EP T I O N O F TRUTH

1 45

replaced by ' experience , ' but rather by ' intentional experience , ' since there supposedly are nonintentional experiences. Among the latter, designated ' primary conten ts' in the Logical Investigations, are "sensa­ tions." As noted already, the data of sensation are the apprehended con­ tents that are animated by the act directed at an object, that is, through the apprehension of an obj ect. A datum of sensation can be a "bearer of intentionality, but not itself a consciousness of something" ; the con­ crete intentional experience comes about "from the sensual, that has in itself nothing of intentionality. " 1 06 The distinction between content and obj ect, stressed in both the Sixth Logical Investigation and Ideas I, drops completely (not only lit­ e rally) out of Heidegger's presentation . 107 He also passes over the sev­ enth chapter of the Sixth Logical Investigation, the "Study of Categor­ ial Representation," in which Husser} construes a "mental bond" as representative of the categorial intuition. Heidegger's neglect of this highly questionable doctrine can be j ustified by Husserl 's own subse­ quent declaration that he "no longer approves" the doctrine (LU II/ 2 v) . In this case, Heidegger's exposition presents a streamlined version of Husserlian phenomenology, oversimplifying, perhaps, but in keep­ ing with Husserl 's own development. However, other terminological and theoretical departures from Husserl 's doc trine in this connection are not so benign or generous. In­ deed, Heidegger's presentation is striking for the way he spares himself the trouble of entering into vari ous gradations and nuances of H usserl 's analysis, some of which are self-critical. While the specific de­ mands and limits of lectures may account for some of Heidegger's avoidance of these complications, it is also in keeping with his own sys­ tematic deliberations and aims. One such complication is particularly noteworthy. In Ideas I Husser! criticizes his own method in the Logical Investigations by noting that "a systematic phenomenology may not di­ rect its attenti on one-sidedly to a real [reel[] analysis of experiences and especially the intentional experiences" (ld I 2 65£) . Even if the compo­ nents of intentionality (quality, matte r, representing content, repre­ sented obj ect) were obtained in view of "what was meant as such ," their differentiation in the Logical Investigations is undertaken predominantly I

o6 ld I 1 7 2 ; intentionales Erlebnis and Akt are al ready equated in the Fifth Logical Investi­ gation , cf. LU I I / 1 3 7 8 ; also Id I 64f, 1 7o- t 7g, 2 0 1 -2 0 5 , 2 35-2 3 8 . 1 07 l d I 2 6 7 : 'jedes Noema hat e i n e n ' Inhalt,' namlich seinen 'Sin n , ' und bezieht sich durch ihn auf 'seine n ' Gegenstan d . " See Berne t, ''H usserl and Heidegger on In ten­ tio nality and Bei n g 1 4 2 . ,"

HEI DEGGER ' S

C O N C E PT O F

TRUTH

with a view to the analysis of acts - precisely what Heidegger criticizes him for leaving too underdetermined ontologically. 1 08 Part of the pur­ pose of the introduction of the distinction between ' noesis ' and ' noema' in Ideas I is to set aside the one-sidedness or lack of clari ty of the Logical Investigations. In any case, Husser! moves beyond the termi­ nology and , more importantly, the standpoint of the Logical Investiga­ tions in decisive ways. Noematically construed, "quality" becomes the "character of positing," "matter" becomes the "noematic core , " "con­ tent" becomes the "sense" or "noema" by means of which an obj ect is referred to ( Id I 64-67, 265-2 8 1 ) . Heidegger regards these nuances neither in their original form in the Logical Investigations nor the revised form of them in the Ideas I. He simply introduces the terms ' noesis ' and ' noema' without saying a word abottt their meaning for Husserl 's de­ velopment. Thanks to his equation of 'intentionality' and ' experience , ' Heideg­ ger also does not enter at all into the question of the determinati on of the so-called nonintentional components in an intentional experience. Husserl 's distinction between spheres of immanent and transcendent perceptions or, what is still more importan t, the meaning of the imma­ nent perception for him ( only the immanent perception can b e ade­ quate ) appear only on the margins of Heidegger's exposition (see LU II/ 1 3 54f; LU II/ 2 2 39f; Id I 8o-87 ) . Even if the problem of a catego­ rial representation proves to be artificial and even if the "hyle tic-phe­ nomenological" analysis ( the "pure hyletic'') called for by the "contents of sensation " is supposed to be of lesser importance for epistemology, in Ideas I Husserl insists that " the most enormous problems" emerge precisely from the difference between such "material" and "com­ ponents of experience that bear within themselves the specific char­ acter of intentionality" ( ld I 1 7 5 , 1 7 8 ) . These problems (which Husser! also calls those of the "constitution of obj ec tivi ties of consciousness'' ) "concern , for example, how noeses, animating the material and weav­ ing themselves i n to multiply unified conti nua and syntheses, bring about consciousness of something, so that wi thin it an obj ective unity can uniformly ' m:1nifest' itself and be ' identified ' and ' rationally' de­ termined." 1 09 In the perception of an object in the environment, there are sides 1 o8 LU I I / 2 7 8- t o t , 1 66; LU I I / 1 399-40� . 4 1 1 -4 1 6 , 4 2 6-438; cf. Mohan ty, "Deve lop­ ment of H usse rl 's Th ough t," 5 6 . 1 09 I d I 1 7ti ; see Sokolow�ki , Fuunalion of 1-fuss('r/ :\ Conrept of Con fitifution, 1 1 0- 1 4 3 ·

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1 47

and profiles of the obj ect that are not realized or fulfilled in the per­ ception but are mean t along with other sides and profiles that are . Husser! accordingly deems such perceptions less than adequate , at least in contrast wi th inner perceptions for which there are neither sides nor profiles. Yet in Heidegger's exposition , this distinction is not even men­ tioned. Only in the case of inner, adequate perception , Husserl writes in the Logical Investigations, is "the content-sensed at the same time the obj ect of the perception'' ( LU II/ 2 2 39, 1 1 9) . In outer perception , there is an unreachable "ideal of fulfillment," the interpretation of which is con nected to the theory of profiles. 1 1 0 But in Heidegger's ex­ position, his students hear nothing - or at least nothing explicitly about these complications and developments of Husserl's conception of perception. Heidegger's presentation of Husserl 's phenomenology is marked, as reviewed in the foregoing paragraphs, by a number of alterations of the senses that Husserl attaches to certain themes as well as the complete omission of other themes. If one considers the alterations and omis­ sions that have been mentioned, it becomes evident that they turn on a difficult issue that is decisive for Husserl 's development: the nature and role of sensations. What is perhaps most interesting about Hei­ degger's sile nce on these matters is the fact that Husserl 's attempt to understand the constitution of sensations coincides with his elabora­ tion of the temporal consti tution of intentionality. According to this elaboration , intentionality is not something present but something that unfolds. In this way, Husser} not only comes to articulate its givenness or manner of being, thus confounding Heidegger's critique (see 2 . 2 2 above) , but does so in a way that profoundly anticipates Heidegger's own analysis of the timeliness that constitutes the sense of being-here . I n short, H usserl ' s developing, nuanced accoun t of sensations and tem­ porality belies the charge that he naively subscribes to the ontological 1 1 o As a result of the revised conception of profiles in Ideas I, that ideal becomes " the idea in a Kan tian sense"; see LV I l / 2 1 1 6- t 1 g , Id I 35of, and CM §6, 55· In his exposition

of Husserl 's doc trine of perception , Heidegger pays no attention to the con cept of pro­ files as "real" (reel/) con tents of experience, a conception that surfaces in both the Log­ ical Investigation5 and Ideas I. He also passes over the problematic conception of the p r ofiles as representatives ( LU I I / � 1 1 7; T 7 3 ) . Heidegger supposedly obviates such problems by construing profiles in an en tirely o�jective way, i . e . , solely with respect to th e profiled . B u t no argument is given as to why or how this objec tive construal is com­ pelling. Nor is any reference made to the new conc eption of the relation of profiles to one anoth er and to th e profi l e d by means of c o n cept" such as "syste m , " "order," and " ru l e "

( ld I

7 4- 1 04 ; T 7 6-So ) .

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

presuppositions of the logical prejudice, that is, the equation of being and onhandness. The initial spur to this development was, as noted, the problematic status and role of sensations. In the Logical Investigations sensations func­ tion as representing contents that are not themselves intentional , but can be animated through an intentional act. 1 1 1 In this way, they are said to be experienced but not themselves "perceived with any ' sense "' ( LU II/ 1 363 ) . If, on the other hand, sensations themselves are grasped or apprehended in their own right, the sensing and the sensed collapse into one another ( LU II/ 1 3 5 2 ) . This "apprehension-content" sc hema continues to operate in Ideas I, as Husser} distinguishes noetic form and hyletic material. 1 1 2 However, it became clear to Husser} that there are enormous difficulties with this schema, at least when it comes to the constitution of sensations themselves. For the idea of a sensory datum somehow present in consciotisness, yet apart from any conscious grasp of it, seems scarcely tenable. In addition to the apparent contradictori­ ness of unconscious sensations, appeal to a nonintentional experience violates the phenomenological responsibility of attending solely to what is give n. 1 1 3 1 1 1 The sensations are not seen or heard as such, but they are somehow integral to what is seen or heard ; that is to say, th ey are not perceived any more than the perceived ob­ j ect is sensed. "I do not see color-se nsations but colored things," Husserl observes, "I do not hear sound-sensations but the singer's song" (LU II/ 1 374 and 385: "Ap­ perzeption ist uns der UberschuB, der im Erlebnis selbst, in sei nem deskriptiven In­ halt gegeniiber dem roh en Dasein der Em pfindung besteht; es ist der Aktcharakter, der die Empfindung beseel t und es seinem Wesen nach macht, daB wir dieses oderj enes Gegenstiindliche wah rnehmen , z. B. diesen Baum sehen , j enes Klingeln horen , den Blii­ tenduft riechen usw. Die Empjindungen und desgleichen die sie 'auffassenden' oder ' apperzipierenden' erlebt, aber sie erscheinen nicht gegenstiindlich; sie werden nicht gese­ hen , gehort, mit i rgendeinem ' Sin n ' wah rgenomm en . Die Gegenstan de andererseit'i erscheinen , werden wah rgeno1nme n , aber sie sind nicht erlebt. " ) Cf. LU II/ 1 76: "die gleichmiiflige Farbung der Kugel, die wir sehen (wah rneh men , vorstellen u. dgl . ) , haben wi r nicht empfunden,; LU Il/ 2 2 3 7 : " 1st ein auBe rer Gegenstand wahrgenomme n (das Haus ) , so sind in diesn- Wahrnehmung die prasentierenden Empfindungen e rle bt, aber nicht warhgenommen." Husser! mentions and does not choose to dispute the view that sensory contents "are always and necessarily grasped in an ol:!jec tive wai' (Ll! Il/ 2 2 3 R ) ; see LU II/ 1 75, and Mulligan , "Pe rception , " 1 8 2f. 1 1 2 ld I 1 7 1 - 1 7 8 , esp. 1 76; Sokolowski � FoTmatwn of Hunerl 's Concept of Constitution, 1 39- 1 43 , 1 59- 1 66. 1 1 �� We perceive individual objects in a straigh tforward way by h aving bu t not seeing the sensations th em selves. I n LU Husserl seems to th ink that for every type of perceptual object, there is a corresponding sort of sensation , though the in troduction of this par­ allel seems to overstep th e bounds of phenomenology, s!nce the sensatio ns are not themselves in ten tional experiences; c f. LU II/ 2 g2: "Als intuitiver Repdisen tant eines f�egenstande� kan n n u r <' in I nhalt dienen, der i h m a h n l i ch orler gleich i�it. " On the

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1 49

-2 . 4 2 Genetic Phenomenology and Embodiment. In the course of Husserl 's

investigations after 1 900, the untenability of his earlier conception of sensations and perception and, with it, the limitations of the schema that formed the backdrop for his earlier work, became increasingly clearer to him. As he put'i it in his Investigations of Inner Time-Consciousness: "It is just nonsense to speak of an ' unconscious ' content [of consciousness] , of which one would only become conscious subsequently. Conscious­ ness is necessarily consciousness in each of its phases. " 1 1 4 What led him to the earlier theory of nonintentional sensations was the attempt to conceive such phenomena of inner experiences by means of an inap­ propriate schema. With the explanation that "not every constitution has the schema ' apprehensional con tent-apprehension, ' " Husserl sets this schema aside, at least for the constitution of inner experience and, by extension, for the ground level of whatever is given to consciousness. 1 1 5 Nor is it only the temporal constitution of sensations - paradigmatically, aural sensations - that introduces a new dimension into his thought by the time Heidegger makes his acquaintance in Freiburg. Husserl is also paying close attention to the way in which space is originally consti tuted, via kinesthetic sensations, in the experience of the lived bodily self. To­ gether, the time-consciousness inherent in potentially representing sen­ sations and the placement indicated by kinesthesia preview what Hei­ degger dubs "the timeliness of being-here." 2 . 4 2 1 T E M P O RA L I Z I N G S E N S AT I O N S : T I M E - C O N S C I O U S N E S S A N D THE

"

T RA N S C E N D E N TA L

A E S T H ET I C

"

OF

H U S S ERLIAN

LO G I C .

Precisely with a view towards resolving the problem of the constitution difficulties involved in sustaining Husser I 's apparen t invocation of a "similari ty" be­ tween sensations and physical p rope r ti e s , see Mulligan , "Perception," 2 2 8 n. 2 3 . 1 1 4 Zb 1 1 9. See also Z b §4 1 : ') edes Erlebn is ist 'BewuBtsein ' und BewuBtsein ist BewuBt­ sein von . . . Jedes Erlebnis ist aber selbst erlebt und insofern auc h ' bewuB t. '" If the dating of th e fi rst of the cited texts is correct ( 1 905 ) , then th e view that Husserl 's attempts to break with the distinction date from 1 909 - a view shared by Mohanty and Marbach ­ m ust be corrected . Cf. Mohanty, "Development of Husserl 's Though t," s gf, 76 n. 3 8 ; Edmund H usserl , Phantasie, Bildbewufltsein, Erinnerung, ed. E. Marbach ( Hague: Nij­ hoff, • g 8o) , "Editor's Introduction," lxi i n . 1 ; and Rudolf Boeh m , "Konstitutions­ problem und Zei tbewuBtsei n ," Vom Gesichtspunkt der Phiinomenologie ( H ague : NUhoff, 1 968) , 1 06- 1 1 8 . 1 15 Zb 7 n . 1 ; 3 1 g. See Rudolf Boe h m , " D eux points de vue: Husser! et Nietzsche," Arrhivio diFilosofia ( 1 95 2 ) : 1 7 4 : "Cependant, le depassement et l'abandon du·schema contenu­ aception ' signifia seulement Ia reconnaissance d u fai t que, s u r le plan fondamental de Ia consti tution du temps ' immanent' e t done en derniere analyse, il n 'y a point de ' suje t' ou d " obj et ' predon ne�·· ; Sokolowski , Formation of Hwserl 's Concept of Constitution, sstl. 0 2-05 . 1 1 off. 1 7 7- 1 84.

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

o f sensations, Husserl turns to the original consciousness o f time ( Zb 2 4£) . More precisely, the problem of the consti tution of sensations and that of the original consciousness of time coincide. Accordingly, in the Investigations of Inner Time-Consciousness objective time is left out of the picture or "bracketed." The constitution of sensations was not a prob­ lem in the Logical Investigations because they moved, as it were, with in the ambit of immanent consciousness that constituted the framework of the investigations. For this reason, in the Logical Investigations it suf­ ficed to maintain that sensing and sensed could not be distinguished. But with his investigations of time-consciousness, Husserl takes leave of the structural framework of the Logical Investigations. Once he occupied a position outside rather than inside imtnanent consciousness, he was able and required to inquire into i ts possibility. As he puts it, Thus it is understandable why, in the Logical Investigations, I could iden­ tify sensing and sensory content. I moved within the framework of inner consciousness and thus there was naturally no sensing, but rather only sensed there . It was also correct then to contrast acts ( intentional expe­ riences of in ner consciousness) and non-acts with one another. 1 1 6

A sensation or an inner experience in general (pe rceiving, judging, re­ membering, and the like) does not take shape in inner consciousness through a process of taking hold of a (hitherto unconscious ) sensory datum. Instead these inner experiences come about temporally. That is to say, an inner experience constitutes i tself as an immanen t tem po­ ral object thanks to the way in which what are originally ilnpressions (Urimpressionen) constantly pass over into ever-new retentions ( the " dis­ tinc tive inten tionality" of what he once labeled, not altogether satisfac­ torily, "primary tnemory") . A sound provides HusserI with the paradigtn of such a passage. "The retentional consciousness really contains con­ sciousness-of-the-past of the sound, primary sound-memory, and is not to be broken down into the sensed sound and apprehension as mem­ ory" (Zb 3 2 , 2 3 -3 2 ) . Husserl thus construes sensation itself as a constituted uni ty or, more 1 1 6 Zb 1 2 7 f. See So k o l o w s ki , Hussn-Lia n A1fditations, 1 3 2 ; and Joh n Brough , "Th e E m e r­

an Absolute Conliciousnes� in Husserl 's Early vVri tings on Time-Co nsc ious­ n e s s Man and World 5 ( 1 9 7 2 ) : 3 1 3 . See LU II/ 1 :{94 n . 1 : "As el sewh ere I h e re iden­ ti ty the sen s a ti o n of pai n and ' c o n ten t ' of th e sensa tion of pain, si nce I do not re cog n i.t.e ac ts of s e ns a ti on as su\h. " Ac c o rd i n g to Mull igan , this view is a g e ne ra l i za­ tion of Stum p f's d i "i t i n c tion be tween local i 1ed pain without a c og n i ti ve basi s and e m o­

gence o f ,"

tions

ofjuy 01

�t.:grc t that have s u c h

a

basis ( �1ull igan , " Perce pti o n , " 1 8 2 ) .

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N OF T R UTH

151

precisely, a temporally consti tuted immanent object, th e constitution of wh ich is not of the sort that emerges through the appreh ension of some con tent. Indeed, it turns out that every act directed at an object ( tran­ scendent or immanent) may be understood in this way (which is not to exclude the suitability of the form/ con tent or subject/ object schemata on other levels) . 1 1 7 Such immanent temporal objects are not the final stage of analysis. Instead, th ey point to the temporal phenomena con­ stituting them , "the absolute time-constituting flow of consciousness . " Borrowing from his peers (james , Stern ) , Husser! employs tnetaphors like "stretch of time" and "stream of consciousness," in each case more as a genitivus appositivus than either a genitivus subjectivus or genitivus ob­ jectivus. The same appositionality holds for the expressions ' time-con­ sciousness' or ' consciousness of tiine . ' What they signifY is absolute in the sense that all other ways of being aware of time presuppose it. It is a primitive , consti tuting awareness and yet it is not to be understood as an "apprehending act" ( Zb 7 3 , 1 1 9 ) . Husserl 's answer to th e question of the consti tution of sensation leads him to an ultimate layer of inten­ tionality, a layer that, while underlying the act directed at an obj ect via the apprehension of some con tent, cannot itself be properly conceived in terms of this schema. Inner time-consciousness is instead the ul ti­ mate horizon for objectifying acts and, as such, is consti tuted in a way that distinguishes it from the constitution of an object or an act directed at an object. In order to be able to regard something as an object and speak mean­ ingfully of it ( be it transcendent or immanen t, in other words, a thing or a sensation , an act, and so on) , it typically seems necessary to employ concepts such as alteration and persistence, sequence and simultane­ ity, that rest upon the "flow" of the original time-constituting phenom­ ena or, in short, the original time-consciousness. But i t would seem to be a mistake , a ki nd of category mistake , to characterize the flow i tself as an object: "There is nothing there that alters and for this reason there can also be n o meaningful talk of something that persists" ( Zb 7 4f) . Husse r! calls the flow "tem poral'' but this , he adds, is simply to name it in terms of what is constituted by it, since in fact "it is nothing tempo­ rally ' objective ' " ( Zb 7 5 ) . He accordingly characterizes this time-con1 1 7 Zb 84� B e r n e t , " D i e Frage n ac h dem U rs p ru n g d e r Zeit," g 2 f. No te that t h e form /con­ te n t di s tin c t i o n as M o h a n ty p o i n ts out, p e r� i st� for di ffe re n t kinds of i n te n tio n al ity e\'en in th e 1 93 0s ( though Soko lowski sug�e � t"i oth e rwise ) � on t h i s disc re p a ncy, cf. Mo­ h a n ty " Devc l oprn e n t of H uss e rl 's T hough t , " 76 n . 40; and Sokolowski, Formation oj ,

,

/-fu Hr>rf 'fi (:rmrPfJ! nj f:orHfit ulum ,

1 1 �.

' HEI DEGGER S

C O N C E PT O F TR U T H

stituting flow as the "pre-obj ectified" time, "quasi-temporal ," and "the absolute subjectivity" - though even the last epithet is ultimately quite mis­ leading. As he frankly admits at one poin t ( though not without a hint of exasperation ) : "For all this, we lack names." 1 1 8 Inner time-consciousness i s consciousness of the unity of the con­ tinuous runoff of original impressions that are animated by protentions (pre-expectations, the "coming-now" ) and constantly transform thetn­ selves into retentions ( "fresh" or primary 1nemories, the "as-it-just­ was" ) , while ''at the same time" a new and ever-new original impression steps forward ( Zb 374f, 5 2 , 76-7g ) . The immanent temporal obj ect, for example, the immanent and tetnporal unity of a sound, constitutes it­ self in one and the same flow of consciousness "and at the same time so does the unity of the flow of consciousness i tself' ( Zb 8o, 3 7 8 ) . As this last observation suggests, the flow itself can be grasped in and as the very process of consti tuting immanent obj ects ( e.g. , sensations, acts ) . In short, no second flow is required. "The flow's appearance to itself does not require a second flow, but instead constitutes itself in itself as a phenomenon" ( Zb 83 ) . Inner time-consciousness is, in other words, self-constituting but self-constituting in its consciousness of the stream of consciousness. Far from being any fixed or static poi n t, ''conscious­ n ess of time is itself time, consciousness of a duration is a duration , con­ sciousness of a succession a succession" ( Zb 1 9 2 ) . Precisely at this point the transformation that Husserl 's doctrine of intentionality undergoes as he moves from the Logical Investigations to his subsequen t investigations of time-consciousness is patent. 1 19 In the I.Jogical Investigations the schemata "act-obj ect" and "apprehension-con­ ten t" dominate the analyses. Wh ile sensations figured into acts of per­ ceiving external objects, they did so in some mysterious manner by re­ maining themselves nonintentional. Any attempt to apprehend thetn 1 1 8 Zb 7 2 , 7 5 , 333f, 3 7 5 · See Prufe r, " H eidegger, Early and Late ," 200: " [ Internal time­ consciousness] is finally neither 'in ner' nor ' tem poral ' nor 'consciousness. "' See also Bernet, "Die Frage nach dem Ursprung der Zeit," 9 3 · Cf. Zb, An hang, VI, 1 1 2: "'The subjec tive ti me con�titutes itself in the absolute, ti1neless consciousness that is not [ an] object"; also Zb 83. See, too, David Wood, "H usserl 's An alysis of Time-Consciousness," in The Deronstrurtion of Time (Atlantic Highlands, NJ.: H umanities, t g8g) , 5 3- 1 09, where the author attempts to show "how Husserl 's q uest for an 'authentic time ' leads him to a poi nt at which the very idea of time is itself put in question" ( .� 3 ) . Shaun Gal­ lagher's study of Husserl on time - The lnordinanre of 11me (Evanston, Ill . : Northwest­ ern Univ. Press, 1 998) - has been trenchantly reviewed by .Nicolas de Warren in Con­ tinental PhilosophJ ReviRw 3 2 ( 1 999 ) : 2 1 1 - 2 1 7 . 1 1 9 For t h e chronology o t Husserl 's inve�ti gatiuu�, �et Be1 net, "Ei nleitung," xvi i ff.

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N

O f'

T RUTH

1 53

goes for naught since the sensing and the sensed collapse into one an­ other as the end of any analysis of them. In the Investigations of Inner Time-Consciousness sensations are consti tuted by the flow of the con­ sciousness that consti tutes inner or immanen t time . The constituting consciousness and the constitute d temporal object ( e . g. , the sensation ) do not collapse into one another but coincide in the way that the flow of consciousness appears to that same consciousness. In other words, the immanen t temporal object is to be distinguished from the tempo­ ral perceiving of it, but so, too, is that perceivi ng to be distinguished from the immanent flow of and by consciousness. In order to explain this appearance of the flow within and to the time­ constituting consciousness, Husserl speaks of a "twofold intentionality of the stream of consciousness. " 1 2 0 That twofoldness is based upon the fact that the phases of the stream serve both for the constituted imma­ nent object and for the constituting unity of the flow. Thus, on the one hand, attention migh t be direc ted at a sound i tself as the unity of its im­ pressional, retentional , and protentional phases. This consciousness of the flow is, as it were, "transverse" (quer) , and Husserl, playing on this adjective, accordingly applies the label " transverse in tentionality" (Quer­ intentionalitiit) to this consciousness of or, better, "across" the flow. On the other hand, attention might be directed at the flow itself, that is to say, along the phases of the flow or with a view to its "length" (Lange) . Husserl dubs this consciousness of the flow "longitudinal intentional­ ity" (Liingsintentionalitiit) ( Zb 380) . While the original time-conscious­ ness constitutes immanent temporal obj ects like sensations and acts as temporal unities, it appears to itself as a primal consciousness. That is to say, it constitutes itself neither i n the sense of an "object'' nor in the sense of an "act" ( Zb 1 1 9) . Indeed, tim e-consciousness is an awaren ess of itself as a flow, a potentially endless con tinuity of re ten tional modifi­ cations - as constituting not constituted, yet passive not active ( Zb 8 3 , 2 84) . "The flow o f the consciousness constituting immanent time is not simply, but rather it is so remarkably and yet intelligibly formed that in it an appearance of the flow to itself must obtain and thus necessarily it must be possible for the flow itself to be grasped in the flowing" ( Zb 38 1 ) . Although the investigations of time-consciousness that led - as early 1 2 o Zb 8o, 1 1 6fl, 3 7 8-38 1 ; Bernet, "Die Frage n ach dem U rsp rung der Zeit," 93f; Bernet,

"Die ungegenwartige c;egenwart," 49-56; Bern e t, "Einleitung," liiif; Prufer, "Heideg­

ger. Early and Late ." 2 0 1 . 2 09 .

' HEI DEGGER S

1 54

C O N CEPT OF TRUTH

as

1 904 - to a revised conception of intentionality were not published for another two decades, Husserl points to this deepest dimension of intentionality in Ideas I. In regard to time, a sphere of "exceptional dif­ ficulty," he writes: "The transcendental 'absolute , ' that we have worked out for ourselves through the reductions, is in truth not the ultimate ; it is someth ing that constitutes itself in a certain deep-lying and utterly pe­ culiar sense and has its ul timate source in what is ultimately and truly absolute" (Id I 1 63 ) . Yet in Ideas I Husser! deliberately - and perhaps inadvisedly - declines "to climb down to the obscure depths of the ul­ timate consciousness constituting all temporality of experience . " 1 2 1 Stipulating that experiences are conceived in Ideas I only "to the extent that they presen t themselves as unified temporal occurrences within im­ manent reflection ," Husser! introduces the distinction between sensory material or content (Empfindungsinhalt) and the intentional form or an­ imating apprehension (beseelende Auffassung) ( ld I 1 7 1 - 1 7 5 ) . The in­ troduction of the schema "content-apprehension" at this juncture is not accidental since it has no comparable role in that fundamental dimen­ sion to which Husserl in this context merely alludes: " the ul timate con­ sciousness constitttting all temporality of experience ." 1 22 At the same tim e that Heidegger in his logic lectures ( 1 9 2 5 / 2 6 ) is criticizing Husserl 's concept of truth , Husser! is offering lectures in Freiburg with the ti tle "Basic Features of Logic," a reworking of lectures that he had already held in the winter semester of 1 920/ 2 1 and the summer semester of 1 9 2 3 . Manuscripts of these lectures, assembled and published in 1 966 as Analyses ofPassive Synthesis, thus belong to the period of the closest contact between Husser} and Heidegger. In these logic lectures Husser I expands the sort of analysis, first broached by his investigations of time-consciousness, to the constitution of time insofar as it underlies every experience (ApS 2 33 ) . This genetic analysis is sup­ posed to render intelligible "how in the development proper to the essence of every stream of consciousness, a development that is at the sa1ne time the development of the ego, those complicated intentional 12I

1 22

Id I

1

7 1 ; So ko l ow sk i

,

Formation of Hus.\erl 's Concfjll of Constitution, 1 59- 1 63.

Zb xxx-xxxii i ; Sokolowski , Formation of HunerZ:s Concept of Con!ititution, 1 4 2f: "Th us th ere is a contradiction in the Jdea5 be tween the h igh e r level of in tentionality and the deeper, temporal level , a contra­ See Boe h n1 's "Ei nleitung des Heraus g ebers , " in

di ction w h ic h I-l usserl does not have th e m eans to solve . Wh e n he in troduces h i s the­ ory of geneti<:' constitution , h e wi l l be able to solve this d iffk ulty. Th e n the te m p o ral nature of ro n � cio usn e s s will reach even into the high e r regions of i n tentionali ty and as a re s u l t I I u�serl wi J I fi n ally d r o p the disti n c tion betwee n noeses and sensations, e\ e n ,

on t h i � h i gh e r leve l . ··

·

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1 55

systems develop, by means of which finally an external world can ap­ pear to consciousness and the ego" (ApS 24) . In this way Husserl in­ troduces the idea of examining the genesis of consciousness in general , that is to say, the genesis of every form of consciousness, not merely that of aural sensation . This project of elucidating the prereflective tempo­ ral constitution of experience represents a major breakthrough in Husserl's later thinking. Moreover, insofar as this sort of phenom eno­ logical investigation is decidedly different from a "descriptive" or "static" phenomenology, it considerably weakens the force of much of Heidegger's criticism (ApS 340) . The passive, temporal constitution of hutnan intentionality runs counter to the assumption of the onhand­ n ess of whatever is, th e assumption that Heidegger regards as the stan­ dard on tological commitment typically underlying the logical prej u­ dice. In Husserl 's genetic phenomenology he inquires into the mann er of being of the intentional sphere, without by any means preemptively equating it with the sort of onhandness of obj ects given to pure con­ sciousness. Because each experience constitutes i tself in time-con­ sciottsness, one is, in his own words, "conscious of it as originally being and as being in the becoming and the j ust-having-become [ Soeben-gewor­ den-sein] " (ApS 2 3 3 ) . As this last remark makes all too clear, Husserl 's genetic analysis of "those complicated inten tional systems, " by m eans of which an external world appears to consciousness and the ego, an­ ticipates much of the analysis of being-in-the-world undertaken in Be­ ing and Time. Still other aspects of the genetic phenomenology introduced by the Analyses of Passive Synthesis and similar investigations during this period ( I g 1 8- 1 g 2 5 ) bear too great a resemblance to themes and approaches in Heidegger's existential analysis to be ignored, given Heidegger's crit­ icism in his lectures at the end of this period. H usserl calls these logic lectures "transcendental aesthetics" and "genetic logic" because they exclude "all kn owing by way ofjudging," that is to say, " the en tire sphere of thinking that determines and predicates and is grounded on intu­ ition . " 1 2:� Husserl excludes this sphere in order to concentrate on the epistemic accotnplishments of consciousness, from which logic pro­ ceeds. The very title of the collected lectures and manuscripts, "analy­ ses of passive syn thesis ," points to their central theme : the passive , doxic 1 2 :) ApS 29?), 3 1 9 n . 1 . See also Boehm, "Ei n le i tu n g des Herausgebers ," i n Zb xivff; and Bernet, " Ei n le i tu n g , '' lvi i f. Accord i n g to l\1 ohan ty, th e file <:'on tai n i n g these manu­ s c ri p t s hort> t h e ti tle " tran �ce nde n tal l ogi c " ( " Develop m e n t of H usserl 's Though t," 6 H ) .

H E I D EGGER ' S C ON C EPT OF TR UTH

constitutions, in which the life of the logos and thereby the functions of the higher activity of judgmen t are grounded. 1 24 In these lectures per­ ception is described as having "its own intentionality which as yet con­ tains in itself nothing of the active behavior of the ego and its constitu­ tive activity since it is precisely presupposed so that the ego can have something which it can decide for and against. " (ApS 54) . There is a stark similarity between this "transcendental aesthetics" (or "philosophical logic" as H usserl also dubs it) and the philosophical logic that Heidegger makes the aim of his Mar burg lectures in 1 9 2 5 , the very lectures i n which h e takes Husser} s o sharply to task. Moreover, in addition to co-constituting the underlying temporal continuum of consciousness, the passive syntheses analyzed by Husser} are unmistak­ enly prepredicative. Each of these features would seem to represe nt a substantial challenge to the charge that Husser} falls prey, in his analy­ ses, to the logical prejudice or, more precisely, to its ontological pre­ suppositions. This is not to say that Heidegge r's charge must ring com­ pletely hollow. It might be countered that - in Experience andjudgment, if not in Analyses of Passive Synthesis - the endgame of establishing and securing formal logic overdetermines the analyses of prepredicative ex­ periences. Ye t, even if a certain ontological n aivete in collusion with the logical prejudice remains in effect in this modified fashion, the point is not made by Heidegger since he simply fails to leave his students with any indication of this development of Husserlian phenomen ology in a direction converging, at least to a certain degree, with his own existen­ tial analyses. The original consciousness is passive and in it, what on e is conscious of is connected by "the most universal and primary synthesis," the syn­ thesis of time-consciousness (ApS 1 2 7 ) . The structure of this original consciousness is not that of an act oriented toward a corresponding object by virtue of the fact that the act apprehends sensory con tents in view of a specific sense . That "most universal and primary syn thesis" is in­ stead the passive synthesis of retentions, primary impressions, and pro­ tentions. "No experience is thinkable and in any conscious connection without being subject to the law of time-constitution , that is to say, it is only insofar as it constitutes i tself in the rigidly prefigured framework of the law of primary impressional, retentional, and protentional in­ tentions" (ApS 2 3 3 ; Zb 1 05 ) . Not unexpectedly, Husser} draws atten1 2 4 ApS 5 1 -54, 64f; see, too, Id II thesi s . "

1 H-2 1 : "Katego riale und aesthe tische ( ' s i n n l iche ' ) Syn­

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L C O N C E PT I O N O F T R U T H

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tion in these logic lectures to the untenability of the "apprehension­ conten t" schema for the determination of immanent objects that con­ stitute themselves only as "temporal obj ects" (ApS 1 6-2 1 ) . Because Husserl's investigations of time-consciousness and his logic lectures transform the assumptions, analyses, and results of his earlier work - and, indeed, prior to the time of Heidegger's critique - they must be taken in to account in any assessment of the relation between Husser} 's phenomenology and Heidegger's radicalization of it. The new direction that Husser} gives phenomenology during this period emerges, as has been noted, frotn a penchant for self-criticism, resulting in a rejection of - at the very least -the scope of the schemata that determine his origi­ nal conception of intentionality. Both in the Logical Investigations and Ideas I the analyses of intentionality presuppose the schemata "appre­ hension-sensory content" and "act-object." However, when it comes to the constitution of sensations or the intentional experiences themselves, these schemata prove either unsuitable or inadequate. The same goes, as explained above , for the analysis of passive syn the­ ses, syntheses not of any sort of "material" already on hand, but rather self-constituting syntheses of retentions, primary impressions, and pro­ tentions. It also deserves mention , in view of the primary role of the fu­ ture in Heidegger's conception of temporality, that protentions are by no means as formal and vacuous as they are presented in the Investiga­ tions of Internal Time-Consciousness (wh ere they function in the constitu­ tion of a sensation , e.g. , a sound ) . Husser} depicts the protentions at work in the passive syntheses as unthematic and primary "expectation­ intentions" without according them, to be sure, the sort of primacy that Heidegger ascribes to the original future (Aufsich-zukommen) . 1 25 Hei­ degger may, indeed, have had Husser} in mind when he penned the lines: "The now does not proceed along, pregnant with the not-yet-now, but rather the present springs forth from the future" ( SZ 4 2 7 ) . The past few pages have highligh ted some striking similarities be­ tween Husserl 's and Heidegger's analyses of time , similarities about which Heidegger is dubiously mum . Drawing attention to these simi­ larities exposes the extent to which Heidegger presents a caricature of HusserI 's phenomenology, but it also has the advan tage of putting their genuine differences into sharp relief. There are additional noteworthy similari ties between their analyses of ti me that are indicated below, but first some perspective n1ay be gained by noting a few crucial differences. 1 2 :,

C f. A p S

32� and Zb

.') 2 , 1 06 .

H E I DEGGER ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

Husserl 's investigations of "inner" or "immanent" time-conscious­ ness, it bears recalling, elaborate this ultimate, self-constitutin g stream of consciousness principally in terms of continuous unities of reten­ tions and primary impressions. By contrast, a discontinuous timeliness defined by the future secures the transcendence of bein g-here, ac­ cording to Heidegger's existential analysis. This future, more over, con­ stitutes the ( practical/ existentiel and existential) proj ections or un­ derstanding of being-in-the-world that, in Heidegger's analysis , replace intuitions and perceptions as the center of gravity. So, too, o n e looks in vain for a discussion in Husserl 's time-analyses that would be compara­ ble to what Heidegger unpacks as the authentic future, the "an ticipa­ tion of death ." Nor do Husserl 's analyses of time directly address the theme of the finitude of tetnporality, a finitude that in Heidegger's eyes distinguishes the interpretation of authentic temporality from the "or­ dinary understanding of time." ( Heidegger's analysis of tim e and its role in his critical confrontation with the logical prejudice are exam­ ined in Chapter 4 of the present study. ) These differences between Husser} 's and Heidegger's conceptions of time are both unmistakable and fundamental . Yet, as noted above, these differences should neither obscure nor diminish the consider­ able structural parallels between their analyses. Both thin kers distin­ guish time from things and states of affairs in time without thereby in any way considering time something independent of the constituting or presencing of those things and states of affairs. 1 �6 Both analyses are directed at tetnporal phenomena that they consider more ori ginal than the so-called objective time of clocks and time measuremen t, in cluding "the time of nature in the sense of natural science and eve n of psy­ chology as a natural science of men tal phenomena" (Zb 4- 1 o , 1 24; SZ 45-50, 3 26) . For this reason , moreover, each distingui shes his respec­ tive analysis from empirical and psych ological analyses of the phen om­ ena and consciousness of time. Moreover, both analyses of time aim to explain how such "derivative" concepts of time can be explain ed on th e basis of more original phenomena ( Zb 64-79, 1 07ff; SZ 3 3 3 , 406-4 2 7 ) . Nor do the similarities between their analyses end there. Th e unified character of the modes of time form the backbone of both analyses. "A now," Husser} emphasizes, "is always and essentially a limit-point of a stretch of time"; i t always refers back to a past and vi ce versa. 1 27 Putting 1 2 6 Zb 2 2 f, 2 96, 3 7 7 ; SZ �� 30-3 �� 3 ; in trad i tional term 'i, bo th wo u l d �ide with Aris totl e and I

27

Lei hn i � against a n y so n o f h H , j O , 1 7 9 · 2 3 2 , �� 9 7 ·

Zb

:')l l b�td l l l idli�t v i e w o f ti a u t .

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1 59

a picturesque spin on the notion, Husser! observes that a primary mem­ ory ( retention ) attach es like "a comet's tail" to each respective percep­ tion and that the curren t, actual consciousness of time always has "a fringe" ( Zb 35, 2 1 o ) . Heidegger speaks, correspondingly, of time 's "transit" and its "span ," "tense , " or "tension" ( see Chapter 4 below) . In both analyses, the original, foundational senses of the past and the fu­ ture are distinguished from memory and expectation respectively. 1 2 H Th e term ' original' in the expression ' original time-consciousness' is employed by Husserl to indicate, among other things, that it under­ lies the time of perceived objects as well as that of the perceiving. The original time-consciousness is, accordingly, not itself such an object or ac t ( e.g. , a perceiving) (Zb 2 2 , 7 3 , 7 6) . In view of this difference, Husserl designates the "flow" of inner time-consciousness as "the pre­ objectified time" ( Zb 7 2 ) . Heidegger takes a quite similar tack as he in­ sists that, properly speaking, timeliness (Zeitlichkeit) is not, but rather un­ folds (zeitigt) . Husserl's distinction between original time-consciousness as the " time-constituting phenomena" and the phenomena "consti­ tuted in time" is echoed in Heidegger's distinction between timeliness and the status of what-is-within-time (lnnerzeitigkeit) . 1 29 A final poin t of comparison , particularly importan t for the theme of the present study, cannot go unmentioned. Inner time-consciousness functions for Husser!, much like original timeliness does for Heidegger, as the pre­ eminent transcendental truth , namely, the primary condition of the possibility of being constituted as an object or an act. What finally or most basically is the sense of "being-here'' (Dasein) , the way of being proper to humans, just as it is for "experience'' (Erlebnis) in Husserl 's termi­ nology, is a kind of timing, a sui generis connection - if not a "passive , " then a t least a prepredicative synthesis - o f the original futttre, past, and present. Just as time-consciousness for Husser! is the original and, in­ deed, originating intentional structure , so timeliness is the original and originative sense of being-in-the-world, Heidegger's way of attempting to conceive the transcendence of intentionality more radically. Recitation of these similarities should not obscure the differences mentioned earlier. Nor should it be assumed that analyses by the later Husser} succeed because they are somehow proto-Heideggerian . There may be nothing in the Husserlian corpus approaching Heidegger's in­ sigh t into the fundamental concerns of everyday human existence or 1 2 H On the d i s tinc tion between past and m e m o ry, �ee Zb 3 3-3 7 , 45-50, 3 1 2 , 3 1 6 , 3 fio; SZ 339· On t h a t between fu t u rf> and expe c ta t i o n , " e e Zb s � f. 1 .>4ff; �Z :�3 7 · I 2 9 Z b 7 4 f; s z 3 :1 � · 4 Lj. , 4 l � } ·

1 60

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

h is existential interpretation o f discourse and conscience, but Heideg­ ger provides nothing remotely comparable to the concrete research program initiated by HusserI 's genetic analysis of the structures of con­ sciousness and fertile account of free variation. In other words, Husser} develops an unde rstanding of phenomenology that improves upon the Logical Investigations and Ideas I without by any means coinciding with Heidegger's conception of phenomenology as "the science of the be­ ing of entities" ( SZ 3 7 ) . Wh ile the rational claims of a scientific philos­ ophy remain a constan t in Husserl 's development of phenomen ology, H eidegger uses phenomenology initially to demonstrate the alleged limits of those claims, only to discard phenomenology itself as it be­ comes clear to him that it is a hindrance to the demonstration and , in­ deed, to thinking about being. 2 . 4 2 2 LO C A LI Z I N G SENSATI ON S : K I N ESTHES I A , T H E LIVED B O DY, AN D TRA N S C E N D E N C E . There is one more aspect of Husserl 's revised account of sensation after the Logical Investigations that deserves mention in this connection . In contrast to the temporal constitution of sensations on which the investigations of time-consciousness focus, this aspect prima­ rily concerns their localization. For by means of its "hyletic substrate , " Husser} observes in Ideas II, "the entire consciousness o f a human being is bound up with its body [Leib] " ( Id II 1 5 3 ) . Accordingly, the body or lived body ( not to be confused with the corporeal body: Kiirper) becomes "the means of all perception" ( Id II 56) . However, Husserl recognizes not only that the hyletic substrate renders all consciousness embodied, but that it does so by virtue of encompassing a group much wider than the representative data invoked in his earlier analyses of perceptions. It may be recalled that in the Logical Investigations sensations are depicted as "representative contents" that are apprehended and thus animated in the perception of a physical object. However, when someone touches her left hand wi th her right, representative sensations of touch are joined by "indicative sensations of movement" (Id II 1 44£) . In this way, Husser} introduces a distinction in to his accoun t of sensations and does so as part of his elaboration of the body's constitution as the direct and mobile locus of kinesthetic fields (ld II 1 44-1 4 7 ) . These kinesthetic fields are part of a functional system whereby the effects of materially real things are continuously coordinated wi th one 's own bodily move­ ments. "The body's sensitiveness is thus constituted as a ' conditional ' or psychophysical property. Part of the apprehension of the lived bod­ ilin ess [Leiblic hkei t] as such is, in addition to the apprehension of a thing, the co-appreh ensi on of the fiel d s of sensation and they are given� of .

.

.

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161

course, in the man ner of the localization belonging appropriately to the appearing corporeal body" ( ld II 1 55 ) . The expression ' appropriately' in the last clause, Husserl immediately adds, is to be understood in terms of conditionals of the sort "I feel something, if the hand moves or is touched, etc." "It is not that the hand thereby stands there as a physical corpus and an extraphysical consequence is attached to it; from the out­ set it is apperceptively characterized as a hand with its field of sensation, with its ongoing co-apprehended sensate condition that changes in the wake of external in trusion, that is to say, as a physical-aesthesiological u nity" (Id II 1 55 ) . The introduction of considerations of kinesthesia into Husserl 's analysis strikes at the very heart of the themes appropriated by Hei­ degger from him: the understanding of intentionality, the nature of cat­ egorial intui tions, and the issue of transcendence . For creatures with vi­ sual organs but no capacities for kinesthetic and postural sensations the intentional and subintentional movements that yield information about the positions and movements of the lived body - would be inca­ pable of percepti ons of things and processes. The kinesthetic informa­ tion is what, among other things, yields an Uberschujl, pointing beyond a present, imm·ediately representing sensation. Like visual sensations, kinesthetic sensations belong to systems and they are had or experi­ enced without being perceived. By virtue of them we relate to objects external to our bodies as well as our bodies themselves, while different types of kinesthetic space correspond to different "movement systems" ( the eye , both eyes, the head, etc. ) . Like visual sensation fields, they are always filled, albeit with the indeterminate localization afforded by lo­ calized sensations. In contrast to the simultaneous unity of a visual field, kinesthetic sensations are only serially united since they do not present objects but rather refer to them immediately, that is, without a medium of contents that can vary while the object remains constant. Yet they col­ laborate with visual se nsations, related to them not essentially but in a rec iprocally functional or functionally dependent way. 1 30

1 30 See DR 1 56- 1 64 , 1 7 7 , 2 8o; see also DR 2 2 0-2 2 3 for the way in which kinesthetic processes together wi th perce ptions contribute to the motivation of fulfi lled inten­ tions . For an excellent s tudy of the issue of embodiment in Husserrs writings, see James Dodd, Idealism and Corporezty: An Essay on the Problem of the Body in Husserl 's Phe­ nomenology (Dord rec h t: Kluwer, 1 99 7 ) ; for the issue of place and sensa tion in particu­ lar, see chapter 2 , "Body as Res Extensa," 38-6o. See, too, J. J. Drummond, "On See­ ing a Material Thing in Space: The Role of Kinaesthesis in Visual Perception," Philosoj;hy and Phr.nomPnolol(lcal Research 40 ( 1 97 9 ) : 1 9-3 2 .

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

Even the brief precis given i n the last few paragraphs should suffice to indicate the different direction that consideration of kinesthetic , lo­ calizing sensations gives to Husserl 's accoun t of intentionality. Yet Hei­ degger makes only passing reference to this ric h account ( "the intimate con nection of the aesthesiological with the physical " ) in his brief review of Ideas II. As noted earlier, he focuses mainly on whether Husser! man­ ages to raise the question of intentionality's being while expounding the soul, person , and spirit in that work. In one respect, Heidegger's neglect of the discussion of kinesthesia is not surprising, given his charge that Husserl's analyses of personal and spiritual dimensions, de­ spite their aim of securing the primacy of a personalistic over a natura­ listic attitude , ultimately betray naturalistic prej udices. Indeed, kines­ thesia is incomprehensible apart from the reciprocal relations between th e lived body and its natural e nvironment, reciprocal relations that constitute the psychophysical parallelism dismissed by Heidegger be­ cause of its alleged assumption of a naturalistic understanding of being (as presence or onhandness) . Nevertheless, in a certain se nse Heidegger's omission of any treat­ ment of kinesthesia and the way sensations are spatialized or placed in terms of them is almost as glaring as his silence regardi ng Husserl 's in­ vestigations of time-consciousness. For j ust as Husser! must employ metaphors of motion and place ( 'stream ' and ' impression ' ) to convey time-consciousness, so, too, Heidegger cannot avoid metaphors of mo­ tion and place ( ' th rownness,' 'projecting, ' ' fallenness, ' and 'being­ here ' ) to identify being-in-the-world, the sense of which is time. By con­ trast, with his analysis of kinesthesia Husser! manages to give what approximates a li teral account of the way in which the body, in its kines­ thetic movements , affects and situates itself ( even "is here," as he puts it at one point) . 1 3 1 The kinesthesia renders palpable the body's place in the world (its "being-in-the-world" and not merely within the world) and does so in the dynamic fashion of a lived body, orienting the re­ spec tive ego in advance. 1 32 Note that the lived body's kinesthetic situ­ ating of itself neither establ ishes nor is established by any on tic relation to another object ( that is the business of, among o ther things, repre1 3 1 Id II 1 44- 1 47 ; 2 6 1 : " U rspru nglich geh t das ' i ch bewcge , ' ' ic h tue , ' dem ' i ch kan n tun ' vorau � . " If itnp ressions, the starti ng poi n t of the analysis of time-<:'onsci ousness, pre­ suppose a local ization , then kin esthesia would in fact underlie te m poral ization. See Ludwi g Lan dgrebe, "Reflexionen zu Husserls Ko nsti tutjo nslehre,'' Tijdschrift vom Filosojie 36 ( 1 97 4 ) : 4 7 6; note , how ever, Husserl 's view to the con trary in l d II 1 7 Hf. 1 :1 2 Id I I :-, 6f, H6, 1 44J, 1 .-, H f.

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T R UTH

1 63

sentative sensations ) and yet is an essential condition - always already i n place - for any such relating. 1 33 Very similar observations can, of course , be made mutatis rnutandis of being-here, as Heidegger construes i t. l 34 Two other features of the analysis in Ideas II closely approximate fea­ tures of Heidegger's subsequent existen tial analysis: Husserl 's elabora­ tions of motivations and horizons. Taking the place of causality is a con­ nection of active and passive motivations, in tertwined wi th habit, ranging from inference to bare associative recall . This motivational complex constitutes the personal ego prereflectively ( ld II 2 5 1 -2 57 ) . These motivations are even said to structure perception prethemati­ cally (Id II 1 89) , a point that Heidegger recasts in terms of his own doc­ trine of prereflective disposi tions (see 4·3 below) . Husser} not only maintains th e priority of th e resulting personalistic attitude over a nat­ uralistic attitude, but also ascribes the putative independence of the latter to a "self-obliviousness" (Selbstvergessenheit) ( Id II 1 83f, 2 8 1 ff) . Hei­ degger makes a parallel move when he attributes the bankruptcy of Western thinking to an obliviousness to being (Seinsvergessenheit) and, more particularly, to an obliviousness to one 's own being-here and, in that sense , to oneself. In Husserl 's account of " the spiritual world and its underground," there is also an uncanny anticipation of Heidegger's conceptions of the world as an existential, human existence as being­ in-the-world, and timeliness as th eir constitutive sense. Thus, prior to turni ng attention to something and taking up a specific position toward it ( e .g. , using it or regardi ng it) , we are referred, Husser} observes, to a multilayered complex of previous achievements of the life of con­ sciousness, pointing backward and forward, and ul timately to a tacit, even hidden "background" - not unlike the world for being-in-th eAccording to Husse rl , neither the body nor the soul have natural properties in the log­ ical-m athematical sense of ' nature. ' Indeed, at one point he appears to ide n tify the hand it�ielf with the kinesthetic sensation of touching; cf. Id II 1 3 2 , 1 50. 1 34 See Heidegger\ Wesen des Grundes, sixth edition ( Frankfurt an1 Main: Klostermann , 1 97 3 ) , 3 5 ; Robert Bernasconi , "The Double Concept of Phi losophy and the Place of Ethics in Bn ng a nd 'Fime, " in Researrh in Phen omenology 1 R ( 1 988) : 1 8 : "The constant ne­ cessi ty to suspend senses of spatiality, suggests that i n all these phenomena a certain sense of someth i ng like spatial ity is still in play:' See , too, Edward Casey, "Heidegger in and out of place ," i n HPidfggrr: A G'enlen ary Appraisal ( Pittsburgh: Duquesne Univ. Press, t ggo) , 7 2 : "Not only does Dasei n not break i nto space from temporality, but the very terms of Heidegger's argument suggest that spatiality is prior to fallen temporal­ ity. . . . '· See also Joh n Protevi , Time a n d Exteriority: A ristotle, Heidegger, Demda (Toronto: Associated L'ni\'. Presse'.i , 1 994 ) , 1 1 7� and Edwa rd Casey, GPt t i ng Bark i n t o Plare: Toward n Rnl P7.t'eri Undt�51onrling of thP PlnrP-Wrrr/d ( Rioon1ington: I n d i a n a l l n i v Prelil�, I f)�)�� ) .

1 33

.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT

OF

TRUTH

world - that lies in advance of and is presupposed by all behavior or comportment of an ego (sich verhaltendes Ich) . 1 35 None of these similarities necessarily jeopardizes Heidegger's criti­ cism that Husserl's move toward a personalistic psychology is difficult to reconcile with his insigh t into the nondualistic, genuinely transcen­ den t character of intentionality. Nor is Heidegger's explanation for this development undermined. Husserl remains commi tted to the notion of a science for which the reality of things is ultimately defined by their objective presence or presen tability to a theoretical consciousness, a commitment that goes hand in hand, Heidegger submits, with an obliv­ iousness to the question of what it means "to be." 1 36 Nevertheless, Husserl 's accoun t of the kinesthetic movements of the body clearly in­ dicates a tanfjble level of transcendence that can be squared with nei­ ther a pure and isolated consciousness nor a sense of being as sheer presence - indeed, a level of transcendence, in relation to which , Hei­ degger's talk of "being-in-the-world" or "being-here" has an oddly ab­ stract, even gnostic ring. 2 . 4 3 Heidegger's Silence and Its Sense. Given Heidegger's attempt, in the

first place, to interpret the original sense of truth and being on the ba­ sis of the phenomenon of time, and, in the second place, to do so by critically engaging Husserl's phenomenology, one would have expected him to have expressed some opinion , if not about the pertinent dis­ cussions in Ideas II and the Analysis ofPassive Synthesis, then at least about the Investigations ofTime-Consciousness. In his Marburg lectures, however, there is only a single passing reference to them. In the course of pro­ viding his studen ts with an overview of Husserl 's development, he men­ tions them , remarking merely that they arose in connection wi th 1 35 ld II 2 78f, 2 7 1 ; for a splendid discussion of Ideas II, see Thomas Nenon and Lester Em­ bree, eds . , Issues in Husserl 's 'Ideas II' ( Boston : Kluwer, 1 996 ) . I am gratefu l to James Dodd for calling my attention to the convergence of th ese themes wi th Heidegger's existe n tial analysis. 1 36 I terating Heidegge r's cri ticism , Landgrebe argues that a commitment to th e p rimacy of a th eore tica1 consciousness p reven ts H usserl from working out the imp1ications of Ideas II; cf. Ludwig Landgrebe, uSein sregionen und region ale Ontologien in H usser1 s Phanomeno1 ogie , " Studium Generate g, vol. 6 (J uly 1 956 ) : 3 1 3-3 24. On the c hallenges th at space 's consti tution present to Husserl 's phenomenology, see Ulrich Claesges , Ed­ mund Husserls 'fheoriP d" Raumkon 5titution ( Hague: Nij hoff, 1 g64 ) , ggf, 1 4 4 . ]ust as the kinesthetic can not be "derived " from the aural-aes thetic and time-consciousness, so, too, the attempt i n SZ to derive h uman spatiali ty from temporality is, i n Heidegger's own late r j udgment, "untenable" ( ZSD 24 ) , th ough it would be a mistake to co nstrue ' JJa-snn' ( ' being-he re · ) �olely a� a ki ne�thetic tnetaph or.

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1 65

Husserl 's havin g become acquain ted with Bergson 's work and that " they have been published piecemeal in his [ Husserl 's] later works'' (P 1 2 6 ) . Husser! had in fact published very little between 1 90 1 ( the Logi­ cal Investigations) and 1 92 5 ( the time of Heidegger's lecture and cri­ tique ) . Heidegger is probably referring to observations made in "Phi­ losophy as Rigorous Science" ( 1 9 1 1 ) as well as the already cited passage from Ideas I ( 1 9 1 3 ) to the effect that the analyses there purposely do not penetrate to "what is ultimately and truly absolute," namely, "the ul­ timate consciousness consti tuting all temporali ty of experience." 137 One might try to explain this oversight, noteworthy and curious as it is, by pointing to the fact that Husserl's investigations of time-con­ sciousness first appeared in 1 9 2 8 . But this explanation is difficult to ac­ cept since it is highly unlikely that Heidegger was not acquain ted with their con tents. After all, as j ust no ted, he not only men tions the inves­ tigations explicitly to h is students in late spring 1 92 5 , but alleges that portions of the investigations had found their way into prin t. In Hei­ degger's exposition of Husserl 's developmen t, he comments on other unpublished works of Husser! between 1 900 and 1 9 2 5, further cor­ roborating the truth of his remark in Being and Time about his debt to Husser! for making unpublished investigations available to him. He ex­ plicitly mentions a letter from Husser! , describing the contents of Ideas II (P 1 68 ) . In Heidegger's Foreword to the part of the investigations ed­ ited by Edi th Stein in 1 92 8 , he demonstrates quite clearly his appreci­ ation of their importance for the development of the conception of i n­ tentionality. He recommends the investigations with th e observation that they con tain "the growing, fundamen tal clarification of intention­ ality in general" - an observation that may well have surprised the stu­ dents who attended his lectures in the summer semester of 1 92 5. 1 38 The foregoing section ( 2 .42 ) showed how H usserl 's investigations of inner time-consciousness are tied to the development of a new con­ ception of sensati ons as well as immanent perceptions. To a certain ex­ tent, this development explains and even excuses Heidegger's neglect of the details of the doctrine of sensation in Husserl 's early works. By sketching the Husserlian doctrine of intentionali ty and intuition with­ out invoking the schema "appreh ension-sensory content," Heidegger

1 37 ld I

1

7 1 ; se e , too, PasW 3 1

I !) 9- 1 6 3 .

1 38

2f; Sokolowski , Fonnation of Husserl 's Concept of Constitution,

Zb xxv. On th e d e tails of H eidegge r's role i n th e edi ti n g of H us"erl 's lec tu res on tim e­ consciousness and H usse rl 's dissatisfaction with the edition, see PTP 2 8ff.

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1 66

casts this doctrine in a light that corresponds, if not exactly to its telos, then at least to the maturest state of its development ( c. 1 92 5 ) . Proba­ bly for this same reason , however, Heidegger also pays no attention to the distinction drawn by Husser! between the consti tutions of outer and i nner perception . Not incidentally, Husserl's self-critical reflections on the problem of the consti tution of inner perceptions, reflections that led the analysis of intentionality to the doctrine of original tinle-con­ sciousness, go unmentioned. Still , Heidegger refrains from poin ting out to his studen ts that Husser!, long before 1 9 2 0, subjects the earlier a11alyses of intentionality (in both the Logical Investigations and Ideas I) to a thoroughgoing critique; he remains mum about the fundamentally revised conception of intentionality at which Husserl painstakingly ar­ rives. How can this silence be explained? I n order even to conjecture an answer to this question , some histor­ ical and biographical details must be taken into consideration . The question raised at the end of the last paragraph is moot if it cann ot be established that, and, if so, to what extent Heidegger was in fact ac­ quai nted with Husserl 's most recent thinking and unpublished writings prior to 1 92 5 · The fall of 1 9 1 7 , when HusserI was conducting a semi­ nar on logic, marks the beginning of a close relationship between him and Heidegger. A participant in the seminar, Heidegger's friend Hein­ rich Ochsner, reports on the engagin g dialogue between Husserl the Ordinarius and Heidegger the young lecturer in the seminar. 1 39 There is also a friendly correspondence between them during the final year of the war, correspondence that led to a much closer relationship when Heidegger returned to Freiburg toward the end of 1 9 1 8 . During the following two years Husserl intervened repeatedly and ul timately suc­ cessfully on Heidegger's behalf for financial support from the Karls­ ruhe Ministry (more precisely, Husser} helped secure Heidegger the posi tion of an assistant in the department of philosophy) . 1 40 The so1 3 9 Husserl was working i n te nsively on the p rob l e m of ti1n e in that fa ll of 1 9 1 7 , according to Karl Sc h u h m a nn ; see his Husserl- Chronik, Denk- und Lebmsweg Edmund HuHerls ( H ag u e : Nijhoff, 1 9 7 7 ) , 2 1 3 . Sc h u h m a n n maintains th at H usserl first i n terve ned on H eid e gg e r s be half in October 1 9 1 6, t h o ug h O t t d i s p u te s this c l a i m ; see H u g o O tt, Marlin Heidegger, UnterwPg� z u sPiner Biograph i.e (Frankfurt am Ma i n / N e w York: Ca1npus, 1 9 8 R ) , g8. On O c h s ne r s testimony, see O t t, Ma rt in He i(ifggn; 1 02f. I n t h e wi n ter se­ mester of 1 9 1 7 I 1 H Husserl lectured on Lo gi c and th e <_;cneral Th eory of Sc i e n c e and gave a s e mi n a r e n ti tled "Basic Fe a tu re s of Logic . " In the 5un1 mer of 1 g 1 9 Hei­ de gge r refe rs stud e n t� to H usse rl 's concurre n t l e c tu re s (Z�P d i5 ) . 1 40 Sch uhman n , Husserl-Chron ik, 2 �1 1 . See O tt, Martin HeidPg_f?er, 1 1 4f; and PTP �- I .=J . I n th e January 6 , 1 9 � 1 J e t t P r t o Pfanrler. H u sser) recoun t.� t hat Heidegger's vis i ts d u ri ng'

'

"

"

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1 67

called Phenomenological Practicum was a semi nar divided into two parts, one taught by Heidegger for beginners and the other conducted by Husserl for advanced students. Hans jonas, a student at Freiburg in the summer semester of 1 92 1 , relates that, according to " rules" set up by Husserl , young students were not allowed to participate in his semi­ nars until they had completed Heidegger's introductory seminar. 1 4 1 On the intellectual relationship between Husser! and Heidegger a t this time, there i s also a n interesting commen t by Gerda Walther, who gave the opening address at the founding of th e Phenomenological So­ cie ty of Freiburg in the winter semester of 1 9 1 8/ 1 9. Walther reports that, for the most part, exchanges between Husser! and Heidegger dominated the mee tings. 1 42 Heidegger also regtllarly took part in Sat­ urday discussions at Husserl 's h ome. 1 43 He may well have had such meetings and discussions in mind when in his 1 963 retrospective he re­ calls: "frotn 1 9 1 9 on, teaching and learning in Husserl 's proximity, I practiced phenomenological seeing" ( ZSD 86) . During the winter se­ meste r of 1 92 0/ 2 1 Husser! o nce again held lectures on logic; he also conducted a seminar "For highly advanced students: phenomenology of time-consciousness." It is possible that Heidegger, with two small chil­ dren at h ome at the time, neither liste ned to the lectures nor took part in the seminar. Yet, given the close and regular con tact of the two men during this period, it seems highly unlikely that he had only a superfi­ cial acquaintaince with the contents of Husserl 's courses at this time or that he was unaware of the direction and development of Husserl 's lat­ est reflections. As Heidegger himself acknowledges in print five years later, it was Husserl who during the Freiburg years familiarized him with the various domains of phenomenological research by giving him "ur­ gent, personal direction" and by "most generously passing along un­ published investigations" ( SZ 38n ) . At the birthday celebration for Husser! in Todtnauberg on April 8 , 1 926, Heidegger presented him ( "in h onor and friendship" ) with the just finished mantlscript of Being

vacations, after h is move to M a rburg, were 'joyful events, h ighly prized opportunities to speak m y mind with him, and to i n fo rm him of my developme nts." 1 4 1 H a ns jonas , Hei d e gge rs Entschlossenheit und E n t'i c h lul3 , in Martin Heidegger and 1Va­ tion al Socialzsm, ed. (;iin ther N e s k e a n d E m il Ke tteri n g , tr. Lisa Harries (New York: Pa r ago n 1 990 ) , 1 97f "

"

,

1 4 2 Sc h u h man n , Husserl-Chron ik,

1 43

Sc h u h m a n n , llu!lsPrl-Chro n ik,

Julius Ebbi nghaus, conception

2 30. 2 3 5 : "In t h e framework of these S a t u rd ay disc ussions,

Marti n H e i degge r,

of t h t- eg-o . "

and Ge rda Wal th er reg u larly cri ti cized Husserl 's

1 68

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

and Time ( the occasion, incidentally, for Husserl 's request that Heideg­ ger bring out his investigations of time-consciousness) ( Zb xxiiif) . Given this con tact between Husserl and Heidegger from the fall of 1 9 1 7 to the spring of 1 9 2 6, it seems highly dubious to assume that Hei­ degger at the time of his Prolegomena and logic lectures did not have a more than ample understanding of the nature and trajectory of Husserl 's thinking at the time. Already in Ideas /, as noted above , Husser} refers to time-consciousness as the ultimate and genuine ab­ solute , to which the schema "apprehension-se nsory content" does not apply. Nor does it seem plausible , even if Heidegger were unable to at­ te nd Husserl 's lectures on logic or seminar on time-consciousness ( the former offered repeatedly, the latter at least in 1 9 2 0/ 2 1 ) , that he would not have been cognizant of their contents. Husserl, it bears iterating, passed several unpublished manuscripts (e .g. , Ideas II) on to Heidegger during this period and remained in regular philosophical dialogue with him even after his move to Marburg (as evidenced by frequent summer meetings in Todtnauberg) . As Husserl writes to Pfander in 1 93 1 : Yes, that was the great, uplifting h ope: to open up to him [Heidegger] presumably my one true sttlden t - the unsuspected breadth of my inves­ tigations, and to prepare him for his own discoveries. Time and again we talked of working together, of his collaboration i n completing my i nves­ tigations. We talked of how he would take ch arge of my manuscripts when I passed away, publishing the ones that were fully developed , and in gen­

eral of how he would carry on my philosophy as a framework for all fu­ ture work. ( PTP 48o)

In light of these facts, it would have been extremely odd if Husserl had not communicated to Heidegger what he took to be "highly i tnportant matters, perhaps the most important of all phenomenology" (Zb 334) . Nor can the exte nsive overlap ( reviewed above ) between the two thinkers' treatments of time as well as other topics be overlooked. For all these reasons, it is difficult to accept Berne t's claim that "a direct in­ fluence of the H usserlian phenomenology of time-consciousness on the emergence of Heidegger's own understanding of time can be excluded for practical reasons. " 1 44 Heidegger's silence cannot be explained by a lack of acquaintance with Husserl 's work. Thomas Prufer offers a more plausible explanation. Heidegger is silent about Husser} ' s later investigations precisely because they con1 1 1 f\t'rn t' t , " E i n 1 �i t n ng. " l x . a n d

..

Die Frage

n a c h d�tn

U rspru ng der Ze i t, " R9.

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verge so closely with his own analysis of timeliness, which constitutes the sense of being-in-the-world. Furthermore, even though the analysis of timeliness in Being and Time builds upon Husserl 's elaboration of time­ consciousness as the ground floor of inten tionality, Heidegger must hold that elaboration at a distance since it remains within " the matrix of the language of acts and their objects." In order to free himself from this matrix, Heidegger found it necessary to sketch a "weak," inade­ quate picture of Husserl 's phenomenology. 1 45 Although it became clear to Husser! himself that immanent time­ consciousness does not fit within the matrix of acts and objects, he con­ tinues to elucidate it with a view to them. In other words, Husserl con­ tinues to employ the terminology of psychology in his attempt to secure the borders of logic and epistemology from incursions of psychology and to combat psychologism and naturalism in general . 1 46 One conse­ quence of employing this terminology and pursuing this goal is that time-consciousness becomes the horizon for obj ectifying acts. The same holds mutatis mutandis for the temporal constitution of passive syn­ thesis. This "transcendental aesthetic" is understood as the investiga­ tion of the basic formations of consciousn ess, but the formations in question are precisely those that are "relevan t to the construction of specifically logical consciousness" (ApS 3 1 9 n . ) . In Heidegger's analysis of timeliness, he clearly appropriates the horizonal ( al legedly preobj ective and presubj ective) character of time­ consciousness, elaborated by Husserl. At the same time, even in this re­ spect there is a notable difference in the two analyses. Instead of re­ garding time (or time-consciousness) as the horizon primarily for objectifying acts, Heidegger construes timeliness as the horizon for "be­ ing-in-the-world," the meaning of which, in its entirety, is care ( SZ 1 9 2 £) . In ligh t of this shift, a shift in more than emphasis or accent (see Chapter 4 below) , Heidegger's silence about Husserl 's i nvestigations of time and passive syntheses cannot be attributed simply to Heidegger's redoubtable impudence or to intellectual parricide , that time-honored prin ciple of natural selection for philosophical evolution . These break­ throughs of Husserl 's later thinking are also not men tioned by Hei­ degger because he wants to appropriate them in his own way and with1 45 Prufer, "Hei degge r, Early and Late," t gg, 20 1 , 2 0 9 . 1 46 Prufer, "Heide gg er, Early and Late , " 2 oo: " Husser} h imself decon structed the te rmi­ nology of psychol ogy, and to some exte n t the tern1 i n ology of the transcenden tal, from wi th i n , that iii, by u�i ng it to 'i�Y �ome thing s trictly beyond i ts m ea ns . "

HEI DEGGER ' S C O N C EPT OF TRUTH

out th e framework out of which they arose. An inj ustice and a disserv­ ice is thus done to Husser! 's phenomenology, even if this injustice is, as Prufer suggests, the price of the philosophical maturity of its most fa­ mous student. Regardless of how Heidegger's philosoph ical debt and relation to Husserl 's phenome nology is ultimately to be understood, his thinki n g moves to a plane beyond the reach of Husserlian phen ome­ nology and terminology. 2 . 5 Summary: Transforming the Phe nomenological

Conception of Truth Heidegge r 's conception of th e timeliness that constitutes bei ng-i n-the­ world is clearly anticipated by Husserl 's analyses of titne-consciousness and th e prereflective temporal and kinesthetic constitution of experi­ ence . These analyses considerably weaken the force of the obj ections advanced by Heidegger against Husserl 's phe nomenology. Husserl's analysis of titne-consciousness and kinesth etic movements opens up di­ mensi o n s in which the sense of ' being' can by no means be considered equivalent to the mere onhandness that allegedly corresponds to a true asserti o n o r sentence. Con trary to Heidegger's charges, Husser! does manage by means of these analyses to provide a more precise determi­ nation o f " the matter most proper to phe nomenology," the being of the intenti o n a l sphere (or what it means for that sphere to be) that is dis­ tinct fro m the p resence of a thing or state of affairs. More ove r, if Heidegger can be said to radicalize or transform Husserl ' s phenomenological conception of truth , that radicalization cannot c o n sist in the fact that the existential analysis of being-in-the­ world is s omehow supposed to dislodge the schema "act-object." The analysi s does this but so do some of Husserl 's i nvestigations, as has been noted. If i t is presu1nptious to assume that th e given ness of things and, most n otably, of in tentionality itself, is equivalent to the onhandness of an obj e c t , c orresponding to a positing act or j udging, then Husserl is keenly aware of it. In wha t se nse, then, if any, does Heidegger radicalize Husserl 's p h e­ non1enolo gical conception of truth? In certain respects, the radi caliza­ tion is the result of a shift in the center of gravity, a shift that becomes even more p ronounced in Heidegger's later th inking. In th e Logical In­ vestigations� taking his cues from an analysis of acts, Husserl construes truth as tl'le identity of what is meant ( by the subj ect of the ac t) and \vhat i� g i ve n ( to th e same subj ect, th i s ti m e as th e subj ect of an act of intu-

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i tion ) . Heidegger shifts th e center of gravity from the subject, not sim­ ply to the absence and presence of what is meant and given respectively, but to the unfolding of that presence from its absence. In this way, Husserl 's phenomenological conception of truth becomes convertible with a sense of being that cannot be iden tified with presence . Instead, truth is the prethe1natic disclosure of time as the ultimate sense of being. 1 47 In a certain respect, of course, even this move or at least a gesture i n its direction i s readily discernible i n Husserl 's phenomenology, partic­ ularly in his path breaking investigations of inner time-consciousness and "transcendental aesthetic" ( the logic lectures offered frotn 1 9 1 7 to 1 9 2 5 ) . These investigations doubtlessly poin t the way for Heidegger's distinctive line of questioning, and any reasonably generous reading of them gainsays the charge that Husserl neglects the question of what ' be­ ing' means in the case of intentionality. Ye t the cen ter of gravity for Husserl 's investigations continues to be what it was in t goo: the j ustifi­ cation of the logos, conceived as the truth of a theoretical assertion or sen tence , over against the claims of relativism and subjectivism . A tra­ ditional conception of truth and being, far from being put in question , is ultimately upheld by Husserl 's investigations - an d, indeed, despite the breakthrough represented by his insigh t into the dynamic unfold­ ing of truth and, equivalen tly, the prereflective temporal consti tution of experience . Precisely because Husser! combines this insight with a commitmen t to the logical prej udice and its on tological commitment to the onhan dness of truth and being, his phenomenology is a serious threat, perhaps the most serious threat, to fundamen tal ontology. Hei­ degger, at any rate , comes to this conclusion and it explains why he con­ fides to Jaspers that if Being and Time is written against anyone, then it is Husserl. Working out the criticisms of Husse rl 's phenomenological concep­ tion of truth is obviously of maj or importance to Heidegger in the 1 9 2 0s. After all, he embraces phenomenology as the method of his fun­ damen tal on tology in Being and Time (SZ 2 7 , 3 7 £) and insists on the phe­ nomenological nature of his research in lectures throughout the decade . The considerable similari ties between the two phenomenolo1 47 T 2 70: "Die Frage n ach dem ' I n-d er-Welt-Se in ' ist also die radikalisie rte Form von

H usse rl� E p oche, we i I j etlt n icht vom Seienden n u r auf dessen Gegeben heitswe isen

zuruckgefrag t wird , sondern nach der Dimension der Gegebe n heitsweise n selbst, d . h . nach d e m (;e';chehen ei nes ' gelichteten ' Begegnens als sole hem.··

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

gies, together with the quite different direction that Heidegger is intent on giving phenomenology, explain his repeated, critical confron tations (Auseinandersetzungen) with Husserl 's phen om e nology in the 1 920s. Heidegger replaces intentionality with being-in-the-world but retains the transcending character of intentionality yielded by Husserl 's vari­ ous analyses (e.g. , his analyses of categorial intui tions, time , and kines­ thesia) , analyses that doom any representationalist or men talist con­ ception of human subjectivity. Putting aside various disciplines and approaches that attempt to explain one thing by another, each phe­ nomenological i nvestigation sets out to clarify the senses ( noemata) of things or beings as well as the sense of the clarification itself, either th rough a phenomenological reflection upon the self-disclosure of those senses i n a prereflective intentionality or through a phenomeno­ logical retrieval of that self-disclosure in being-i n-the-world. For both phenomenologies, moreover, the aim is to secure not merely the senses, but the very essences of things or being, essences that in the last analy­ sis, for Husser! as for Heidegger, are temporally constituted. 1 48 Along with these similarities, however, the re are obvious differe nces, some of whi ch have already bee n mentioned. As elaborated in the next two chapters, the importance that Heidegger assigns to a certain dis­ posedness ( or affectivity) and understanding ( or projection ) of being­ in-the-world is, if not completely absen t, grossly understated in Husserl 's analyses of intentional experience . Nothing in Husserl 's analysis of time-consciousness corresponds to the timely significance of the future and death for Heidegger. For all H usserl 's astute criticisms of the tyran ny of the now plaguing traditional analyses of time and pre­ ven ting appreciation of retention and protention, presence - not un­ related to the now - conti nues to e njoy a privileged status i n his analy­ sis of the temporal constitution of consciousness. Above all, the telos of Husserl 's phenomenology, particularly in Ideas /, is reason or, more pre­ cisely, a phenomenology of reason , in which the legtimacy of the ra­ tional demand for evidence is clarified and stringently pursued. Wh ile it is an open-ended process and the task of generations, ach ievemen t of this goal demands that philosophy be a rigorous science . Althoug h Heidegger characterizes the fundamental on tology of Being and Time as a phenomenological science, reason is conspicuously absent from the themes of that work. The telos of Being and Time is a phenomenology 1 48 Th is com p arison must be qual i fi ed by the fac t, noted earlier, t h at Heid egge r re\'i ses the s e n ses of ' e 'ise n c t> ' in a

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n o t o f reason but o f existence, and Heidegger gives little i f any indica­ tion of its bearing on the ideal of a universal science of essences to which Husse rlian phenomenology aspires. What is to be made of these differences, especially in ligh t of the crit­ icisms that Heidegger makes of Husserl's phenomenology and, indeed, the tendentiousness of those criticisms i n various respects, as reviewed in the last two sections of the present chapter? The question permits no simple answe r, bu t it would seem that the sum of the discrepancies be­ tween Husserl 's and Heidegger's ph enomenological conceptions of truth speaks for their continuity and by no means the necessity of some fissure between them. In the final analysis, Heidegger's problems with Husserl 's phenomenology, even with its motivation, are directed largely at its reach rather than at its method ( reductions, reflection ) or the ba­ sic structures unraveled by it (senses, essen ces, temporal constitution ) . To be sure , Husser! takes phenomenology in the direction of formal and regional ontologies, Heidegger in the direction of fundamental ontology. Yet n o one of these ontologies necessarily cancels the findings of the other (particularly if formal ontology is concerned wth general categories and not "existentials") . Complemen tarity, not contention, best describes the relation between their two phenomenologies. But why, then, one migh t protest, do their phenomenologies diverge at all? How does Husserlian phenomenology come to be fundamental ontology? Why does Heidegger insist on pressing the limitations that he fi nds in Husserl 's phenomenological conception of truth and being? What accounts for the new direction that he gives phenomenology? Some of the answers to these questions can only be found through ex­ amination of Heidegger's existential analysis itself, as undertaken in Chapter 4 below. But a partial answer can also be provided in advance by way of an intriguing historical parallel . This is not the first time that an ex-seminarian from southwestern Germany displays an uncanny capacity of assimilating and criticizing in a single stroke the work of a philosophical mentor who is more at home with epistem ological issues in science than with the passionate reflec­ tions of questioning believers. It is not the first time that a thinker in his late thirties , having developed a distinctive analysis of the structures and processes of life , modeled on but no longer limited to the life of faith , writes a masterpiece that effectively encapsulates the limited hori­ zon of his men tor, only to distance himself from that ve ry work later in life . To the question o f why Kant's transcendental philosophy becomes transformed i n to He gel 's m eta physi c� and to the question o f '"'h y

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F TR U T H

H usserl's transcendental phenomenology becomes transformed into Heidegger's fundamental ontology, there is a single, truncated, but no less true answer: religion. This somewhat impudent observation is not meant to suggest either that Husserl was irreligious or that Heidegger's conception of truth is supposed to be a handmaiden to religion or even a substitute for it. But for whatever reasons - perhaps because he grew up the son of a sac­ ristan and because , with the savage stench of war still fresh , he is teach­ ing phenomenology of religion - the young Heidegger sees something that largely escapes Husserl 's intellectual radar, namely, that the phe­ n omena constituting religious experience, phenomena at the core of the timeliness and historicity of human existence , do not readily admit, if at all, of a scien tific comprehension. Just as importantly, he has - or, better, comes to have - a conception of philoso phy that would be im­ periled if i t either ignored these phenomena or attempted to secure a place for thetn in a theory. 1 49 The religious experience calls human be­ i ngs back to such existential phen omena as anxiety, irresoluteness, con­ science, and death , not for the sake of theoretical closure but for the sake of opening human beings up to the disclosure of the original sense of these phenomena. So, too , philosophy, as Heidegger conceives i t, must retrieve these phenomena for analogous purposes. This view of philosophy's task explains, at least in part, his transformation of Husserl 's phenomenological conception of truth into the existen tial truth or disclosure of timeliness as the sense of being-here . This im­ portance is discussed in greater detail in the final chapters of the pres­ e n t study. There is, however, ano ther step to be taken in retracing Hei­ degger's attempt to unearth for his students the sources of the logical prej udice and the ontological assumptions associated with it. In order to show that Husserl 's conception of truth as the intuitive identity of what is mean t and given is not the last word on truth and, in the process, to demonstrate that the logical prejudice is not consistent with the pro­ foundest reaches of Husserl 's own analysis of intentionality, Heidegger next turns to the alleged source of the logical prej udice: Aristotle . 1 4 9 See n .

1 of Chapte r 5 .

3 TH E H E RME NEUTIC U NDERSTA NDING O F TR UTH : TH E CR ITICA L A P P RO PRIATION O F ARIST O TL E ' S A NA LYS IS O F TRUTH A ND ASS ERTI O NS

Guided at first more by a hunch than by a justified insight, I came to realize one thing: what for the phenomenology of acts of consciousness transpires as the phenomena's self­ manifesting is thought even more originally by Aristotle and in the entirety of Greek thinking and existence as aletheia, as the unhiddenness of what is present, its unveiling, its displaying-of-itself. Heidegger, 1 g6 3 1

Heidegger traces the self-confident, even overweening opposition to psychologism at the outset of the twen tieth century to the logical prej­ udice . As reviewed in Chapter 1 , his first step toward disestablishing the prej udice is to unearth the questionableness of what he takes to be its ontological presuppositions, at least as they are famously formulated by Lotze. Lotze 's epoch-se tting ontological accoun t of truth as a valid j udg­ ment differentiates it as one sort of actuality from others, including n o­ tably that of a mental act ofjudging. That very differentiation , however, rests upon an equivocal conception of actuality as "affirmedness" that, Heidegger charges, leaves unexplained what is common to th e forms of actuality as well as the diffe rences and possibilities of combinations a mong them . In con trast to this dogmatic dead end, the Husserlian conception of truth constitu tes a genuine breakthrough in Heidegger's eyes, precisely because Husser} , thanks to his theory of intentionality and its underly­ ing entelechy, conceives truth in its most basic sense not as the truth of

H E I D E G (� E R ' s C O N C E P T O F T R U T H

a j udgment, but rather as the truth of a distinctive sort of intuition or perception , where what is emptily entertained coincides with what is given . Heid e gger takes the second step toward dismantling the logical prej­ udice by elaborating how Husser} traces the truth of a j udgment ( propositional truth ) back to the truth of an intuition and yet, in spite of this breakthrough , remains fixed on a version of the logical preju­ dice and the fttndamental ontological naivete traditionally associated with it. Herein lies the double-edged character of Heidegger's remark about Husser! thinking the grand tradition ofWestern philosophy to an end. In con trast to a one-sided fixation on judgmen ts and propositions, Husser} restores intuition and perception to their decisive role in de­ tertni ning the truth. Thus, he explains how propositional truth - truth in the sense of the correctness of a judgmen t (by some accounts, its va­ lidity) - presupposes truth in the sense of the perceived identity of what is meant Uudged) with what is intui ted (perceived) . Yet he con tinues to orient the analysis of the truth of intui tion toward the truth of a judg­ ment and, more i mportantly, the presumption of that truth 's ideal on­ handtless. As a result, the account of percep tual truth remains no less fi rmly anchored than the narrower and derivative concept of proposi­ tional truth in a traditional , but unreflected conception of being. In Husse rl 's attempt to specify an overarching conception of truth, he equates truth with being as the on-hand identity of the state of affairs given in an intuition (perception , observation ) and also mean t in a j udgment. O ther meanings of 'being' or ' truth , ' if there be any, are ig­ nored or dismissed as insignifican t derivatives or deviants from their paradigmatic meaning as a kind of presence. Husserl 's emphasis on acts in the Logical Investigations (which he later criticizes and amends) may, indeed, be in part a function of assuming the on handness of truth and being. In any eve n t, despite Husserl 's in­ sigh ts into the fundamentally ecstatic, non represen tationalist character of intentionality, 2 he continues in his published wri tings to conceive truth primarily in terms of a subject (acts of meaning and intuiting) , differentiated from an object. 3 But neither the presence of something, 2 Th e term� 'ecstatic' and 'nonrepresentationalist' are not syn onyms. But 'ecstatic ' is Hei­

3

degger's term for the timely projections ulti mately underlying and consti tuting being­ h e re , in te rms of which th e man ners of bei ng of entities are prereflec tively and n on rep­ resen tationally disdosed . Henct>, 'ecstatic' captures the telos of H usserlian i n tentional i ty, its tendency to the tru th o r un covering of thi ngs, and rnore . See ld I 2 9 5 f: M i t d�n1 allge r nc i u e n \Ve�ens\cr�tandub de r Vc r n u n ft muB co ipso ..

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presupposed by the act of intuiting it, nor the absence of it implicit in the act of meaning it are produced by those acts. Heidegger's own con­ ception of truth as dis-closure is an attempt to appropriate Husserl 's conception but by desubj ectifying it, namely, by focusing on its onto­ logical - or even realist - presupposition : the "obj ect's" passage from being absen t to being present. 4 In a certain respect, this criticism and appropriation of Husser} are purely phenomenological. Inspired by Husserl 's own attentiveness to unwarran ted appeals to what is allegedly self-eviden t (selbstverstiindlich) , Heidegger is challenging the assumption of the sense of given ness that Husserl takes for granted as self-evident: the onhandness of the iden­ tity that he himself specifies as the primary meaning of ' truth ' and 'be­ ing. ' In other words, does the assumed given ness of the presence or on­ handness of that iden tity represen t the end of the analysis? From Heidegger's van tage point, Husserl 's analysis of truth as the object of an in tuition unravels the crucial presupposition of the logical prej u­ dice, thereby explaining the air of self-evidentness accompanying it. However, by clinging to the unexamined assumption that the truth is the presence of a state of affairs, a presence corresponding to a poten­ tial intuition or observation , Husserl 's analysis conti nues to fall prey, if not to the prej udice per se, then at least to a version of its ontological presuppositions. 5 die allgemeine Aufklarung der die Idee des wahrhafl Seins mit den ldeen Wahrheit, Ver­ nunft, BewuBtsein verbindenden Wesenskorrelationen gewonnen sein." As this text makes clear, H usserl in Ideas I clearly moves beyond the act-oriented framework of th e Logi cal Investigations. Yet the correlation of subject and object, based on a "phenomenol­ ogy of reason ,'' continues to dominate his concept of tru th . In the transparency of being­ here, by contrast, the distinction between the way an entity presen ts itself (its emergence into presence out of absence) and its presence to the entity that is here is a distinctio ra­ tionis. SZ 1 3 3 : "Being-here is i ts disclosedness." 4 Heidegger's first publication is devoted to the problem of reality in philosophy as elabo­ rated by Oswald Kiilpe ("Das Realitatsproblem in der m odernen Philosophie , " in FS 1 - 1 5 ) . More importantly, he takes up Kiilpe 's realistic doctrine of categories in the con­ clusion to his habilitation on Duns Scotus, where he proposes a unity of critical realism and transcendental idealism ( FS 403 n. 3 ) . See Strube, Zur Vorgeschichte, 7 3-7 8: ''Die Kon­ gruenz von transzendentalem Idealismus und kri tischem Realismus." Heidegger's ac­ coun t of tru th in the mid- 1 g 2os preserves th is realist dimension . Heidegger focuses not on a true proposition or perception but on what is presupposed by both of them, i.e., the timely emergence of an entity's presence from its absence. 5 Neither the logical prejudice 's unfoundedness nor its perniciousness nor its necessary con nection with the on tological presupposition of being as presence has be�n estab­ lished , it bears noting. Not everyone wh o restricts ' true ' to judgments, propositions, or assertions, etc., explici tly fonn ulates the presupposi tion in question. Moreover, even if it is assumed th at theories of tru th endo rsi ng th is restriction are gui ded by a conception of

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O NC E PT O F TR U T H

Heidegger's interpretation of the accomplishments and failures of Husserlian phenomenology accordingly leads to the question "whether this undiscussed predetermination of the truth is or is not in fact some­ thing ultimate and grounded in itself." 6 This question dete rmines the next step required in critically confronting the logical prej udice. Hei­ degger must show that Husserl 's account of truth in terms of intuition no more has the final word on the matter than does Lotze 's character­ ization of truth as a valid sentence . At the same time Heidegger takes it upon himself to explain why the overlapping truths of judgment and intuition or, better, the perceived identity of the asserted and the per­ ceived are considered the last word. "Why is truth the truth of an intu­ itio n , why is intuition the basic type of knowing, and why mus t truth , so understood , be construed as sameness ( identity) ? \'Vby is this tru th the truth of a sen tence, and why does the actuality of this tru th of a sen­ tence have the character of being, which Plato has ascribed to ideas?" ( L 1 24) . Heidegger thus obliges himself not only to lay out a notion of truth distinct from and presupposed by th e truth of intuitions and judg­ ments, but also to explain why the notion is nevertheless forgotten or ignored. The reasons for the obliviousn ess to the notion are addressed in the next chapter. The present chapter undertakes, among other things, to demonstrate how Aristotle 's various discussions of truth em­ bolden Heidegger to posit a truth that is n o t only prepredicative but also preintuitive (preperceptual ) . just as H usserl 's analysis of the truth of intuition brings to light what underlies the Lotze an concept of truth as judgtnent and, indeed , the entire tradi tion of the logical p rejudice, so the analysis of the Aristotelian doctrine of truth reveals a dimension presupposed but not adequately taken in to account by Husserlian phe­ nomenology, namely, an entity's presence o r display of itself. Aristotle, as Heidegger reads him , consistently makes the particular fo rm of truth ( perceptual, propositional , noetic) dependent upon the way in which what it means " to be" (or c o ns i de ra ti on of the uses of the term ) , Heidegger has not demonstrated that the o pe ra t ive c o n c ep ti o n for suc h theories m us t be a c o n c e p t i o n of prese nce. He has o n ly 'ihown that such a con c e p t i o n underlies Lotze 's o n t ol o g i c al de­ m a rc atio n of tru t h as v al i di ty ( Geltung) and the th e o re tical o ri en tat i o n of H u ss e rl s ph e­ n ome n o l og i c a l conception of truth . D e sp i te the bombast and i m mo d es t rhetoric of Hei­ degger's prese n ta t i o n ( e g talk o f "the grand t ra d it ion of We�tern ph i l oso p hy ) h e i" m e rely trac ing a particular historical line of conce p tions o f truth� and t h e i r correspon­ ding ( i m p li c i t or e x pl i c i t ) o n t o l o gi c a l p resu pp os i ti o n s 6 L 1 2 4. By raisi ng th is question , H ei d e gge r is making good on. his criticism of Lot7e for construin g t ru t h l i ke the other three forms of ac tu a li ty, as "self-grou nded." See I <1 2 '

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an entity respectively makes itself prese n t or, what is the same , upon its preeminent manner of being. 7 Appealing in this way to Aristotle 's reflections on truth is at odds, Heidegger is well aware, with a common perception of Aristotle as the source of the seminal insight in to the necessary connection of truth and judgmen t. Such diverse thinkers as Sigwart and Cohen, for exatnple , appeal to Aristotle for corroboration of the view that truth consists chiefly in judgmen ts. In this connection Cohen , to his credit, also makes clear that the truth of judgment is interwoven wi th a determi­ nation of being: "Hence , the basic form of being, that is the basic form of thinking, is not that of a concept but of a judgment. So, too, wi th re­ gard to the content and the result of thinking, the syn thesis has become the truth, the synthesis has become an identity. All of this is already ar­ ticulated by Aristotle , more or less. " 8 Quite apart from psychologistic and Neo-Kan tian debates, Tarski introduces his semantic conception of truth with the explici t aim of doing 'justice to the intuitions which ad­ here to the classical Aristotelian conception of truth, " which he understands as the view that sentences are true and true by virtue of their "corre­ spondence" with reali ty. 9 Hardly anyone, certainly not Heidegger, would dispute that Aristo­ tle 's doctrine of true and false judgments (or what Tarski calls "declar­ ative sentences") is seminal for subsequent accounts of truth . But Aris­ totle also countenances meanings of ' truth ' that correspond to sense percep tion as well as to a thinking akin to perception (aisthesis and nous, respectively) (De anima 430a26-2 8 , b 2 6-3o ) . Just as the categorial in­ tuition of truth, as Husser! conceives it, is ideally the full transparency of the object otherwise meant or signified, so for Aristotle sense per­ ception and some forms of thinking involve an immediate contact with 7 In Metaphysics, Th e ta 1 o, after spending most of the book on considerations of being as

potential and actual, Aristotle d e s cri b e s truth as the preeminent e nti ty (to kyriatota on) ; see Metaphysic� 1 05 1 b 1 -2 , 1 o26f. See also PS 1 8 7f; and s e c ti o n 3 · 3 below. 8 Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, 4 7 ; cf. Sigwart, Logik, 1 9f. 9 Tarski , "The Semantic Conception of Truth an d the Foundations of Semantics," in Read­ ings in Philosophical A nalysi.\, ed. H. Feigl and W. Sellars ( New York: Appleton-Century­ Crofts, 1 949 ) , 53f: "Vv'e should like our definition to do j ustice to the intuitions which ad­ here to th e classical Arist otel ia n concepti on of truth - intuitions which find their expression in the well-known words of Aristotle's Metaphysirs: To say of what is t h at it i.\ not, or of what is not tha t it is, is false, while to say of wh at i� that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true If we wished to adapt ourselves to modern ph i l o s ophica l terminology, we could perhaps ex­ press this conception by tnean� of the familiar formula: The truth of a sentence consists in it.\ agreemmt with (or corre.\pontlPnce to) reality. " Tarski i s referri ng to Metaphys io , Gamma, 1 0 1 1 b26-2g. .

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an object, devoid of any medium - physical, semiotic, linguistic, or oth­ erwise - that can introduce error. Yet there is an important difference between Husserl's and Aristotle's accounts . For Aristotle the difference between judgments and perception is centered not so much in the subject as in the way the object presents itself. Moreover, in the Metaphysics, �fheta 1 0, he elaborates the "most authentic" sense of being as an orig­ inal truth that can be explained in terms of neither an assertion nor an intuition and ye t is , Heidegger maintains, the condi tion of the possi­ bility of the truth or falsity of assertions in general . There is, to be sure, an important sense in which Aristotle 's accottnt of this original truth provides the logical prej udice with an illusory ontological warran t. Yet in another sense , Heidegger argues, Aristotle's account points to an original sense of truth as the process of the "disclosure " or "unbidden­ ness" of entities, a process that cannot be equated with their presence. 1 0 In contrast to the truth ofjudgmen ts and intuitions, this truth is that of a hermeneutic understanding (PS 1 8 1 ) . There is a structure to hermeneutic understanding - Heidegger calls it " the ' as'-structure" ­ that accounts for bivalence ( the truth and falsity of assertions) without being itself thoroughly bivalent. The presen t chapter follows the first major part of Heidegger's logic lectures, a part enti tled "The problem of truth in the decisive beginning of philosophical logic and the roo ts of the traditional logic." The first sec tion ( 3 . 1 ) takes up Heidegger's attempt to trace the assertion back to a hermeneutic understanding and a world of original meaning that is overlooked but presupposed by thematic uses of assertions. The sec­ ond section ( 3 . 2 ) turns to Heidegger's conception of the assertion, based on his in terpretation of the meaning of the Greek expression, lo­ gos apophantikos, and the way in which various levels of assertions mod­ ify a hermeneutic understanding. The third section ( 3 . 3 ) attempts to elucidate the pivotal role that Aristotle 's thinking about truth plays in Heidegger's own development of the topic , by way of both what he ac­ cepts and what he rejects in the Stagirite 's thinking. On the one hand, Heidegger conceives the truth of a hermeneutic understanding against the backdrop of Aristotle 's characterization of truth as " the most au­ thentic" mode of being- (L 1 9 1 ) . On the other hand, Heidegger faults "Free from any epistemology and its prejudices, one sees that the unhiddennfss is in a ce-rtain way a character of the being of the entities. " In both Marburg lectures of both 1 9 2 5 and 192 s / 26 Heidegger often employs the term ' J.;ntdecktheit' ( usually translated ' uncove redn ess ' ) for what he reserves for 'ErschlossPnheil' in SZ ( here translated ' dis­ dn��rl n eco.co. ' or 'rli"dosu re ' ) : cf. P 4 4 4 ·

1 o PS 1 8 fif:

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Aristotle for heralding the conception of being that is traditionally wed­ ded to the logical prejudice . Heidegger's bold interpre tation of Aris­ totle's ontological doctrine in this connection thus brings the present study to the thresh hold of his final step in dismantling the logical prej­ udice . That step, th e argument of Being and Time, is the theme of the next chapter. For from the fact that Aristotle - like Lotze and Husser) after him - conceives truth or, equivalently, the preeminent sense of be­ ing as "presence ," Heidegger infers the necessity of unpacking the sense of time underlyi ng that conception . 3 . 1 The World of Original Meaning and the Hermeneutic 'As ' -Structure of Pri mary Unde rstanding

De interpretatione 1 7a 1 -3 is the locus classicus of the Aristotelian defin i­ tion of the assertion (logos apophantikos) . According to this definition , the assertion is different from the other forms of speaking, for exam­ ple, wishing, requesting, commanding, and so on, because the assertion alone can be true or false. Heidegger comments : "Every manner of talk­ ing means something, which is to say that it is intelligible [ver­ stiindlich] . . . . But to mean something in this man ner and , at the same time , to allow the thing meant to be seen" is reserved for th e manne rs of talking in which "being-true and being-false occur": logos apophantikos (PS 1 8 1 ; L 1 29) . Here the assertion is clearly determined in view of the truth and not vice versa. What an assertion is will only be clear to some­ one who already understands what it means for some thing to be true or false . 1 1 Heidegger is quick to draw attention to the fact that Aristotle defines assertions in terms of truth rather than vice versa, since it calls into ques­ tion the propriety of construing him as the "originator" of the logical prejudice . Indeed , on the basis of De interpretatione and contrary to the traditional view, Aristotle would seem to be more closely allied to a po­ sition like that defended by Heidegger: "A sentence is not the site of truth , but rather the truth is the site of the sentence" ( L 1 35 ; SZ 2 26; PS 1 8 2 , 1 8 8 , 6 1 7 ) . Nor are pe rception or intuition the ul timate si te. The site of truth is ultimately ontological , the emergence of an entity 1 1 This claim does not, of cou rse , rule o u t other fu nct i o ns of assertions, such as c o m m u­ n ication . " I n the artic ulated ass e rt i o n ," as Hei degge r puts i t, "the n1atter itself that h as been poi n ted out h a s become a c c e ss i b l e a n d , as it were , p re se rv e d " ( L 1 3 3 ) . See n . 1 9 b e l ow and esp. s ec t i on 4 . 2 fo r the c rucial role played by c o mmu n i c at io n i n c e m e n ting. the logical prejt trl i n-> i n r�opl e 's m i n rl 'l .

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out of absence and into presence, though an adequate description of this emergence must encompass what it is absent from and prese nt to. 1 2 Th is view of truth i s not exactly Aristotle 's, to be sure, but his discussion of truth helps Heidegger arrive at this view. Though Aristotle 's definition of assertions presupposes a conception of truth , his definition also makes it clear that they enjoy a special rela­ tionship to truth. Exactly what the relationship between assertions and truth might be is by no means obvious. One solution is, of course , some version of the logical prejudice itself, for example , th e presumption of thei r identity or equivalence . On this view, truth is always bound to an assertion (whereby every falsehood is also bound to an assertion that, on the basis of the law of excluded middle, implies the possibility of the corresponding truth , i . e . , the corresponding true assertion) . However, if the relation between assertions and the truth is interpreted in this manner, then the Aristotelian definition of an assertion is circular. Aris­ totle would, in effect, have defined assertions by means of concepts ("being true," "being false" ) that can themselves be determined only by or even as assertions. The question ' how can an assertion be true or false ? ' could not only not be answered, it could not be meaningfully posed. Heidegger's interpretation of the Aristotelian definition of an asser­ tion does not proceed from the premise that i t is circular. Instead he at­ tempts to do j ustice to the particular relation of assertions to some se nse of truth , without losing sigh t of Aristotle's insight that the definition of an assertion presupposes a concept of truth . "It itself [ the assertion ] is on ly understandable as a manner of letting some thing be see n by way of pointing it out," and it is only understandable as such "on the basis of ' truth ' as uncovering" (L 1 34 ) . As this text suggests, on Heidegger's reading, Aristotle recogn izes the intentional or ecstatic character of as­ sertions. Though not to be confused with seeing, an assertion is a way of allowing something - and not a representation or mental replication of it - to be seen, to present itself. At the same time, this interpre tation invites the question of how assertions can be false . 1 3 1 2 PS 1 7 : "The aletheia is a peculiar ch arac ter of an en titfs manner of bei ng, in sofar as the en tity stands in a relatio n to some man ner of looking upon i t, to a disclosing by way of looking arou n d on eself in th e midst of en ti ties, to a knowi ng.'' For a discussion of the mean i ng of ' aletheia, ' parti cularly with respect to th e privative ch aracter of the prefix ' {/;- , and to th e notion that truth is s o m e t h i n g that is not in1 mediate.ly available but m ust be "u nearth (>d" and "un covered , " cf. PS I !) ff. 1 � I-I e i degg c t \ 1 e nd c r i n g of Ari s to tl e 's defi n i tion o f assertio ns can be read as th e c l a i m

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One of the curiosities of assertions is that, whatever the structure of a true assertion , it is the same structure that would underlie its falsi ty. But where should one begin to clarify and explain the structure of the assertion that renders it capable of truth as well as falsity, revealing as well as concealing? Such a structure is seemingly ready at hand: the structure of the articulated or written assertion, namely, the sentence 's word order. In fact, Heidegger maintains, "the en tire Greek logic and thereby our logic up to the presen t is primarily oriented to the spoken sen tence." 1 4 Taking his bearings from the spoken o r articulated assertion ( the sentence ) , Aristotle establishes that every assertion , whether it affirms or denies, illuminates or obscures, has the unified structure of both put­ ting together (synthesis) and taking apart ( diairesis) at once . 1 .� The asthat, while the assertion allows something to be seen, the seeing - or in Heidegger's pre­ ferred jargon , the hermeneutic understanding - makes the assertion possible. Indeed, the insistence on truth as the site of the assertion may suggest as much. However, it should be clear in what follows th at assertions are not something merely on the site but in some important sense help co-constitute i t. This co-constitutive character is implied, it bears noti ng, by the way in which , according to Heidegger, all perceptions are cate­ gorially and discursively "saturated'' (as reviewed in the last chapter) . 1 4 L 1 3 4 n ; cf. L 1 40, 1 4 2; SZ 1 58f; PS 2 5f, 20 1 , 2 5 2 f. As these texts indicate, Heidegger does not by any means excuse Aristotle from any complicity in establishing th e logi cal prejudice. Aristotle con tributes to the prejudice in two ways. The less interesting way, indicated by th ese texts, is his orien tation toward the spoken or articulated sen tence. Th is orien tation is ultimately tied to the fallen condition of bei ng-here; and this orien­ tation is, accordingly, of cen tral im portance to Heidegger's historical argument. But Aris totle also identifies truths that are matters not of assertions and judgments but of sensation and thought (aisthesis and nous) . Yet, in these and other ways in which things present themselves, the overriding principle is the thing's ousia, which Heidegger sees as its abiding presence , accounting for its properties and profiles ( as well as the subject­ predicate or function-argument s tructure of propositions) . As a result, Heidegger ar­ gues, the logical prejudice of equating truth in the primary sense of the term with pres­ ence is given an on tological foundation . 1 5 De anima 6 , 430b3 , and De interpretatione 1 , 1 6a 1 2 ; PS 1 8 4 ff; L 1 35- 1 42 . In the predi­ cate calculus pains are taken to render these two sides of the structure of assertions per­ spic uous on two levels. On one level , variables and predicates are differen tiated and combined in form ing asse rtions. For exam ple, if ' x' characterizes an individual variable and 'F ' functions as a predicate ( name of a property) , the form of the assertion may be expressed as ' F'x. ' However, it is not the form of the assertion , but the a�sertion itself that is about something and therefore true or false. A second level of differentiation and com­ bination is accordingly expressed thanks to similarities and dissimi larities between the form of the assertion (an "open" sen tence) and the assertion itself (a "closed" sen­ tence ) . The assertion form can be transformed into an assertion by substituting the name of an individual (e.g. , ' a' ) fo r the free variable ' x' or by quan tifying over the vari­ able. Cf. Qu i n e , MP.thods oj lJogic, 1 45 ; Quine, Pursu zt of Truth, 2 66f, 3 1 . Th e aim of the pr�rl i c� tt · r�ku l n � i" t h � establish men t of t h t• possi hi li ti�s of val i d i nft- rence" t h a t can

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T RU T H

sertion 'An na h as become Vronsky's lover' brings Anna and Vronsky to­ gether, allowing a new state of affairs (in this case, an affair) to be seen, but also holds them apart, in a state (and as it turns out, an ominous state ) of paten tial separation . 1 6 This very determination m akes it clear that the linguistic form of the sentence alone is not the key to its truth or falsity. An assertion is not true by virtue of the fact that it contains a synthesis of words or meanings of words ( nor is it false by virtue of the fac t that it contains a diairesis of the same ) . If an assertion is defined as a manner of allowing something to show itself, then the key to its syn­ thetic character and possibility of being true or false must lie i n the man ner in which the object of the assertion displays i tself. 1 7 Men tion has already been made of the fact that, for Aristotle, there are ways in which things presen t themselves that do not allow for any error (e . g. , the presence of a proper sensible i n aisthesis, the presence of essences or what is utterly simple to nous) . Assertions and judgments, by contrast, are bivalent because what they are about can present i tself in a faulty or partial manner or c hange the way in which it presents itself (De anima 430b 2 7-29) . The synthetic character of assertions, expressed by way of affirmation or negation , presupposes a plurality, two or more things or aspects already on hand i n combination with one another (Metaphysics be drawn from definite (well-formed ) asse rtions, possibilities that can be determined purely formally or symbolically - thus, apart from what the assertions are about. Never­ theless, as the basic difference between an assertion and its form make clear, the second level of the unified struc ture (synthesis/ diairesis) cannot be ignored in the predicate cal­ culus, at the very leas t as a structural dimension. ( I n a similar fashion , proposi tional logic is dependen t upon truth in the sense of so-called truth-values and corresponding truth functions. )

1 6 I a m grateful t o Be rnard Prusak for the example. I n the rest o f th is chapter, t h e terms 'syn thesis ' and 'synth etic ' are often employed without their counterparts merely for the sake of econo my, on the assumption that every syn thesis is also a diairesis. 1 7 It might be objected that on this definition, not assertions but only their objects could be false, inasm uch as they fail to show themselves in th e proper way. (This objection is related to the problem of interpreting the sense in which truth is the site of assertions, discussed in n . 1 3 above . ) In defi ning assertions as ways of allowing something (' x' ) to be seen (Sehenlassen) , Heidegger does suppose that x is on hand to be seen , poin ted out, and poi n ted ou t in a certain way. But th is supposition does not entail that the asse rtion is the only way fo r x to show i tself or that if x is seen on the basis of an asserti on, the as­ serti on cann ot be false. An assertion retai ns the intentional character of uncovering something or, more precisely, prqjecting it� uncovering, eve n when the way in wh ich it poin t� to x or would have x be seen ( e.g. , as Vro nsky 's lover) is not or is n o longer fo rth­ com in g. Hence, the assertion can co-consti tu te t he site for th ings to disclose themselves, in one res pect, while no t sacrifi cing their bival ence , in another respe c t I am g rateful to Jeremy Ryan for fo t-cing me to clarify this ma t t er .

.

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1 0 2 7b 1 7-2 2 ; L 1 64f, 1 6gf) . The synthesis is indicative of a mereologi­ cal relation ( part-part or part-whole) . For example, what a predicate stands for often specifies a part of what the subject does , while (on a nominalist reading of Aristotle 's theory) what the subject stands for is frequently an instance or subdivision of what the predicate stands for. This mereol ogical structure corresponds not only to the fact that the entity or state-of-affairs (Sach-verhalt) is composite and presents itself as such, but also that it only presen ts part of itself ( in the form of the pred­ icate ) or is only partially realized. In Aristotelian terms, objec ts of as­ sertions are c omposites of energeia and dunamis, which Heidegger trans­ lates, not simply as actuality and possibility, but as being and not being ( i .e . , not yet being) "on hand" (L 1 7 4 ) . Assertions accordingly have a synthetic structure and thus are true or false , more or less revealing or dissembling, because they are about something, something that is in the process of showing itself. This par­ tial, ongoing self-display on the part of the entity itself is responsible for the synthetic and bivalent character of assertions. The structure of pred­ ication, including its specification and classification by way of attribu­ tion or denial of a property, presupposes this basic structure . 1 8 There is a close connection between the structure of e ntities as com­ posites of potentiality and actuality and the process of their display of themselves . Heidegger is more interested in the latter and even accuses Aristotle of confusing the two (which amoun ts to confusing on tic and ontological dimensions in Heidegger's scheme of things) . In this process, things present themselves, not in isolation, but to someone in the context of his or her concerned understanding. Correspondingly, assertions are not anonymous and they are not made in a vacuum about something. Instead they are made about something to which one al­ ready has some access and which is already present to some degree. The assertion requires "having in advance something that is in some way dis­ closed , that it points to in the manner of determining" ( SZ 1 5 7 ) . One says somethin g about something that is already more or less familiar; and, hence, the assertion is only possible "on the basis of already-being­ involved-with what is to be pointed out, in such a way, to be sure, that it h as been disclosed in a certain way" (L 1 5 3 ) . By way of refe rring to something and determining it through predication , hitherto unfamil­ iar characteristics may be uncovered , so that it is made more accessible. 1 8 'An na has become Vronsky 's lover' i s true o r fa l se revea l i n g o r disse mbl i ng, de p e n d ing ,

upon the evidence th at can be p roduced an d what beco m es of the affair.

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Yet, however novel and revealing the predication , it remains meaning­ ful only insofar as that about which it is asserted is already familiar and, thus, already presen t. "In order for something like the predicative sin­ gling out and determining to be possible, what it is about must itself have already become accessible . " 1 9 This familiarity, acquaintance, or accessibility is thus in a certain sense the foundation of assertions and normal use of them. Asserting ( as well as knowing in a theoretical sense ) only comes about because what an assertion or j udgment is about has already been disclosed in some way ( perhaps by anoth er assertion ) . 20 Heidegger thus interprets Aristotle 's definition of assertion intentionally, as one manner among tnany of relating to things, distinguished by the fact that it is a way of enabling things to be seen or pointing thetn out. The foregoing famil­ iarity stems from a non thematic context of care and concern , a manner of dealing wi th things that is more original than any assertions making up a theory about them . Whether and how something about which one speaks is familiar depend essentially on this specific con text; that is to say, that about which an assertion is made, is already "accessible, for ex­ ample, in the purpose i t serves, in what it is used as" ( L 1 43 ) . The things that one deals with are always already uncovered on the basis of their utility, in other words, on the basis of "what they are for" or "where they are supposed to help us get to" (das Wozu ihrer Dienlichkeit) . Something is used and understood as something (for example, as a door or a win­ dow) from the outset; this manner of "opening" things up stems from In both the l ogic lectures and i n SZ th ree meanings are assigned to asse rtions: pointing up, predication, communication; cf. L 1 3 3 f a nd SZ 1 5 4- 1 5 8 . In SZ, where the assertion is construed as subo rdinate to interpretation and thus understanding, those three meanings line up approximately with the detern1inations o f discourse (Rede) : the about-which , what is said as such , the communication, and th e manifestation (das Woriiber, das Geredete als solchfs, die Mitteilu ng, die Beku ndung) ; see SZ 2 2 3f, 1 6 1 f. In the logic lectures H ei degger refers to the "about which of the asserti o n (L 1 43 ) . It should not be overl oo ke d that asserting is only one form o f discourse an d that theoretical as­ sertions presuppose both non theoretical assertions and other forms of discourse . L 1 4 5 . The fu nction of this foregoing familiari ty resembles that accorded to in nate ideas within a rati onal ist epistem ology or sense impressions wi thi n its empiricist counterpart or even Russell 's "knowledge by ac quainta n c e " S i m i larl y, while kn ow l e d g e (Erken n t n i., ) " in the strict sense" for Ka n t is a synthesis of concept and intui tion ( u n derstan ding and sensibili ty) , he someti mes e m p l oys the term as a synonym for whatever seems to be c l e a rl y ( i e , c o nsc i o u s l y ) entertained or represented, including the ingredie n t� of the synthesis that is kn owledge "in the s tri c t sense" (com pare , e.g. , B 3 3 , g 2 f, 1 03 ) . Ye t, re­ gardle�� of how such cognate n o ti on s of a foregoing or fun dan� e n tal fam i l i ari ty migh t be elaborated i n other epi�tem ological systeins, wh a t Heidegger has in m i n d by i t i s by no n 1 c a n � t h c o r( ti c a l o r p roto theoretical .

1 9 L 1 43 .

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.

.

.

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"a primary way of meaning them on the basis of what they are for" (einem primiiren Bedeuten aus dem Wozu) (L 1 44 ) . We are familiar with the very things that, to put it in the most gen­ eral way, we "simply have to deal with " ( schlicht zu tun hat and umgeht) , in other words, what we use, th e things to wh ich we are as accustomed as we are with our own skins. This familiarity is often silent. When things are taken as such and such in the context of ordinary dealings with them , there is typically no need for any aspect or part of this process to be expressed. One is so acquainted, for example, wi th the door to one 's room that it would be quite strange to give explicit expression to that acquaintance. It would normally also be odd for someone to assert " the door to my room opens and closes ," even though the door is familiar to that person precisely because it opens and closes for her to enter and exit. One opens th e door as the way into and out of the room, closes the door as the means of securing the rootn. This opening and closing defines the respective access to the door. The term 'as ' shows that in the course of using the door one al ready takes hold of it as something, for example, as a means of entry or exit. "This 'as-someth ing' is thus un­ derstood from the outset; what is encountered, that which I have to deal with , first becomes accessible as such on the basis of it" (L 1 46 ) . The door, originally accessible in the manner just discussed, is thus not "initially something meaning-free" that exhibits itself indepen­ den tly of its "handiness" (Zuhandenheit) as a means of entry and exi t. A particular, perchance perfectly normal change in attitude is required to construe the door as something else (for example , as wood, as two meters high , as French , etc. ) . By con trast, a far more enormous change in attitude is needed to grasp it "as-free" (for example, in an allegedly pure "sensation") - "if it is possible at all ," Heidegger adds (L 1 45 ; SZ 1 49 ) . The door is taken precisely as the way of passing through one room into another and, as al ready men tioned, "what" it is "fo r" or, even more literally, "where" it is supposed to help us get "to" ( Wozu ihrer Di­ enlichkeit) determines what and how th e door is. Thanks to this same utili ty, it follows furthermore that the original meaning of the door is not uncovered piece by piece , so to speak, but only in an en tire con text. In Being and Time Heidegger accordingly char­ acterizes the manner of being of what is handy as an "involvement" or "relevance" (Bewandtnis) th at goes back to some "what for" or "\\'hereto" (Wozu) . 2 1 (While ' Wozu' is more typically used in colloquial German to 21

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1 88

' H E I D EGGER S C O N C EPT OF TRUTH

signify a n interrogative that is best translated 'What's the purpose? ' or 'What's it for? , ' the term originally also signifies a place toward which one is going, as an American cabbie might say to his passenger, "Where to?" ) A "world of meaning" obtains on the basis of this context directed at sotne purpose ("What for?" ) or destination ( "Where to?") . More pre­ cisely: the world is the "meaningfulness" that is constituted by a "refer­ ential con text" (SZ 87f, 364) . Ontologically speaking, given this un­ derlying, relevance-determining context, there is no such thing as a single tool, that is to say, a tool by itself without reference to other im­ plements (a point that Dewey was also making at approximately the same time ) . "Shaped by a certain understanding, we mean such and such and this act of meaning is not primarily oriented toward individ­ ual things or general concepts but instead lives in the enviro ns nearest to it and in the world as a whole." 22 The original meaning of things thus comes about holistically in the ac­ cess to them afforded by use of them. In more traditional epistemo­ logical terms, entities present themselves so partially and immediately that they escape our direct attention, even as we use them as means to some end. Hence, their original meaning is simultaneously and indi­ visibly the way that they present themselves and are taken - used as such­ and-such - in a prereflective manner and context. In a certain sense, Heidegger is merely giving a worldly interpretation of Aristotle 's ex­ planation for the bivalence of assertions, namely, the not fully realized process of entities' presenting themselves to human understanding. The originality of a world of meaning accordingly does not refer to something that somehow obtains independently of the fundamental understandabili ty of that access. This original meaning takes place ini­ tially and for the most part in the concrete manner in which one lives and deals with thi ngs. A specific context of concern provides a place and a degree of order for that acquaintance through use. Although worlds of meaning open themselves up within the framework of human beh avior, the way in which they do so should in no way be equated with "subjectively shaping and comprehending what is on hand" (L 1 46, 1 50 ) . Instead , human beings move and live from the outset in and through a basic understanding, a complex of prereflective habits and know-how. In Being and Time Heidegger refers to this phenomenon as Crowell point� ou t. See Lask, Die /,ogik dfr Philosophie, 66; and Crowel l , ''Lask, H e i deg­ ger, and the Homelessn ess of Logic :' 2 2 Rff. 2 2 L 1 5 0 , 1 44; SZ ti R , 353 ;john Dewey, Expnienu � and 1Val ute ( New Yu 1 k: D ove r, 1 95 8 ) , 1 2 � .

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the "primary understanding of the relevance as a whole, within which factual concern respectively takes its start, " an understanding that is "a more or less explicit overview" and �'the 'overview-like ' circumspec tion of concern . "23 Heidegger describes this "primary" but unthematic understanding as a "manner of behaving by way of meaning something" (bedeutendes Verhalten) . He characterizes th is behavior as a manner of coming back to what is encountered, but coming back to it by virtue of where one is "coming frotn. " Or, as he also puts it, this primary way of behaving is "a manner of coming-back that in each case already holds up in the wh ere­ from of meaning and understanding" (or, alternatively, i ts vantage point is that from which one means and understands: Woher des Be­ deutens und Verstehens) (L 1 48) . Heidegger's use of ' Woher' in this con­ text has cognates in colloquial American uses of 'where . . . from . ' Just as one might ask "Where is she from?" or "Where does that come from? ," so too the question might be raised regarding a person 's pro­ posal or suggestion: "Where is she coming from?'' But what is c rucial for Heidegger is not only the fac t that what she encounters is shaped by "where she is coming from" but also by the fact that "where she is com­ ing from" is determined by "where she is going" or, more prosaically, "what she is getting at. " In Heidegger's analysis of this phenomenon, th e term ' as' ( to understand or project something as such and such ) ex­ presses the structure of this primary understanding or, equivalen tly, way of relating ( behaving, comporting ourselves) . Precisely in the process of "coming back'' from some implicit "wherefrom" that is in turn al­ ready shaped by a "where-to," a perso11 uncovers what she encounters, uncovering it for some purpose and thus as such and such. (Some very m undane examples: coming from the kitchen in order to avoid the neighbors, she uses the back door as her way out; in order to beat the traffic, she comes from work by taking the old highway as a shortcut; to protect herself, she joined the union and, knowing where she comes from, she regards the hiring of non-union temps as a provocation . ) The unthematic "whence or from-where" proceeds from an equally un the­ matic "what-for or where-to. " "Thus, precisely the coming back from the wherefrom, where I already am, has the peculiar function of opening 2 3 S Z 359· While "prac tical" conce rn is guided b y circumspection , li terally a look-around ( Umc;icht) , this look itself is gu ided by an ove rview ( Ubersicht) "of the ensemble of im­ pleme n ts of the respective world of implements and the surroun ding public world [ UmwPlt] proper to it" ( SZ 3 .� B f) . See also SZ 1 48 : "The look-around un covers; tha t means, the 'worl d ' that is already u n de r")tood i s i n terp re ted . "

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u p . That is the first step of interpretation o f this behavior in accordan ce with the 'as'" (L 1 48 ) . Insofar as we first encounter something in view of that "where . . . from" and "where . . . to," these two directions to­ gether form , so to speak, th e horizon that determines what something is understood as. 24 This structure of u nderstanding provides the answer to the question of what qualifies an assertion to be able to be true or false. "The answer is: i t is the ' as' - the structure that is part of understanding as such ; the understanding that must be understood in this case as a fundamen tal type of being of our being-here" ( L 1 5on . ) . Heidegger calls this strttc­ ture " the basic hermeneutic strttcture" of human life, also the '" as'­ structure of understanding in a primary way," and "the hermeneutic 'as "' (L 1 43 ) . Recall the examples mentioned in the last paragraph ( "the highway as shortcut," "hiring non-union workers as a provoca­ tion " ) . Heidegger writes that "each instance of having something in fron t of oneself and taking something up is in i tself a 'having' of some­ thi ng as something" ( L 1 44 ) . A person is originally acquainted with the door by opening and closing it, by having to deal with it. That is to say, the door as passageway or as locked is the original access to it. This ac­ cess is no thematic grasping, but instead a "matter of having-to-deal­ with-it on a daily basis ," "a mode of understandability that is necessarily a part of each i nstance of being-here that is being in the world , a mode that can vary, of course, to a wide extent. " 25 The 'as' -structure of this original manner of understanding explains why an assertion contains both a composition (synthesis) and a division (diairesis) , something that Aristotle correctly establishes but does not fully explain (see SZ 1 59; L 1 4 2 , 1 4 9 ; PS 1 84ff) . Taking x as Fcombines them (synthesis) without collapsing them (diairesis) . This ' as'-structure itself is for the most part "prepredicative." As has already been stressed, 2 4 In German as in English, these in terrogatives of place (wohPT, '\vhence,' and wozu, ' w h e re to ' ) can be cons trued temporally. Such usage may have con tributed to Heidegger's be­

� .fJ

lief that he could artic ulate spatiality in terms of timel in e ss . In any case , those inter­ rogative� serve as hori1ons for what H eid egger calls the ''ecstases ," prethematic processes of bei ng "outside oneself' that rnake up the ti1neli ness of being-i n-th e-world ; cf. section 4 · 5 bel ow. L 1 44n , 1 49f; SZ 1 4 7 . Gestures provi de anoth e r example of how our underlitan di ng pre­ supposes a world of origi nal m ean i n g that can only be learned. In a foreign coun try it is not always easy to know whether the way in which someone moves her body is a ges­ tu re , intended to ex press �omething. O n e migh t con strue a silent gesture as an insu l t or a� a fl i rt and reac t acc ordingly. But fi rst one has to understand it as a gestu re and not son1eth i ng else , e . g . , a Ill er e 1 el1 t> x .

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the hermeneutic ' as'-structure of understanding in the primary sense of the term consists in the fact that one understands something on the basis of the purpose it serves; for example, something is used, that is to say, originally understood , as a door. In order to "take" something as or for a door, it is thus not initially a matter of predication but instead more fundamentally - of a way of encountering it: "In having-to-deal with something, I make no thematically predicative assertions about it" (L 1 44f; SZ 1 49, 359) . Yet the key to the structure of assertions and predication lies in the fact that the structure of our primary understanding is a matter of tak­ ing th ings as such and such. The apophantic ' as'-structure , established by Aristotle in terms of synthesis and diairesis, is grounded in the hermeneutic ' as '-structure. "Predication has the ' as'-structure, but in a de­ rivative manner," as Heidegger puts it (L 1 45 ) . The fact, for example, that a door is used as an exit is generally the basis for asserting and in­ fortning someone: "The door is an exit. " Without an original access to something, an access acquired through use, that is to say, without the foregoing acquaintance with something within a context of concern , there would be no assertion about it. "If from the outset I had not al­ ready encountered something, then there would be no basis for pass­ ing it on as such-and-such" (L 1 8 7 ) . Predication, which consists in de­ termining something more precisely, presupposes and "lays out'' this original meaning. Insofar as predication aims at thematizing some subj ect matter, it lives, so to speak, from this original meaning. The relation between the hermeneutic ' as' and the apophantic ' as' can be illustrated by means of the following schema. The Stages of the 'As' -Structure apophantic (de rivative ) , e.g. , 'This door is an exit. '

I

existentiel ( ontic/preontological ) , e.g. , the door is used as an exit. hermeneutic ( primary) 'as'

I

The two 'as'-structures represented in this chart belong unthematically to a manner of understanding. (Why one sort of understanding is la­ beled "existentiel" is discussed below. ) Using the door as an exit is an expression and enactmen t of a hermeneutic understanding. There is a temptation , H e i d e gge r obse rves , to construe the hermeneutic 'as' as if " the wh ere . from of in terpreting and what is to be i n terp re t e d itself' .

.

H E I D EGGER ' S

CONC EPT

OF TRUTH

would have to be formally combined and distinguished in the course of carrying out the interpretation ( L 1 48£) . The sense of the hermeneu­ tic ' as'-structure would then be conflated wi th a theoretical recon­ struction of assertions, what they are about (as combinations of distinct features that are already on hand) , and/ or the way in which assertions themselves are combined with and distinguished from states of affairs ( e .g. , "A proposi tion is a picture of reality") . 26 But such interpre tations, Heidegger i nsists, fail to convey the primary tneaning of the hermeneu­ tic ' as'-structure . Syn thesis and diairesis, as formal conditions of the apophantic ' as '-structure, originate in the hermeneutic ' as'-structure and not vice versa. "From the mere structure of placing things together that is at the same titne a way of taking them apart, it is not already in i tself understandable that the way of behaving of what has this struc ture is anything like meaning and understanding. " 27 In other words, while the hermeneutic ' as' ( taking x as a door) involves both combining and separating, these features by themselves do not capture its dynamics of straightforwardly, nonthematically having something, dynamics in which from the outset both the horizon ( the unity of a concrete "from . . . where and where . . . to?" ) and what is encountered belong together. H � idegger is clumsily making an importan t poin t. There is, he main­ tains, a primary level of understanding implicit in using things and deal­ ing with them . Between this understanding and what things are taken for or, better, between what the ttnde rstanding proj ects and the way in which en tities present themselves, there is a vital and prethematic ( ha­ bitual ) unity. Trying to recover the dynamics of this primary under­ standing by means of the logical structure of assertions or the parts of a sentence structure would be equivalent to trying to put Humpty­ Dumpty back together again . There is a truth to this primary under­ standing that it is impossible to establish once assertions and proposi­ tions are taken as "freestandi ng," detached from a primary con text of understanding (PS 2 5£) . At the same time, Heidegger argues, the way things disclose themselves in and to that primary understanding (wh ere they are taken "as'' such and such ) is precisely the source of the syn­ thetic and thus bivalent character of assertions. In Being and Time Heidegger accordingly characterizes this primary 26 vVi ttgc nste i n , 'lrartatus Logico-Philo�ophicus , 4 .0 1 .

27

L

1

49� SZ 1 49 .

H e idegge r

( L 1 49 ) stre�ses t h e in appl icabi l i ty

of syn thesis a n d diai resis

to the o ri g in a l m ean i ng (Bedfulen) and the n proceeds to (ien1ons t rate t h a t " the ht>nn �ncu t i c ' a � '-struc tu r�" is i n fact th e i r origi n ; see L t .r:; o n. 6 , 1 60.

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understanding as an existential , one of the ways that constitute the dis­ closiveness of being-here, the very site in which things display them­ selves. "The original ' as' of the interpretation shaped by a circumspec­ tive understanding" is called "the existential-hermeneutic ' as' " ( SZ 1 58 ) . By this means Heidegger alludes to a distinction in regard to the hermeneutic ' as, ' a distinction that should not be overlooked. ( Since the elaboration of this distinction necessarily anticipates then1es treated in greater detail in subsequent sections and above all in the next chapter, the disti nction is merely sketched here . ) The hermeneutic ' as' is both existe ntiel and existential, or, correlatively, both ontic/preon­ tblogical and ontological. The adjective ' on tic' in Heidegger's jargon designates relations among entities or features that distinguish one sort of entity from another ( not unlike the situation presented in what Husserl labels "the natural attitude " ) . What disti nguishes the entity that is-here - the fundamentally dis-closive manner of being that is peculiar to humans - is the fact that its being is at stake for it. The fact that its being is at stake implies that to be here , to be the place where entities make themselves present and absent themselves, is to have some un­ derstanding of being. The adjective ' preontological ' refers to this pre thematic understanding of its being. But the fact that this being is at stake also i mplies a possibility of being or not being oneself, an un­ resolved tension that can only be decided by one's manner of existing. Heidegger accordingly reserves the term 'existence ' for this distinctive , self-referential way of being, peculiar to being-here . ' Existentiel ' refers to the decisive self-understanding involved in being-here, something that always transpires on an antic as well as an ontological level, that is to say, in the context of relations between oneself and o ther entities. 'Existential , ' by con trast, refers to the theoretical understanding of the structures making up existence, an understanding that obviously need not be presen t in order for someone to exist. These distinctions apply directly to the 'as'-structures of under­ standing. In the first place, it is plai nly an existentiel and ontic/preon­ tological affair whether one uses and thereby hermeneutically under­ stands the door as an entrance or exit and some thing handy. It is obvious that a particular use can be errant or go wrong and thus righ tly be designated a failure or mistake ( e . g. , " Going out by that door is wrong since it is only to be used in an emergency" ; ''You are doing the wrong thing," or ''You are doing it wrongly" ) - though it is obviously only a failure against the backdrop of successes or accomplishments. In this lvay, the hermeneu tic 'as '-structure is the origin of the apophantic

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OF

TRUTH

'as'-structure and, wi th it, the synthetic and bivalent charac ter of asser­ tions. In the second place , however, it is the very nature of being-here , o f existing, to project oneself, one 's possibilities of being, and, indeed, to do so in view of a horizon against which things display themselves and their manners of being ( SZ 365 ) . Things are first understood hermeneutically against th is horizon and, indeed, "as" also being-here or being "handy" or "on hand ," though the understanding is for the most part preon tological. The h ermeneutic ' as' is existential because it co-constitutes existence, "the being itself to which being-here can relate in this or that way and always does relate in some sort of way" (SZ 1 2 ) . But precisely a theore tical determination of existence, designated by the term 'existential ' and coinciding with an authentic way of relating to it, requires the on tological differentiation of being-here from simply being-handy or being-on-hand. 2R 'Existentiel' and 'existential ' refer, respectively, to unthematic and thematic understandings of being-here, bringing with them corre­ sponding on tic and ontological understandings of entities encoun­ tered wi thin the world. Yet the existential-hermeneutic 'as' is much more than a purely formal and constantly obtaining structure that can be read off each case of the existentiel-hermeneutic 'as. ' Inasmuch as th e hermeneutic ' as '-structure reflects a projection of a poten tial-to-be, that structure depends upon and existentially discloses a sense of the future. Heidegger resolves this futural projection into an ''ecstasis" ( his te rm for the projecting itself) and its "horizon ." As elaborated in the n ext chapter, he contends that this ecstatic-horizonal structure constitutes the most basic sense of the future and other modes of time or what he calls �'the timeliness of being-here," including the primary understand­ ing wi th its hermeneutic ' as ' -structure. He accordingly declares that " the 'as ' is grounded, like understanding and interpreting in general, in the ecstatic­ horizonal unity of timeliness" (SZ 360) . In oth er words, what is encoun­ tered is not understood merely ( on tically) as an exi t or a door, but also (preontologically) in its manner of being, as "being-handy" or "being­ on-hand," and this understandin g is based on the timely horizon in terms of which a homan being at some level understands herself or, what is the same , concretely projects her existence . What is encoun­ tered is uncovered, for example , as something handy by virtue of the 2 H I n th e fi n al an alysis, gi\'e n H e i degger's way

of circ u rnscri bi n� th eo ry, h e is

unahle t o

m ai n t a i n the equival�nce, suggeste d h t> re , be twee n an a u t hen ti c way of re lating to i s tt' I tce and

a

theo 1 � t i c a. I dt..: t e rrn i u a ti o n

ex­

of it. Se e th e conclusion below ( section :> < > ) .

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fact that, "expecting some possibility, here a 'what for, "' we retain what is encountered and, as a consequence, "render it present" ( SZ 3 5 9£) . From the fact that, in order to grasp something encountered, it is nec­ essary to come back from anticipating to what is encountered, there emerges "an immanent structure of straightforward grasping, of be­ having in accordance with the 'as, ' that then, on closer analysis, estab­ lishes i tself as time" (L 1 4 7 ) . Heidegger's systematic elaboration of this insigh t and its implications for the logical prej udice will be taken up in the next chapter. The schema of the stages of the ' as' -s tructure , in troduced earlier, can now be filled out with the existential-h ermeneutic 'as'-structure , there­ by illustrating its difference from the other, parallel structure . The Stages of the 'As' -Structure apophantic (derivative ) , e.g. , 'This door is an exit. '

j

existen tiel ( ontic/preon tological) , / e.g., the door is used as an exit. hermeneutic ( primary) 'as'

""

existential (ontological ) , e.g. , the door is understood as handy. In so-called objective time, the existentiel-hermeneutic ' as ' or, for that matter, the derivative , apophantic 'as' can be simultaneous with the ex­ istential-hermeneutic 'as' (and obviously without detracting from the fact that the use of the door as an exit or the assertion that it is one pre­ supposes a disclosure of the manner of its being) . In the logic lectures, on which the foregoing exposition largely re­ lies, Heidegger has all too little to say about the role of language or dis­ course in the hermeneutic 'as'-structure, whether in its existen tiel or existen tial form . Predication, assertion , and thematization are thrown together with the intention of showing how they are merely a derivative of, if not an antipode to, hermeneutic understanding. In some respects the re lative lack of attention paid to discourse in this connection is sur­ prising, since Heidegger argues th e previous semeste r (as reviewed in the foregoing chapter) th at seeing is dependent upon saying rather than vice versa (P 7 5 ) . In the logic lec tures, for example, he warns against supposing that "the ' as' -structure is initially and authen tically given in the simple asserti on-sentence: ' this board is black' ; thus in the thematic di scussion of this board as black" ( L 1 44fl . Such warn ings

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

migh t leave the impression that the original meaning occurs or must occur at first wi thout assertions, in an experience devoid of spoken or written language , like the silent experience of a soli tary worker. As elab­ orated in the next chapter (4.4) , Heidegger in fact discusses a form of silent discourse that testifies to the "most original truth. " However, it must be borne i n mind that Heidegger does emphasize the intentional character of assertions. While assertions and judgments do not have an exclusive hold on the truth, they are defined precisely as ways in which things come to uncover themselves. By locating the syn­ thetic and thus bivalent character of assertions - the apophantic as struc­ ture - in the hermeneutic 'as'-structure , Heidegger has in effect made room for conceiving assertions as very much part of the primary under­ standing. Assertions, in other words, can be existentiel and existential, ways of uncovering things and ways in which their manners of being are pre thematically and thematically disclosed , respectively. Heidegger em­ phasizes, to be sure, the "prepredicative character of the 'as'-structure" in the con text of his in terpretation of a "concerned understanding" or "one driven by concern" (L 1 44) . But he immediately proceeds in this context to equate what he means by a predicative structure with a "the­ matic" discussion . His emphasis on the prepredicative dimension is thus mean t to underscore the fact that meaning in the original sense of the term comes about without having to be spoken or thematically asserted at all. The wordless opening of a door shows as much. In this connecti on it should be noted that in his logic lectures Hei­ degger does no t always avail himse lf of the more precise terminology of Being and Time. For example , in the lecture s 'discourse ' (Rede) is dis­ tinguished from 'language ' ( Sprache) , but is not explicitly construed as an existential and thus as equally fundamental to being-here as under­ standing is. What someone says can be regarded in a purely linguistic way, namely, as some thing merely "on hand" (vorhanden) and a poten­ tial theoretical object of linguistics. Ye t it can also be understood as the speaker's tool, as something not only handy (zuhanden) for some pur­ pose, but also thereby as an existentiel clue to the speaker's self-under­ standing. Finally, what someone says can be understood existentially, that is to say, with a view to understanding theoretically what it means for the speaker - and not just this speaker - to exist. In this last respect, what someone says is a form of discourse (Rede) , an existential as basic as understandi ng. Again, these specifics are missing in the logic lec­ tures, but H eidegger makes n o secret of his commitment to the foun­ dational character of discourse (see L 1 34, 1 4 1 , 1 5 ! f, 1 6 1 ) . "Th e k n ow-

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ing and observing is always a speaking, whether verbalized or not. All disclosive behavior, not only the everyday self-orientation , but also sci­ en tific knowing is accomplished in speaking" ( PS 2 7 ) . In the logic lec­ tures, following his explanation of how the ' as' -struc ture initially is not grasped in a thematic assertion but rather experienced, Heidegger adds: "More precisely: I am - qua being-here: speaking - going - tln­ derstanding - dealing or going about by way of understanding. "29 Th us, speaking and asserting are by no means excluded from the primary manner of understanding. In other words, the prethematic , indeed, even prepredicative character of the world of original mean ing "finds words." 3 0 The meaningfulness of things and persons lies in the context of con­ cern that underlies everyday dealings with them. The normal case is not that we are somehow acquainted with things before we have dealings with them . Nor does a thing, event, use , or even a person have a mean­ ing in isolation . Instead meaning is originally that of a world (a specific sort of inertia, habitus,juncture , and "what for" of prac tices and usages ) that cannot be disengaged from the common life of human beings. From the outset, a human being moves about in this world, and it is on the basis of this world of original meaning that she is always already tak­ ing a thing as something that she can use or that can be of service to her. People use and consume things and are , for that reason, well ac­ quain ted with those things long before they directly conceive the m . D u e to the primary manner o f understanding, moreover, people are in a certain sense "always already ahead of themselves." One of Hei­ degger's grandest achievements is to have respected the full weight of the simple insight that a human bei ng is always ahead of herself, as much in regard to her own existence as in regard to the reality of things and matters in the world. For the most part, one understands in ad­ vance, even if usually quite vaguely, what she takes some thing "for" or interprets something "as. " By anticipating something as a door, one takes (understands) and opens it as such; in the same moment, while 2 9 L 1 46. See PS 1 7 gf: The pure noein is ca rri ed out [or pefonned: sich vollzieht] as thigein. The noein, how ever, that is carried out preci se ly with in an en tity that has logos is a dia­ noein. Thus, a diaphora ob t ai n s between t he pure nous and the nous .\ynthetos (vgl . 1 I 7 7 b 2 8sq) : th e nous of a human being is al ways carried ou t in the manner of speak­ "

ing." See

,

to o ,

PS 1 7 1 .

30 SZ 1 6 1 . Another way to put this observation : for Heidegger, bei ng-he re is thoroughly discu rsive, bu t n ot thoroug h ly bivalent. Th at is not to say that all ways of bei ng-here ex­ em plify themselves i n word� or tal k but that th ey can ; moreover, some forms of tru th a re not "true or fa l se but ratht>r s i m p ly reveal i n g a nd in th a t se n se "sim p ly true." "

t g8

H E I D EG G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

opening the door, something else i s anticipated. As noted above , Hei­ degger unpacks the ' as '-struc ture of this typical sort of encoun ter as a matter of "coming back" to it from a particular expec tation. Thus , the simple grasping of th ings in the environment that are given in the most natu ral way is a matter of constantly coming back to something encountered and n ecessarily a coming back . . . precisely because my au­ thentic being as a concerned "having-to-do-with-things-in-the-world" is characterized as "being-always-already-ahead-alongside-something. '' Be­ cause my manner of being is constan tly such that I am ahead of myself, I must, in order to grasp something encoun tered , come back from this man ner of "being-ahead" to what is encountered. (L 1 4 7 )

In his logic lec tures Heidegger charac terizes the hermeneutic ' as'­ struc ture as ''an originally unified, basic way of behaving," " the struc­ ture of understanding," and " the hermeneutical ground-level struc ture of being of the en tity that we call ' being-here ' (human l ife ) .'' 31 These characterizations h ighlight how Heidegger's existential analysis both builds upon and moves beyond Husserl 's analysis of intentionality. The phenomenon of intentionality, th e interpretation of which enabled Husser! to overturn the illusory problem of a gap between the real and the ideal, is grounded - on Heidegger's account - in an original un­ derstanding or use of things, that is to say, in a phenomenon, motivated by care and concern , that underlies theoretical behavior or comport­ men t. The intentional character of un thematic, categorial intuition and perception, elaborated by H usserl, is not denied, but instead em­ bedded in the basic stance of being-here and thus in a world of origi­ nal meaning. 32 In being-here, as Heidegger conceives it, the distinction between the way an entity displays or presents itself and that to which it does so is a mere distinctio rationis (see Metaphysics 1 074b35ff) . At this level, Heidegger's analysis may appear to point in a pragmatic 3 1 L 1 50 n. 6: "This sort of always-already-holdi ng-up in the aim ( Wozu) of concern in th<,

man ner of coming-back-to and thus disclosing is an original unified bask comportm e n t, the structure of which the 'as' expresses. The ' as ' has the fun c tion of uncoveri ng som e­ thing - from its standpoint - something as, i.e . , as this - the structure of understanding [ Verstandni5] in generaL ' Unde rstandi ng' means hermmPia - the understood in the un­ derstanding [ Verstehen] - basic comportment of bei ng-he re . The structure of the 'as' [ i s ] accordingly the hermeneutical groun d-level �truc ture o f being o f the enti ty that we call 'bei ng-here' ( human life) ." 3 2 Get h mann, " Heideggers Wahrheitskonzcption ," 1 1 3 : " Der Kq ntext der Bewahrung ist nicht mehr der der distant.ierten Hinhlicknahme , sondern die Handlungssicherung im Rd.h a ue n geubtc n Umgan gs. "

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direction . Heidegger's conception of truth is interpreted by Carl Geth­ mann in just th is fashion; he contends that, in th e wake of the se nse of utility and serviceability elaborated by Heidegger, truth becomes a "cri­ terion of success": "The truth fulfills an intention like a solution fulfills a task." 33 The thesis that Heidegger's concept of truth in Being and Time is essentially "pragmatic" is also cha1npioned by Mark Okrent: "Hei­ degger holds that only because and insofar as things are revealed prac­ tically can they be revealed linguistically. Practical truth is a necessary condition for semantic truth, but not vice versa. " 34 The practical character of hermeneutic understanding is not, how­ ever, the final level of Heidegger's analysis of truth . Men tion has already been made of the fact that Heidegger himself cautions against fore­ closing the sense in which phenomenology is research by supposing that truth is pri marily theoretical or practical (L 1 1 ) . Early on (in the winter semester of 1 92 1 I 2 2 ) , he explicitly cautions against supposing that the meaning of "caring," as he understands it, can be neatly fit into some allegedly objective de terminations of life that are themselves mo­ tivated by a tacit understanding of life. It is typical of pragmatism , Hei­ degger adds in passing, to interpret things in a way that "goes along with" a predetermined ordering of things ( PIA 1 34£) . The import of the brief remark is clear: pragmatism, as Heidegger understands it at that point, is insufficiently radical, too ready to accept traditional de­ terminations. Heidegger's understanding of pragmatism is undoubtedly limited and, in any case , there is ample reason to maintain a healthy skepticism toward the claims he repeatedly makes for the distinctiveness of his project. Yet, bravado aside, it is difficult to see how a straightforwardly pragmatic interpretation of hermenetttic understanding, as Heidegger construes it, can do it justice . 35 Thanks to the projections of a hermeneutic understanding, entites are not only uncovered ( the prag33 Gethman n , " Heideggcrs Wah rheitskonzeptio n , " 1 1 6. 34 HP 1 2 5 , 1 oo; see 1 2 4: "For Heidegger, all i n te n ti on ality is essentially practical : to i n te nd anyth in g is to i n tend it in terms of a context of ac tion ; be ings are i n te nded as they ap­ pear wi th in a world th at is ul tim ately orien ted on a for-the-sake-of." See , too , HP 1 o6f, 203f. 3 5 By "�traightforwardly p ragmati c , " I have i n min d cJassi c al form ulations by Pe i rce,.James, and Dewey. See C. S. Peirce, "V\bat Pragn1atism Is" and "A Survey of Pragm atism ," and Joh n Dewey, "The Development of American Pragmatism" in Pragmatic Philosophy, ed. Amelie Rorty ((;arden City, N .Y. : Doubleday, 1 96 6 ) , 20-4 7 and 2 0 3 -2 1 6; Wi lliam Jame�, "What Pragmatism .\1 eans , " in Pragmatism, ed. Bruce Kuklick ( I ndianapolis: Hackt>tt. 1 f)H 1 ) . 2 5-39.

2 00

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT

OF

TRUTH

matic insight) . They also display themselves and disclose their manners of being in-and-to this primary sort of understanding. To be sure , there are ample prima facie similarities between pragmatism and Heideg­ ger's fundamental on tology. Hermeneutic understanding rests upon a sense of time that is orien ted to the future; and timeliness, as Heideg­ ger understan ds it, is ecstatic, that is to say, it constitutes a projection . 36 But this timeliness is thereby neither means nor end, nei ther an ex­ perimental phenomenon nor an experimental result. Nor is i t a matter of practical consequences, expedience, or satisfac tion . 37 Timeliness is the fundamental sense of the phenomenon of in tentionality, reinter­ preted by Heidegger as a manner of being-here, but it is the sense of being-here as its ecstatic horizon . 38 In other words, timeliness under­ lies the hermeneutic understanding of human projects, but it does so with a horizon of its own (see 4 · 5 3 below) . To put the difference yet an­ other way: in terpreted pragmatically, the existential-hermeneutic 'as' disappears into the existentiel-hermeneutic 'as . ' The theme of the timeliness underlying the primary manner of un­ derstanding is elaborated in greater detail in the next chapter and Hei­ degger's "pragmatism" in the final chapter. Precisely in view of the hermeneutic 'as'-structure , however, Heidegger has more to say about the phenomena of asserting and judging. Specifically, he indicates dif­ ferences among assertions, ranging from unthematic to thematic as­ sertions. 3.2 Apophantic Determining: Asserting, Thematizing,

and Obscurin g Heidegger assumes that generally, wh en people make assertions , they presuppose a fam iliarity with what the assertion is about, or at least that there already is some access to what the assertion is about. In te rms of the primary manner of understanding elaborated in the last section , this presupposition amounts to the assumption that an assertion is di36 Peirce, "\t\bat Pragmatism Is," 24: "The rational meaning of every proposition lie� in the future." Willian1 J ames, " Pragn1atism 's Conception of Tru th," in Pragmatzsm, 1 o � : "Thus, j ust as pragmatism faces forward t o the future , s o does rat i ona l i s m here agai n face backward to a past etern ity. " 3 7 .James, Pragmati�m, 2 6, 1 o o , 1 04. 38 GP 9 1 : " I n t en ti o nal ity is the ratio c ogn o s ce n d i of transcende.nce . Transcendence is the rati o essendi of intentio nal i ty. " GP 4 2 9 : "The transcendence of being-in-thr-warld ifi grou n dnl, iu i L� �pedfic e n tirety, in thr: original entatic-horizon a l unity nf tirm�linPH."

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rected at something that one is already concerned about and dealing with . The door is used , conceived, and thus i nterpreted as an exit; as­ serting that the door is an exit is, if not a part of this process, derivative of it. According to Heidegger, assertions modify the hermeneutic ' as '­ structure (L 1 53 , 1 58 ) . When the primary manner of understanding is modified i n the form of an assertion , in what precisely does the modification consist? How is the assertion related to or directed at what one already is concerned about and working with? Are not assertions part of the very fabric of our primary man ner of understanding things and others? In order to elu­ cidate these matters , Heidegger hearkens back to the literal sense of ' apophantikos. ' 'Phantikos' derives from the verb 'phaino, phainesthai, ' in­ dicating ' to bring or come to light' or ' to show forth , ' while ' apo' is a preposition, normally meaning 'from ' or 'of. ' Accordingly, without denying more elastic meanings of the term, Heidegger construes as­ serting preeminen tly as a way of speaking that allows something to be seen or, better, to show itself of itself. In an assertion , "that with which one has to do becomes someth ing pointed out" (das Womit des Zutun­ habens wird zum Worii ber des Aufzeigens) , so that what is so uncovered can be "further uncovered" (L 1 54f, 1 33 ) . An assertion thus modifies the ' as'-structure i n the sense that it allows some thing taken as such and such to be seen in this way by poin ting it out accordingly. Heidegger emphasizes three features of assertions in terms of which they progressively modify an original, hermeneutic understanding. Those features are reviewed below but first a pervasive ambiguity i n Hei­ degger's account of this theme deserves men tion. As exemplified in the preceding paragraph, the account shifts back and forth between talk of the "assertion" (Aussage) and talk of the "asserting" (Aussagen) . More­ over, 'assertion ' stands at times for the act of asserting (along with the distinctive intentional character that Heidegger accords it) , at other times for what is asserted (in the sense of the means, object, or even the result of asserting) . The ambigui ty, while annoying, is not debilitati ng. Nevertheless, the ambiguity points to a distinction on which Heidegger wants to insist. While an assertion might be confused with a sen tence or word-complex and treated as something handy or on hand, the assert­ ing remains at bottom an existential , albeit derivative of the basic dis­ cursiveness of being-here. This last observation introduces what Heidegger deems the first characteristic of assertions, namely, what was described, in the previous sec tion , as th e i n te n ti onal or ecstatic character of assertions. As a man-

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ner of being-in-the-world, making an assertion is a way of taking ( un­ covering) things, specifically by pointing them out and thus making it possible to see them, perhaps even for what they are. Like opening a door, "letting something be seen " and "pointing it out" are interwoven with other ways of dealing with things, in which their "original mean­ ing" discloses itself. "This pointing out is taken on tologically as a man­ ner of havi ng-to-do-with" ( L 1 54f, 1 2 9) . In this sense asserting, like any other way of behaving on the part of human beings, takes place at one level in view of and, indeed, as part of an original meaning ( the world of original meaning, discussed in the last section) . On an ex is ten tiel plain , it bears noting, understandi ng need not take the form of assert­ ing. One can point something out without saying a word, even to one­ self. 3 9 When someone makes an assertion, however, its specific charac­ ter depends on the person 's orientation in pointing something out, on the situation of the entity to be pointed out, and, even more funda­ mentally, on the entity's man ner of presenting i tself. But whatever form the asserting takes, this manner of presenting is i tself a function of the original ' as '-structure - "respectively co-modifying the latter" ( L 1 5 3 , 1 5 8 ) . Or, as Heidegger puts it i n Being and Time, making an assertion is not some "free-floating" action, but instead always obtains on the basis of being-in-the-world (SZ 1 56; PS 2 sf) . The second charac teristic way in which assertions modify the origi­ nal understanding is by pointing some thing out presumably as it is. I n other words, making an assertion can be a way of addressing some subj ect matter, articulating it in just the way it presen ts itself, from its van­ tage point and not another. Th e assertion is the form of discourse (lo­ gos) that, as noted above , permi ts what is addressed to show i tself "of' (apo) itself. This second feature lends assertions a specifically thematic character, suiting them to be the distinctive means (and even tually even the object) of theory. Closely related to this second feature , what Hei­ degger deems the third characteristic feature of assertions is their ca­ pacity to uncover things by '' concentrating to a certain degree pure ly on that about which one is supposed to be speaking" ( L 1 55£) . The asser­ tion concen trates on what it is about as something on hand and the way it is poin ted out is concen trated in the assertion . Heidegger character­ izes this aspect of asserting as a mode of "determining" ( L t 56) . In keeping wi th this brief syn opsis of the characteristics of assertions, 3 9 A t an e x i 'i te n ti a ) l t:>ve l , on t h e o th e r h a n d , un dcr\)tan ding i s n o t discourse-free , t h o ugh it beai

� 1 ct

cil l i ug thcit asse rti o n s rn ake up

o n 1y o n t:>

fo nn of d i �co u rl.it> ; cf. SZ 1 1 D '

3 :-J � ·

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Heidegger observes that they can be made on differen t levels, between th e extremes of full "absorption in some preoccupation" and "pure de­ termining," that is, a strictly theoretical assertion ( L 1 56n ) . For pur­ poses of analysis, he singles out three levels of asserting: 1 asserting in and for some preoccupation , 2 determining i n the sense of describing a specific environment, and 3 determining as an assertion about something on hand. Heidegger's elucidation of this list of levels of asserting is almost as scanty as the list itself ( though i t fills a gap in his later treatment of this th eme in Being and Time: ''Between the interpretation still completely wrapped up in concerned understanding and the extreme counter­ point in the form of a theoretical assertion about something on hand, there are tnanifold intermediary levels" [SZ 1 58 ] ) . At all three levels, an assertion is a way of taking something (pointing it out, letting it be seen ) as so and so, and in th is way the asserting remains part of an in­ tentional or, better, hermeneutic structure without definitively deter­ mining it. We make assertions and, in a derivative sense , we have to deal with assertions (as something handy) precisely because we have to deal with other things that can be seen, identified, and unpacked by means of assertions. Heidegger leaves a great deal to be desired in elaboratin g th e relations among these three levels. While th is niggardliness is re­ grettable , it can be explained in part by the fact that Heidegger's main concern in this connection , overriding all other issues, is to establish the difference between the primary tlnderstanding ( the "hermen eutic ' as"' ) and its modification in the form of fully thematic, theoretical as­ sertions ( the "apophantic ' as"' ) . The th ree levels of asserting migh t be illtlstrated as follows. In th e first place an assertion migh t be made completely in the course of a concerned understanding and use of things. Such assertions are not necessarily vague ; by means of th em something is taken as such and such . But that about which the assertion is made is not itself thematized and the aim of one's immediate dealings with the thing determines how the assertion identifies it. If, for example, one wants to indicate to some­ one that sh e can enter one 's room, one migh t say: "Th e door is open ." In such a case asserti ng is a way of iden tifying the door, but as part of a shared complex of implemen ts or things to be used or dealt with . De­ spite its grammatical form , the function of the assertion is not purely descri ptive n o r i t."' m o o d simply declarative . If one takes a step back

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

from the immediate use of things and attempts to get an overview of the lay of things, asserting can be a means of thematizing them, albeit with a view to a specific connection among them. In such a case one might say, for example, "the door leads to the hall." Still a further step back is required i n order to view things merely as they come forward and presen t themselves, without regard for the use or the specific en­ vironment in which they surface . An example of an assertion of the lat­ ter sort about the door might be : "The door is oak." These levels can be summarized as follows: Levels of Asserting 1 unthematic 2 circumspectively-thematic 3 theoretically-thematic

Examples 'The door is open ' 'The door leads to the hall ' 'The door is oak'

In each of these cases, the assertion i tself - but not the asserting - might be regarded as something "handy," by means of which the door, that about which the assertion is made, becomes visible or presents i tself. In the first case the assertion allows the door to be seen, but only i nsofar as it is part of a whole of implements or thi ngs in use - a whole that, to­ gether with its specific purpose, is likewise indicated by making the as­ sertion . In this case that about which the assertion is made is not itself thematized; that is to say, the door - like the assertion itself - remains a tool. By contrast, the object is thematized on the levels of the second and third sorts of assertion, albeit differently on each level. Either the door's possible use is thematized as part of having an overview of the entire complex of things used (Zeugganzheit) , or the door is th ematized in purely theoretical fashion, in view of its sheer onhandness. In the lat­ ter case , "having to do with something has then pulled back as an asser­ tion from the primary preoccupation" ( L 1 56£) . To a certain extent the diffe rence between the last two cases corresponds to the difference be­ twee n the sort of assertions characteristic of practical sciences such as engineering, architecture, pharmacology, and medicine, and those in which the theories of disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chetn­ istry, and biology are formulated. In the last two levels, the relation between the thematized obj ect and the correspondi ng assertion can be regarded retrospectively as itself something on hand. In the process , the assertion itself becomes some­ th ing o n hand, albeit not n ecessarily i n every respec t. In Being and Time ' Hei degge r d e s c ri b e s th is transfo rmatio n in such a way that "he i n g-true '

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( "being-as-uncovering": the asserting as an existential) becomes a "truth" ( "uncoveredness of . . . " ) in the sense of a relation, i tself on hand, between enti ties on hand. "Uncoveredness of . . . becomes the on han d measuredness of something on hand, the articulated assertion ; it becomes on hand, the spoken entity" ( SZ 2 24; see L 1 2 8£) . However, this transformation or "modification," as Heidegger char­ acterizes i t, always contains within itself a certai n deception , since the first level of asserting pervades the others. The world of original mean­ ing disclosed at the first level is never simply on hand or, for that mat­ ter, handy. Yet all theoretical assertions remain dependent upon this world and that first level . Herein, too, lie the limits and inappropriate­ ness of conflating asserting with assertions, construed as something handy or on hand. Given the right circumstances, the same sentence may surface on all three levels of asserting. For example, if one says, "The grapes are yel­ low, " and thereby means among o ther things (wi thout saying so) that they are ripe for picking, one has an example of the first, completely unthematic sense of the assertion ( and that means: ' If the grapes are yellow, then they are ripe for picking' ) . 40 If by the same sentence one means 'in contrast to o ther grapes, which are not to be picked, ' then asserting it may exemplify the circumspective thematizing indicated by the second level . Finally, one can imagine a context in which the asser­ tion 'Th e grapes are yellow' is part of a theoretical thematization (whereby, for example, a certain acidic content is indicated: ' If the grapes are yellow, then they have a certain amoun t of acidic con tent' ) . The structure of the assertion, without further qualification, builds on the structure of understanding, since what the assertion is made about is already familiar, already in some way used and understood in the use. Originally, asserting is a way of enabling us to see something to which we already have access. The difference between unthematic and thematic assertions lies in the fact that the thematic assertions allow something to be seen, not as something corresponding to a context of concern, but rather as i tself. That about which the theoretical assertion is made is not taken up with a view to its useful ness or adequacy (i.e., with a view to the ''where to" of the original meaning) , but rather merely 40 Or a l te rna tive l y : ' If the g ra p es

are to be pi c k ed , then th ey first have to be ripe , that is to have to be yellow in color. ' "Approaching the obj ec t of one's concern in a sp e­ cifi c , circum spec tivel y i n t e r p r e ti ve fashion" is dubbed by Heidegge r " c o n s idera ti o n " ( i'nwriPg;u ng) . t h � �chema of w h i c h is "if . . . th e n . . . "; see SZ 3 5 9f.

say, the y

2 06

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TRUTH

as something that comes forward and is on hand. The "apophan tic 'as, '" no less than the "hermeneutic 'as "' that it modifies, takes something as something. In the thematic assertion , however, something is taken not in the sense in which one has to con tend with it, but rather i n the sense that one "detertnines" it as something on hand and "brings it closer for grasping" ( L 1 56£) . The thematization carried out by means of the as­ sertion thus comes about because the assertion is gathered not from the "aim of some preoccupation . . . , but instead from the very thing that the assertion is made about" (L 1 5 5; SZ 1 5 8 ) . Heidegger's discussion of assertions in the logic lectures is aimed at detnonstratin g the derivative character of the thematic assertion . Be­ cause thematic assertions ( thematic applications of the apophantic ' as '­ structure) proceed from a primary understanding, they have the effect of obscuring even as they reveal things or point thetn out. This obscur­ ing occurs, but not simply because assertions si ngle out only on e side or aspect of a thing, or because what they are about 1night change , or even because the thing's "handiness" or that of th e assertion itself is ig­ nored in the process. The fundamental way in which thematic asser­ tions obfuscate is ontological. In contrived and ultimately illusory iso­ lation from the con text of the original hermeneutic understanding in which entities make themselves present, thematic assertions presume the allegedly simple and constant presence of what they are about. "In the assertion and by means of it" things that are used and thus origi­ nally ( hermeneutically, interpretively) understood in a tacit, non th e­ matic interaction with then1 are flattened (nivelliert) "into thi ngs merely on hand" (L 1 5 8£) . In other words, determining things in thematic as­ sertions is "never a primary uncovering, . . . never a primary and origi­ nal relation to the entities.'' From this truism Heidegger draws the con­ clusion : "therefore , [determining by way of asserting thematically] , this logos, can never be made the cltte for the question of what the entity is" (L 1 59£) . In his eyes a basic mistake of traditional thinking in philo­ sophical logic and on tology is to have taken their bearings from the lo­ gos of the thematic assertion . The assertion obscures as much as it uncovers because the hermeneutic understanding is already given . If one takes the door as an exit, then one essentially disregards the door itself and its other man­ ners of being as \veil as the complex of impl emen ts (in view of which one takes i t as a door) . If one makes an assertion at any of the discussed levels, one refers to the door as that about which th·e assertion is made , but only in one respect and i n vie'"' of a context that i s n ot itse l f t h �-

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matized; namely, the horizon of relevant involvements. Only because the assertion , like any effective implement, steps into the background can the door be seen as such and such . This account of thematic assertions, specifically, the conten tion that it is just as essential for them to obscure as to elucidate , creates obvious problems for the claim about their derivativeness and, equivalently, for the plausibility of the con tention itself. Thus, in regard to the first point, the contention seems to jeopardize at the very least the trenchancy of any interpretation of the world of original meaning ( the truth of hermeneutic understanding) insofar as the interpretation is articulated by means of thematic assertions ( the meanings of which are , by defini­ tion , derivative ) . Given Heidegger's own accoun t of such assertions, any use of them would appear to place him in the unfortunate position not only of obscuring what essen tially gives the world its original meaning but also of not being able to discriminate thematically how they obscure from how they elucidate . In a similar way, in regard to the second point, the plausibility of the con tention itself is questionable . If the contention is a thetnatic assertion , then it must obscure as well as elucidate its theme . While some level of obscurity and obfuscation might be re­ moved by further thematic assertions, there is obviously no way of know­ i ng the relevance or lack of relevance of what remains obscure . 4 1 The implications of this testament to the finitude of thematic, theoretical as­ sertions are patent. If there is an original truth to the primary, hermeneuti c understanding - or, indeed, if there is any sense in speak­ ing of this understanding or its truth at all - then it is necessary for it to be disclosed and interpreted in a way that does not consist in thematic assertions. Heidegger's attitude toward thematic assertions thus engenders the sorts of paradoxical problems associated with thematization . The prob­ lems become even clearer in h is elaboration of the precise sense of the­ matic assertions. He characterizes thematic assertions as ways of "ad­ dressing" some theme, ways that pulled back from a context of concern . The understanding is no longer the often diffuse ( hermeneutic) un­ derstanding of a world of concern , arising in tandem wi th use and plan­ ning, but rather the (apophantic) understanding that thematically brings into relief what is merely on hand. " If some thing is thus them a4 1 A counterpart problem in the philosophy of science is th at of k n owi n g what can safely be assigned to the retms paribus dauses of a theory, i . e . , what featu res are irre levant ( " other th i n gs be i n g t>q ual") fron1 one experiment o r th eory to another.

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tized, such that what one is dealing with becomes the subject matter of a determining asse rtion, the n the genuine ontological character, the chalk, for example, thereby retreats, it is flattened into a mere thing" ( L 1 58 ) . This precise characterization presupposes, to be sure, a dif­ feren tiation of ontological characters (Seinscharakter) as developed in Being and Time with regard to "being-handy" (Zuhandensein) , "being-on­ hand" ( Vorhandensein) , and ''being-here" (Dasein) . If thematic assertions in sotne sense obscure what they are about, then a level of obscuration cannot be eliminated by the addition of other thematic assertions (for example , about handiness and an original commerce with things) nor does there appear to be any way of knowing whether the remaining lev­ els of obscuration (in the course of increasing thematization ) are of dwindling significance or, for that matter, whether they dwi ndle in sig­ nificance at all. If Heidegger is taken literally, then what it means for some things ''to be" is not accessible by means of thematic assertions (see SZ 3 6 1 ) Is that not a debilitating disadvantage? Is it not precisely the aim of any scientific theory and research to bring things in to relief such as they are and not as the scientist might want them to be? Does not th e rally­ i ng cry of phenomenology, "To the things themselves ! " detnand as much? Why else the urgency to bracket prejudices and preconceptions? Does not Heidegger himself in the final analysis attempt to bring to re­ lief and thematize what is not and may not be seen in traditional logic? Yes and no. Heidegger does employ thematic assertions in an attempt to point out what is uncovered but also obscured by them . He stands on the ladder that he intends to kick away. He the reby collides with the problem of thematization, a problem the resolution of which remains questionable and, indeed, questionable in the sense that the meaning of any such resolution is itself obscure . How is it possible to speak of something that makes them atic assertions possible at all and ye t with­ draws from any attempt to gain thematic access to it? On the one hand, the fundamental ontology in Being and Time is supposed to be a science and , to be sure , a rigorous, phenomenological science that aims to un­ derstand "what is ad dressed" ( namely, being) on the basis of what is ad­ dressed itself and not on the basis of any other specific concern ( L 1 5 5 ) . On the other hand, what is addressed in this science is something prethematic, something not on hand, and some thing inevi tably ob­ scured by the thematic assertions of science. Precisely this problem calls forth Heidegger's profoundest insights, bu t it also finally compels him .

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to let go of the project of fundamental ontology, a project that - for whatever reasons - he originally sought to characterize as "scientific." 42 If Heidegger, thanks to his conception of the structures and levels of assertions, appears to end up in a hopeless dilemma, he nevertheless avoids another aporia through his reconstrual of the sense of 'being­ true ' ( Wahrsein) . It was mentioned earlier that the sense of assertions depends upon that of 'being-true ' and 'being-false ' (or, in other words, on the possibility of being a true or a false assertion ) . I n this connec­ tion Heidegger draws atte ntion to the fact that the expressions for 'be­ ing-true' and ' bei ng-false ' in ancient Greek signify 'uncovering i n the sense of unveiling' and 'covering in the sense of obscuring. ' "The sen­ tence is determined as an assertion from the standpoint of uncove ring and covering" ( L 1 33 ; SZ 2 1 7ff) . The difference between the ancien t a n d contemporary senses of ' true ' and 'false ' i s patent. While the as­ sertion ' Each assertion is false ' introduces the high drama of logical par­ adox, there is hardly a whiff of contradiction in the assertion 'Each as­ sertion is obscuring. ' In contrast to the normal predicates ' true ' and 'false' (or ' plus' and 'minus' ) , the meanings of 'uncovering' and ' cov­ eri ng' do not correspond to values ( "truth-values" ) systematically cor­ doned off from one another. Talk of "obscuring" and "concealing," i n other words, generally suggests something to be discovered or uncov­ ered. So, too, a discovery or uncovering always points to what was oth­ erwise hidden or concealed. What is uncovered and obscured by virtue of the assertion is, moreover, not something that falls from heaven. It is rather something with which one is always already acquainted and to which one repeatedly returns in a con text of concern. The results of these reflections might be summarized as follows. An assertion can be regarded as an existential ( ecstatic, intentional ) , as something handy, or eve n something on hand. In the first and most fun­ damental respect, an assertion or, better, asserting is a way of bri nging things to relief ( allowing them to be seen ) within and on the basis of an entire context of implements. 4 3 Assertions can also be regarded as tools , worki ng to the extent that they deflect conside ration from ( and 4 2 Between 1 92 5 and 1 930 Heidegger moves from affirming a scientific philosophy to

trumpeting a nonscientific conception of philosophy as "something all its own and standing on i ts own " (GM 3 5 ) ; see my "Hermeneutische Fragen an Heideggers Gesamt­ ausgabe," Philosophischesjahrbuch g4/ 1 ( 1 98 7 ) : 1 g 2f. 43 As noted earlier, assertions can also be existential, i.e. , expressions of being-here . But H eidegger h as li ttle to say about this possibility in his Marburg lectures.

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H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C EPT O F TRUTH

in that thin sense "conceal") the fact that they are tools - and what makes them tools . Finally, assertions might be construed as something on hand in relation to other things, events, or states of affairs that are on hand within the world . On each level , an assertion co-modifies the hermeneutic 'as'-structure that characterizes the primary manner of understanding, namely, taking something as or for such and such . The apophantic 'as '-structure of an assertion is characterized by both a syn­ thesis (holding together) and diairesis ( holding apart) , inasmuch as making an assertion is a way of taking something as such and such . Hei­ degger disti nguishes three levels at which an assertion or, more pre­ cisely, this apophan tic 'as'-structure, modifies the hermeneutic ' as'­ structure: unthematic assertions, circumspectively thematic assertions, and theoretically thematic assertions. While the unthematic assertion ( 'The door is open ' ) is a way of identifying something as an implement within an entire context of tools, the handiness of what the assertion is about and, with it, the entire context of tools ( the world) are lost in the theoretically thematic assertion ( 'The door is oak' ) . This conception of the levels of assertions yields, however, the difficult question of whether and how that primary, unthematic understanding - the world of origi­ nal meaning - can be disclosed and asserted at all. For decisive clues on these matters , Heidegger turns once again to the works of Aristotle. 3·3 Bei ng-True and the Trttth of an Assertion :

Aristotle 's Metaphysics, Theta

10

Heidegger's in terpretati on of the tenth chapter of Book Theta of Aris­ totle 's Metaphysics plays a significant role in his efforts to uproot the log­ ical prejudice and raise the question of truth to another level. As a means of introdttcing his interpretation, he first gives "a qui te general characterization of truth and falsity" on the basis of earlier passages in the Metaphysics ( Lambda 7 and Epsilon 4) and the first chapter of De in­ terpretatione. His elaboration of these passages underscores what he sees as Aristotle's firm grip on intentionality, especially the intentional or ec­ static character of assertions, as noted earlier. Aristotle shares the phe­ nomenological insight that asserting and j udging, no less than perceiv­ ing and intuiting, are intentional acts, acts that directly intend thei r objects without in termediaries in the form of representations or images (L 1 33) . T'his emp hasis on Aristotle 's sure grasp of the inten tional character of assertions an d j udgm � n ts se rve s two pu rposes In th e fi rst plac e , it

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21 1

helps Heidegger clear Aristotle of the charge of introducing "a naive concept of truth" into philosophy ( L 1 66) . The naive concept of truth that Heidegger has in mind is a mimetic or correspondence conception of truth as an "imitation . . . of the enti ty i n co nsciousness" or as "any sort of assimilation of a condition of the soul to a physical th ing" ( L 1 62ff, 1 66£) . Heidegger repudiates this charge by insisti ng that 'apo­ phantikos ' - th e adjective employed by Aristotle to distinguish the logos capable of being true or false - signifies letting something show "forth" or show itself as it is (on its own terms or "of' itself) . In other words, far from referrin g to some copy or image of a thing, the assertion points to the thing itself "even when it . . . is not present in person." 44 Even more impo rtantly, as noted earlier, Heidegger's construal of 'apophantikos ' emphasizes its objective or ontological presupposition over any mental act: th e obj ect's presentation of itself and, indeed, its very emergence into being (presence ) . 45 This sort of on tological reading of the intentional character of as­ sertions also figures in Heidegger's interpretation of the central sense of the synthesis in an assertion and, accordingly, its bivalent possibili­ ties. Acco rding to Aristotle, a sentence 's possibility of being true or false presupposes that it contains a synthesis. The basis of this syn thesis lies not in so me combination of words or concepts , but in what the sentence or assertion is about: the en tity itself or, more precisely and in line with Heidegger's reading, its manner of making itself present. What makes propositional and perceptual truths generally possible is the emer­ gence of the presence of something from its absence , an absence that not only awai ts it, but also suffuses it as it presen ts - and mispresents ­ i tself in profiles and aspects that necessarily conceal other profiles and aspects. As reviewed above ( 3 . 1 ) , Heidegger appropriates this Aris­ to telian insigh t by attempting to account for the apophan tic 'as '-struc­ ture in terms of the hermeneutic 'as '-structure. Assertions are true or false because, in keeping with an underlying hermeneutic 'as'-struc­ tu re, they articulate the synthesis and diairesis involved in taking so me44 L 1 63f; s e e , too, SZ 2 1 7 : "Th e assertion's being-truf (tru th ) m ust be understood as bei ng­ uncovering. '' See also SZ 1 54 , 2 1 8 , 3 .� 9· For a valuable r e ad i ng o f H e i de gge r ' s i nt e r p re ­ tation of Aristotle, see P i er re M a u bo u ss i n , Logo� and Logik: Heidegger 's Later Seinslehre and Hegel (dissertation, Cath olic U n iversity of Am erica , 1 997 ) , <"hapter 1 : "A ristotle and the Accom plishment of Metaphysi c�," g-6 2 . 4 5 See Thotnas Sheehan , " Heidegger's Philosophy of Mind," i n (;on tinental Philosophy: A New Suroey, vol . 4 , ed. Fl oristad (;u uonn (Hague: N�j hoff, 1 9H4) , 2 86-2 gg, and "How (N ot) To Read Hei degger," A merica n (;atholir Philosophical Qu artn-ly 69 (spring 1 995 ) : 2 7 7-2 8 2 .

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thing as such and such. In other words, only because of the way en tities are - or, equivalen tly, make themselves present in and to an original un­ derstanding that takes them as such and such - can they be "unpacked" and then "recombined" in the terms of an assertion (see De anima 430a2 6-b3 ) . What distinguishes a true assertion is the fact that it either affirms what is combined in a thing ( state of affairs, etc.) or denies what is not (see Metaphysics, Epsilon 4, 1 0 2 7 b2 1 ff) . This analysis of assertions appears to rule out any proposition about what lacks diversi ty, that is, about what does not also include someth ing (or some aspect or part) that is also on hand. Does this mean then that there can be no true assertion about something purely simple? Or is there some non propositional truth regarding it? Aristotle does not shy away from raising similar questions. His reflectio ns on this subject are found in chapter 1 o of Book Theta of his Metaphysics. In chapter 1 0 , after referring to "the most authentic being" ( to de kyriotata on) in terms of the true and the false , Aristotle proceeds to dis­ cuss a twofold concept of truth . He begins with a determination of truth ( 1 05 1 a34-b 1 7 ) that is attributable to ajudgment and stands in con trast to the falsity of the j udgment. He emphasizes that this truth lies in the things themselves and the corresponding speech, in the sense that what is separate is depicted as separate and what is joined as j oined. The things themselves must accordingly be composite such that it is possi­ ble to deceive oneself about them. In other words, a falsehood about something is possible only if it can be determined in terms of some sort of plurality or diversity. If things or features that are always or sometimes combined are regarded as separate or if those that are separate are re­ garded as combined, the result is a falsehood. An example of the for­ mer is the assertion 'A triangle is not a plane figu re ' ; an example of the latter is the assertion 'Kant's bi rthplace lies today in Germany. ' By contrast, in the second part of the chapte r, a truth is considered that is not set off from any falsehood, but only ignorance . This truth is that of noncomposite things (asyntheta) , a truth that can be discovered only by means of a kind of "touching and addressing" (thigein kai phanai) . "The expression is chosen here to express the mere having of something in terms of i t itself, having it in the unqualified, straightfor­ ward manner ( not deviating to something else or originating from something else) " ( L 1 8o ) . Once again , in Heidegger's view, Aristotle co rrelates the truth involved wi th a respective manner of existing and self-display. What is noncomposite is always in ac tual i ty (energeia) and,

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hence, is devoid of any potential to be otherwise or not to be , that is, to display itself otherwise or not display itself at all ( 1 05 1 b 2 8-2 g) . This concluding chapter to Book The ta is extremely controversial . According to Christ and Schwegler, the chapter was not even written by Aristotle; in 1 9 1 2 , before changing his mind on the matter, jaeger, like Ross, accepted Aristotle's authorship but regarded the chapter as a mere "addendum" with scarcely a con nection to the preceding chap­ ters. 46 In 1 9 2 3 , on the other hand,Jaeger agreed with Thomas Aqui nas, Suarez, and Bonitz that the chapter is the high point of the book, the climax of the earlier chapters on substance, possibility, and actuality. 47 A different but cl osely related controversy centers on the interpretation of the expression 'to de kyriotata on. ' Opinions vary as to whether Aris­ totle has in mind " the most authentic being" in the deepest sense of the word, as Heidegger reads him , or "being in the linguistic meaning or use of the term most customary to us. " 48 In the context of his logic lec­ tures, Heidegger does not delve further into these debates, though he develops his own i nterpretation against the backdrop of them. 49 46 Wilhelm von Christ, Studia in Aristotelis libros Metaphysicos collata ( Be rlin: Schade , 1 853) ; Albert Sc hwegler, Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles, vol . 3 (Tiibinge n : Fues, 1 8 4 8 ) , 1 86 ; W. D . Ross , Aristotle 's Metaphysics, vol. 2 (Oxford : Clarendo n , 1 953 ) , 2 74-279; W. J aeger, Stu­ dim zur Entstehungsgesrhichte der Metaphysik ( Berlin: Weidmann, 1 9 1 2 ) , 4o-5 3 . 4 7 L 1 7 1 - 1 7 4 ; Thomas Aquinas, Commentaria i n Aristotelem et alios, in opera Omnia, vol. 4 (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1 980) , 4 77 f; Francisco Suarez, Disputationes Meta­ physicae, in opera Omnia, vol . 26 (Paris: Vives, 1 866) , liii. Bonitz interprets the chapter as Aristotl e 's attempt to elucidate the sort of truth around which the simple and eter­ nal substances introduced in chapter 8 revolve; cf. Hermann Bon itz, Aristotelis Meta­ p hysica rerognovit et enarravit, vol . 2 (Bonn: M arcus , 1 849) , 409 . Jaeger sees in Theta 1 o "th e final re mnan ts of the Platonic vision of the ideas, that have survived in the Aris­ totelian metaphysics," a sort of intuitive knowledge or intellectual intuition on which "all world-view thi nking" rests; cf. We rner Jaeger, A ristoteles. Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung ( Berlin: Weidman n , 1 9 2 3 ) , 2 1 1 f. Curiously, Heidegger does not cite here Brentano's dissertation , written for Trendelenburg; cf. chapter 3 of Franz Brentano, Von der m a nnigfarhen Bedeu t ung des Seienden nach A ristoteles ( Freiburg: Herder, 1 86 2 ) , 2 1 -39· 4 8 Jaeger, Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik, 5 1 f; Ross , A ristotle 's Mf't aphysi cs, 2 : 2 75 · 49 Although Heidegger does not refer to Lask i n this connection, his reading of Meta­ physics, Th e ta 1 o , antici pates Heidegger's interpre tation i n several respects; cf. Dif' Lehre vom Urteil, 1 44ff. At the conclusion of his habilitation ( FS 407 n. 6 ) , Heidegger attrib­ u tes "'an even more far-reaching im portance" to Lask's Lehre vom Urtf'il than to his Logik der Ph ilos oph ie. On the re lationship of Lask and Heidegger, see Kon rad Hobe , "Zwischen Rickert und Heidegger," Philosophi�che�Jalzrbuch 7 8 ( 1 97 1 ) : 360. For a study i n depth of Lask's fundamental doctrine , see Stephan Nachstheim, Em i l Lasks Gru n dlehre ( Tubin­ ge n : Mohr, 1 99 2 ) .

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

As a prelude t o h is own interpre tation , Heidegger presents a "trans­ lation that emerges from it," together with elucidations and a division of the text (L 1 74 ) . According to Heidegger, what is at stake in Theta 1 o is a clarification of being i n the most authentic sense of the term. The theme of the chapter is the sense in which being should be understood preeminently as ' truth ' or 'uncoveredness' (aletheia, veritas) in contrast to the accounts of being as actual (ousia, substantia) in the pre­ ceding chapters, even though Aristotle elaborates that preeminent sense precisely - and fatally, Heidegger would add - in terms of a con­ trast between not-yet-being-on-hand and being-on-hand (dynamis and energeia, potentia and actus) . Thus, in a qualified sense, Heidegger sides with Aquinas's and Bonitz's interpetations of the text. The chapter is designed, on Heidegger's reading, to show that one can give "a full and authen tic interpretation" of being only by way of an understandi ng of truth ( L 1 79 ) . The highest level of on tological consideration is attained by Aristo­ tle in the second part of the chapter, as si mple, fully actual ( on hand) being is identified with truth ( uncoveredness) . Devoid of any conlpos­ iteness, this tnost authentic being cannot be determined in regard to anything else; and, hence, all possibility of falseh ood is ruled out with respect to it. 5° As Heidegger glosses these passages, it is "on hand solely in itself and 'as ' itself' (L 1 8o) . It is not taken as something else and, indeed, it cannot be. It can and must be merely " touched" (thigein) , "ad­ dressed" (phanai) , and "taken up" or "thought" (nous) (L 1 8 1 £) . Ac­ cording to Heidegger, Aristotle employs metaphors of touch and per­ ception for this though t in order to convey that no deception is possible precisely because being - i n this preeminen t sense - does not dissem­ ble and cannot be taken as or for something else. Being in the most authentic sense of the term is this truth that is an uncovering, for which there is - in contrast to proposi tional truth - no concealing. "Thus the answer to the question of the truth (uncovering) comes to occupy the place for the answer to the question of being - and that in a discussion in which authen tic being is the subj ect of the inquiry. Roughly speak­ ing: Being is determined ' through ' thinking; both are posited as iden­ tical" ( L 1 H 2 ) .

50 This, the "' most authe ntic" s e n s e of being, is tru th as an un coveri ng, the o pp o s it e of wh ich is not fal s e h ood but ig n o r a n c e Si nce th e possibi lity of falsehood implies a d u al i ty, t h e re can be no d u a l i ty in t h e mo�t auth e n tic sense of b.e i ng ( L 1 80) . The d uality exdurled i� n ot only th at of realized and unrealized poten tial in an e n tity, hut also t h e n·· by t h a t o f t h t e H li l� a;:, d l l dl�jc c t i n re l a ti o n to a n o t h e r entity ali; a li;nhjFct. .

­

T H E H E R M E N EU T I C U N D E RS TA N D I N G

0 }'

TRUTH

2 15

This last observation is rash to a fault, but Heidegger's strategy is clear. Having interpre ted the truth of noncotnposite entities as a sheer uncovering, Heidegger proceeds to identify this truth (what Aristotle deems being in the most authenti c sense of the term ) with the iden tity of knower and known , described in De anima (43 1 a 1 ) and the Meta­ physics ( 1 075a 1 -4) . He then construes this truth as a sine qua non for propositional truth about composite enti ties. The second type of truth discussed in The ta 1 o the opposi te of which is no concealment or falsehood, but, in Heidegger's words, "merely a matter of simply not taking something up or not hearing it" (nur ein einfaches Nichtvernehmen) becotnes a condition and , i n a certain sense, the preeminent condi­ tion for the possibility of propositional truth and falsity, the possibility elaborated i n the first half of the chapter. By in terp re ting our access to the man ner of being of the simple en­ tity ( mentioned in Theta 1 0) as a "simple having,'' Heidegger puts his own distinctive stamp on it. According to Jaeger, the "touching and ad­ dressing" with which Aristotle characterizes this man ner of access is "a kind of men tal seeing. " 5 1 Even Heidegger emphasizes, as noted, th at "touching" in th is con text does not designate a sensory pe rception (L 1 8 1 , 1 84£) . More importantly, however, this "touching'' is some thing taci t. Heidegger construes it as the nonexplicit, straightforward way of having something about which assertions are made . This reference to "taci tness" ( Unabgehobenheit) plays on Aris totle 's use of the term ' touch­ ing' (thigein) . Our bodies are touching the cloth es we are wearing, our feet touch the inside of our shoes, and we accordingly have them tac­ itly, in an un thematized con text of concern . The clothes, the shoes, and so on are not so much obj ects on hand as they are handy implemen ts with in that context, an instance of the "world of original mean ing'' dis­ cussed earlier ( 3 . 1 ) . Heidegger accordingly characterizes "the forego­ ing opining and havi ng of that about which [an assertion is made ] " as the "always already foregoing disclosedness of the world" (L 1 87 ) . This last remark reveals what Heidegger is really up to with his in ter­ pretation of what Aristotle deems " th e most authen tic" sense of being. Heidegger is attempti ng to link Aristotle's determination of this sense of being to his own expl anation of the primary, hermeneutic under­ standing: the "disclosure of the world" that grows out of prethematic, con cerned behavior (Zu-tun-haben-mit) . In the course of his logic lec­ tu res Heidegger strategically places the interpretation of Theta 1 o after -

-

s

1

Jaeger. A ri \totP!Pfi.

2

1 2.

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a sketch of how the hermeneutic 'as' -structure i s modified by the apo­ phan tic 'as'-structure . Aristotle 's account of access to simple being ­ " touching and addressing" - is construed by Heidegger as "a straight­ forward having of something" and extended to whatever "can be had in the mode of the simple, namely, as something tacit" or, in other words, to whatever is hermeneutically, unthematically understood (L 1 8g) . On the basis of Aristotle 's doctrine of truth in Theta 1 o, Heidegger cites three "structural conditions of falsehood. '' Th ese conditions have already bee n alluded to (3 . 1 ) , but it is important to see how Heidegger elaborates them precisely in the context of his interpretation of Theta 1 o. What an assertion is about (das Woriiber) must first be disclosed, meant, and dealt with in some way; secondly, it must be allowed to be seen from the standpoint of something other than itself; and thirdly, it must be able to be with some thing else. Under the first condition Heidegger understands a "straightforward having and taki ng," "the foregoing having of something," the fact that something has already presented itself or approached me: "the always already foregoing dis­ closedness of the world. " 5 2 Aristotle characterizes the being for which there is no obscuring or concealing as the asyntheta; precisely what is not determined by means of a syn thesis or assertion . Since the most au­ thentic being excludes any sense of what is "together" - a realized and an unrealized part - and since it is accessible only in the sense of a straigh tforward having (''touching" ) , the third and second conditions respectively remain unfulfilled in its case (L 1 83£) . By contrast, a false­ hood (and thereby an assertion ) is always possible in the case of an e n­ tity or part of an entity that can be together with another and thus "seen" from another standpoint (L 1 8 7£) . Following the establishment of th ese three conditions comes the question of their connection. Heidegger draws attention to the fact that the second condition depends upon the third. But most importan t in his eyes is the fac t that both the second and the third conditions are grounded in the first. The second condition of propositional truth (al­ lowing someth ing to be seen from another standpoint or in view of something else: vortz anderen her) presupposes that what the assertion L 1 87 Heidegger portrays this fi rst condition as a condition for the 'as '-structu re , while on L 1 44f and 1 49 he emphasizes the implicitness and pri m­ i tiveness of the ' as '-struc ture in th e original understandi ng. This apparent confusion seems to resurface in hie; accou n t of the relation between understanding and in terpre­ tation. In both cac;; e s, it is possible to explain the confusion away by distinguishing be­ tween implicit and explicit levels.

52 L 1 44f. 1 49, 1 83, 1 8 7 . On

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refers to and puts forward as such and such is already uncovered. "I must already have the reference [Worii ber] in a certain sense in order to go wrong with respect to it" (L 1 8 3 ; PS 1 86 ) . What the assertion is about not only must be uncovered in advance, but also must continue to be present and tacitly entertained so that it can be pointed out and deter­ mined (allowed to be seen ''from another standpoint" ) by means of the assertion . In this way the second condition is "dominated and guided" by the first condition (L 1 8 7 ) . That is to say, we can bring something into relief (and herein lies the very point of making an assertion and of its apophantic 'as'-structure) only if we continue to have it present in an unthematic way (like the Gestalt shift required to see the rabbit af­ ter seeing the duck in the duck-rabbit) . We are able to determine and make the assertion 'The door is open ' only on the basis of "continually having the presence of the reference" (durchhaltendes Anwesendhaben des Worii ber) of the assertion, and this is "no determining, but rather a strai ghtforward having'' ( L 1 8g) . Just as the second condition points to a "foregoing uncoveredness," so the third condition ( the possibility of some thing being together with something else ) can be explained only on the basis of a "foregoing on­ handness . " A composite being - terms for the parts of which are placed together in the assertion - is not possible without the unity of a fore­ going, encompassing onhandness. Thus, for example, the possibility of the assertion 'Kant's birthplace lies in Germany' rests upon the co­ presence of Kant's birthplace and territory withi n Germany's borders. This copresen ce that is determined in an assertion is thus grounded in the unity of a "primary" presence that leads back once again to the first condition , the continual yet unthemati c presence of something within a hermeneutic understanding (see L 1 90 ) . The second and third conditions of bivalence thus presuppose the first condition . This first condition con tains the "foregoing uncovered­ ness" presupposed by the second condition as well as the "foregoing on­ handness" presupposed by the third condition . As Heidegger stresses, the first condition is not to be understood as a subj ect's manner of ac­ cess to entities. Subjectivity and subj ective acts are, as it were, "after the fac t" that entities make themselves present ( or, equivalently, talk of subj ectivity and subjective acts presupposes the hermeneutic understand­ ing in and to which en tities make themselves present) . The first condi­ tio n is the preeminent sense of being, bei ng as truth or, more precisely, the uncovering of en tities , their manner of d is pl aying themselves in a hermeneutic u n ders ta nd i ng There is a sense i n wh ich this tru th - be.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C EPT OF T R U T H

ing's truing or presencing - can not dissemble a n d thus excludes any possibili ty of falsehood or, better, any meaningful talk of falsehood. Hei­ degger accordingly declares that "uncoveredness thus takes over the re­ sponsibility of answering the question of being" ( L 1 8 2 , 1 90) . On Hei­ degger's reading, Aristotle has his eyes on nothing less than the hermeneutic truth , that is, the unthematic truth of hermeneuti c un­ derstanding, the 'as '-structure of which - " the wherefrom of the in ter­ preting and what is to be interpreted itself' - is presupposed by every synthesis and diairesis. In Theta 1 o Aristotle states unequivocally that there is a truth for which the conditions of deception and proposi tional truth do not ob­ tain . From this account there would seem to be ample reason to deny that Aristotle is either the originator or a victim of the logical prejudice ( or the ontological presuppositions historically ascribed to it) . Yet Hei­ degger is by no means ready to exonerate Aristotle fully on this score . D u e consideration cannot b e given to Heidegger's criticism, however, without taking note of the audaciousness, i ndeed, the violence and even rapaciousness, of his in terpretation . Two deviations from Aristo­ tle 's text make the radicaln ess of Heidegger's interpretation particu­ larly apparent. The types of truth discussed in Theta 1 o correspond to two types of entity (das Seiende to on) . To be sure, as Heidegger reprovingly n otes (L 1 79) , Aristotle oscillates in the second half of the chapter between talking about "the entity" (to on) and about "the manner of being" (to einai) . However, as far as the second type of truth is concerned, he is clearly speaking of an entity that is always fully actualized. That is to say, in this context Aristotle is referring to the manne r of being of a simple entity that is "on hand in an unqualified way [energeia, in actu] and not and n ever something not yet on hand, thus once not on hand" (ou dy­ namei, non in potentia) (L 1 83 ) . Aristotle mentions two entities of this sort, for which the alternative to truth is not falsity, but ignorance: "what something is" ( to ti estin) and "noncomposite beings" ( las me synthetas ou­ sias) ( 1 0!J 1 b 2 7 ) . The reference to these entities is duly translated by Heidegger, but then largely ignored except insofar as it bears upon and, in his mind, ultimately sabotages - the interpretation of truth ( un­ covering) as the preeminent manner of being. Instead of taking the en­ tity into consideration , Heidegger exploits the fact that Aristotle sub­ sequently links "the manner of being" (to einai) with truth (alethes) . ( 1 05 1 b 1 8- 1 g) . There is no more obvious indication of this strate gy or ruse tha n h i s translation of 'to de ky riotala o n, ' at one point, as ' the most =

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authentic being of an entity' (das allereigentlichste Sein des Seienden) ( though , at another point, he translates it as ' the most authentic entity' ; see L 1 7 4f) . Heidegger's translation thus forces the interpretation of truth as the preeminent sense , not of an entity, but of being. The second noteworthy departure from Aristotle's text concerns the relation between the syntheta and the asyntheta. In the framework of h is explanation of the possibility of being-true and being-false in Theta 1 0 , Aristotle draws attention only to the phenomenon that corresponds to what Heidegger elaborates as the third presupposition of bivalence. That is to say, Aristotle points to the fact that an assertion can be trtte or false because there is some diversity (duality or plurality) to the ref­ erence of the assertion . That diversity ( the syntheta) makes possible the falsity of an assertion . However, the truth of the simple (asyntheta) , the opposite of which cannot be falsity but only ignorance, is not explained by Aristotle as something akin to what Heidegger deems the truth of hermeneutic understanding, nor, accordingly, does Aristotle describe it as the condition of the possibility of propositional truth and falsity in general. Indeed, the nonassertoric truth of which Aristotle speaks in Theta 1 o is availed by nous, a term often translated as ' thought' or ' in­ tuitive intelligence ' in order to express its nondiscursive ness. 53 While Heidegger is ready to appropriate the nonassertoric, non bivalent char­ acter of the truth of nous to his own account of a prefallible, hermeneu­ tic understanding, 5 4 there is an important sense (as noted in section 3 . 1 above) in which hermeneutic understanding (and, with it, the dis­ closure of the world, the manner in which entities come to be presen t) does not exclude discursiveness. The deviations mentioned in the last two paragraphs are substan tive, but they do not seetn to detract from the point that Heidegger is press­ ing. For it is precisely because that simple reality neither comes to be nor passes away, or in other words, because of its manner of being con53 Heidegger is well aware, i t should be noted , of Aristotle's elastic u s e of 'nous ', partic u­

larl y wi th regard to i ts discursive as well as n ondiscursive �enses. For example, Aristotle also attributes to nou� the capacity to grasp principles ( see Posterior Anal)'lirs 1 oob5- 1 7 and De anima 1 1 43a3 5 ) and at times employs ' nous' and ' dianoia ' equivalen tly. See PS 1 Ro: "The thoroug h considering [Durchbetrachten] , dianoein, is a speaking [Sjnr?chen] , IR­ gein. To be 4ii U re , insofar as the arche is to be grasped, this intending [ Vermeinen] must leave the logos behind i t . It must be aneu logou, in order to have the possi bili ty of grasp­ ing an adaireton. " See n . 29 above . 54 As H ei degger reads Aristotle, the identification of "the preeminent sense of an entity" ( reinterpre ted as " be i ng" ) \Vi th ''truth" and "tru th " wi th "thinking" gives expressi on to th e " d i sd osedn ess" of be i n g-h ere (Da-sein) : cf. I O � I h i f an d I O :J 2 a i f.

2 20

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

stantly o n hand or on display, that it i s impossible to be deceived about it. H eidegger accordingly has reason to interpret this simple reality as the " exceptional" presence that underlies the copresence determined by m eans of assertions and as the "primary" uncoveredness that must be presupposed so that something can be regarded "from ano ther standpoint" and thus as such and such (L 1 8 2 ) . From Heidegger's point of view, however, in his appropriation of Aristotle's insight, this sense of being is indistinguishable from the presencing and absencing of e ntities in the con text of a hermeneutic understanding. 55 By contrast, Aristotle is said to iden tify being in this preeminent sense with sheer presen ce, in an apparen t confusion or conflation of what it supposedly is - i ts ac­ tualizing essence (to ti estin) with i ts manner of displaying itself. In other, but still H eideggerian terminology, Aristotle n eglects the onto­ logical difference between an enti ty and its manner of being. 56 The pre­ eminent sense of being for Aristotle is a presence that is pre sent in thoroughgoing fashion , rendering it possible for something to be seen and be present with something else. It is a presence that prevails over an enti ty's ousia as its substantial form (eidos) , accounting for the po­ tentialities that the entity has actualized as well as its other, as yet non­ actualized potentiali ties. 57 I n this way it becomes eviden t - or so Heidegger would have his stu­ dents conclude - that Aristotle, by conceivin g being (in the most au­ thentic or preeminen t sense of the term ) as presence, articulates the on tological presupposition of the logical prejudice. Nor does it matter whether that prejudice takes the form of a commitment to the ultimacy of proposition al truths or the ultimacy of perceptions or intuitions ( sen­ sory or intellectual: aisthesis or nous) that verify proposi tions. According to H eidegger, being in the most authen tic sense of the term i s con-

55

In this respect it is necessary to keep in mind Heidegger 's distinction in

SZ

betwe e n un­

c overing enti ties and disclosing the i r man ners of being. Aristotl e 's doctri ne is p rese n ted as ambiguously strad dling these on tic and on tological dime nsions; henc e , the term ' un­ cove redness' appl ies to the e n ti ty, ' d isclosed ness ' to its manner of be ing ( th ough , as noted, this fine tuning is not fully developed in the logic lectures ) .

56

For a similar poi nt, se� Remi Brague , Aristote

el la question du mondR ( Paris : Presses U ni­

ve rsitai res de France, 1 98 8 ) , 48 , 2 1 2 - 2 1 6 , 5 1 3ff; se e , too, 5 1 4 n.

1 , where Brague notes

Ari stotl e 's passing but unreflected rem ark , indicati ng the o n tological differe nce be­ tween presence and what is present or, eq uivalen tly, being and en ti ty.

57

Admittedly, th is i n te rpreta tion ignores ( a ) the purely noncomposite beings

(tas me syn­ thetas ousias) as well as (b) the com pl icati ons i nvolved in the rel ation be tween c onstancy

of the essences and the process of ge neration and corruption of the bei ngs forn1 ed by respective esse nces. For

Movement and

th e

Heidegge r's

Destruction

of

read ings of Aristotle ,

On tology, ··

Alunt.\l

G4,

see

uu.

Thomas Sheehan , "On

4 ( O c tober 1 g 8 1 ) : 54 1 .

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strued by Aristotle as the equivalent to what corresponds to the being of the entity, its self-display, that assertions permit us to "see" (Sehen­ lassen) . Being is determined, in other words, as the "presence" or "on­ handness" of the entity, a presence that can in turn be "uncovered" (in­ tuited) in a less original sense. Aristotle 's determination of truth as the preeminent sense of being is thus ultimately complicit in the establishm ent of the logical preju­ dice . For being as truth is , on Aristotle's accoun t, the prevailing pres­ ence of what is presen t (das Anwesen des Anwesenden) . The condi tions of the truth and falsity of an assertion presuppose this determination of being as presence. The truth of an assertion, conceived as the identity of what is meant and what is given, presupposes that what is given is and remains on hand as it is meant (or, what is the same, in accordance with the way that something is asserted of it) . In contras t to entities or parts of entities that can be together with another and thus have some sort of poten tiality, there is no deception , no falsehood possible regarding being that is fully actualized and thus utterly on display. Moreover, the perceptual truth presupposed by the truth of an assertion also presup­ poses that prevailing presence. In Aristotelian terms, perception is an actualization of potential on the part of the obj ect and the percipient sense, while the actuality of the percipient sense clearly presupposes the foregoing actual and active presence of the perceptual obj ect (see De anima 4 1 7a 1 7-2 I , 4 1 8a4, 4 2 5b2 6-42 6a2o) . Being can be determined through perceptions and assertions precisely because it is always, on hand, constantly present. "Thus, uncoveredness as the supreme mode for presence , namely, as present now, is a mode of being and, to be sure, the most authentic of all modes of being, the presence that continues to be present itself [die anwesend,e Anwesenheit] " (L 1 93 ) . By means of this interpretation of the temporal determination of the most authentic sense of being (which constitutes the first condition of perceptual as well as propositional truth ) , Heidegger delivers in one stroke part of the answer to the question with which he ends his pre­ sentation of both Lotze 's and Husserl 's conceptions of truth: Why was it so obvious, so self-eviden t to these and other thinkers that the truth be conceived as the identity of what is intuited and meant (asserted) ? This obviousness can be traced in part to Aristotle 's determination that truth as uncovering ( being-true ) constitutes the most authentic sense of being. B e i ng' in the most authentic sense of the term is identical with 'being-true ' in the sense of the original uncovering/ uncovered­ ness of entities. H e i degge r c o nc ed es that Ari s to tl e himself simply makes '

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this determination without asking why truth is regarded as th e most au­ thentic determination of being ( see L 1 9 1 ) . At the same time, however, the answer is suggested by Aristotle, inasmuch as being in this sense is explained by him as ever-presence. Aristotle interprets being in thi s way because he has his sights set on, among other things, the man ner of pre­ sen ting itself that permits an en tity to be perceived and identified in an assertion. At th e basis of perceptual and propositional truth (and thereby the conception of entities' being as presence ) lies the notion that an enti ty can only be regarded as such and such because it contin­ ues to be held on to as something that is presen t (hypokeimenon) and present along with something else . Thus, according to Heidegger's ac­ count, Aristotle recognizes that 'being' in the preeminent sense is truth in th e sense of an original disclosure , but at th e same time undermines that i nsight by equating bei ng with what is presently or constantly pres­ ent. Aristotle interprets being i n the most authentic sense of the term as tntth, a presence or uncovering, precisely because it is thanks to the un thematic, foregoing, and sustained presence of the entity that it can be perceived and poi nted out by means of an assertion . However, as Hei­ degger is quick to note, this understanding of being is itself a proj ec­ tion with an unmistakenly temporal horizon . The determination of this "implicit" presupposition of Aristotle 's un­ derstanding of being clarifies th e next task at hand for the proj ect of exposing and challenging the logical prejudice. What needs to be ex­ plained is how and why such a temporal determination ( "presence") underlies this conception of being - and whether there is an alte rna­ tive. At the end of th e "First Main Part" (Erstes Hauptstilck) of his logic lectures Heidegger hints only briefly at the phenomenon that yields the answer to these questions: the act of making presen tly present or pre­ se n ti ng (Gegenwiirtigen) , an act "in which I constantly live ," makes it pos­ si ble "that something can be encountered at all , that is to say, that what is present is uncoverable, can be present" ( L 1 9 2 ) . Heidegger interprets timeliness chiefly i n the ''Second Main Part" of the logic lectures as well as in the Prolegomena Lectures. There he be­ comes progressively clearer about the senses of timeliness that under­ lie the various understandings of being, senses that he systematically brings together in Being and Time. This systematic dete rmination of timeliness provides the linchpin to the argument that, in Heidegger's eyes, is decisive in his confron tation with the logical prej udice.

4 TH E TIME LINE S S O F EX IS T E N T IA L T RUTH : DISCL OS ING TH E S ENS E OF B E IN G

Truth, understood in the most original sense , is part of the basic constitution of being-here. Heidegger, 1 9 2 7 1

For the author of Being and Time, the logical prejudice is not the last word on the subject of truth . Veridical assertions as well as the percep­ tions verifying them presuppose that their "objects" make themselves present or disclose themselves, a disclosure that, as part-and-parcel of our dealings with entities in the world, is not itself a perception or in­ tuition . This disclosure is, Heidegger maintains in the mid- 1 g 2 os, the original significance of ' truth . ' Far from being a barely determinate and abstract, even redundant property of sotne perceptions or assertions, truth is the original and concrete disclosure of things, the way they make themselves present and, in that sense , their manner of being. As sketched in the preceding chapter, Heidegger arrives at - or at least presents - his insight into an "original" truth of this sort via a crit­ i cal i nterpretation of Aristotle's reflections on assertions, truth, and be­ ing. For Aristotle, the preeminent sense of being is a matter of truth and falsity. While th e truth corresponding to the structure of assertions concerns only what is composed (syntheta) , there is a truth (uncov­ eredness) corresponding to simple entities (ta asyntheta) , the opposite of which is not falsehood but mere ignorance . On Heidegger's uncon­ ven tional reading of these ruminations, wh at Aristotle has i n mind by the "most ge nuine sense of being" is precisely truth as the uncovered­ ness or onhandness of entities th at - again in Heidegger's interpretal

sz 2 26.

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tion - underlies an assertion 's possibility o f being true or false a t all. Quirky student of Scotus and Dilthey that he was, however, Heidegger reasons that this transcendental truth ( this truth convertible with be­ ing) cannot be identified with the presence, even the prevailing pres­ ence of a particular entity that is allegedly fully actual. It is, instead, a dis-closing in the literal sense of the term, a movement involving clo­ sure , from bei ng hidden to being present to being finished off, that only makes sense as a kind of ripening (Zeitigung) or timeliness (Zeitlichkeit) . Only on the basis of being as truth in this sense is an entity used ("taken as something" ) and thereby also identified, indexed , and articulated. The aim of the present chapter is to examine Heidegger's argument for the timeliness of being and for the disclosure of this sense of being as the most basic, that is, existential significance of ' truth. ' At stake is Heidegger's fundamental thesis in Being and Time and the Marburg lec­ tures, a thesis that can be summed up in abbreviated fashion as follows: Time is the sense of being, while truth, in the original sense of the term, is the disclosure of this sense. 2 Without further qualification , the thesis that time is the sense of be­ ing and truth the disclosure of that sense may suggest that being is at bottom a fleeting event or perhaps even a story that takes place within a certain span of time. If truth were understood in this sense , then psy­ chologism or h istoricism would carry the day - a reproach that contin­ ues to be advanced against Heidegger. 3 Heidegger himself cautions, however, that it is one thing to regard something as transpiring in time , quite another to characterize something in terms of time. His concern is with the latter, namely, with the way in which a notion of time informs a conception of being, though he clearly has difficulty finding the right 2 On Heidegger's different uses of 'se n se , ' see 5 . 2 1 . For the most part, Heidegger's de­ scription of truth as ' uncoveredness ' (Entdecktheit) in the logic lec tures gives way in SZ to tnt th as "d isclosed ness" (Erschlossenheit) , more precisely, the clearing of bein g-here . " U n­ coveredness" is rese rved for th e on tic discovery or uncove ring of an en tity, wh ile 'dis­ closedness' is reserved for the ontological disc losure , nan1 ely, for the way in whkh its man ner of being is disc losed . See SZ 2 2 of: "the uncovered n ess of entities within-th e­ world is groundfd i n the disclosed ness of the world. But disclosed ness i� the basic manner of bei ng-h ere , in accordance with which it is its here . . . . thu� the most o rigin al p h e­ no mt>non of the truth is fi rst attai ned with th e disrlosnlnf{jS of bei ng-h ere . '' See , too, SZ 2 2 1 : "Equ ipri mordial wi th the being of being-here and i t� d isclosed ness is uncoveredn ess of entities withi n-th e-world." 3 See Ric hard Ro rty, Conseq uent e.\ ofPragmati.\ m (Essa)'!J : 1 9 7 2 - 1 9 8o) ( Minn eapoJis: Un iver­ sity of Minnesota Pres�, 1 98 2 ) , 4 6 , and t.ssa)'S on HPidPgger and. Othen ( Cambridge : Cam­ bridge University Press , 1 99 1 ) , 1 5 ; Robert Pippin , ModernHm as a Philomphiral ProbiRm (Oxford: Oxford Li l l i veu � i t y P t e:-,� , 1 99 1 ) , 1 40.

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terminology for this consideration in the mid- 1 g2 os. 4 Despi te the ter­ minological shifts, however, there can be no mistaking Heidegger's in­ ten tion of distinguishing his analyses from any argument for histori­ cism. Heidegger's understanding of truth , like Aristotle 's, is oriented to time, without being historicist. At the same time, as reviewed in the last chapter, it is precisely the temporal orien tation of Aristotelian on tology that helps entrench th e logical prejudice in traditional th inking, according to Heidegger. A spe­ cific temporal understanding of being informs the traditional presup­ position that truth - be it th e truth of a perception or of an assertion is itself some thing on han d, some thing presen tly present. Nor does it matte r if truth ( or being) is conceived as the presence of an en tity per­ ceived or as the iden tity of a perceived entity with what is mean t (as­ serted) . Once this hegemony of being as presence is in place, the rela­ tion of a true proposition to the state of affairs designated by it is itself viewed as something on hand or presen t. On the basis of this same con­ ception of being, time itself- insofar as it is - is construed as consisting of something on hand. More precisely, time is defined as a one-dimen­ sional, seque n tial series, itself always on hand, of equally on-hand now­ points. According to this composite picture of being, truth , and time , propositions such as 'Two squared is four' or 'Water contains twice as much hydrogen as oxygen ' are considered true because the condi tions or states of affairs expressed by them obtain at any and every poin t in 4 Thus , people speak of the ice age , the age of Enlighte nment, and the capi talist epoc h , o n the o n e hand, and mathematical truths that unfaili ngly obtain, a divine eternity, a nd imperishable beauties, on the other. With a view to this distinction Heidegger indicates his i n te n tion , in the logic lectures, to disti nguish between ' timely' (zeitlich) and ' tem po­ ral ' (temporal) : "Thus, ' timely, ' tran spiring in tim e , is not ide n tical to ' temporal , ' which says only so much as ' characterized by m eans of tim e ' " ( L t gg; P 442 ) . Heidegger does not, howeve r, consistently use the same te rm s to maintain this distinctio n . In Being and Time he employs the noun ' timeliness ' (Zeitlichkeit) precisely to designate the sense of be­ ing-h ere in con trast to what is 'wi thin time ' ( inn eneitig) (SZ 1 8f, 4 2 0 ) , and in Fundamen­ tal Problems of Phenomenology ' timeli ness' is fu rther distinguished from ' te mporality' as the co ndition of the possibi lity of understanding be ing at all and its formation i n to on tology (GP 3 2 4, 3 8 8f, 4 2 9£) . The term ' timeliness' captures the concrete ye t no nsubjec tive char­ acte r of the se nse of bei n g better than the term 'te m po rality' does . Fo r example, the defi n i ng "moment" (AugPnblick) of authen ti c ti meliness, the paradigtn in terms of which other senses of timeliness are to be determ i n ed, is ti me ly, but this se nse is barely conveyed by calling it " tem poral . '' 'Timeli ness' suggests a right time or, at leas t, an issue of whether the time is righ t, th ough not in relation to anything other than itself; thus it re tai ns the sen se of ' ripe ning' and ' u nfol ding' contai ned i n the German verb ' zeitzgen' upon which Heidegge r plays (" Ze i t ze itigt" ) . In the last an alysis, timeliness is the sense and measu re of hPi n g-h PrP .

' H F. I D F. G G E R s C O N C E P T O F T R U T H

time or, in other words, are always on hand. So, too, the truth of propo­ sitions th at portray historical events or details such as 'The Romans camped on th e Rhin e ' or ' Germany attacked the Soviet Union ' migh t be explained as consisting in the fact that such events and details were once on hand and now occupy a permanent (ever-present) position in the series of presences that reaches into the present. The logical prejudice, while primarily a presumption about the sig­ nificance of ' truth , ' is thus in fact formed by the triangulation of no­ tions of being, truth , and time, described in the preceding paragraph . The author of Being and 1zme is, of course, deeply aware of this fact and its implications for his effort to disestablish the logical prejudice . The import for that effort is patent: it must be demonstrated not only that neither being nor truth is adequately conceived when equated with presence, but also th at time itself does not consist ultimately in on-hand presences "running-off' in an ever-present series. Reasons why being and truth are construed as presence have been documented in the opening chapters. While Lotze accords truth a sep­ arate ontological status as a valid judgment, Husser I breaks through this fixation on judgments by identifying the sort of truth , availed by a cat­ egorial perception , that underlies talk of true judgments. Yet Husserl continues, no less than Lotze , to construe truth as a permanent if ideal presence because his philosophical investigations are orien ted to the idea of science, the paradigm of which is a mathematical science of na­ ture, the results of which take the form of universally binding proposi­ tions (EpF 64£) . Not surprisingly, from Heidegger's vantage point, Husserl 's analysis of consciousness, indeed, his ve ry decision to focus on consciousn ess or inten tionality as the theme of his investigations, is of a piece with an assumption of a naturalist ontology. Even more im­ portant and revealing, in Heidegge r's eyes, is the motivation for this de­ cision to orient the conception of truth to the idea of science . What Husser! cares about, the interests guiding his concern for knowledge known, for knowl edge that has been secured, is an A ng5t over existence . By con trast, instead of orienting the analysis of truth toward the idea of science and thus presuming the equivalence of 'being' and 'pres­ ence, ' Heidegger undertakes an inquiry into the significance of ' being. ' He proposes being as a question. What he ostensibly cares about is not knowledge that either is or need be justified, that is truths about what is on hand, but instead th e very sense of being itself and th e original pheno m en o n of truth as the disclosure of th at sen s e. Just as care proved t o b e th e m o tiva t i o n fo r H u��e rl 's a n a l ys is of intentional i ty, so Heideg-

TH E T I M E L I N E S S O F E X I STE N T I A L T R U T H

ger takes th e caring manner of being-here as the site of this disclosure . Not inte n tionality, but being-here (existence, being-in-th e-world ) th us becomes the basic platform for the inquiry into what it means "to be . " Heidegger labels the inquiry "existen tial analysis" or, with a more sys­ tematic accent, "fundamental ontology" (as a necessary con dition for any further ontological forays) . The conclusion of the exerci se is that being-here discloses timeliness as the sense of being, thereby accoun t­ ing for the traditional ontological and alethiological presupposition s of the logical prejudice as well as their limitations. The expressions ' being-here, ' 'being-in-the-world, ' and ' existence ' are Heidegger's ways of indicating, with differen t emphases, a manner of being that i s peculiar to human beings, in an d to which other enti­ ties ( including other human beings) make themselves present. In ligh t of the traditional distinction among categories, differen tiation of this manner of being from others amounts to a kind of "metacategorial dis­ tinction . " Moreover, by undertaking this existen tial analysis ( analysis of what it means "to be here'' ) , Heidegger is attempting to do what, in his view, Husserl 's phenomenology fatally neglects, namely, to give an ac­ count of the manner of being of in tentionality - though the term 'in­ tentionality' itself is jettisoned in the process. The self-disclosiveness of existence must be considered, at bottom, not something immanen tly in ten tional or explicitly conscious, not some mental self-awareness and, indeed, not any con sciousn ess at all, but in stead something Heidegger characterizes as a manner of being that, in caring, is "always already out­ side itself." 5 The phenomenon that in Husserlian phenomenology is viewed so to speak "from the outside" as intentionality is presented by Heidegger as 5 At th is j uncture, a com ment is in order rega rd ing Heidegger 's phrase 'being-i n-the­ wo rld , ' especial ly his use of th e preposition ' i n ' in that phrase, since he intends to dis­ tinguish it from th e se nse in which one entity is enc losed or located in anoth er or, fo r that matter, the sense in wh ich an entity might be "within" the world. As he puts i t, the 'in' in the expression ' bei ng-in-th e-wo rld ' is not categori al , but existential . What ' being­ i n ' designates is supposed to be pre spatial . Being in a family, for exam ple , by no means excl udes bei n g at a specific plac e , and someth i ng simi lar might wel l be said for being in poor or good health , in debt or in doubt, in control or in a state of confusion, in hope of someth i ng or i n love wi th someone. Each of th ese uses of ' i n ' suggest� not Russian dolls i nside one another but an in-volven1 e n t or absorption in a world that H eidegge r sub­ sumes u nder the ge neral rubric of concern ( Bn-sorgen) . Heidegge r does not deny the pos­ sibility of cons truing bei n g-here or being-in-th e-world as th ough i t were merely on hand , namely, by setti ng aside i ts existe n tial constitution . But if this is done, bei ng-here's fac­ ticity (Faktizitiit) is not to be confused wi th the matter-of-factness ( Tatsiichlichkeit) of an oc­ c u rr� n cP wi t h i n t h � w n rkl : cf. SZ � .� ff.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

"care," encompassing structures of being-in-the-world that are equally original ( equiprimordial ) . Constitutive of the uni ty of care are a work-world, a world of concern , of worrying and procuring; 2 a shared world, made up of concern for one another, in the interest of dominating or liberating one another; and 3 the care that each being that is here takes, respectively, to be itself, in both the work-world and the shared world. 1

In giving interpretations of the work-world, the shared world, and their dependence upon care, Heidegger takes his fi rst th ree steps - there are five in all - in confronting the conception of being underlying the log­ ical prejudice. For the elaboration of these aspects of human existence is mean t to demonstrate how being-here is different from the way things are present within the world. This difference is summed up in the con­ cept of care, the essential structure of being-here. What care discloses is neither the hidden presence of something handy in the immediate environmen t nor the uncovered presence of a simple, ultimate entity (what Aristotle might have construed as "simply on hand and never not on hand" ) , but instead the quite distinctive manner of being-here as the site of the disclosure of those other manners of being. What ul timately underlies unthematic as well as thematic, practical as well as theoreti­ cal truth , is not something on hand, but rather a peculiar "presence" (Priisenz) constituti ng the worldliness of the world, the self-disclosive place in which things within the environment present and absen t them­ selves, and in which others are with us here (Mitdaseienden) . 6 The worldliness of the world is part of the structure of care as the defining manner of being-in-the-world, wh ere what finally matters is, in eac h case, one's own being or, equivalen tly, being oneself. 7 That care 6 As discussed in sec tion 4. 1 below, th e term ' Priisenz' is employed precisely to capture what Heidegger calls th e "a priori perfect, " the "always al ready" presen t that is not the pres­ ence of som eth i ng on hand wi th in the world or wi thin ti m e . I nstead the world of con­ cern "abides , " precisely in the ligh t of a projection or, be tter, an expec tati on of what wi ll come of it. 7 The equivale nce stated by this last disj unction in trod uces two frustrating ambigui ties in H eidegge r's talk abo ut what matte rs in being-here. The first ambiguity con cerns the lack of a disti nction between on e's bei ng and one's self. Heidegge r does not take the trouble to differentiate be tween 'o ne's own being' and 'being oneself, ' though i t is clear that the phenomena design ated by these expressions are not supposed to coincide completely in th e fin al analy�i s (cf. SZ 3 2 3 ) . Fran <;ois Raffoul does a good job of sorti ng through m any of the issues surrounding the diffe rence between subjectivity ( i n clud ing ego h ood) and selfl1ood ( tn i ne n e ss ) i n his HeuiPgger and the Subjed, tJ . Dc:tvid Pe ttigrew and Gre gory Recco

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2 29

fundamentally defines "being-here" is also mean t to express the fac t that the enti ty that "is-here" i s not merely handy o r o n hand, but has an understanding of what it means to be . In other words, the entity that is­ here is the entity whose being discloses itself to him or her, because "be­ ing-here" always finds itself already (factually) as a being-in-the-world and continually projects itself ( existing) as a possibility-of-being-in-the­ world. ' Care ' expresses the holistic struc ture of being-here, the unity of the very manners of being ( existentials) that constitute and disclose what it means to "be-here" as the site in which other entites make them­ selves present. According to Heidegger's analysis, to be-here is to have been thrown (geworfen) into the world and to have fallen in with i t (or, equivalen tly, lapsed in to it: verfallen) an d yet to project (entwerfen) one­ self for the sake of some possibility-of-being. While care, as depicted above, is the unified structure and mean ing of being-in-the-world, someon e may or may not succeed in being the

(Atlantic Highlands, NJ.: Humanities Press, 1 998 ) . The second ambiguity concerns the gender of one's own being-here or being-oneself ( an ambiguity that further complicates the first one) . The presence of this ambiguity is perhaps more easily seen in English than in Gennan , thanks to English 's more explicit differentiation of masculine, feminine, and neuter in reflexive grammatical expressions. I n ordinary English usage, 'being itself and 'being himself or herself are generally distinguished in ways that can be left ambiguous by the German usage of the reflexives ' selbst' and ' sich selbst. ' This issue is exacerbated by the claim that Dasein is not a what, but a who, a phe nomenon obscured by translations of ' selbst' as 'itself rather than ' himself' or ' herself. ' Th is issue is largely ignored in SZ, but not in MAL, even though Heidegger j ustifies the neutrality of Dasein; cf. MAL 1 7 1 ff. For the most part, these ambiguities are smoothed over in the present exposition, either by employing ' being-here' impersonally ( e.g., SZ 1 48: "Being-here projects, as under­ standi ng, its being onto possibilities," or SZ 364 : "Insofar as being-here factually exists, it understands itself in this context of the 'for-the-sake-of-itself' wi th a respective ' in-order­ to' " ) or, l ess often , by using variants of 'one' and 'on eself' in an a ttempt to express the fact that bei ng-here is always a matter for someone "who" is-he re (e.g., SZ 336: "I t [ the expression 'an ticipating' ] indicates that being-here, existing authentically, allows one­ self, as the poten tial-to-be most proper to one, to come to oneself, that the future must first be attained, not from a present, but from the inauthen tic future") . Occasionally, the third-person singular femi nine ( 'she , ' 'her' ) or even first-person singular and plural ( ' I , ' 'we , ' e tc . ) i s used. These uses should n ot de tract from the fact that the analysis i s intended to be existential and fundamen tal-ontological , for which considerations of egology and gender are supposed to be secondary. Nonethelesli, uses of other expressions than ' i t' and 'itself for 'being-here ' are appropriate reminders of the re�pec tive "m ineness" ( SZ 1 1 4: "Being-here is the e n tity that respectively I myself am , the being is respec tively mine" ) and "who-ness" of being-here ( see , e .g. , SZ 1 2 5f, 3 1 6-3 2 3 ) as well as the fact that existen tiel and existential dimensions are always coinddent. There is pe rhaps no better evidence fo r this coincidence than the fac t that being-here (Dasfin) is repeatedly char­ acterized by Heidegger as both an entity (Seiendfs) and as a manner of being, namely, dis­ closednes� (Enchlos.\mhfil) .

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C EPT O F TR U T H

sort of being she properly is and thus in being herself (or being who she genuinely is) . In other words, it is possible to speak of authentically and inauthentically being-here . Making a trenchant argument that the manner of being proper to human beings is different from th e handi­ ness and onhandness of other things accordingly requires giving a suit­ able interpre tation of authentic existence. Yet another step is thus required in order to expose and counter the conception of being underlying th e logical prej udice , namely, 4 the establishment of the manner of being of authentic existence ( or

equivalently, authentic care ) . Only by virtue of this fourth step, namely, the analysis of authentic care , is it possible to corroborate the th esis that being-here is not itself some­ thing merely handy or on hand, but instead constantly proj ects its po­ ten tial-to-be . According to Heidegger, this truth expresses itself origi­ nally, not in any assertion or communique , but rather in the logos of conscience, in silen tly but resolutely hearing one's conscience. What makes authentic care possible is not the coming-and-going of presences and absences, but a timeliness that stems from the original phenome­ non of the future ( coming to oneself original ly) . The final step i n Hei­ degger's argumen t is accordingly 5 the de termination of an original timeliness - in contrast to an every­

day, "derivative" time - as the fundamental sense of being-here au­ thentically (authentically caring) . The positive de termination of this timeliness consists in exhibiti ng the original unity of the structure of care . As already indicated, this orig­ inal timeliness is not to be confused with the sort of time that is under­ stood solely in terms of things on hand, in other words, the time "with which we are acquain ted on a daily basis and to which we accommodate ourselves" (P 44 2 ; SZ 3 2 9) . As part of demonstrati ng that the timeliness constituting what it means for someone to be-here is not reducible to something on hand (or, equivalently, to the now or a series of mome n­ tarily present nows ) , Heidegger explains h ow the everyday conception of time , charac teristic of inatlthentic existence, springs from the origi­ nal timeliness. In highly condensed fashion , the five points mentioned outline Hei­ . degger's argument of h ow the understanding of being leads back to a definite con ce p ti on of tin1e. O n e of the argumen t's o q j e c tives is to e x -

TH E T I M E L I N E S S O F E X I STENT I A L TRUTH

pose and explain the traditional neglect of the temporal character of being. The argument remains in the ambi t of a ph ilosophical logic in­ asmuch as it purports to demonstrate the inadequacy of the under­ standing of being - being as presence - that traditionally underlies the logical prejudice . The presen t chapter attempts to pursue each step of this argument in some detail. Corresponding to each step, the five premises of Heidegger's argumen t against the logical prejudice are re­ construc ted, together with its conclusion that timeliness constitutes the existential truth of being-here , the sense of being that is originally dis­ closed by it. This argument encompasses the entire spectrum of re­ flections and analyses in Being and Time, so no claim is made here to exhaustiveness. The aim is to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the argument chiefly insofar as it emerges from the Marburg lec­ tures ( including the summer lecture of 1 9 2 7 ) and attains a measure of finality and completeness i n Being and Time. As a preparation for this investigation , it may be useful to sketch in broad strokes the con­ tent and method of Heidegger's undertaking as well as its problematic character. 4. 0 Preconside rations: Metacategorial Distinction and the

Paradox of Thematization , Formal Indications and the Task of Philosophy, and the Concrete U niversality of Being-Here Heidegger's i nterpretation of being-here - h is designation for the way in which human intentionality "exists" - proceeds from the premise that this manner of being is sui generis, even though its distinctiveness is allegedly disregarded with alar1ning regularity. There are reasons for this ontological obtuseness. Although this man ner of being is closest to us in one sense , in an other sense it is the most distant from us, not least because our language is initially direc ted at things of the world. "The sort of en tity that we ourselves are is ontologically the one most distan t from us" (SZ 3 1 1 ; P 2 0 2f; L 2 1 o-2 1 4 ) . This is not to deny that at times we successfully wield expressions for human properties as metaphors for other things and states of affairs ( as in " king of the jungle" or Dylan Thomas's line, "The new asylum on the hill/Leers down the valley like a fool") . Nevertheless, the transposi tion of determinations of worldly things and even ts to h uman beings is typical. Descartes provides a par­ ticularly potent, indeed, a spectacularly prescient example in Traite de l 'homme: 'j e suppose que le Corps n ' est autre chose qu ' une statue ou mach ine de t e rre " (AT X I 1 2 0 ) . I n H e idegge r's vi e,v, this s o rt of trans-

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

position is poten tially fatal t o ontology. As discussed i n Chapter 1 , he reproaches Lotze and both defenders and critics of psychologism for pre supposing the universality of an understanding-of-being that takes its cues from a distinctive "ontology of nature" and, not surprisingly, has a mistaken conception of h uman existence (P 2 74) . Heidegger's warning about transposing the determination of being from one sphere onto another echoes a meth odological outlook, shared by Aristotle and Husserl, that the subject matter dic tate the man­ ner of approaching it, rather than vice versa. If the manner of being that is proper to human inten tionality is indeed distinctive , the n th e characterization of it in other on tological terms is akin to th e metabasis eis allo genos, or what Ryle famously calls a "category mistake ." 8 At the same time, h owever, Heidegger contends that human existence is dis­ ti nguished among entities by its relation to being, by the fact that "with and through its being, this is disclosed" and matters to it ( SZ 1 2 ) . If there is anything to this contention, it becomes immediately apparen t that t h e difference between human existence and other manners o f be­ ing is not a categorial distinction according to Aristotle 's or Kant's uses of the term ' category. ' Aristotle 's list of categories is composed of pri­ mary, individual entities (prole ousia) and th e manners of being indi­ cated by the generic terms (ousia, poson, poion, etc . ) that are predicated of the terms for primary enti ties; Kant's categories, derived from the possible forms of judgmen t, are conditions of the possibility of the ex­ peri ence of any obj ect at all. 9 The distinction to which H eidegger lays claim with h is insistence on the distinctiveness of human existence or "being-here'' thus does not surface as a distinction between one Aris­ totelian or Kan tian category and another. "Being-on-hand'' (Vorhanden­ sein) , one manner of being that is discriminated by Heidegger and dif­ fere n tiated from being-here , ranges like a transcendental in the scholastic doctrine over various categories of th e sort iden tified by Aris­ totle and Kan t. For this very reason , it would also be misleading to con8 Gilbe rt Ryle , The

Concept of Mind

( London: Barnes & Noble, 1 9 4 9) , 8, 1 6f.

g I n Kan t's derivation of the categories from logical forn1s of j udgm ent, independent of

any specific m a nner of being, Klaus Diising sees an advan tage ove r Heidegge r's distinc­ tio n . Heidegger's conte n tion, however, is that the deriva tion is not on tol ogically neu tral . See Klaus Dusing, "SelbstbewuBtsei nsmodelle: Apperzeption und ZeitbewuBtse in i n Heideggers Ausei n anderseuung m i t Kan t, " i n 7.£iterfahrung und Personalitiit, ed. S. Blasche, W. Kohler, W. Kuhlman n , and P. Rohs (Fran kfurt am Main: Suh rkamp, 1 99 1 ) , 1 1 g. At issue i s whether Heidegger's argtnnent fo r the disti nctiveness of bei ng-here falls outside the paramete rs of Aris totel ian , Kanti an , or - for that matte r - Hegelian cate­ gories.

THE T I M E L I N E S S OF EX I STENTI AL TRUTH

2 33

strue the difference between human existence and other sorts of beings along the lines of a difference among transcendentals, since each tran­ scendental is determined precisely with a view to the Aristotelian doc­ trine of categories, namely, insofar as it can be commonly attributed to them . (Thus, for example, 'being' and ' unity' designate transcenden­ tals because they can be attributed to concepts of substance, quan tity, quality, relation, etc. ) Indeed, the fact that res is a transcendental ac­ cording to Aquinas (modus generalis consequens omne ens) indicates how sharply at least his doctrine of transcendentals diverges from the dis­ tinctions that Heidegger claims to draw among man ners of being. 1 0 On the basis of such historical considerations and in the interest of formalizing the primary distin ction drawn by him, Heidegger distin­ guishes "existentials," the ontological characteristics peculiar to human existence , from "categories," his label for all other sorts of on tological determinations (SZ 8 8 ) . Existen tials are what might be called "reflex­ ive performatives" ; that is to say, like breathing or singing, they refer back in the performance to the performing agent. 1 1 Yet, unlike breath­ ing or singing, existe ntials designate ways of existing that can not be ad­ equately described wi thout reference to the holistic way they disclose themselves, namely, as manners of being-here (being-in-the-world) in 1 o Thomas Aquinas, Von der Wahrheit: De veritate (Quaestio /), ed. Albert Zimmerman (Ham­ burg: Meiner, 1 g 86) , 6; Duns Scotus, Quaestiones subtilissimae super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis in opera Omnia, vol . 7 ( Paris: Vives, 1 893 ) , 5 · See , too, Karl Barthlein, Die Tran­ szendentalienlehre der allen Ontologie ( Berlin: de Gruyter, 1 97 2 ) . For other medieval ac­ counts of transcendentals, see John Wippe l , The Met ap hys ical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines (Wash ington , D . C . : Cathol ic U niv. of America Press, 1 98 1 ) , 24-36; and jan Aertse n, Mediev�l Philosophy and the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas ( N ew York: Brill , 1 996 ) . 1 1 The expression ' reflexive performative ' may seem redundan t, bu t it is meant to un­ derscore the self-discl osiveness that Heidegger attaches to exis tentials . This ontological self-disclosive ness, it bears emphasizing, is not an egological or person al self-conscious­ ness, which, in fact, presupposes i t. Neverth eless, the existentials are self-disclosive ; be­ ing-here is not so absorbed i n to the world that re trieval of its manners of bei ng ( the ex­ istentials) is impossible or i n explicable. Here i n lies the danger of construing the understanding, in Heidegger's sense of the te rm , as mere coping. I n the first place, mere coping wi th the environmen t need not be recursive in such a way that it can be re trieved by the one coping; and , in the second place, mere copi ng can be adequately described i n strictly on tic te rms, whe reas understanding as an existen tial is not a way of u ncove ring th ings but rather the way in wh ich th eir manner of being is (preon tologi­ cally) disclosed. This use of ' performative' to designate an existen tial differs from Austin 's, but does so in i nstruc tive ways . Wh ile bui lding a kind of reflexiveness into h is accou nt of perform ati ves, Austin is i n terested i n their infelicities; cf. How to Do Things with Words, second edi ti o n , ed. J . 0 . U rmso n and Mari na Sbisa (Cam bridge, M ass . : Har­ vard l! niv. Press , I 97 .'J ) , l .'J , :�9-.J 2 .

2 34

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

which things make themselves present. Existentials are , in other words, self-disclosive manners of acting, prethematic enactments that consti­ tute being-here for someone by way of revealing it - her disclosive be­ ing as a whole - to her. (Again, it bears emphasizing that existe ntials are reflexive but prereflective and thus not to be confused with any sort of mental self-awareness. Nevertheless, they are capable of being re trieved in reflection and, hence , it remai ns appropriate, indeed even necessary, to speak not merely of a "disclosure" but of a "self-disclosure . " ) The disinction be tween existen tials and categories i s perhaps best understood as a "meta-categorial" distinction, since it is not "transcen­ dental" in the traditional sense (as indicated above ) . 1 2 Between the manners of being of things within-the-world (h andiness, onhandness) and that of human beings, there is a distinction different from the clas­ sical one among categories ( e. g., between quality and quantity) or be­ tween categories and transcenden tals (e.g. , between quality and being) . I n Chapter 1 mention was made of Heidegger's skepticism toward the claim made by a generation of thinkers after Lotze (including Husser! ) that psychologism had been utterly refuted. One reason for Heideg­ ger's skepticism i n this regard was the fact that for the critics of psy­ chologism as well as for its proponents the point of departure is a con­ ception of being that is fundamentally oriented toward an "ontology of nature" (rather than an ontology of care ) . This criticism is, in a sense , merely a variant of a growing dissatisfaction shared by Heidegger with Scheler and others. Undoubtedly fomented by his readings of Luther, Augustine, and Kierkegaard in the early 1 92 0s as well, the dissatisfac­ tion is directed at the inadequacy of traditionally received categories, not merely in their scholastic form but even in their original Aris­ totelian formulation. 1 3 In their metaphysical taxonomies , neither scholastic thinkers nor their modern rationalist cousins make the meta1 2 SZ 88, 44 · As further j ustification of the use of th e term ' m etacategorial , ' the i mpor­

tance of the problem of catego ries for H eidegger 's earl i est research may be recalled. As discussed i n Ch a p te r 1 above, his h a b il i t ati o n aims, among other things , to show the rel­ evance of the m e dieval doctrine of categories to conte mporary di s cuss io n of the issue. See FS 2 0 2 ; Stru be , Zur Vorgesrhichte, 39-44; and Crowel l , " M aking Logic Philosoph ical Agai n , " 55-7 2 .

1 3 See SZ 1 o and n . 2 of Chapter 2 above . On the i mportance of Luther to Heidegger's development, see Hans-Georg Gadan1er, "Die Marb u rge r T h eolo g i e , Heidf!ggers WPge (Tubinge n : Moh r, 1 98:� ) , 3 1 ; O t to Pogg eler, "Zeit u n d Sein bei Heidegger," i n Zeit u n d Zeitlichkeit b ei Hu 5Serl u n d HPidegger, ed. E rnst Wolfgang O rth ( Frei b u rg : Al b er, l 9 8 3 ) , 1 5 7- 1 70; Ki�iel, Gnu.\ i.fl, 7 Gff, 1 1 1 , 1 7 4 , 1 R 3 , 2 2 7f, 2 70, 456; and van Buren , The Young "

/IPideggn;

1 3 1 -� < ) 2 .

THE TI MELI NESS OF EX I STENTIAL TRUTH

2 35

categorial distinction between existen tial and categorial domains; not coincidentally, they also fail to give anything approaching an adequate account of the reality of th e intentional sphere. Closely tied to this fail­ ure to make the appropriate distinction and elaborate the manner of being proper to human intentionality ( "being-here " ) is an assumption that knowing or perceiving is the primary human way of relating to the world. In any event, human existence was not given the requisite inter­ pretation (fundamental analysis ) because the determinations of the manner of being proper to being-here ( "existen tials") were not sys­ tematically differentiated from oth er, customary ontological determi­ nations ( "categories" ) . Insofar as Heidegger's analysis aims at determining the manner of being distinctive of humans as it is give n or presents itself to them in their behavior, his approach is quintessentially phenomenological. There is a prereflective manner of encountering things, access to which is, nonetheless, possible in a reflection, indicati ng a foregoing self-dis­ closure of the manner of encounter (not to be confused with some sort of inner self-awareness) . 1 4 In another respec t, however, his approach diverges from the sort of inquiry proper to a phenomenological sci­ ence. Heidegger's aim is to expose the logical prej udice , to show that, far from being self-evident and unassailable , it is an unwarranted pre­ supposition , involving, as it does, a specious ontological commitmen t. To this end h e directs his attention initially to the doctrine on which the logical prejudice essen tially rests: the doctrine of thematic asser­ tions. Mter elaborating how a the1natic assertion appears to imply a def­ inite conception of being and truth , he explains why this conception , while compelling from a certain perspec tive, is not the final word on truth or being. This aspect of Heidegger's project diverges fundamen1 4 Cf. Franz Brentano, Psyrhologie vom t'mpirischen Sta ndpu n kt vol . 1 , ed. Oskar Kraus ( Ham­ bu rg: Meiner, 1 9 7 3 ) , 1 8o: "Wi r kon nen den Ton das primiire, da.s Hore n selbst das sek undiire Objekt des H orens ne nne n." Ibid. , 1 8 1 : " I n vVah rhe i t kan n etwas, was nur sekundii-rt's Objekt eines Aktes ist zwar in i h m bewuBt, nic h t abe r in i h m beobac h te t sein; Lur Beobac h tung gehort viel mehr, daB man sic h dem Gegenstande als primarem Ob­ jekte zuwe nde . '' Husserl comes to acknowledge , not m e rely a tacit consciousness of the ac t of hearing in h earing a sound, bu t also of an ide ntical ego, "a distinc tive - not constituted - tran sce nde nce , a transcendence in i m manence" ( ld I 1 ogf) . The tension be­ tween immanent reflective consciousness, what B re n tano cal ls "the secondary object of consciousness," and im mane n t reflec tive self-conscious ness (or egological conscious­ ness ) is exploited and redefined by He idegger as a disti nction between an inauthen tic self-u nderstandi ng, preempted by a flight from oneself i n to the c rowd , and an authen­ tic sel f. g ro u n d e d i n an an ticipatory resol u t e- n e-s": cf. SZ � 2 1 ff. ,

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O :F T R U T H

tally from a phenomenological inquiry with scientific pretensions inso­ far as such an i nquiry remains oriented toward the truth of thematic as­ sertions. He speaks correspondingly of "a basic phenomenological de­ ception," namely, that of taking its bearings from "a specifically theoretical stance toward the world," the paradigm of which is the per­ ception of something "in person." Insofar, namely, as phenomenological research i s , for its part, theoreti­ cal, the researcher is easily motivated to make a specifically theoretical stance toward the world the theme , with the result that one sets up a specifically theoretical grasp of things as an exemplary manner of being­ in-the-world instead of transporting oneself to and th en holding fast to what is phenomenally encoun tered in the tow and context of everyday dealings with things , something that is tacit enough as it is. 1 5

Reference was already made in the previous chapter to the challenge that Heidegger has in mind in making this criticism . Having rejected the thesis that truth is ul timately a matter of a j udgment or an intuition corresponding to a judgment, Heidegger is faced with the enormous task of laying out, interpre ting, and determining a prethemati c as well as preintuitive truth. In other words (if the undertaking is at all mean­ i ngful) , he must thematize the original sense of truth that discloses it­ self unthematically. But then the undertaking appears to land in what might be called "the paradox of thematization ." There are at least three contexts or ways, i n the Marburg lectures from 1 92 5 to 1 92 6 , in which this problem surfaces. (These three con­ texts or ways are distinguished as scientific , epistemic, and theoretical i n the following paragraphs, though merely for the sake of reference , since they clearly overlap. ) The first context concerns the discussion of the "crisis of the sciences," spawned by a lecture by Max Weber whose position, Heidegger notes, was taken for one of "despair and helpless­ ness." 16 While many responded to this discussion by attempting to re1 5 P 247 , 2 54, 2 57 , 2 64f, 30of; PAA 40; but esp. SZ 363 n and PAA 2 5 : "People more or less clearly see today that previous research of the forms of expe rience was either very crude or mistaken because of the prevalence of the theoretical a tti tude and untested pre supposi tions. Suc h attempts are no longer p hilosophical ly satisfyi ng. Ye t, i nsofar as ph ilosophy - every attempt that sets to work to h elp remove this deficiency - is supposed to be in som e way rational knowledge, the question arises for it [ ph ilosophy] whether a conside ration of this experiencing is possible that is not at once and n ecessarily re­ shaped by way of theory.'' 1 6 P 3· He idegge r is probably referring to Weber's essay "Science as a Vocation," in wh ich We b e r 1uai n tai n � , atnong othe r t h i ngs , Tolsto y 's t hes is t h a t contem p ora ry sc i e- n ce-s h ave

THE T I M ELI NESS OF EX I STENTIA L TRUTH

237

store a sense to science through construction of some world-view, Hei­ degger maintains that the genuine crisis in the sciences lies elsewhere, namely, in the uncertainty of th eir basic concepts. Out of this uncer­ tainty the philosophical task arises of procuring the "basis for the th e­ ory of the sciences," initially through the "in terpretation of their gene­ sis from pre theoretical experience'' ( P 2£) . "Productive logic" is Heidegger's way of designating th e "prescientific, genuine, philosoph­ ical disclosing" of the respective subject matters. This logic is supposed to prepare the "basic structure of th e possible obj ect" of a science , though for Heidegger it is not, to quote Locke, "Ambition enough to be employed as an Under-Labourer in clearing Ground a little, and re­ moving some of the Rubbish , that lies in the way of Knowledge. " 1 7 Hei­ degger's "productive logic" is instead supposed to prepare the basic structure of possible scientific th emes by disclosing the consti tution of the manner of being that is proper to a particular field. Because th is un­ dertaking is nevertheless oriented to "the primary field of subj ect mat­ ter [Sachfeldj of a possible science" and aims at "de termining a funda­ men tal structure . . . in its genuine a priori" sense, one cannot help wondering why Heidegger's own proj ect should not be criticized for reasons similar to those underlying his obj ections to Husser! ( P 1 47 , 364f; S Z 1 o) . As reviewed i n Chapter 2 above , Heidegger reproaches Husser! precisely for construing inten tionality " as a region of absolute , scientific consideration ." The second con text in which the thematization problem surfaces for Heidegger is epistemic. This context is shaped by his repudiation of what he takes to be the traditional horizon of inquiry within episte­ mology. The question of the essence of knowledge for that tradition is, he maintains, the question how something immanent to the subj ect, that is to say, accessible to her alone (for example, a representation, an

I7

nothing to teach us about the meaning of the world or the ways to happi ness. While not sharing Weber's cavalier attitude toward the role of logic, Heidegger shares his misgiv­ ings about German universi ties and the American direction of German culture ge ner­ ally� his view th at the world has become dise nch anted as people increasingly put their faith in calculation and techn ical mastery of th ings; his observation that people "crave not j ust religious experience but experience as such"; and, finally, his conception of the con ttibution to be made by philosophy in th e wake of the limitations of science and the illusions of intellectualisnl , namely, to help the i ndividual to give an account of her con­ duct and to see th e sort of decisions that givin g such an accoun t involves. See Max Web­ e r, "Wissenschaft als Beruf," in Gesammelte A ujfiiitze zur Wissenschaftslehre (Tiibi nge n : Moh r, 1 9 2 2 ) , 5 24-5 5 5 · Loc k e , A n FHfl)' r:onrnning

Human

l lnr!Pntrrn rling,

I o.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C EPT O F T R U T H

idee, a perception ) "reaches" another, transcendent sphere. From the very way that the question is framed, it is obvious in Heidegger's view that it can only be raised by someone with no appreciation of Husserl 's discovery of intentionality. With the help of his own rein terpretation of intentionality as "being-in-the-world ," Heidegger rejects that entire line of inquiry by pointing out that knowing is possible only by vi rtue of the fact that someone is already-in-th e-world. (Reformulated in Husserlian terms, "being-in-the-world" and "being-here" are self-disclosing, prethe­ matic, categorial in tui tions that cannot be adequately understood in ter1ns of mental acts - representations, ideas, images, etc . - since cate­ gorial intuition is the paradigm and telos of inten tionality. ) Heidegger thus rejects traditional epistemological inquiries because - or at least insofar as - they are incompatible with the sense of '�being­ h ere." "The ' probletn of reali ty, ' in the sense of the question of wh ether an external world is on hand and whether it can be demonstrated, proves to be an impossible [ problem] , not because it leads to intractable aporiae , but because the very entity that provides the theme for the problem repudiates, so to speak, such an inquiry" (SZ 2 06) . Conse­ quently, the "problem" of traditional epistemology is exposed as a pseudo-problem. The "genuine" problem of knowledge is supposed to become clear precisely by being understood as a derivative 1node of "be­ ing-in-the-world." "Then the question that can actually be investigated emerges: given that 'being-here ' is respectively in a definite man ner of being but one that is primarily not knowing and not only knowing, how does it disclose its world in whi ch it already is?" (P 2 1 8 ; see L 2 1 2£) . As a consequence of the originality of "being-in-the-world," knowing is to be construed not as a primary sort of being but rather as a founded and in some sense even deficient sort of being, relative to the "dis­ closedness" ( = the "here") of being-here. 1 8 The precise meaning as well as the justification of this thesis is obviously high ly con troversial . 19 Rid­ ing on it, moreover, is the very legi timacy of the analysis of being-here in Being and Time. There are two closely related epistemic issues in play. The first is that of the epistemic character of existen ce or being-here, 1 8 "In the end," Heidegger maintai ns, "understanding is not p ritnarily a knowi ng at all''

19

( GP 3 90) , and the existen tial-ontological constituti on of "cogn i tive dete rm i n i ng" is enl­ bedded in how being-in-the-worl d is d isposed ( SZ 1 3 8 ) . Klaus Dusing, fo r exam ple , q ue�tions whe ther Heidegger man ages to establ ish that knowing is "a deficient mode of an allegedly more o riginal be havior of being-here . " See Klaus Dusing, SPlb., thnvujJt.�ein.wnodelle: ModernP Kritikfn und sy� tfmatisrhf EntwurfP zur konkrPLen SubJektivitiil ( �1 unich: Fink, 1 997 ) , 1 1 9 ; and PI .)Hf.

THE TI MELI NESS OF EXISTENTIA L TRUTH

2 39

given Heidegger's characterization of " here" as a form of disclosedness, a term with obvious epistemic connotations. It is not evident why, par­ ticularly in the wake of Husserl 's account of the initially unthematic character of categorial intuitions (as well as Heidegger's endorsement of that aspect of the account) , 'disclosedness' should not be regarded as a pseudonym for 'intuition. ' One reason why Heidegger avoids tal k of intuition and inten tionality i s the tendency to regard them as prop­ erties of something that otherwise is (and, indeed, ' is' in the sense of being on hand among other things on hand in nature ) , a tendency that, in effect, institutes an artificial an d ul timately intractable divide be­ tween knowing and being ( and, correspondi ngly, between epistemol­ ogy and metaphysics ) . By con trast, being-here is a manner of being that distinguishes itself as the place of the pre thematic disclosure of its man­ ner of being and that of other entities as well . Moreover, in con trast to what is intuited, what is disclosed is not describable apart from what dis­ closes or, what is the same, its manner of making itself present. Yet, with all these considerable qualifications, one might still legitimately insist that 'disclosedness' enjoys an epistemic force in Heidegger's analysis that is comparable to that of ' intuition ' and, for that very reason, is open to questions that, to the detrimen t of the analysis, are not taken seri­ ously enough in i t. 20 Herein lies the closeness of this first epistemic issue - the issue of the epis temic force of being-here - to a second (and, indeed, second-order but no less substantive ) issue, namely, that of the epistemic status of the existential analysis (the analysis of being-here ) . Existential analysis is presumably a form of knowing and thus founded, but it is not immedi­ ately clear how, short of an act of faith or intuitive stipulation , the analy20 The following questions provi de a sample : In wh at way is the existential use of ' dis­ c losedn ess ' like and/or unlike a metaphor? In what way is the existe n tial use of 'dis closed ness ' like and u nlike non existen tial uses of the term (e.g., "She disc l osed, i . e . , re­ vealed her motives, mean i ng her motives could be see n , i n tuited" ) ? In what way is the existen tial disclosedn ess operative in existe n tiel con texts, notably, the context of prac­ tical and theoretical cogn i tion yet distinguishable from i t? See also n . 1 4 above and Gi lbert Ryl e , Collected Papers, vol . 1 ( N ew York: Barnes & Nobl e , 1 97 1 ) , 2 1 2 : "For the prese nce of knowledge of some real ity (which is surely prese nt in any and eve ry consc ious experienc e ) thou gh it is n ot explic i tly recognized is surreptitiously im ported i n to such terms as ' understanding' and ' i llumination. ' . . . " H e idegger's exploitation of the epis­ temic sense of discl osedness, even as he proceeds to bind it to a restricted man ner of disclosedness , is a �ood example of h i s strategic exploi tation of rnetaphors, aim e d at ge t ti n g his readers , on a purportedly o nt o l ogi c al leve l , to exchange a l i teral sen se for an extended or figurati ve sense as the more b as i c . For n1 ore discussion of this ploy, see ­

,

�ec t i on .'"'> · .'> hel nw.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

sis i s supposed to b e justified. By introducing criteria of completeness and fundamentalness, Heidegger does forestall this issue to a certain extent ( e .g., SZ 2 3 1 -234, 30 1 -304) . Yet the issue does not go away, since, in the first place , the canons of completeness and fundamental­ ness to which he appeals are never spelled out adequately. What assur­ ance do we have that the analysis has been sufficiently comprehensive or that in fact the interpretation of disclosedness constitutes the end of the analysis? ( In this respect one comparison with Husserlian eidetic in­ tuition is apt: has the variation bee n free enough to let the essence of being-here present itself? ) I n the second place, eve n if the analysis is in some sense or to some degree justified by those appeals, the j ustifica­ tion or, in Heidegge r's preferred terminology, the "grounding" remains in certain crucial respects deliberately nonepistemic. Yet a nonepis­ temic justification or grounding ( e .g. , the authenticity of bei ng-res­ olute ) - as opposed to nonepistemic explanation or causation - is plainly oxymoronic. A similiar sort of questionableness carri es over, furthermore, to the relation of the existential analysis in Being and Time to modes of know­ ing. In other words, what is the relation of antic as well as ontological modes of knowing (knowing en tities and their manners of being, re­ spectively) to the disclosed ness of being-here? Heidegger sharpens this line of questioning himself with the observation that "all knowing is only appropriation and a kind of implementation of what has already been uncovered by means of other primary ways of behavi ng" (P 2 2 2 ) . The lack of a comma between the words ' other' and ' primary' in this sentence should not deceive one into thinking that knowing is under­ stood by Heidegger as a primary way of behaving along with others on which it in some sense happens to be founded. For in the same context Heidegger explicitly declares that knowing is "in no sense at all primary, but rather a founded mode of being of being-in-the-world" ( P 2 2 2 ) . Thus, the founded character with all the epistemological difficulties at­ tending it (e.g., how can a nonknowing disclosure be said to ground a knowing? ) remains in full force in the Marburg lectures as it does in Be­ ing and Time ( SZ 6off) . Given this strategy, it bears noting, Heidegger's fundamental position is not without reason construed as nolens volens pragmatic. 2 1 A third and final way in which the probl ems of thematization exhibit themselves concerns the status of theory for Heidegger, especially in 2 1

H P 1 2 8 ; Ro rty, 1·� \!J(l)' fi on Hf'ideggn- a n d Othn-fi, �� �� ·

T H E T I M E L I N E S S O F E X I S TE N T I A L T RUTH

view of the criticism that he frequently levels against his predecessors of passing over "the primary phenomenon of the world" ( P 2 5of; SZ 65£) . As will be elaborated in greater detail below, this primary phe­ nomenon, for which Heidegger reserves the term 'worldliness, ' en­ compasses "structures of encountering" in everyday life that form the basis of any theory or practice ( P 2 5of) . Yet, despi te the obvious im­ portance of this phenomenon , ontologically minded philosophers generally fail to i nquire into i ts meaning, as they frame the question of the structure of the world in terms of the question of the structure of nature. What Heidegger has in mind is, above all, the proj ection of a world in strictly theoretical terms and, indeed, theoretical terms of a specific sort, as allegedly exemplified in Descartes 's writings. Such a world would be equivalent to what can be proj ected and thus construed math­ ematically. According to Heidegger, the world is for Descartes nothing else than the "objectivity of the grasp of nature by way of calculation and measurement'' ( P 2 45 ) . Descartes's discussion of the properties of a piece of wax in the Second Meditation provides a perfect example of "passing over" the phenomenon as something that surfaces in a specific envi ronment (Umwelt) (P 2 45f; SZ 95- I o i ) . In this connection it bears noting that Husserl 's phenomenological way of determining things in one 's immediate surroundings is, according to Heidegger, "in its start­ ing poin t not essentially different from the Cartesian. "22 This long-standing assumption about the world amounts to "ren­ dering it something unworldly" (Entweltlichung) , a "fatal narrowing" of the question of the world 's reality ( P 2 2 7 , 2 50) . In other words, Hei­ degger charges , the world is traditionally interpreted solely with a view to a theoretical objectification of nature, even though the "worldliness of the world" is not the same as nature. Yet this very differentiation leads to the following inevitable question : "How is something supposed to be said about the structure of the world in such a way that we above all fi rst look away from all theory and precisely from this extreme objectifica­ tion?" ( P 2 5 I ) . It is apparen t that the Prolegomena Lectures of I 9 2 5 , the source of this question , are neither the first nor the last time that Heidegger con­ cerns himself wi th this problem - for good reason , since the question , as he himself stresses , is crucial. Mter all , in Being and Time and other works before 1 9 2 9 , Heidegger plainly characterizes phenomenology as 22 P 2 4 7 : F.pF 2hfi-26g;

see

C h ap te r

2.

n . 79·

H E I D E G C� E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

"the science of being of entities" ( SZ 3 7 ; GP 398£) . If theoretical sci­ ence - at least as Heidegger characte rizes it - consists in making the­ matic assertions about something more or less available ( on hand or potentially on hand) , then it is hard to understand how Heidegger's analysis of being-here does not fall victim to his own critique of scien­ tific thematizing. To put it another way: insofar as his analysis of being­ here avails i tself of a theoretical form ( the form of thematic assertions) in order to indicate, specify, and communicate this manner of being, is it not itself a theory? Is not the significance of 'to be ' systematically objectified and rendered something on hand through the very use - and presumption of the truth - of thematic assertions made in the course of this analysis? Is not the analysis in this way self-refuting? Or, to for­ mulate the obj ection in the framework of the logical prejudice, should one not assume that Heidegger's in terpretation of ' being-here ' is true and, indeed, true because what is interpreted is also in fact on hand? Is it not necessary for him in a certain sense to give the logical prej udice its due, countenancing a conception of truth as an on-hand relation be­ tween an assertion and what it is about? Heidegger finds himself confronted with the challenge of explain­ ing how a nonobjectifying saying and thinking is possible, how one can "address'' and determine man ners of being, other than being-on-hand, without thereby reducing them to something on hand. In various ways between 1 9 1 9 and 1 930 he attempts to solve the problems of themati­ zation, at least to some degree, by stressing what he calls the "formally indicative" character of philosophy an d philosophical concepts . � 3 Throughout Heidegger's early lectures in the 1 9 2 0s, he irons out his conception of the task of philosophy in terms of formal indications . He concedes, to be sure, that the discursive character of philosophizing ex­ poses it to an "essential misinterpretation of its content" whereby what is articulated in philosophy is automatically taken for something on hand. Yet, in an attempt " to avoid this, at least to some extent," Hei-

2 3 PIA 1 g f, 6 1 f; W 6sf; PAA 29, 6 2 , 74, R4f, 9 7 , 1 gof; PRL, c hapte r 4: "Formalizati on and Formal Indicatio n , " 54-65 . Heidegger employs the concept several ti mes in SZ wi thout explai ning it: SZ 5 2 f, 1 1 4, 1 1 6f, 1 7 9 , 2 3 1 , 3 1 3-3 1 5 . See , too , his use of the term ' A nzezge' in e laborating " the basic sense of the Platonic dialec tic" ( PS 1 9 7 ) . See Otto Poggeler,

"H eideggers logisc he U n tersuchungen , " in A1artin Heidegger: lnnm- und A ujJenansichtPn, 7 5- 1 oo; Th. C. \\'. Oudemanns, " Hei deggers logische U n tersuchungen , " Heidegger Stud­ ies 6 ( 1 g g o ) : 8 s- 1 o5 ; Ki s iel , The Genesi5 of 'Being and Time ', 592 ; joh n van Bure n , "Th e Ethics of Formale Anzfif{e, " A merican Catholic Philo�ophi( al Quartn-(v 64 (spri ng 1 99 5 ) : 1 :) 7 - 1 7 < > .

T H E T I MELI N ES S

OF

EXI STENT IA L TRUTH

243

degger declares in 1 9 30 (summing up his practice for a decade ) : "it is necessary to reflect on the characte r that pervades all philosophical concepts , namely, that they are all formally indicative" ( GM 4 2 2 , 430) . The formal indication is for Heidegger "a specific step in the method of phenomenological expli cation"; in it "one sees a methodic . . . fun­ damen tal sense of all philosophical concepts and combinations of con­ cepts" (W 1 of, 2 9 ; PIA 1 4 1 ) . That "fundamental sense" of philosophi­ cal concepts insofar as they are "formal indications" is based upon the phenomenological insight that the object of an interpretation must be so articulated that the determination of the object ( in what sense it is) must em erge from the manner in which one originally "has" it, that is to say, in which it origi nally becomes accessible (wie der Gegenstand ur­ spriinglich zugiinglich wird) ( PIA 2 0, 1 8f, 2 3; SZ 2 7 ) . The "obj ect" of phi­ losophy itself is "what ' to be ' means" in the case of such "having"; in other words, philosophizing is nothing but a way of comporting oneself toward an original , unreflected or unthematic (unabgehobenen) com­ portmen t, an attempt to "have" or "understand" the latter ge nuinely. 24 "The basic question dominati ng everything that follows," Heidegger observes in the summer semester of 1 9 20, "is the question of the man­ ner and sense of having experience (whereby having -:t theoretically grasping - conceiving) " (PAA g6) . Heidegger chooses locutions such as ' having' (haben) , ' comporting' (verhalten) , or ' understanding' (verstehen) in order to emphasize that that original , un thematic having or comporting is not to be identified with a deliberate, meditative act of knowing something. Instead those locutions signify any way - theoretical , practical, playful, devotional , tender, and s o on - i n which a human being might relate to something, whether himself, another, a natural obj ect, an artifact, an artwork, a mathematical formula, a scientific hypothesis, a dream , and so on. The task of philosophy is to determine these different manners of being, and this de te rmination is possible only by understanding and retriev­ ing what it precisely means to be-here and to relate to each of these sorts of entities (where this 'being-here ' and ' relating' are in an importan t sense logically equivalent, but not identical) . 2 5 In this sense , Heidegger concludes, philosophy's way of relating to its object is "utte rly original 24 In SZ, the existen tials sen.'e as fo rmal ind ications. See , too , the description of ph iloso­ phy as "always an ele m e n t of the fartua l PxperiPnce of life" ( PAA 3 6 , 3 8 ) . On the connec­ tion between "havi ng" and "hi story," see , too , PAA 5 ��-6 1 . 2 5 Logical equ ival ence is, fo llowi n g Qui n e , val id ity of t h e bicon ditional ( i. e . , p H q what­ eve r the \·alue of f' or q ) , not to be confused with ide n ti tv ( I' =- q ) .

H E I D E G G E. R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

2 44

and radical ," indeed, such "that even and precisely through the grasp­ ing it is what it grasps and grasps what it is" ( PIA 6of; see also 4 1 f, 5 1 , 53£) . Since philosophy's "obj ect" is what "to be" means in th e context of that original comportment, it cannot "have" ( understand, retrieve ) its object as it were from the outside. Instead philosophy must itself carry out or enact ( or tnore exactly, reenact, renew) that original, un­ thematic "having," so as to appropriate it explicitly ( PIA 6of, 8o, 1 6gff) . Precisely for this reason philosophical concepts are characterized by Heidegger as formal indicators or signals, pointing respectively toward some original comportment, yet as "a concrete task to be completed or performed by it [ philosophizing] alone" (eine eigene konkrete Voll­ zugsaufgabe) (PIA 34, 6of) . What is thereby indicated is not given "in any complete and actual sense ," to be sure , but it is given "in principle." Philosophy is "no th eme or thing" (heine Sache) but rather a "principled manner of having" (prinzipielles Haben) and for that reason "'formally' indicating, a 'way, ' ' setting out"' ( PIA 2 0 , 5 8 ) . A philosophical concept is accordingly "empty" in a certain sense and, hence, purely a "formal indicator'' because it poin ts to a way of being - factual life - that must be realized by the philosopher in a specific way, springing from this philosophical obj ect or theme itself (PIA 3 2ff, 5 1 , 58; PAA 2 9 ) . In this se nse, Being and Time is not the depiction of some fact (Sachverhalt) , but rather an indication of a way of reenacting what ' to be ' means. Ac­ cording to Heidegger, philosophizing (grasping by means of formal in­ dications) is "nothing else than the explicit, factually genuine execution of a tendency that is faithful to a situation , a tendency that, while devel­ oped and acquired (in scientific research , knowledge) , is implicitly the re in the obj ect at issue itself (factual life) " (PIA 1 7 1 ) . Heidegger also characterizes a formal indication as "the methodical use of a sense that guides a phenomenological explication," yet without importing any preconceived opinions into the problem (PRL 55; PAA 8 5 , 1 7 2 ) . As such , formal indications are central to Heidegger's con­ ception of phenomenological method, precisely as it con trasts with the sort of generalization and formalization that have been traditionally considered the business of philosophy. 26 Generalizations are made about specific domains of objects and the order obtaining among them 2 6 Co rresponding

to th i s differe n ce between ge neraliLation and form al izatio n , el abo rated

by Husserl , is the d i sti n c tion tha t he makes betwee n regional and fo rmal o n tology. See

PAA 5 7 ; LU I

2 3 1 f, 2 4 3 f; and ld I 26f, 3 07-3 1 6 .

THE TIM ELI N E S S O F E X I STENTIA L TRUTH

245

(e.g. , reds are colors and colors are sensory qualities) . By contrast, for­ malizations are about objects in general , in other words, not in terms of what they are, but in te rms of how they are theoretically or epistem­ ically conceived (e .g. , the concept of red is a part of the concept of color) . While not tied to the order of a specific domai n , formalizations can themselves be made the objects of a theory and accordingly set in order (formal logic and formal ontology) . Unlike a ge neralization or formalization , "a formal indication has nothing to do with universality" nor with any theoretical order ( PRL 59f, 6 4 ) . It is noteworthy that Heidegger, in this context, portrays the formal indication precisely in terms of the problem of prej udice and, in the process, appears clearly to con tradict himself. By way of introduction of formal indications, he notes that methodological considerations are supposed to render intelligible how a formal indication can guide phe­ nomenological research without importing any preconceptions ( PRL 54 ) . Later, after noting that formalizations (formal-logical and formal­ ontological considerations) are neutral with respect to the subject mat­ ter, he refers to this indifference as the very prejudice that formal indi­ cations are meant to guard against (PRL 62£) . In the same context Heidegger acknowledges that the sort of stance he is presupposi ng rep­ resents the most extreme counterpoi nt to a theore tical science , claims that are not easy to square with some formulations of his own project in Being and Time (PRL 6 2 , 64 ; PAA 1 70) . In the winter semester of 1 92 3/ 24, while criticizing the Cartesian patrimony of Husserlian phenomenology, Heidegger provides addi­ tional clues to what he means by ' formal indication . ' By construing the cogito in a formal-on to logical sense as a sentence that is certain and thus in need of no further investigation , Descartes effectively diverts atten­ tion from the question of the manner of being of the cogito or con­ sciousness. In this connection Heidegger suggests that "this sentence [' cogito ergo sum' or ' cogito me cogitare' ] be taken as a formal indication so that it is not taken directly (where it says nothing) but is related to the respective con cretion which it precisely means" (EpF 2 so) . Elaborating that "respective concretion ," Heidegge r adds that the being of the cog­ itatio is characterized by its "respectiveness" (jeweiligkeit) and thus i ts "timelin ess" (Zeitlichkeit) as well as "the specific type o f being o f this ego sum in what it has" (EpF 2 5 0) . From this brief review of Heidegger's use and scattered elaboration of "formal indications," two central , overlapping functions emerge : (a)

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C F. P T O F T R U T H

a referential-constraining function and (b) a reversing-transforma­ tional function . 27 ( a) The first function of a philosophical concept as a formal indica­ tion is to refer to a phenomenon in such a way that it enjoins against any preemptive or external characterization of it. "The formal indica­ tion prevents any drifting off into blindly dogmatic fixations of the cat­ ego rial meaning for the intrinsic determinacies of a kind of object, while what ' to be ' means in its case has not been discussed; fixations, in other words, that are independent and detached from the presupposi­ tion, the preconception, the context, and the time of th e interpreta­ tion." 28 Herein lies what Heidegger explicitly labels the "referential" and at the same time "prohibitive ( restraining, defensive ) character" of formal indications ( PIA 1 4 1 ) . Similarly, in his lectures on the phe­ nomenology of religious life, he calls the formal indication a "warning" and a "defense" against a preemptively theoretical attitude (PRL 63£) . These characterizations are obviously mean t to capture features of the phenotnenological reduction and, hence, it is not surprising to see Hei­ degger refer to this "referential-constraining" function as the "basic sense of the methodical point of depature for phenomenological in­ terpretation" ( PIA 1 4 1 ; PAA 8 5 ) . Yet, while deeming that philosophical thinking be constrained in the ways suggested, Heidegger also enjoins that it be adequately "formal." What this means can be gathered, at least in part, from the way he dis­ tinguishes what is formally indicative from what is "formally logical" or "formally thematic." Formal logic is not sufficien tly formal because it allegedly springs from an already specified region of obj ects and a cor­ responding tendency of grasping them ("classificatory assembling" : ord­ nendes Sammeln) (PIA 2 0, 1 64, 1 7 8 ) . Even the pri nciple of noncontra­ diction, he remarks at one point, is a rule regarding the possibility of sentences obtaining together and, as a result, is of limited validity. 2 9 An interpretation is "formally th ematic '' insofar as it avails itself of "proxi­ mate" schemata and "deep-seated" views instead of itself retrieving the 2 7 In an attempt to illum inate the relation between th e o l o gy a n d philosophy, H e i d e gge r

a lso ass i gn s form al in d i c at io ns a "co rrec tive" function insofar as theol ogy, d e s p i te tak­

ing it.;; bearings from belief, can only u n c over it.;; o bj ect on the basis of a pr e c on c e p tual that it is p hi lo so ph y \ task to elabora te . Wi thou t usu rp i n g a theological ex p li ca tio n of belief, p h il oso p hy all egedly l ends t he o l og i c al concepts a c on cr e te n e s s ( i .e . , codirectio n ) . " See W 6 2 -6 5 . 2 H PIA 1 4 2 ; cf. S Z 3 4 f. H e ideggcr also c o n n e c ts t h e fu n c t ion of fo�m al i n d i c a t i o n w i th what he c a ll s "phenomcnologi ca] destru c tion . " See PIA 1 4 1 , 1 1 3 ; PM 2 9-40 , 1 90f. 2�) F.pF 2 5 5 f; PTA 1 () � f: PAA 1 �)o . St>t> Ch apt�r 1 . n . 1 9 ahovt> . "

u n de rstand i n g"

"

T H E T I M E L I N E S S O F E X I ST E N T I A L TRUTH

24 7

original access to the matter at hand (PIA 1 74, 1 45 ) . These remarks about the hidden prejudices of allegedly formal disciplines, especially formal logic, obviously raise serious questions, not only about Heideg­ ger's use of formal indications in particular, but also about his inter­ pretation of being and truth in general . Does he think or does he have grounds to t:P ink that his criticism of formal logic ( especially his ac­ count of the limited validity of the principle of noncontradiction ) per­ mits him or even requires him to give an account of being and truth that is not restricted by canons of consisten cy, traditional insurers of in­ telligibility and communicability? These questions are addressed in the next chapter but they are clearly apposite to the issue of thematization that gives rise to Heidegger's doctrine of formal indications. Though Heidegge r's con trast of the use of the term ' formal ' in 'for­ mal indications' with its use in 'fortnal disciplines' is enormously sig­ nifican t, the con trast itself provides little more than a negative deter­ mination of what he understands by 'formal indications. ' More helpful than these distinctions are the examples given by Heidegger of "formal indications," such as the ' am ' in ' I am ' and ' death . ' In the first case, at­ tention is deflected away from the ' I ' ( th e cogito) while at the same time insuri ng that its tnanner of being not be taken as j ust another instance of existential instantiation ( PIA 1 7 2 ff; SZ 1 1 6 ) . D eath is being-here 's abiding possibility, not of anything on hand, but of its own impossibil­ ity. In this sense, as the consummate possibility in terms of which a hu­ man being may be-here ( proj ect and understand herself) , death is for­ mally indicated as a means of precluding a conception of being-here as one presence among others to which a human being might relate ( GM 4 2 5-4 2 9; SZ 240) . The '" as '-structure" of hermeneutic understanding also allegedly presents a clear example of the "referential-constraining" function of a philosophical concept, construed as a formal indication . Thus, the " ' as ' -structure" - taking or using something as a chair or us­ ing a chair as something to sit on , and so on - points to a relation that has to be grasped on its own terms, before its preemptive assimilation to the derivative relation of two things on hand and the indication of this relation in a theoretical judgmen t (GM 42 4f) . As can be gathered frotn these examples, Heidegger's emphasis on the formali ty of philosophical concepts is something of a ruse. As noted earlier, he cri ticizes formal disciplines (formal logic and formal ontol­ ogy) for being both too formal and not sufficiently formal (in each case by vi rtue of a theoretical prejudice ) . Yet Heidegger's philosophical con­ c�pts , fa r from h�i n g a gen rla-free or n e u t r al are sufficien tly rich i n con,

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT

OF

TRUTH

tent to yield criteria for further determination of thei r meaning (as well as discriminating errant determinations) . The way in which a philo­ soph ical concept, as a formal indication, refers is, as he puts it, a "bind­ ing" and "principled" one. "Presuppositionlessness" is reviled by him as "utopian": "the opinion of having no prejudice is itself th e greatest prejudice" (EpF 2 ) . Moreover, as his remarks about formal l ogic and formal themes reveal , philosophical concepts as formal indications ex­ clude concepts of objects presupposed by specific sciences - insofar, at least, as the inquiry into what ' to be ' means in the case of these objects ( and, thereby, the original access to them) has been put off or ignored. (b) Heidegger's understanding of philosophy's task also dictates a second set of methodological functions for formal indications. Just as formal indications ''have nothing to do with universality," by way of ge n­ eralizations or formalizations, so, too, they should not be confused with descriptions. Taking a page from Natorp 's criticism of Husserl, Hei­ degger bemoans any quick identification of "phenomenological see­ ing" with description, a propaedeutic to th eory insofar as the given is set off against explanation and thus objectified. 30 The aim of formal in­ dications is to lead us back to th e genuine sense of life, not for th e sake of comprehending or contemplating it, but as part of actually ren ewing that sense or, what is the same, living life in an original and authentic way (PAA 2 9, 38, 74£) . To pursue this aim is, at one and the same titne , "to penetrate anew to the idea of philosophy," Heidegger adds, leaving no doubt that, in his view, a genuin e life and philosophy are mutually self-reflective (PAA 2 8 ) . I n contrast to the theore tical attitude toward actual existence, an attitude th at, even in historical sciences, distances i tself from it, formal indications are conceived as an integral part of con­ cretely being-here, providing direction, a preconception ( Vorgri!J) , and criteria for what it means to exist authentically ( PAA 34f, 7 5 , 87 ) . That preconception , Heidegger observes, presupposes "fundamental philo­ sophical experiences" (philosophische Grunderfahrungen) (PAA 3 5 ) . The formal indication of leading life in an original way (der Vollzug als urspriinglich) also en tails the "destruc tion" of i nauthentic ways of living and philosophizing, for example , the illusion that philosophy can dis­ tance itself, like science, from the concrete expe rience of life (PAA 38 1 70) or that its task is to provide a culture with the assurance of being "on the right path" ( PAA 1 7 3 ) . According to Heidegger, the rigor of phi,

30 ZBP 1 1 3f; PAA 1 o 2 f, 1 7 1 , 1 94. See Paul Natorp, thudt: (Tubinge n : l\1 oh r, 1 9 1 2 ) , 1 8gff.

A llgemeine Psychologie nach kritisthPT Nle­

T H E T I M E L I N E S S OF EX I STENTIAL TRUTH

24 9

losophy exceeds all scientific rigor and consists in a constan t ren ewal , "elevating concernedness to the facticity of existence and ultimately making actual existence uncertain [ or insecure: unsicher] " (PAA 1 7 4) . As can be gathered from these remarks, the role played by formal i n­ dications in Heidegger's early philosophy is highly ambivalent, and de­ libe rately so. They are not, by themselves, supposed to be construed as pro totheoretical descriptions of anything ultimately original or deci­ sive , and yet they are allegedly based upon fundamental philosophical expe riences (PAA 3 5 ) . While supposedly motivated by the concrete and factual , they are nonetheless destructive of en trenched views of life ( PAA 8 5 ) . Formal indications are mean t to disrupt life and philosophy i n o rder to renew them. This immanent, reformative character of formal indications is re­ flec te d in a deliberately counterintuitive or, better, nonstandard use of language. Bent on preserving "the power of the most elementary lvords, in which being-here articulates itself' ( SZ 2 20) , philosophy questions what it means ' to be, ' an expression in common and disposable cur­ ren cy. This questioning has - and is design ed to have - the effect of un­ dermining confidence in the customary usage of words. For the most part, Heidegger's formal indications (his philosophical concepts) are not neologisms or technical concepts. Instead they are drawn from the normal use of language as it informs a way of life. Yet, precisely because of this origin, he shapes these concepts into "formal i ndications" as a warning that genuine access to what they point to is not at all commo n. Such access requires a certain indirection, reversal, and even transfor­ mation of usage, one that runs counter to the customary "plunge" (Sturz) into the usual ways of considering things, where the talk is less than explicit and the interpretation remains implicit. Part of this "plunge" or (in the terminology of Being and Time) "fallenness" of hu­ man existence is a propensity to yield to the anonymous discourse shaped solely by public opinion, for which no one in particular takes or can take responsibility. In this inevitable fallenness, Heidegger mai n­ tains, lie the very "possibility and factual necessity . . . of the formal in­ dication as th e method from which one must begin" ( PIA 1 34 ) . The philosopher's task is to invert the normal perspective and way of posing questions, that is, to turn attention away from particular beings and to­ ward the generally unspoken and unexamined horizon within which they are respectively encountered and have the manner of being that they do. Thus, while ' life ' and ' existence' are eminently useful terms with seemingly self-evident meanings . as philosophical concepts they

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

formally indicate a specific but unthematized and implicit meaning, the understanding of which , because it is unthematized, requires a certain reversal. � 1 For the same reason , Heidegger deliberately uses the terms that serve as formal indications ( i. e . , philosophical concepts ) in a "metaphorically promiscuous" way. He relies upon traditional and everyday uses of th e terms, but for the purpose of introducing initially figurative, but ultimately more fundamental ( existential) meani ngs of them. Everyday, factual uses of terms reflect the head-first plunge into the world that typifies human existence. The aim of using those terms as fortnal indications is to establish the genuine "liaison" toward wh ich those everyday meanings are allegedly groping. 32 In the process what began as an ordinary, "lite ral" use of a term is exposed as a poor sub­ stitute, a coarse metaphor, for an existen tial use that it presumably pre­ supposed all along. From Heidegger's vantage point, the ordinary distinction between literal and metaphorical uses of terms is just that: ordinary, trifling; a sure symptom of an unreflective , cowardly embrace of the world 's stan­ dards. Very early in his career, he describes the "plunge" into th e world as a ''movement" characteristic of the way we in fact typically live, namely, bent on taking care of ourselves, but on the world 's terms, that is to say, in terms of what that means in the eyes of the world . The net effect of this movement is an unfamiliarity with ourselves. By contrast, philosophy is "a movement running counter to this plunge into the world" (eine gegenruinante Bewegtheit) that renders it questionable, albeit not unqualifiably, as Heidegger puts it in a passage remarkable for the self-conscious way in which it deploys Husserlian terminology: Precisely in questioning, factual life comes to a givenness-of-itself that can be ge nuinely developed [ genuin ausbildbare Selbstgegebenheit] , wh ereby givenness-of-i tself may not be ide n tified wi th the manner of given ness of something immediate of the world, and eve n less wi th the manner of the specifically theoretical , atti tudi nal giving-i tself [Selbstgebung] . [The latte r] forms itself as fulfill ing i n tuition in the diverse domains of obj ects that 3 1 PIA t gf, 8o, 88. A� directions n ot desc riptions, formal in dications are suited to a pro­

ductive logic, not th e logic concerned with gathering and c lassifyi ng wh at is already known . See H e idegge r's com ment about overcoming th e phi losophy of a standpoin t" by locating a necessary position, the n eces s i ty of which is not qased upon th e necessi ty of avoid i n g c o n tradiction . Cf. PAA 1 90 . 3 2 For fu rther di �rus�ion of thi� �tra t egy a n rl i t� p i tfaJl c;; , c;; � � '\f>c tion 5 · 5 hf>l ow. ''

THE T I M EL I N E S S OF E X I STEN TIAL TRUTH

can b e affected by the tendency to become acquain ted-and-explained and has, co rrespondingly, i ts own theoretical relations of evidence, legit­ i macy, and claims to validity. ( PIA 1 5 3 )

While philosophy supposedly remains focused o n the significance of ' being' within the concrete situations of everyday life , it can only suc­ ceed in making this significance clear by articulating "the most funda­ mentally appropriate sense of what it means ' to be "' (das Ureigene des Seinssinns) and bringing that meaning and its "binding character" to life (PIA 1 69) . Living the philosoph ical life means nothing less, in Hei­ degger's eyes, than carrying out this task. "Philosophy is a fundamental man ner of living itself, such that philosophy in each case genuinely re­ trieves life , taking it back from its downfall [Abfall] , a taking back that, as a radical searching, is itself life" (PIA So, 88) . As already noted, the reversal (Umstellung) required by the philosophical viewpoint also en­ tails a transformation (Verwandlung) of the individual who philoso­ phizes. A person cannot thematize what is initially unthematic without putting herself in question and, equivalently, her comportment and world. As Heidegger puts it in the winter semester of 1 929/30, "what philosophy deals with generally discloses itself only in and on the basis of a transformation of human existence" ( GM 4 2 3 ) . Four years earlier, at the end of Heidegger's logic lectures, he em­ ploys the notion of an "indication" in order to distinguish "specifically phenomenological , categorial" assertions from "worldly" assertions. While the worldly assertions point out something on hand, phenome­ nologically categorial asse rtions refer to being-here , a manner of being that is not simply on hand and thus can only be understood by revers­ ing and transforming a certain customary usage of the term . (The ex­ pression ' phenomenologically categorial ' in the logic lectures corre­ sponds to what Heidegger in Being and Time dubs "existential" in contrast to "categorial. " ) As Heidegger is quick to concede, the "phe­ nomenologically categorial assertion" shares the structure of a worldly ( apophantic ) assertion and thereby initially means something on hand. However, he adds: "A worldly assertion about something on hand, even if it is made in the context of a mere naming, can di rectly mean what has been said , wh ile an assertion about being-here and furthermore each assertion about being, each [phenomenological ] categorial as­ sertion re q uires , in order to be understood, th e reve rsal of the under­ standing, a reversal i n the direction of what has been indicated, wh ich essen tially is n eve r "ometh i ng on hand" ( L. 4 1 o n. 1 ) . The uphill task

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

that Heidegger sets for himself is obvious. He must be able to kick away the very ladder ("worldly" or "th eoretical" assertions, "objectifying" concepts, and so on ) on which h e is forced to make his climb. The fundamental , methodological sense of philosophical concepts as formal indications is merely sketched here since the specific refer­ ences and constraints, reversals and transformations entailed by them can only adequately emerge from the analysis itself. The question, of course , remains whether Heidegger succeeds in interpreting "being­ here" and "indicating" its truth in a way that is not overtaken by the objectifying character of thematic assertions. But this question , too, can only be answered by turning to the actual analysis of being-here and truth . A critical reconstruction ( retrieval ) of the cen tral theses of this analysis is the task of the present chapter; with the reconstruction in hand, the concluding chapter re turns to the question of thematization. H owever, before the cri tical presen tation of Heidegge r's analysis is un­ dertaken , it may be appropriate to make one final, preliminary remark. Heidegger's efforts at a nonobj ectifying thinking and a concrete, self-reflexive comportment toward being bear a certain resemblan ce to Hegel 's attempt to conceive universali ty concretely. Their two "phe­ nomenologies ," namely, of spirit and being-here respectively, com­ monly strive to articulate a nonintuitive self-disclosiveness that under­ lies theory as well as practice, subj ect as well as object, at least as the latter are conceived by a certain sort of representational thi nking. The dialectical identity of iden tity and difference in Hegel's though t has its counterpart in Heidegger's characterization of being-here as the very disclosedness of a manner of being, defined by its absence as much as its presence . The reconciliation of being and nothingness in becoming ( the opening move of Hegel's Science of Logic) is echoed in the way that genuinely being-here is the proj ection of (or, literally, "comes to") its nothingness. Such comparisons of Hegel 's and Heidegger's thinking, to be sure, are as problematic as they are intriguing, especially since, according to Heidegger in the 1 9 20s, Hegel would have utterly no appreciation of his project at all (while Kant, by con trast, allegedly stumbled onto a sem­ blance of it) . H eidegger's early picture of Hegel is not very flattering, to say the least (PIA 1 50; L 2 o 1 f, 1 2 3, 2 5 1 -2 6 2 ; PS 2 2 3 ) . Hegel 's di­ alectic, Heidegger maintains , lives from "a fundamental sophistry" (L 2 5 2 ) and its principle is "to confuse us with God" (L 2 67 ) . In contrast to Kant's wrestling with things, for Hegel , "everythi n g is clear, he him­ self i n possession of absolute truth" ( L 2 6g ) . Nevertheless, there is an

253

T H E T I M E L I N ES S O F EX I STEN T I A L T R U TH

unmistakable similarity between Hegel and Heidegger precisely in re­ gard to the paradox of thematization . They share the proj ect of think­ ing and thematizing what putatively lies beyond the limits of traditional logic and science. 33 As Heidegger labors to conceive "being-here" as respectively mine or yours, so Hegel labors to conceive "spirit" in its individuality. Moreover, far from being alone or worldless, both being-here and the spi rit are ways of being that are defined as intentional or, better, self-disclosively worldly through and through , effectively canceling any attempt to bi­ furcate knowing and being. Thus, "the universality that is in itself con­ crete and thus existing for itself' is for Hegel "th e concept of the free will as the universal , reaching beyond its object and penetrating through its determination , that is identical with itself in that determi­ nation." 34 There are resonances of this characterization i n Heidegger's in terpretation of humans' fundamental comportment as a "stepping over to . . . " ( transcendence, being-in-the-world) , that is supposed to overtake the epistemological conception of intentionality (GP 4 2 5 ; cf. 4 2 3-4 2 9) . Both thinkers presen t the ladder to the truth of existence in the form of a progression from less to more genuine forms of existence. To be sure, Hegel emphasizes how the "moving purpose" of the indi­ vidual is overtaken by the concrete universality of "life" 35 at one level and the "eth ical substance" of the family, civil society, and state at an­ other, 36 whereas authentically being-here, according to Heidegger, means "taking over solely from its own standpoin t the potential-to-be in which what is at stake is simply the being that is most properly its own" 3 3 Fo r reviews of their kinship, see H . G. Gadamer, Hegels Dialektik second edition ( Tubin­ ge n: Moh r, t g Ho) , gg- 1 1 2; Gadam er, Heidfggers Wege 1 3 7, 1 5 3 ; O tto P o gge l e r, Re z e n ­ s i o n vo n Tuge n d h a ts Der Wahrheitsbegriff hfi Husserl und Heidegger, " in Philosophisches Jahrbuch 76 ( 1 g6 g ) : 3 R3f; Po gg e l e r, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers, second, e xpa n d e d edition ( Pfullinge n : N e s ke, 1 983 ) , 305 , 3 2 8 ; P oggele r, H e i d e g ge rs Lo gi sc h e Un ters u c h u nge n " 7 7 - 8 1 ; P ogge l e r " H egel u n d H ei d egge r, Hegel-Studien 25 ( 1 990 ) : 1 3 9- 1 6o; a n d Pierre M a u bo u ss i n , Logos and Logik: Heidfgger 's Later Seinslehrf and Hegel ( dissertation , Cath olic U ni ve rs ity of Ame rica, 1 997 ) . 3 4 G. W. F. H eg e l Grundlinien der Philosophie di!s Rechts ( 1 8 2 1 ) , ed. J. Hoffmeister ( H am­ burg: M e i n e r, 1 967 ) , § 2 4, pp. 4 2 f; Hege l , Enzyklopiidie der phi losoph isrhen Wissenschaftm im Grundrissf ( 1 R 3o) , ed. W. B o n s i e pen and H .-C. Lucas w i th h e l p of U . Ram eil ( Ham­ burg: Meiner, 1 9 9 2 ) , � I fig. See, too, He ge l s critique of models of knowing as a "medium" or a "means" in the Phiinomenologie des Geistfs, 5 3 f 3 5 Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, vol . 2 ( 1 8 1 6 ) , ed. F. Hogeman n and W. Jaesch ke ( H am­ burg: Meiner, 1 98 1 ) , t 83- 1 9 1 . 36 At t h e level of oqjec tive spiri t, h owev e r, talk of the i n d iv i d u al bei n g overtake n would seem to n egl e c t ( 1 ) th e role of (individual ) moral i ty i n e th ical life and ( 2) the way th at abso lute s pi r i t reconciles subjective ( individual ) and o bj e c t ive (social ) s pi r i t ,

,

"

"

,

,

"

,

'

.

.

H E I D EG G E R ' s C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

2 54

( SZ 263 ) . Yet even i f these differences are countenanced, the determi­ nation of what is at stake in being-in-the-world, namely, to be oneself, might well be characterized as Heidegger's "concrete universal . " In this connection three further parallels between the two thinkers deserve mention . First, Heidegger's objection to th e critique of psy­ chologism ( namely, that it must come to naugh t since it remains as ori­ ented to an "ontology of nature" as psychologism is) cannot be ex­ ten ded, at least not without considerable qualification , to Hegel's ontology. Hegel maintains that nature is itself to be understood as "bringing i tself to the existence of spirit, that is the truth and final pur­ pose of nature ." 37 Furthermore , thanks to his theory of the "speculative sen tence" as well as his speculative th eory of inference, it is difficult to fault him for th e logical prej udice. "In the case of judgmen t," he de­ clares, "it has been shown that its general form and especially the im­ mediate form of the positive judgment is incapable of grasping the spec­ ulative and the truth in itself.'' 38 Finally, history is as essen tial to the human spirit for Hegel as it is to being-here for Heidegger. These parallels should not blur the substantial differences that sep­ arate the two thinkers. A systematic dialectic of the absolute spirit can hardly be confused with the "formally indicative" analysis of finitely be­ ing-here. In Heidegger's own view, Hegel's characterization of time, ori­ ented as it is toward a "one-dimensional" view of time, manages to give "the vulgar experience of time and interpretation of time its most rad­ ical formulation'' ( SZ 43 1 ) . Nor is there perhaps a starker contrast be­ tween two conceptions of philosophy than that between Hegel 's seem­ ingly tragic view of philosophy as a dusky retrospec tive and Heidegger's insistence that philosophy, like time, must resolutely take its bearings from the future. 39 There is a great deal more to be said about the similarities and dis­ similarities between Hegel 's and Heidegger's thinking, especially in the context of Heidegger's immediate turn from th e transcendental phe­ nomenological - and, yes, Kantian - horizons of Being and Time to the work of Hegel and Schelling. 40 Pursuit of this th eme is out of place 3 7 Hegel , Enzyklopiidie, � 2 5 1 .

� R H e ge l Wi5srnsrhafl der

2 : 245;

H egel , Phiinomenologir des Gristrs, 4 5 f. 39 Cf. Ot to Poggeler, "Herm eneutische und man tische Phanomen ologie," in Hridegger: Per­ sprktivm zur Deutung .srinPs "Verk �, ed. O tto P<>ggel er, second edition ( Cologn e : Kiepen­ ,

ljogik,

he ue r & W i ts c h 1 970) , ; p n -3 5 7 . the l ectures i n t h e sunl m e r semester o f 1 9 29: Der deut.�rhP ldnilismu5 (Fichtr, I Jegf/l, Srhelling) u nd du- jJhilo5ophi.\clu Probwmlage df'r (;egmwart, ed . Clau dius Strube, GA ,

4 0 See, e . g. ,

THE

TI MELI N ESS

OF

E X I STENTIAL TRUTH

2 55

within the framework of the present study, focused as it on Heidegger's attempt i n the mid- 1 g 2os to expose the logical prej udice and deter­ mine an original sense of truth . The foregoing preliminary remarks have served a purpose if they have managed to h ighlight the nature and considerable difficulties besetting Heidegger's undertaking in view of his acc ount of theoretical assertions, a11d to outline h is strategy ( insist­ i ng on the metacategorial disti nction and taking philosophical con­ cepts as formal indications) for contending with those difficulties. It is time, however, to turn directly to Heidegger's systematic argument against the logical prejudice and for his conception of a more original truth . 4. 1 Concern , the Work-World, and Handin ess

The structure of being-here is that of being-in-the-world, a worldly and shared existence in which each of us becomes himself or herself. While there are three aspects to that struc ture ( the work-world, being-with­ others, and being oneself) , Heidegger stresses its basic unity. The elab­ oration of any of these three aspects involves th e others as well as the structure as a whole (P 2 1 1 , 33 2 ) . Yet each is also a distinct existential , a self-disclosive manner of being that constitutes existence from th e ground up. In oth er words, there is no entity (subj ect or substance) un­ derlying and unifying them . Together they make up the structure of be­ ing-in-the-world. Nevertheless, Heidegger's treatm ent of being-with-others is notice­ ably more meager th an his treatment of the other aspects. Indeed, th e analysis is chiefly propelled by consideration of oppositions between the work-world and bei ng oneself. Nor is this tendency of th e analysis unproblematic, a point that will hopefully become clearer in the course of this and the next chapter. Heidegger has reason to emphasize the worldliness of human exis­ tence , even if what he calls the "work-world" or "world of concern" dom­ inates his analysis of it. From the very outset of life, each human being is dependent upon and orien ted to a world, "always already" involved 28 ( 1 997 ) ; a n d the lecture� i n the wi n ter se1nester of 1 9 30/ 3 1 : Hegels Phiinomenologie ed. I n gtraud Garland , GA 3 2 , th i rd edi tion ( 1 99 7 ) . He idegger's affi n ity to Schelling is often n o ted ; cf. Walter Sch u l z , " U ber den philosophi egeschichtlichen Ort Marti n Heidegge rs,'' in Philo.\ ophische Rund.�rhau ( 1 9.rJ 3 / 54 ) : 65--9 3 , 2 1 1 -2 3 2 ; joseph Lawrence, Sclulling� Phzlosophie des ervigen A nfangs (Wi.irt.burg: K6nigshausen & Neu­ man n . 1 q8 g ) . ��o , qH , 1 2 2 n . 86, 1 � 8 , 1 87 . des Geistfs,

H E I DEGGER ' S

C O N C E PT O F

TRUTH

wi th things and persons on account of it. The belabored expressions 'from the very outset' and 'always already' underscore the fact that hu­ man beings do not exist somehow before or apart from being in the world. In this respect, the worldliness of human existence is as funda­ mental for Heidegger as intentionality is for Husserl . 4 1 To speak of a person 's relationship to the world as though she existed for herself apart from the world is "a basically absurd starting point" ( ein von Grund aus verkehrter Ansatz) for understanding her as a human being (L 2 1 2 , 2 2 2 ; P 346£) . Insofar as someone exist�, she belongs to a world, not as something toward which she could be indifferent or to which she might reconcile herself more or less (indulging or resisting it) . She lives in­ stead in the world of her concerns and is dependent upon, indeed, more or less identified with it. So familiar is it to her, so at h ome in her world is she that the world is something self-evident, as self-evident as she is to herself. Her manner of bei ng is, in short, that of being-in-the­ world. 42 In this fashion Heidegger drafts his first picture of being-in-the-world as a fundamen tal feature of existence, that is, the human way of relat­ ing or comporting itself. If Heidegger's correspondence wi th jaspers is to believed, then Being and Time is, as noted earlier, principally written against Husserl. Acccordingly, one of the central purposes of the ac­ count of being-in-the-wo rld is to sublate ( in the utopian sense of the Hegelian term , namely, to reform without loss) the structure of in ten­ tionality, oriented as Husserl 's initial account of intentionality is toward an epistemic intuition. Elaboration of the phenomenon of being-in­ the-world, in other words, is supposed to yield the manner of being of intentionality, its manner of being-by-way-of-transcending, and thus 4 1 Th e paral lel ob tai n s precisely in view of Heidegge r's ques tion , ac tually more of a com­ plai n t , to H usser! : "Does n ' t a pure ego have a wo rld?" ( see Ch apter 2 , n . 95 above) . Th ere is something to reading the firs t half of SZ as Heidegge r's redoing of i n tention­ ality, and th e seco n d half as his redoing of perc eption ( a n d i ts consti tu tion by i n n e r time-co n scio us n ess ) .

42 P 2 6 3 ; cf. SZ 64ff. The term ' wo rl d ' i n the foregoi ng pa ragraph refers to the th ird and most common of the fou r uses of the term distin gu ished by H eidegger i n SZ. Those fou r uses are: ( 1 ) t h e on t i c conception o f the set of everyth ing o n h and "wi th i n " the world; ( 2 ) the on to logical conce ption of the man ner of bei ng of e n ti ties wi th i n the wo rld o r a region of it; ( 3 ) the on tic and existen tiel-preo n tological conception of wh e re bei ng­ here fac tually lives (from the pu blic world to the household , but preem i nen tly the s u r­ rounding wo rld or environment) ; and ( 4 ) the on to logical-exis ten tial concepti o n of

a

man n e r of be ing--here . In SZ he rese rves the term ' wo rl d ' for t�e t h i rd se nse and wo rld­ line"s fo r the fou rth sense . O ccasio nal i ns tances of the first se n se are s uppos ed to be i n­

dicated by qu otation In a rk",

a

pract ice fol l owed in t h e prese nt s tudy.

TH E TI M EL I N E S S OF E X I STENTI AL TRUTH

257

render transparent what is neglected in the Husserlian as well as the Aristotelian determinations of truth ( P 2 64) . In the wake of Heidegger's radical reinterpretation of the Aris­ totelian concepts of truth , th e first condition of bivalence (proposi­ tional truth or falsity) is the truth of disclosedness, something that is presupposed in a person 's prethematic, worldly dealings with things. What ' being a thing' (Dingsein) means is equival ent to the manner in which a thing makes itself present in those dealings or concerns. What is characteristic of everyday concerns is the fact that things present themselves within a more or less familiar, dynamic , and purposeful con­ text of references, designated the "work-world" or the "world of con­ cern." Directly challenging attempts to construe the world as a product of immediately given data or even things "always already" on hand in nature, Heidegger declares: "The worldliness of the world is grounded instead in the specific work-world" (P 2 6 3 ) . Heidegger employs the term 'concern ' (besorgen) to characterize the fact that to be-here is, from the outset, to be involved with things in the immediate surroundings or environmen t, referring and being referred to th em (and in that sense dependent upon them ) ( SZ 67£) . Human beings are always already among things, not initially in order to know them , but rather to utilize them , to make use of them for some specific, worldly purpose. The wide range of uses of the verb ' besorgen' makes it a particularly well-suited term for this existential. The term is used as a synonym for ' obtain ' or 'get' ( in th e sense of 'procure ' or 'acquire ' ) as in 'obtain tic kets' or ' get a taxi. ' ' Besorgen' can also be used with the ac­ cent on ' carrying out' or 'finishing' (as in the proverb Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen: don 't put off till tomorrow what you can do today) . The term is also used to designate concerning oneself about something or even caring for it, for example the house , plant, or pet o f someone while they are away o r unable to do so ( as i n the request 'Will you take care o f the dog? ' ) . The past participle o f the verb (besorgt) is also employed as an adj ective to express worry or anx­ iousness, as in 'her concerned look' (ihr besorgter Blick) . For Heidegger the term designates not only decidedly active ways of behaving, but also "allowing someone to act, leaving something unused, se tting something aside or giving it up, and all the phenomena that we might character­ ize as ' letting something go or get lost"' (L 2 1 8 , 2 5 5 ) . In making use of things, employing, handling, buying and selling, coun ting, eve n know i n g things and numerous other ways of relating to th em , h u m a n c o n c e r n is al wavs worldlv. Th is c o ncern does not move '

/

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R UTH

con tingently or aimlessly about, but wi thin a definite referential con­ text and thus with a view to some outcome . The work-world, the world of everyday concern , is, in short, a network. The sense of this network can be gathered from Heidegger's observation that "strictly speaking, th ere is no such thing as a single implement." 43 Each implement "points" or "refers" to (hinweist auf) another as, for example , a screw­ driver refers to a screw, the screwdriver and the screw together to a pair of boards or, more precisely, to fastening them, the fastening to a shelf, and so on . A network of this sort with a familiar dynamic all its own comprises the immediate environment or surroundings (Umwelt) of be­ ing-here. 44 In these work-world surroundings, th ings first make them­ selves present in terms of what they are for ( the '�existentiel-hermeneu­ tic ' as"' discussed in the last chapter) . Yet this environment is so familiar and reliable that the specific th ings encountered within it as well as the various relationships and ref­ e ren ces that bear its dynamic are inconspicuous and unobtrusive. The work-world is accordingly not itself a theme, but present in some sense prior to the things that reveal themselves in those references. 45 As Hei­ degger puts it in Being and Tirne, " the work bears the referential whole within which the implement is encountered" (SZ 70) , but "in every("Ein Zeug ' ist' strenggenom­ men nie'' ) . Dispensing with the pseudo-problems of realism and idealism engendered by talk of in tentionality and/ o r th e thing itself, Heidegger describes handiness as "the ontological-categorial determination of the entity as it is ' in itself" (SZ 7 1 : "die onto­ logisch-kategoriale Bestimmung von Seiende m , wie es 'an sic h ' ist") . On the relation of the in-i tself-n ess of the handy to the on hand, see SZ 6g and 7 s f; J o hn Dewey, �xperience and Naturf, 1 2 2 ; and, i n a related sense, PI 8 of: ''Is what we call ' obeying a rule ' some­ th i ng that it would be possible for only one man to do, and to do only onre in his life? . . . It is no t possible that there should have been only one occasion on which som eone obeyed a rule. It is n o t possible that the re should h ave been only one occasion on which a report was m ade, an order given or understood; and so on. - To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess , are custom 5 (u se s , institutions) ." 44 SZ 8 4 : "An entity is u ncovered i n vi ew o f the fact that, as th is entity that it i s , it is referred to somet h i ng �'\lith it the en t i ty has its in\'olvement wi th or relevance to something. The character of being of the h a ndy is the involvPment or relevance" [Bewa n dtnis] . See P 2 5 1 ff; SZ 66: "The 1nos t im1nediate world of everyday being-here is the environmen t or sur­ rounding world [ Umwrlt] . " \Vork-w o r l d and su rr ou n d in g world are not clearly disti n­ guished in P 2 5 2-2 7 1 . 45 See S Z 8 5 : "The m a n n e r of havi ng al re ady i n each case allowed for the involveme nt, set­ ting [ t h i ng s ] free i n the process with a view to the involvement, is an a priori perfect that charac te rizes the type of being of be i ng-h e r e itself. " SZ H6: T h a t wi thi n-which [ characteristic ] of t h e self-referri ng understanding as t h e in-yiew-of-which of a llo wi n g for the encoun ter of e n tities in the [con text of t h e ] so rt of bein g of in vo lv e n 1 e n t is t h e phc notnenon of the world. " 43 SZ 6R: "Stric tly s pe a kin g there never ' is' U ust] one tool" ,

.

-

"

T H E TI MEL I N ES S O F E X I STENTIAL TRUTH

2 59

thing handy, the world is always already ' here. ' The world is already un­ covered in advance, albeit unthematically, with everything encoun­ tered" ( SZ 8 3 ; P 2 7 1 ) . In the context of concern , things merely on hand are ignored, as is the onhandn ess of the things that are used. Things constan tly retreat into the network; indeed, "in the immediacy of every­ day dealings they do not even emerge from it" (P 2 5 3 ) . In other words, things are not of concern and are "not even here in any primary sense," but rather "applied'' as tools (P 2 5 gf, 2 7 2 ) . Formulating one of the cru­ cial insigh ts of his thinking, Heidegger observes: "What is peculiar about the things immediately handy is the fac t that, in their handiness, they pull back as it were, precisely in order to be genuinely handy" ( SZ 6g; cf. P 2 56 ) . When something handy (zuhanden) no longer retreats into the back­ ground but instead makes itself man ifest by not working right, the pe­ culiar, prethematic "presence" (Prasenz) of the world loses its low pro­ file and comes into relief. Attention is then drawn not only to something missing, defective, or disruptive within the work-world but also to the work-world itself. It takes a breakdown for people actually to attend to the implements themselves and thus to the "inconspicuous­ ness, the unobtrusiveness, and undisturbedness" of the work-world that is "always already here" (P 2 56) . Consider the commonplace experi­ ence of driving to work. As long as the engine of the car is running smoothly and the road is clear, both remain as unobtrusive as the act of driving itself, or for that matter, as the trees and buildings passed along the way. But if the engine suddenly grinds to a hal t or the road is blocked for resurfacing, they are no longer "handy" and yet, for that very reason, we become acutely aware of what they are for. The "ab­ sence" of something that otherwise normally fulfills a function in th e work-world draws attention to the "pallid and inconspicuous presence of the world'' (P 2 56 ) . So, too, in reverse, " the world's not announcing itself' is a condition for the inconspicuousness of what is handy. Heidegger ac­ cordingly observes that the world is neither handy nor on hand even though it is somehow "here" or, literally "in the ' here ' prior to all de­ termination and observation" (SZ 7 5 ) . Nor are matters different in the case of circumspection , the manner of "seeing" things in the work­ world: ''It [the entire context of tools] is itself inaccessible to circum­ spection insofar as this is always directed at some entity, but in each case it is already disclosed for the circumspection. " 46 46 SZ

75:

'circunlspection ' is the

tran slation for

·

Umsicht, ' the purposeful way of loo k i n g

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E P T OF T R U T H

In this way Heidegger establishes the primacy of the "peculiar presence of the environment" and, more precisely, that of the "specific presence of the world as a fixed, reliable referential totality" over the things used in the work-world, being handy as they are only on the basis of this world. 47 Neither this world nor the things encountered within it are on hand in the sense of what might be given "in person" in an observa­ tion or as an "object perceived in a theoretically thematic fashion" (P 2 53f, SZ 7 1 ) . If a tool is defective, requiring the person using it to inter­ rupt the work, this delay remains within the network of concern; the pres­ ence of the tool is not yet on hand as an object studied apart from those concerns. With Aristotle no less than Husser! in mind, Heidegger charges that "the basic phenomenological deception" lies precisely in passing over these phenomena of worldly encounters and regarding the way objects present themselves in an isolated perception or ol:r servation as the manner of their being. Neither the work-world nor the things in the environment of the work-world are present ( on hand) in this way. To the contrary, it is precisely the absence that is "constitutive for the encounter of the otherwise quite inconspicuous world" (P 2 57 ) . In other words, whatever else things are, they are generally encountered first as tools; and whatever tools they are, their manner of being (i.e., of presenting themselves) is to absent themselves from thematic or explicit consideration (a feature that they share with the world itself) . The defec tiveness of some normally working part of the work-world 's referential context points to this world, which , for all its inconspicu­ ousness, is in every case "always already here" (P 2 5 7f, 2 67 ) . Things ini­ tially present themselves ( to us) - with the distinctive absence of what around that guides one's handling (Hantieren) of things and lends it its specific th ingly charac ter (Dinghaftigkeit) . Ums ich t is a lite ral translation of ' circumspicere' ; cf. Gerhard Wahri g, Deu tsches Worterbuch ( Gutersloh : Bertelsmann, 1 997 ) , 1 2 66. Regrettably, 'cir­ cumspection ' barely co nveys that practically oriented sense of lookin g around. The fol­ lowing are some homely examples of circumspec tion as a way of looking around or see­ ing in the con text of concern ( taking care of something) : a carpenter " seeing" the right nail for the job at hand; an electrician "seeing" a cable's con nections; a quarterback "looki ng over" the defense at the line and then "seeing'' that the defenders are over­ playing to the righ t as the play unfolds; a violi nist's knack of "seeing" her bow and vio­ lin, the score , and the conduc tor's direc tion "altogether''; a pedestrian or driver "see­ ing" that traffic is speeding. 4 7 P 2 5 2f. Heidegger highlight� the peculiarity of this presence by usi ng the Lati n deriva­ tive 'Priisenz' instead of 'A nwesenheit, ' si nce the world is self-eviden t yet tacit and unob­ trusive, in contrast to the explicit "presence" (A nwPsenheit) of an object within-the-world th at, for whateve r reason, has been si ngled out for conside(ation . The etymology of ' p resence' and ' Prasenz' is also illuminati ng inasmuch as the 'pre' indi cates something before at u..l , i u thal !')e n�c , necessary for ' scntzrc' (sensation ) . •

'

TH E T I M E L I N ES S OF E X I STE N T I A L TRUTH

i s handy - thanks to this in conspicuous, familiar network of references. That is, of course, not to say that the things, as they reveal themselves in the context of concerns, do not allow for further differentiation . "The work-world presents what is always already on hand as well as what is initially handy for the respective concern'' (P 2 7 1 ) . Yet handi ness is the specific manner of being of things as they are encountered in the context of concerns in wh ich "every meditative [or observational : be­ trachtendJ obj ectification remains in abeyance" ( P 2 59) . What is "im­ mediately accessible" and not what is perceived is what is "authen tically given first," even if it is also at the same time "a founded presence {Priisenzf' ( P 2 63f, 2 68 ) . A thing within the wo rk-world is handy inasmuch as it pertains to something else and is thus founded on a concern (use , ac­ quisition, ease, etc. ) . Give n the way in which what is handy figures as part of the work­ world, its handiness is different from the onhandness characteristic of an obj ect of scientific observation , description , or theory. The presence (Priisenz) of the handy is inconspicuous, grounded as it is in an equally inconspicuous world that is always already in place. This handiness of the handy, founded in the work-world, clarifies "a fundamental feature of the phenomena" of worldliness: "a presence {A nwesenheit] in the man­ ner of inconspicuousness, a presence [Anwesenheit] precisely on the basis of not-yet-being grasped and yet precisely the primary way of havi ng un­ covered - of enabling the encounter" ( P 2 68 ) . Something else, however, issues from the network of concern , some­ thing that is perhaps more readily evident in a concern for production than in the use of a tool or th e implementation of a proj ect. The con­ cern to produce things inevitably bumps up agai nst something that is always already on hand, for example , the iron of the screw, the wood of the door, the winter cold. Things of this sort constitute nature in th e work-world, dubbed by Heidegger the '' the environment-nature" ( Umwelt-natur) (SZ 7 1 ) . Nature is thus not exclusively an obj ect of natural science but rather something that is used in the work-world ( " the world of what is available , nature as the specific world of natural prod­ ucts'' ) or something that one dare not leave out of consideration . "All of this is taken , not in any sort of sense of the obj ectivi ty of nature, but rather always as encountered in the co ntext of concern for the sur­ roundi ngs or environ ment. " 48 As he puts it in Being and Time: "Th e ' na48 P 2 70. Even t h e Roman tic con c e p t of nature , rootf'rl i n thF conce p t of the wo rld ( SZ fi 5 ) .

H e i degger main tai n s , is o n tological ly

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

tttre ' that ' encompasses ' us is, to be sure, an entity within-the-world, but it displays the type of being neither of the handy nor of the on hand in the manner of the ' thingliness of nature "' ( SZ 2 1 1 ) . These claims, if sustainable, obviously suggest a substantial challenge to any attempt to acquire a purely theoretical picture of nature, anch ored by the logical prejudice (a point addressed in more detail below) . Heidegger discusses different sorts and grades of presence in his Pro­ legomena Lectures . Al though he insists on the privileged position of the sort of presence (Priisenz) that coincides wi th being-here, he also emphasizes that these stages are not to be construed as domains lying next to one anoth er. Instead they result from "a peculiar change of pres­ ence" (Priisenzwechsel) (P 264£) . Th ere is: 1

the inconspicuous presence (Prasenz) of the work-world that already prevails in each case, also dubbed "the presence of concernedness" (Besorgtheitprasenz) ; 2 a the "inconspicuous presence [Anwesenheit] of what is imm ediately available, " 49 namely, the handiness of what is handy; and 2 b the presence (Anwesenheit) of a nature that from th e outset is always on hand as ( i ) a useful natural product or (ii ) a threat, hindrance, or resistance. The ordinals are justified here but they can be misleading. The world of concern is always "here" already, in contrast to the presence of some­ thing that is handy or on hand within it. Nor can the way in which the world is always already "here" be equated with something ever-present i n the sense of being always on hand. The handiness of something handy is consequently "a founded presence" (Prasenz) and something similar holds for the onhandness of what is on hand. Presences of the former sort ( handiness) provide the framework for the "unthematic as­ sertions" and "circumspectively thematic assertions" discussed in the last chapter (see 3 . 2 ) . "The natural assertions that \Ve make in a casual way proceed within this type of asserting about worldly things encoun­ tered, a kind of asserting on the basis of concern , on the basis of deal­ ings with the world" (L 2 30) . At the same time, there is no work-\vorld or world of concern wi th­ out implements that are handy or potentially "come in handy" and, in 49 As noted i n

th� fore goin g paragraphs, H e idegg e r also us�s the term ' Priisenz' t o char­ acterize th e man ner of being of what is handy. Li ke be ing-h e re i t�elf, bei n g-h andy �up­ poses an absence of �o n t e �o t l , l ld.Hltl�, ib inconspi cuousness and u nobtrusive ness.

TH E T I M E LI N E S S OF EXI STENT I A L TR UTH

that sense , are simply "on hand.'' This dependency o f the work-world on things that are and/ or can be used is what is misleading about the primacy attributed to it. Still , that primacy is appropriate in an on to­ logical sense since the manner of being of what is handy or on hand ( that is to say, the way that they make themselves present) depends upon the presence of the work-world and not vice versa. In other words , while the work-world is ontically dependent upon what is handy and on hand (techne and phusis respectively) , the handiness of tools and the on­ handness of nature are ontologically dependent upon the presence of the work-world ( the world of concern that is in tegral to being-here ) . There is, however, yet another wrin kle to this ordering of presen ces. As already emphasized, the presen ces of bo th the work-world and hand­ iness are distinguished by the fact that the respec tive absence plays a constitutive role in th e way in which they afford themselves. The work­ world is always here already, but inconspicuously; that is to say, it is not present in the sense of something that is handy or on hand, and it an­ nounces itself only if something han dy is missing or miscarries. At the same time, for something to be handy neither the world nor the im­ plement itself can be conspicuous. "The world's not-announcing-itself is the condition for the possibility of th e handy not emerging from its inconspicuousness" (SZ 75 ) . Thus, the manners of being of both the world and the handy are in a crucial sense not on hand and so must be distinguished from the presence ( the onhandness ) of the object of a purely theoretical perception. Heidegger accordi ngly employs the term 'Priisenz' at times for the manners of being of both the world and what is handy, but not for that of what is on hand. However contrived , this usage is meant to underscore that violence is done to these manners of being if they are construed as conforming to the ontological presup­ positions of the logical prejudice, that is to say, to the presumption that the significance of 'being' is exhausted by the actual or potential pres­ ence (onhandness) of the counterparts of true theoretical judgments. Particularly in view of this last remark, however, the following ques­ tion becomes particularly pressing. Is it possible within Heidegger's scheme to find a place for nature as the object of theoretical science? What is the relation between theore tically thematic assertions and the stages of presence? In view of the world of concern and the manners of being that are encountered within it, how is that presence "in person" to be understood, by means of which Husserl, for example , character­ izes what underlies the tru th of theoretical assertions, na1nely, what is c o r re s p o n d i n gly perceivect ( i n tu i ted , o b s e rve d ) ? .A.s far as the latter

H E I D E G (� E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

question i s concerned, Heidegger declares quite unequivocally that a presence of this sort is "not something original." "If what is immediately handy in the context of concern is already a founded presence [Priisenz] , he observes, "then that is all the more true of the character of reality, . . . which Husserl claims is the genuine manner of being pres­ ent of the world: the so-called being in person" ( P 264 ) . In this way Hei­ degger by no means disputes the possibility of investigati ng natural things and gaining access to them ''in person ." But worldly things are investigated and encountered "in person" only "i nsofar as dealings with the encountered world deny the full possibility of an encounter" ( P 265 ) . Theoretical consideration o f the nature always already on hand is conceived as a concern founded on a world of concern. However, the­ oretical consideration is the sort of concern that is carried out only by "emptying'' the world (Entweltlichung) or, more precisely, emptying things of the world, which amounts to concealing the handiness and suppressing concern itself. (So much , it would seetn , for the theoreti­ cal investigation called "fundamental on to logy" ! ) Of course , science's theoretical consideration is itself a concern, al­ beit one that itself modifies concerns informing the work-world or, in yet broader terms, the instrumental world. This modification is, as Hei­ degger puts it, an attempt "no longer to be in one 's immediate sur­ roundings" ( P 2 66 ) . Thus, while thematization is construed as one con­ cern among others, founded on a world of concern , human beings also take leave of the work-world to some degree as soon as they begin to thematize; they distance themselves from it. In this sense Heidegger notes how "de-limiting the environment" (Entschriinkung der Umwelt) and "circumscribing the ' region ' of the on hand" figure in the genesis of the theoretical way of relating to things (SZ 36 1 £) . This explanation of theoretical behavior and, with it, the ontological presuppositions of the logical prej udice leaves many questions open and unanswered . It is difficult to see how or to what extent the so-called modification of concern - "taking care only to look at" or conte mplate things - has anything more to do with concern. 5° Just as a "theoretical "

so P 2 6 5 ; SZ 6o, 3 56-3 6 3 . For disc ussions of He idegger's accoun t of the trans i tion to re­ ga rd i n g t hi n g s as on hand , cf. Charles Guign o n , Heidfgger and the Prob!Rm of Knnw!Rdgf

( Indianapolis: Hackett, 1 983 ) ; Joseph Rouse, "Science and the Th e o retical ' Discovery' of the Prese n t-at-Hand , " in Description.<;, e d . Don I h d e and Hugh J. Silve rman (Albany: S LT �l' P ress , 1 985 ) , 200-2 1 0; Rouse, Knowledge and Power ( I thaca: Cornell Lln iv. Press, 1 987 ) ; H ubert D reyfu � , BPing-in-the-World ( Cambridge , Mass . : MIT, 1 99 1 ) , 79-84 , 2 5 �- 2 0 5 .

THE TIM ELI NESS OF EXI STENTIAL TRUTH

concern" can sound like an oxymoron, s o Heidegger's account calls up a problem that is the reverse side of the already discussed paradox of thematization . That paradox consists in the attempt to thematize what is unthematic or pre thematic , to provide a theoretical account of what is pretheoretical in such a way that what is distinctively pretheoretical is not overdetermined by the operative theory (keeping in mind that ex­ istence is the "obj ect" of the theory called "fundamental ontology") . The privileged position that Heidegger assigns the world of concern raises a similar albeit i nverted quandary: how does or even can a theory arise at all from the hollows of concern? (Or to frame both issues at once and more quaintly: assuming that the divide between theory and practice is no pretense , then crossing that divide is precisely that, pass­ ing over to the other side , no matter which side is the point of depar­ ture . ) The issue of the possibility of the transition from the world of con­ cern to theory mirrors the problem of the relation between what is handy and what is merely on hand. As a means of exposing the logical prej udice 's characteristic obliviousness to the different ( and temporal ) senses of being, Heidegger insists on the importance of attending to the phenomenon of implements' handiness (always involving an interplay of presence and absence ) in contrast to the alleged onhandness (sheer presence) of things. Yet just as he appears to leave the claims of theory in tact even with its anchoring in worldly concern , so, too, he stops short of claiming that handiness is a more original mode of being than that of onhandness (Vorhandenheit) ( SZ 7 2 ) . But there is a further problem, one that threatens the economy of concern and theory, handiness and onhandness, and, indeed, does so in regard to nature. As already men tioned, Heidegger insists on the fact that nature is an entity that is "encountered within the world" (SZ 63 , 2 1 1 ) . However, he also declares nature to be a "limiting case of the man­ ner of being of possible entities within the world," and in the same con­ text he adds that nature displays "neither the type of being of the handy nor that of the on hand in the manner of 'natural thingliness' " (SZ 65 , 2 1 1 ) . In this connection the nature that presents itself within the sur­ ro unding world or environment ( uncovered in the course of concerns) and the nature investigated by the natural sciences (also grounded in the world of concern ) are supposed to be distinguished. Yet, while Hei­ degger by no means disputes that nature can be "uncovered solely in its sheer onhandness," he immediately adds that the nature that "over­ takes us" ( 1"iherjiillt uns) remains concealed from that purely theoretical

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C EPT O F TRUTH

"uncovering o f nature" (SZ 70) . "The plants o f the botanist are n o t the flowers in the rain," he notes, though without determining any more precisely the manner of being of nature in the context of his investiga­ tion (SZ 70, 2 1 I ) . These remarks about nature are as exasperating for their terseness as they are in triguing, especially in light of the crucial way in which be­ ing-here migh t be said to be overtaken by nature: its death. In any case , on the basis of these fleeting remarks, it would appear that natttre does not in every sense necessarily presuppose a world. Heidegger's remarks might even be read as leaving open the possibility that, in some respect, a natural manner of being cannot be captured by the ontological econ­ omy of being-handy or being-on-hand and, indeed, may even be said to converge with being-here. Rather than broach this delicate subject, however, Heidegger in Being and Time largely restricts his scope to the senses of nature that presuppose the context of the worldly concern. "The references in the surrounding world, references in which nature is primarily presen t in a worldly way, testify . . . that nature 's reality is only to be understood on the basis of worldliness" ( P 2 7 1 ) . Heidegger is apparently convinced that the presence of things and states of affairs insofar as they are i nvestigated in a putatively purely the­ oretical fashion ( or in his jargon, the presence of the on hand) rests in some sense upon th e foregoing, even if i nconspicuous presence of the work-world. It is accordingly possible to insert the presence of nature that is presumed as the object of particular sciences into the previously sketched schema of the world of concern. There is

1

the inconspicuous presence (Priisenz) of th e work-world that already prevails in each case; 2a the "inconspicuous presence [Anwesenheit] of what is i mmediatel y available ," namely, the handi ness of what is handy; 2 b the presence of a nature that from the outset is always on hand as (i) a useful natural product or ( ii ) a threat, hindrance, or resistance; and 3 the presence of the always already on hand nature, as it prese nts i t­ self in pure perception (intuition, observation, contemplation ) from a theoretical perspective . ( Like 2a and 2b, 3 is grounded in I . ) For Heidegger's cri tical confrontation with the logical tradition , what remains crucial is his view that the logical prej udice is orien ted to a L U H c... e p tiun of truth in accord \Vith th e on handness of n a ture- ( the

THE TIMELINESS

OF

EX I STENTIAL TRUTH

third se nse o f 'presence' in the above schema) , yet without considera­ tion of its grounding in the inconspicuous presences of tools and the work-world ( the second and first senses of ' presence ' in the above schema) . In other words , it would be symptomatic of a logical prej udice to regard as true only what can be placed in the ever-present nature , corresponding to what is mean t by a theoretical assertion . Heidegger suggests, to be sure, that the phenomenon of "circum­ spectio n" Umsicht: looking around wi thin a particular work environ­ ment as a kind of praxis-orie nted thematiziation of the handy - signals a means of transition between the second and third stages of presence. But, as discussed earlier, the possibility of such a transition is no more explained than that of the theoretical concern itself. Heidegger does not provide an adequate explanation of either why theory arises out of practice ( the world of concern and circumspective dealings with things ) or, for that matter, how it is possible. However, these issues, for all their importance, are not primary for Heidegger (although it can be argued, and will be below, that in a cer­ tain respect they should be ) . His main concern is to demonstrate that the sense of being-here is not that of something on hand and that the truth of existence, far from bei ng a j udgmen t or perception , is being­ here 's prethematic disclosure of that sense. In this way, he aitns to counter the traditional ontological and alethiological moorings of the logical prej udice. Though there is a great deal more that needs to be said about the truth of being-here, 5 1 Heidegger fires his first salvo at the logical prejudice by calling attention to the peculiar presence of the work-world and what is handy within the work-world, neither of which is, as such, on hand. In the course of elaborating the priority of the work-world (or "pres­ ence of concernedness": Besorgtheitspriisenz) , Heidegger continues, to be sure , to wrestle with the paradox of thematization . The access to the underlying prese nce of the work-world is not some fixed stare of intu­ ition , but instead a matter of understanding, that is, " know how" or, bet­ ter, "knowing one 's way about or around" in a given referential context. At the same time Heidegger emphasizes that this understanding is not knowledge in the traditional sense of the term ( e.g. , justified true be­ lief or warranted assertion ) . "U nderstanding does not by any means pri-

5 1 Fo r example , if tirn e l i n e ss is in so m e �en se th e truth of bei ng-h e re , it is in cumbe n t on Heid egge r to show how the difference betwe e n prac t i ce , i n c l uding c i rcums p ec ti o n , a n d

thenr{" tica1 nhc;:t->rva t i n n i "i a rliffere n ce i n ti m P l i n P''

H E I DE G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R UT H

marily signify any manner of knowing and cognizing, unless one re­ gards knowing itself as the constitution of being of being-in-the-world" (P 2 86, 1 43f, 2 5 3 ) . Thus, the world of concern remains significant pre­ cisely in the way that it is understood in the framework of the hermeneutic 'as ' ( see 3 . 1 above) . "The uncoveredness of the handy and on hand is grounded in the disclosedness of the world; for the un­ leashing of the respective totality of relevance and involvement de­ mands a foregoing understanding of [ its] meaning" (SZ 2 97; 83£) . Heidegger admits to some "embarrassmen t in the selection of the right expression for the complex phenomenon" of the structure of en­ countering the world (P 2 75 ) . ' Meaningfulness' (Bedeutsamkeit) , the term selected by him, does not stand for the significance or reference of a word or combination of words. Instead it designates the world of original meaning discussed in the previous chapter, the point of the context of references (and not just of words) that constitutes a world of concern . In an explicit play on the Neo-Kantian contrast between sub­ stance and function , Heidegger emphasizes that these references, not things (substances) , "have the primary function in the structure of the encounter with th e world" (Begegnisstruktur der Welt) (P 2 7 2 ) . Mention has already been made of the problems associated with the very notion of a "theoretical concern" and with determining nature 's manner of being in the context of the pivotal role that Heidegger as­ signs to the world of conc ern . These difficulties are perhaps not sur­ prising, given Heidegger's view that privileging scientific knowledge and a naturalistic ontology traditionally figures so decisively in cemen t­ ing the logical prej udice and its ontological commitments. Yet while the difficulties mentioned are serious and cannot be ignored, it is far from evident that they blunt the force of Heidegger's observations. While it remains woefully unclear precisely how theoretical concerns and the manner of being of nature as an object of such concerns are to be grounded in "the world of concern ," there is ample reason to consider all such concerns ways of being-in-the-world and to suppose that, what­ ever else implements or natural obj ects migh t be , their manner of be­ ing includes preeminently the way in which they prethematically dis­ close themselves in and to bei n g-h e re . "Why then is it possible for me at all to allow for the encounter of a worldly thing in all its purity in the flesh? - only because the world is already here, allowing for the en­ counter, because allowing for the encounter is only a specific manner of my bei n g-i n-th e-world and because the worl d signifies nothing el s e than so111e lh ing alway s al re ady prese n t for the e nti ty i n i t" ( P 2 67 ) .

T H F. T I M E L I N E S S O F E X I S T E N T I A L

26g

TRU TH

Yet great care needs to be taken in interpreting the world's manner of being. Although it is "always already here ," the world 's manner of be­ ing or, as Heidegger also puts it, the "presence of the concernedness" (Besorgtheitpriisenz) is by no means something on hand. The world is in­ stead that "peculiar," "inconspicuous" presence that is experienced only via the absence ( malfunction, breakdown ) of what is handy within that world. This presence is characterized as the referential totality initially familiar to people in a hermeneutic understanding that is part and par­ cel of the way they deal with things unthematically, if not unreflectively. The presence of the world of concern thus draws attention to itself only if these dealings are interrupted for some reason . Theory arises from the willful interpretation of the world of concern, if only because that world troubles us at a certain level. Theory and science are only possi­ ble (i.e., founded) because being-here is, to say the least, unse ttling. An assumption is dogmatic if it regards some unresolved issue as closed or settled. In other words, an assumption amounts to a prejudice if it takes some determination of a subject matter as the end of its analy­ sis when in fact it is n ot. In the philosophy of logic it is sometimes cus­ tomary to assume that truth ultimately refers to something on hand and/ or consists in an ever-present and thereby always (at least in prin­ ciple) reidentifiable relation (for som e a function of tense less truth­ conditions) between a state of affairs and a j udgment or declarative sen­ tence. If Heidegger's interpretation of the work-world (the world of concern ) holds, then such an assumption is illegitimate and prej udi­ cial. The onhandness of whatever is regarded as such is not an original, but a "founded" presence. The different ways in which both the handy and the on hand are present are grounded in the inconspicuous pres­ ence of the world of concern . 5 2 In the last analysis, however, what is the world of concern about? If this world indeed constitutes a "referential whole," then it would seem that there is some purpose or poin t to it, that provides closure , so to speak, to the cycles or, better, spirals of references. In a certain sense, it is possible (that is to say, there is nothing inconsistent in the idea) that there is an endless series of references or that the world is a senseless play of absences and presences. Yet something of this sort is not expe-

52

The logical prejudice an1oun t101 to regarding a constan t p resence, the refere nce of a veridical judgment or the oqj e ct of a veri di c a l perception, as the end of any analysis of tr uth or being. The thesis of the primacy of the work-world i m p l ies by contrast, that su c h concep tio n s of t ruth and bein g are fou nded upon a world of concern . ,

H E I O E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

rienced. What human beings experience i s precisely the point o f de­ parture for the analysis of the work-world: this world is part of an orig­ inal and unified structure of being-in-the-world that centers, for the re­ spective entity that is-in-the-world, on being herself. The world of concern is ultimately a way in which a hun1an being is in the world in order to be respectively who he or she is. Far from bei ng novel, the thesis that human beings themselves are what is ultimately at stake in the work-world is, one is tempted to say, trivial and unremarkable . Yet philosophy consists, as Wittgenstein re­ minds us, in a series of remin ders; moreover, everything rides, as Hei­ degger puts it, on the correc t philosophical interpretation . This section has been an attempt to drive home Heidegger's on tological interpre­ tation of that triviality. En tities make themselves present originally, not in perception of them, but i n use of the1n, and thus in their relevance wi thin a network of concerns in which they are not so much on hand as handy. What they are in the mselves, as Heidegger provocatively puts it at one point, is precisely their handiness. So absorbed , meanwhile, are we in that network of con cerns that we take n o notice of things, our­ selves, or even the network itself unless its operations are sotnehow dis­ rupted. But just as nothing presents itself originally apart from that net­ work of concerns, so we, too, do not exist independently of our immersion in those things and the network of concerns that define them. Drawing on Husserl 's insistence on the primitiveness of inten­ tionality ( that is to say, that it is not subj ectivity that is invested with in­ tentionality but vice versa) , Heidegger's elaboration of the work-world or world of concern bel ies any temptation to regard a human being as something that, already constituted somehow, happens to enter into a world. "To be here" - for Heidegger the profoundest sense of humanly being - means to be concern ed, and to be concerned can only mean to be worldly th rough and through , engaging - and sharing - a world of concern. 4. 2 Sol icitude , Being-wi th-O th ers, and Palaver

''We designate as care the basic type of being of an entity that is such that what is at stake for it in its being is this being itself' (L 2 2 0 ) . Heidegger did not himself draft an ethics i n any tradi tional sense. Hence, it is wor­ thy of note when he remarks th at th is phenomenon of care is precisel y wha t Kant h as in mind in working out th e ba�is for the so-called hu­ n1 ani stic formulation of the categorial i m pera tive � " h u m a n h�i n gs exist

T H E T I M E LI N E S S O F EX I STE N T I A L T RU T H

as purposes in themselves." 53 This remark presents Heidegger with the opportunity to point out, once agai n, the necessity of the metacategor­ ial distinction . According to Heidegger, Kant attempts in vain with stan­ dard ontological categories to present the distinctively human manner of being. Kan t's attempt fails, not because the concepts are old or tra­ ditional , but because such categories are suited to things in nature other than human beings. 54 There is an additional reason why Heidegger's reference to Kant's efforts to provide a foundation for the categorial imperative is particu­ larly instructive in this connection. Kant's claim that "human beings ex­ ist as purposes in themselves" is supposed to refer precisely to what Hei­ degger designates as "care," natnely, "that what is at stake for the human being is his or her being itself. " Kant's aim , however, is not only to etn­ phasize the distinction between things and persons, but also to point to "a world of intelligences." 55 Siinilarly, Heidegger's concept of care , pre­ cisely in determining the world of concern, also includes what he dubs "solicitude," "caring-for-others," or, in short, "being-with-others." 56 "The world of being-here is being-with-others" (SZ 1 1 8 ) . To be sure , in the Prolegomena Lectures as in Being and Time, in the course of ad­ dressing "who being-in-the-world is," Heidegger rejects the idea that the answer in this connection has any "moral evaluation" (P 3 3 7 , 38g, 39 1 ) . Nevertheless, the reference to Kant's determination of human beings as "purposes in themselves" does more than merely suggest that Hei­ degger's account of "being-with-others" as a central aspect of being­ here is mean t to recapitulate in some sense what otherwise is viewed as foundational for e thics. Indeed, in some of the more exasperating pas5 3 L 2 2 of; GP 1 95 . See, too, Heidegger's rejec tion of distinct phil osophical disciplines such as logic, ethics, aesth e tics, and philosophy of re 1 igion in PAA 1 7 2 . 5 4 This po i n t i s i terated i n the sum mer of 1 9 2 7 (GP 2 0 1 -2 09) and becomes the basis fo r th e lectures in the sum mer of 1 930: Vom We.\en der menschlichen Freiheit, ed. Har ttn u t Ti e g en, GA 3 1 , second edition ( 1 9 9 4 ) , 2 2 0, 2 3 8 , 246, 2 5 5 · Heidegge r can poin t to the use of th e category of causality to elaborate the mean ing of fre e dom and to th e con­ formity of the table of categories of fre edom in the Kritik der praktischm Vernunft to the table of c a tegori es in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 55 Im manuel Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten ( 1 7 8 5 ) , in Kants Werke, vol . 4 ( Berlin: de Gruy t er, 1 968) , 462 , 4 5 3 · 56 'Solicitude' is n o t a n ad e qu a t e translation of ' Fiirsorge, ' a term used t o sign ify ev erything from a mother's loving care for h e r child to social welfare. Yet, whi l e a li ttle-used syn­ onym for ' an x ie ty or ' won-y, ' 'solici tude ' can con note concern di rected at othe rs ' Be­ ing solicitous of others' has the a dde d a dvan tage, like ' Fiirsorge, ' of bei n g used w idely e .g. , fo r lovi ng atte n tion and for i n trusive ness or pus h i n ess ' Solicitu do' is the Vulga t e translation of ' merimna' in G re e k ; cf. SZ 1 qq n . 1 . '

'

.

'

,

.

H E I DEGGER ' s C O N C EPT

OF

TRUTH

sages of Being and Time, Heidegger pleads with h i s readers t o differen­ tiate the "purely ontological purpose" of his interpretation from a "mor­ alizing critique of everyday being-here," only to concede later that "a specific on tic conception of ge nuine existence, a factual ideal of being­ here," does underlie the interpre tation . !l7 The parallels between the work-world and being-with-others are striking. A person is no more alone in the world th an she is worldless. Being-with-others and the work-world are equally fundame ntal; they co­ constitute being-in-the-world. If the problem of the reality of the ex­ ternal world, give n the originality of "being-h ere" and "being-in­ the-world," is a pseudo-problem, then the so-called problem of inter­ subjectivity is as well . I n other words, just as the presence of a world of concern (a work-world) renders moot the question of whether a subject manages to move from "his inner sphere" into an "other, outer sphere ," so, too, the originality of being-with-others exposes "the illu­ sory problem of sympathy" : "How does an initially isolated subject come to others?" (P 3 3 5 , 2 1 6, 3 2 7 ) . At the same time the work-world and being-with-others are different from one another. The world of concern is always a world in which other human beings are also here and with others who are likewise here, while the world itself is "never here with [ her] , never being-here-with [ her] . "58 I encoun ter others on the basis of the world and, indeed, nei­ ther as handy tools nor as subjects that happen to be on hand alongside me, but rather as "also-being-here" with me. In order to fix these phe­ nomena termi nologically, Heidegger distinguishes: "being-with-others" (Mitsein) as "a structure of being of one's own re­ spective manner of being-here;" "being-here-with" (Mitdasein) as " the type of being of others" insofar as that type of being is "disclosed for a being-with through its world;" and "being-with-one-another" (Miteinandersein) as the togetherness of those two manners of being-here .

5 7 S Z 1 6 7 , 3 1 o . For a development o f this ethical accent, see Frederick Olafson , Heidegger and the Ground of Ethics ( New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1 998 ) . See, too, Christopher Fynsk's discussion of being-wi th in his Heidegger: Thought and Historirity, expanded edi­ tion ( I thaca, N .Y. : Cornell U niv. Press, 1 993 ) , 2 8-54. 5H P 334· It is important to bear in mind that 'world' for Heidegger, in con trast to 'word­ liness , ' has on ti c and existentiel-preontological uses, ranging ove r, among other th ing�. the public world and th e "urrou nd i n g worl d ( t h e environ m en t ) ; �ee n. 1 2 ahove .

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2 73

Being-with-one-another is said to form "the diverse possibilities of corn­ munity as well as society" (P 3 3 3 , 3 2 gf; SZ 1 1 8 ) . As in the case of the handiness of things in the work-world, the ac­ cess to others is initially tacit. Indeed, this aspect of being-here, namely, being-with-them , discloses itself in the absence as well as in the prese nce of others. "This character of being-with-others determines being-here even when another being-here is not factually articulated and perceiv­ able as on hand" ( P 3 2 8) . Just as the absence of a reliable tool is pre­ cisely what makes apparent its handiness and the work-world in which it functions, so, too, the lack of others poignan tly demonstrates the orig­ inality of being-with-others and, indeed, the original possibility of be­ ing with them authentically. "Being-with-others and the facticity of be­ ing-wi th-one-another are thus not grounded in the fact that several ' subjects' come toge ther" (SZ 1 2of; P 3 2 8f) . It is possible to feel lonely even amid others or simply to miss someone because being-with-one­ another de termines what it means "to be-in-the-world" as originally as the world of concern does. "Even wh en being-here is being-alone," Hei­ degger maintains, this being-alone is to be understood as a manner of "being-wi th-others in the world" (P 3 2 8; SZ 1 2 0) . As mentioned earl ier, others are encountered on the basis of the world, not like things in nature or tools in the workplace , but in their own way of being-in-the-world. People 's involvement with one another is qui te distinct from the way natural objects are placed together or tools pertain to one another. People are dependent upon one another in the world of concern, and they understand one another on this ba­ sis whe ther the understanding disintegrates into hate or flowers into love , whether they deliberately avoid one another or simply pass by one another as strangers. It is noteworthy that the determination of being­ with-others stands, as it were , at the cusp of the me tacategorial distinc­ tion ( the distinction between existe ntials and categories, discussed ear­ lier) . In order to make good on the clai m that being-with-others is in tegral to being-here , Heidegger is faced with the task of giving an ac­ coun t of the positive senses of being-with-others and being-here-wi th , an account that does not reduce others' manners of "being-here-with" to the ways in which one tool pertains to another or one natural object is next to another. The keys to such an account lie i n the determination of being-in-the­ world. Being-wi th-one-another is always a matter of taking care of the world togethe r (Miteinanderbesorgen) . To be ge n ui ne l y with one another consists in regarding th e other as who she genuin ely is, namely, not as

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some thing on hand but as being-here, that is, as someone for whom what is at stake is respectively being herself. If someone, on the other hand, is not genuinely here with another, then the other is "not being­ here in his own right, but rather in an inauthentic way, that is to say, as something on hand within the world, some thing that does not matter as far as his own affairs are concern ed" (L 2 2 4 ) . The formulation ' not matte ring as far as his own affairs are con­ cerned ' illustrates that genuinely being-with-one-another is a question of a certain kind of solicitude, a solicitude that evidences - again remi­ niscent of Kant - respect for others. 59 If, for example, someone treat� another human being in such a way that she tries to take care of every­ thing for him , then she sh ows that she regards him as unfit and inca­ pable of taking care of himself and thus of being himself in the world of concern . If he agrees to this sort of relationship, then he becomes dependent, and the way she cares about him takes the form of domi­ nation. If, by contrast, her way of being-with-him is such that she antic­ ipates him as a means of "giving back" to him the manner of being-here that is most properly his, then her care for him, her solicitude, would be liberating and genuine. 60 Being-with-someone is "genuine" or not, depe nding upon whether the care for that person is respectively liber­ ating or dominating in relation to who the person genuinely is. Heidegger has disappointingly li ttle to say about this basic phenom­ enon of being-with-others, above all , abou t being with them in a gen­ uine way. The glaring lack of any explicit reference to politics or polit­ ical philosophy (a lack parti cularly curious for someone so schooled in Aristotle 's though t and not least in his ethics) is in keeping with the sparseness of Heidegger's accoun t of being-with-others. At the satne time , it is not difficult to discern why, in his analysis, being-with-others is subordinated to the phenomenon of the work-world. Wi th the con­ viction that he is being true to his phenomenological method, Hei­ degge r emphasizes how being-wi th-others presents itself initially in a quotidian existence that is principally shaped by the world of concern . 59 For Heidegger's positive re a d ing of Kant's notion of respect, see GP 1 8 5- 1 94 · 6o Th is talk of "giving back one\ ownmost being-here" ( L 2 2 3 ) is ill-advised, since the lat­ ter cannot be someone else 's possession . The fonnu lation i n SZ (wh ich otherwise con­ fo rms closely to the lec tures) is an improven1ent, as Heidegger explai ns that caring for others in a liberating way (die befreiende Fiinorge) "helps the other to become transpar­ e n t to hi mself in his care and free for the latter" (SZ 1 2 2 ) . A� J�re my Ryan remi nds m e , this account, right down to t h e c h o i c e of te rm s, has affi n i ti e s wi th He gel 's fam o us d i�­ c u sc;; i on of recogn i t ion an o the m a'iter-s lave d i ale c ti c .

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2 75

In the everyday world of concern , people are generally caught up in a competitive manner of caring about one another, a manner of caring that is bent on domination from the outset, indeed, before anyone is aware that competi tion and domination set the tone for his or her modus vivendi with others. The measure of distance separating people (Abstandigkeit, as Heidegger puts it) is what matters in the everyday world. People "on the bottom" attempt to overtake others, diminishing the distance between themselves and others, while those "on top" do their best to put others down, in the process putting more space be­ tween th emselves and others. In this way others are not regarded gen­ uinely; instead they come to be treated as more or less handy, within the network of implements making up worldly concerns. It is not as if one 's concern and, wi th it, one 's world of concern be­ comes subj ect - or li terally a subj ect - to sotneone else 's or vice versa. Such a conception would be deeply erroneous since it presupposes that being-he re and the world of concern might constitute a self-sufficient whole independent of others who are likewise " here." To be-in-the­ world is to be absorbed on a daily basis in a world of concern shared with others, others with whom eac h individual has to cope every bit as much as with the instruments and tools of that world. In other words , people are familiar with one another on an everyday basis in a more or less public world of concern. This more or less public world of concern is constituted by shared social practices. While stylisti cally infelicitous and even redundant, the j uxtaposition of the two adjec tives 'shared so­ cial' is intended to emphasize that the practices i n question make up the common , everyday world precisely by being mutually performed. Heidegger designates this manner of being with one another in an everyday way as "the they" (das Man) or, as it is more often translated here, "the crowd" ( SZ 1 2 6 ; P 336) . As is the case for the original Ger­ man term, the expressions ' they' and ' the crowd' are often used in a very imprecise but pregnant sense to stand for some imaginary agent of public opinion, rules, discourse , and the like . (The title and lyrics of the George and Ira Gershwin songs "They All Laughed," "They Can ' t Take That Away from Me," and "Not for Me" provide good examples of uses of ' they' that correspond to pertinent uses of ' man. ' Relevant uses of ' crowd ' are exemplified in the expressions 'falling in with the wrong crowd ' and ' going along wi th the crowd. ' ) As Heidegger emphasizes, there is really no one to whom ' they' or 'the crowd' refers in such us­ ages, b u t it is also not n o th ing. Wi th o u t s tand i n g for anyth i ng handy or o n h an d � ' t h e c rowd ' den o tes a m a n n � r of hei n g-i n-th e-worl rl . I n th e

H E I D EG G E R ' S C O N C EPT O F TRUTH

form of publicity, public opinion , and conformity, the crowd possesses an enormous constancy and imperviousness (Stiindigkeit) ( SZ 1 2 8 ) . This constancy, to be sure, is not that of some durable natural property or recurrent cycle . Instead the "constancy" of the "crowd" - exactly like Homer's hoi polloi or Nietzsche 's "herd" - is a specific manner of being­ with-others that subjects everyone to it in a way that is inconspicuous, but for that very reason all the more in tractable and obdurate . ( Nor should it be forgotten that this being-with-others is an existential, i.e. , it is something that being-here does, not something simply done to it. ) The distance (Abstiindigkeit) between people, spoken of earlier, is grounded in the "averageness" characteristic of a crowd. "Averageness" here does not mean simply that the social practices are shared . It means that one role can be comple tely exchanged with another, since the crowd relieves being-here of the task of genuinely being-with-others, that is to say, of being with th em in such a way that each can respectively be himself or herself. 6 1 "This being-with-one-another completely re­ duces one 's own being-here to others' manner of being; it [bein g-here] allows itself to be taken along by the others such that, to be sure, the others disappear in their distinctiveness even more" (P 3 3 8 ) . That av­ erageness is thus grounded in turn "in an original sort of being of the crowd, a sort of being that is given in its absorption in the world"; it is grounded, in other words, in what Heidegger calls "the leveling off of all differences" and "possibilities of being" (P 3 3 9, SZ 1 2 7 ) . Both the differences in manners of being and the respectively unique possibili­ ties of being are not simply smoothed over; they are ironed out like so many annoyin g wrin kles onto a sin gle flat surface of conformity. Heidegger's analysis proceeds from the fact that bein g-in-the-world determines itself initially an d mostly on the basis of the everyday man­ ner of being-with-one-another, which is nothing else but its immersion , along with others, in the world of concern closest at hand. From this perspective , being-here in the sense of being-wi th-others is taken over and, so to speak, lived by the surrounding world of public opinion . This is a world constituted by the propensities of the ''madding" crowd : con­ cern for the distance between oneself and others, self-assessment ac­ cording to standards of conformity, and the one-dimensionality re61

It is difficult no t to h e a r Weber's c ri ticism of bureauc racy once again lurking in the back­ g round of Heide gger s an alysis. See Max We b er, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tii bin gen : Mohr, 1 9 2 � ) , 6so-67 8 . For a discussion of the impact of "th e peculiar soc iocultural . problematic of German rn an d ari n antimodernism" upon H e idegge r, see Ric hard Woli n , The Politit:."i of BeinK ( New York: Columbia Univ. Press. 1 9 90) . 2 3-2 9 . '

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EXISTENTIA L TRUTH

quired for a mutually useful and unth reatening coexistence. The very meaning of the world i tself becomes identified with the aims of a crowd that thereby "prefigures" and "prejudges" the interpretation of the world and being-in-the-world ( SZ 1 2 9; P 340) . By construing the crowd as a possibility of being-here, Heidegger is recalling that being-here determines this possibility for itself ( or, better, himself or herself) . As long as the person who is-here lives "in the crowd," he makes himself a supposed victim, shifting all responsibility to the anonymous world of public opinion. "The crowd thus rids the re­ spective manner of being-here, in his everydayness, of a burden'' the burden of being himself (SZ 1 2 7 ) . In bein g-here, there is thus a certain inclination to use the c rowd to find a way to rid oneself of this burden , an inclination to which we all succumb to some degree . "Insofar then as there is in [ his] being-here a tendency to take matters lightly and make things easy, this way of ridding the burden of bein g, shaped by him himself as a manner of being-with-others, is welcomed by him . " 6 2 Being-here thus bears some responsibility for the public world into which it has initially come of age, both by way of maintaining it and identifying with it. This tendency "to take things lightly and make things easy" is part and parcel , according to Heidegger, of a fl ight from oneself. Not only that tendency, but the flight itself are constitutive for being-here . H e refers to this constitutive flight as a fallen o r lapsed way of being-he re. 'Fallen ' and ' lapsed' are translations of ' verfallen, ' li terally a state of hav­ i ng fallen away, as in a "fallen away" or "lapsed" Catholic. 63 There is, of course, a difference between a fall and a lapse, in the present case, be­ tween a tenden cy and an action taken on a tendency (e . g. , taking flight) . With its suggestion of reprehensibility, a lapse has to be forgiven ( and is forgivable) , while a fall hardly needs to be excused. Herein lies -

6 2 P 340. This translation em ploys the masculine in order to convey that conformity to the

crowd is a matter of personal responsibility. By no means is this responsibility greater for one gender. On the troubling issue of translating refl exives, see n. 7 above. 63 The term ' verfallen' has a variety of colloq uial usages. For example, a building may be "falling apart," an overripe apple may be bruised by its "fall fr o m the tree, a limb may be injured by a fall, a menstrual period might "fall out"; cf. Badisches W0rterburh, ed. Ernst Ochs, vol . 2 ( Lahr/Schwarzwald: MoritL Schauenburg, 1 94 2- 1 974 ) : 55 · S e e, too , J . G. Herder, A uch eine Philosophie der Gesrhichte zur Bildung der Menschheit, e d Hans-Dietrisch Irmscher ( Stuttgart: Reel am , 1 990) , 8 1 , g8; a n d Hegel , Enzyklopiidie, � 1 1 Zusatz. ' Ver­ fallen, ' like ' fal l e n ' in English, has a moral and rel igi ous - indeed, Anabap tis t - ring traceable to th e lapsz of the third century whose apostasy p r e c i p i t a ted th e issue of re­ "

.

baptism .

H E J D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

a deep but necessary ambiguity and ambi-valence i n Heidegger's ac­ count of Verfallensein. The ambi-valence is directly parallel to that in the doctrine of original sin , the "mystery" of an inherited proclivity - con­ cupiscentia - that, nonetheless, does not relieve us of responsibility for certain actions and habits and, ultimately, salvation or damnation. 64 Just as ' original sin ' stands for the fact that humanity turned away from God and, as a consequence, must contend for a lifetime with its falle n nature, so ' fallenness' designates the way i n which being-here falls away frotn itself - not innately, but i n "worldly" ways, that is, i n the ways it as­ similates itself economically ( the work-world) and socially ( the crowd) . The fall or lapse from the potential that defines bei ng-here as its own does not mean that a person, in being-here, falls to "some entity that she may or may not butnp up against in the course of her being"; i n­ stead, she falls prey to uthe world that itself belongs to her being" again, not unlike the concupiscent nature inherited on account of orig­ i nal sin . 65 The fall and flight from oneself is a fall to the world. Yet, while the world itself belongs to being-here, to being-in-the-world, it is not to be confused with the totality of being-here itself. It is striking that the world of concern, despite claims about the equiprimordiality of being-with-others, is the center of gravity of Hei­ degger's existential analysis. In both the Marburg lectures and i n Being and Time Heidegger prefaces his discussion of being-with-others with an interpretation of the world of concern . He thereby underscores his the­ sis "that the type of encounter wi th one another that is closest at hand lies in the direction of the world itself, in which concern is absorbed" (P 3 3 2 ; SZ 1 2 6 ) . From the outset people are always dependent upon one another in the world of concern. This emphasis on the world of concern is due in large part to Hei64 Accordi ng to Aq u i n a s o rigi n a l sin is a dis p os i ti o n (habitus) , a l an guo r of our nature," a defectiven ess i n the sort ofj ustice originally owed God , resulti n g i n a certai n i nordi­ nateness in the powers of the soul, called "concupiscence." Cf. Summa Theologiae, P r i m a Secundae, qq. 8 1 -8 3 ; fo r Hei degge r 's a ppr o pri a tio n of t h es e themes from A u g u stine s Confessions, c f PRL 2 1 1 , 2 9 5-2 1 o , 2 48f, 2 5 3 f. 65 SZ 1 76. Cf. Karl Barth, "Der Chri�t in der Gesel lschaft" ( 1 9 2 0 ) , in Das WoTt Gottes u nd die Theologie, Ge.\ammelte Vortriige (Miinchen: Kai se r, 1 9 2 5 ) , 45 : "Sie [die Seele, d ie zu Besin nung ko1nmt] s tell t sich unter d a � GericiH, in dem die Welt i�t und sie n im m t die Wel t a l s Last auf sic h. E s gibt kein Erwachen der Seele, das etwas an dere� sein kon n te als ein ' m i tleidend Tragen der Beschwe rden der ganzen Zeitgenossenschaft. ' Cf. al so Friedrich Gogarten , Die religiii�e Entsrheidung (Jena: D ie d e r i c h s , 1 9 2 4 ) , 4 8 : "Diese e in e e i n zige Mogl ic hkeit, von der We l t der Zei t l oszuko m m e n , ve r l a n gt, d afi m an sich In i t . kei ner Fase r vo n d e r V\7elt u n d Ze i t lf>st und sie gan � auf sich nimm t, n i cht ei n e r ,

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auf (\ i c h h irl t . "

THE TI M E LI N ESS OF EX I STENTI A L

TRUTH

279

degger's interpre tation of a lapsed existence as precisely one that has fallen away from itself and thus fallen, not to being-with-others, but to the world of concern , the work-world. Herein lies, too, the reason for the brevity of the elaboration of bein g-with-others authentically. The world of concern initially determines the manner of being-wi th-others and that means precisely that one deals wi th others as one deals wi th things that are handy or on hand ( tools or natural products) in doing the business (Betrieb) of this work-world. The common or shared world that is coextensive with the world of concern is elaborated by Heideg­ ger in terms of "the crowd ," the downfall of being-here or, as it migh t be put more colloquially today, a kind of "free fall, " falling in with the crowd and falling prey to the work-world (all plays on the inevitable lapsing or fallen ness in being-here ) . In this way Heidegger sketches a less-than-genuine manner of being-with-others, that is, solicitude in the interests of competition and domi nation. Ye t he makes no attempt to justify the apparen t supposi tion underlying his interpretation , namely, that worldly concern plays a more important role than being-with-oth­ ers in defining the basic structure of quotidian human existence . 66 Heidegger insists , nonetheless, that genuinely caring for others in­ verts th e relation of the world of concern to bein g-with-others. "The primary solidari ty in being-with-one-another consists, not in the matte r regarding which and for which one is h ired, but primarily in one 's own being-here itself that is with others" ( L 2 2 4 ) . Heidegger thus plays the concepts of concern (Besorgen) and solicitude (Fursorge) off one another to a certain extent. If the work-world (a world of concern ) sets the stan­ dard (and this is the way that the world is initially experienced, on Hei­ degger's interpretation ) , then the solicitude, the manner of cari n g for others , is not genuine . Being-with-one-another is then shaped by pub­ lic opinion, by what the crowd says and regards as true. By con trast, if concern arises primarily out of the con text in which what matters is re­ spectively being-with-one-another (and thereby being respectively one­ self) , then the solicitude is genuine and the concern itself is instead "a c aring with one another for the same world" (L 2 24) . The difficulty that emerges from this account of bein g-with-others is 66 N eve rthel ess, in view of th e privi l eged role that Heid egge r assigns th e wo rk-wo rld , his an alysis co n tai ns e l e m e n ts of a "c ri ti cism of the tim es" - 0 tempora, o mores - wi th ch ar­ ac te ri s tic l i m i tatio n s , e .g. , the dated n e ss of certai n phenomena. See W. Sch i rmac h e r, Technik und Gela��rnhfil: Zeitkritik narh Heidegger ( Fre i b urg: Al ber, 1 98 3 ) ; 0. Pogge l e r, Philosophie und Po li t i k bfi Heirlegger, seco n d , exp anded ed i tion ( Fre ib urg: Alber, 1 97 4 ) , 1 .s ff: K. Kos i k , Dia lektzk des Konkrften ( Fra n kfu rt a1n Mai n : Suh rkan1 p , 1 967 ) , 7 9 n . g .

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

patent: Heidegger seems to make too much o f the common world 's hold on us. He makes no attempt to j ustify the primacy of the "world" over being-with-others in his analysis because he considers it indis­ putable: "Phenomenally considered, the finding cannot be disputed that the world shapes the encoun ter between . . . others' manner of be­ ing-here and one 's own manner of being-he re" ( P 33 3 ) . It is, of course, true that the public work-world - the "marketplace" - "shapes," even regulates the everyday manner of being-here such that a person in­ evitably comes of age in this common world of "distance, averageness, and one-dimensionality." But Heidegger so emphasizes its hold on in­ tersubjectively being-here that it is not apparent how a person can grow into a world of her own at all ( P 3 39f) . What it n1ight meant to be-here genuinely (i.e . , to be genuinely oneself, with others, and in the world ) becomes extremely perplexing. Heidegger's account of the way the crowd colors the various shades of daily encounters is masterful, but, in the wake of that account, being in the work-world and the public arena appears hardly realizable by - if not patently inconsistent with - being who one authentically is. One might argue that this difficulty is insignificant since it appears to rest on issues largely tangential to Heidegger's project. Despite his grumblings about education, public policy is obviously not Heidegger's forte, but it is also not the explicit aim of his analysis of being-in-the­ world. The purpose of the analysis is to establish the sense of being-here or, equivalently, to establish that being-here is the disclosure of man­ ners of being and , in that sense , a truth presupposed by any proposi­ tional or perceptual truths . At the same ti me he is under no illusions that a genuine existence can only be "a modified way of taking hold" of everydayness ( SZ 1 79) . Within the confines of fundamental ontology, considerations of the on tic conditions and relationships among people , for example, " the interpretation of a generation from a specific era" and "on tic assertions about the degeneracy of human nature , " have no place ( SZ 1 76, 1 79f; P 37 2 , 3 76£) . Yet precisely this delimitation of the analysis raises a series of ques­ tions. How (on what grounds, according to what c ri teria) are such on­ tic considerations deemed irrelevant to ontological ones? Heidegger repeatedly reminds his readers that he has no pretensions of providing a philosophical an thropology, a theory of the existen tiel (on tic ) status and condition of h uman nature. But, then, on what grounds are some considerations of this sort excluded from the existential analysis ( the on tol ogi cal an alysis of be i n g-h ere ) � wh i l e others are ci ted as corrobo-

T H E T I M E L I N ES S O F E X I S T E N T I A L T R U T H

ration o f the outcome o f that analysis or, indeed, even its basis? These questions become all the more pressing given Heidegger's own insis­ tence that the possibility as well as the necessity of an existential analy­ sis "ultimately has existentiel, that is to say, ontic roots" ( SZ 1 2f, 1 5 0- 1 5 3 , 3 1 o) . The ontological truth of the existential analysis takes form "on the basis of the ori ginally existentiel truth" ( SZ 3 1 6 ) . Heidegger does not adequately address the questions raised in the last paragraph . 67 On a more formal level, he leaves undetermined the relation of on tic and ontological dimensions, namely, the different ways in which each dimension grounds the other and, indeed, the meaning ' of the on tological difference itself. 68 N or, more concretely, does he in­ dicate how the work-world ( the world of concern ) would be different if it took its bearings from being-with-others rather than vice versa. The fact that he leaves these questions somewhat in limbo need not vitiate his analyses in every respect, but it does demand, as discussed in the next chapter, a more humble reading of their results than his rhetoric often suggests. Still, it might be asked: what does any of this have to do with Heidegger's project of exposing the logical p rt:judice ( should it prove in the end to be such ) ? Is not the discussion of being-with-others­ genuinely and its see ming irreconcilability with worldly concerns irrel­ evant to the question of truth? Heidegger's answer to such questions is remarkably unequivocal. The issue of genuineness or authenticity - and, indeed, au thentically being-wi th-others - is central to the question of truth precisely because the crowd effectively cancels all regard for differences in being and truth (ontological and alethiological differences) . By the same token, it assumes and thus takes away all responsibility of being oneself and in­ terpre ting one 's being. The tntth about being-here , about one's own existence, quite lite rally does not come into question . The crowd con­ ceives a human being on the basis of his or her posi tion in the work­ world and thereby fi nds him or her as an innerworldly entity, handy like 67 The issue raised here can also be unde rstood as the problem of the formality of Hei­ degge r's analysis. Si nce the analysis is subject to a proj ection of being-here , its formal­ i ty is tenuous. As Heidegger h imself and others have argued, the distinction between form and matter - with itfii impl ic i t instrumentality - deserves to be treated with suspi­ cion; cf. Marti n H eidegger, "Ursprung des Kunstwerkes," Holzwege ( Frankfu rt am Main : Klostermann , 1 994) , 1 6-20. 68 Heidegger appe ars to have bee n c ogn i z an t of these difficulties , judging by his later crit­ icism of the on to l o gical difference between ' to be' (Sein) and e n tities (Seiendem) and h is attempt to understand being (Seyn) historically as th e appropriating event of that dif­ feren tiation.

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT

OF

TRUTH

any tool o r on hand like any natural object. This everyday manner of being fails to discriminate or, more precisely, it obscures diverse man­ ners of being ( being-in-the-world, being-handy, and being-with-others) . In keeping with the everyday manner of being-here, "the preontologi­ cal interpretation of one 's being [is taken ] from the manner of being of the crowd, closest at hand," leading to the tendency to pass over or neglect any diversity in the manners of being. Taking its bearings from this quotidian way of bei ng-here is the ontology "that lies closest at hand," for which ' to be ' signifies 'what is on hand wi thin the world' and truth is a property of the assertion that points out or allows one to see what is on hand . According to Heidegger, it is in this ontology that ''tra­ ditional logic,'' despite all the improvements made in i t, continues to have "its foundation" (SZ 1 2 9£) . The phenomenon of the crowd has a direct bearing on Heidegger's gestures toward elaborating his philosophical method in terms of for­ mal indications. The possibility as well as the necessity of such a method rests ultimately upon the fact that things are for the most part already in terpreted by the crowd or, as Heidegger pttts it in an early lecture, that "everything in factual life . . . ' is ' in a tacit, factually ruinous inter­ pretation" ( PIA 1 34 ) . Precisely because the self-evident everyday con­ cepts of being and truth constitute the limits and framework for "mean­ ingful" talk, philosophical concepts must take the form of formal indications. That is to say, they must refer to "a concrete task that must be carried out on its own terms," one that demands reversing (upturn­ ing and transforming) what seems so self-evident, including the logical prej udice. Heidegger's interpretation of being-with-othe rs is thus intimately linked to his method of construing philosophical concepts as formal in­ dications. That interpretation supposes: (a) that the possibility of being wi th one another authentically and that of authen tically being who one is are equivalent; (b) that being-here presupposes an understanding of the sense ofbeing; and (c) that precisely this understanding is obscured by the downfall of being-here - i ts "ruination - factual life 's character as a plunge all its own" (PIA 1 2 1 ) . "The manner of being that con tin­ ues to fall prey to what the 'world ' is most immediately concerned about guides everyday interpretation of being-here and ontically obscures the genuine manner of being-here so that, by this means, the ontology di­ rected at this entity is denied any adequate basis" ( SZ 3 1 1 ) . Heidegger elaborates this argument further by calling atte n tion to th e sort of tal k o r d i sc o u rse th a t p revai ls in this m an n e r of being-with-

T H E TI M ELI N ESS O F E X I STENT I A L TR UTH

others. The connection between the logical prejudice and an inau­ thentic manner of being-wi th-others is especially evident in such phe­ nomena as palaver and public opinion. ' Palaver' in this connection does not stand merely for idle talk and insignificant chatter. Instead it designates ':a constitutive phenomenon , given with discourse as a man­ ner of being-here," but distinguished from other forms of discourse ( e. g. , listening, keeping silent) by virtue of the fact that it is publicly ar­ ticulated and constitutes the average sort of understanding and dispo­ sitions characteristic of everyday life . 6 9 Palaver is, in short, the idiom of the marketplace, the vernacular of the work-world. As such, it has its le­ gitimate, even necessary purposes , and Heidegger introduces it with the sheepish warning that he is not using the term pejoratively. Never­ theless, precisely by virtue of the fact that palaver is publicly articulated in a work-world 's in terest, it has a tendency to slip from more innocu­ ous to progressively more perverse forms of communication , so that it is defined by the latter. In other words, palaver is defined by i ts natural resting place in the downward spiral from obituaries and eyewitness re­ porting to headlines, commercials, and false advertising, from negotia­ tion to exaggeration , from publicly disseminating to dissembling i n­ formation, from publicizing to prevaricating, from rote recitation of ritual formulas to gossip, calumny, and slander. Heidegger provides an important clue to the significance of palaver when he characterizes the 6g P 3 7 1 , 376; SZ 1 6 7 . Though the term can be found in Shakespeare , 'palaver' appea rs to have come into common usage in English rath e r late (eighteenth ce nt ury ) from the Po r tug u e se But i t seems an ideal transl a tio n of ' Gerede' since i t can stand for extensive gabbin g" in th e sense of what might be c o l l oqui a ll y deem e d maki n g small ta lk , " sc h m oo zin g or eve n "shooting the breeze," all o f which are e n gage d i n more or less sp o n taneo usly, even if at times also by design, e.g. , for reasons of c o urtesy, chumminess, .

"

"

"

"

or gaining some advantage. Indeed, his to ri c al di ct i o naries p o i n t to the use of the root term b y Po rtu guese " traders" to indicate p a r leying (palavering, palavra) with Africans. The Scots use the term n o t o n ly for sp eec h , as do the English , but also for o s tentati o u s actions. In the late nineteenth cen tury Mark Twain uses the term to indicate the way th ings are done in a b u s in ess His panning of Harte and Sh a kes p e a re suggests, too, that palaver is so tied to a kn ow h ow, i.e . , to mastery of a c o m p l ex of implements , that it can­ not be le a r n ed apart from experience of its own handiness in that c o m p l ex Cf. Mark Twa in , Is Shake�peare DPad ? From My A utobwgraphy ( New York: Harpe r & B ro s , 1 9 0 9 ) , 7 3 f: "I have been a quartz mi ner in the silver regio ns - a pretty hard life ; I kn ow alJ the palaver of that bu s i ness : I k n ow all ab ou t d i sc o very cl aims and the s ub o rdi na te claims ; I know all about lodes , ledges, o u t c ro ppings, d i ps spurs, [etc. ] . . and so whenever Bret Harte i n troduces that i ndust ry in to a story, the fi rst time one of his mi ners opens his mouth I rec og n i ze from his phras i n g that Harte go t the phrasing by l i s ten i ng - like Shakespeare - I mean the Stratford one - n o t by expe rie n c e . No one can tal k the quartz dialect cor­ rec tly wi th out learn i n g- i t wi th pick and shove l and dri J I and fuse . " "

"

.

-

.

.

,

.

H E IDEGGER ' S CONC EPT OF TRUTH

original sense of Plato 's dialectic and philosophy as attempts, in the face of sophistry, to "break through and control palaver" in the interest of seeing things for what they are ( PS 1 97, 1 95f, 2 30£) . Yet what precisely is it about the public character of an articulation that makes palaver pos­ sible? ' Talk' or 'discourse ' ( translations for Rede used interchangeably in the present study) signifies in general the way in which the intelligibil­ ity of being-in-the-world "articulates itself' and is communicated. Talk includes what is talked about ( the subj ect matter) , what is said about it ( an attribution ) , what is literally said, that is, articulated or uttered as such (typically, a combination of words) , the communication, and the manifestation of this process itself. 7° For example , Ed might say to Marty, "The car is blue, " in which case Ed asserts something (blueness) about something (the car) in such a way that it can be shared with Marty, thanks to what is said (the utterance/sentence 'The car is blue ' ) . By virtue of the fact, however, that something is communicated literally or by means of an assertion, it is "preserved" (bewahrt) as something gen­ erally intelligible. What is asserted acquires an existence of its own in the sentence, thereby becoming available to others in a "' literal , ' i.e., worldly" sense ( P 3 70; SZ 1 67f; PS 2 5 ) . Thanks to this articulation, the understanding of what is said becomes public but in such a way that one acquires a certain access to the subj ect matter of the talk (what the talk is about) without the subject matter itself having to be handy or on h and. The possibility then also arises, however, that the person who merely hears what is said does not understand what it is about (either the subject matter or the attribution ) or only understands it in a pecu­ liar, "faded" or "washed out" sense (eigentiimliche Verwaschenheit) ( PS 2 5 ) . "Absorption, immersion in what is said [ the utterance] is characteristic of the crowd 's manner of being. What is articulated as such overtakes the manner of being of the enti ty uncovered in the assertion" (SZ 2 2 4 , 1 68 ) . Merely talking or writing further in this vein is taken for genuine 70 P 36 1 -365 � SZ I 6o- 1 6 6 . Talk, s o desc ribed, need n o t take the form o f a natu ral language ( e . g . , French, Ge rman , e tc . ) , but does presuppose a wo rld of concern , co-constituted by it, in terms of which what is talked about and what is said about it are already significan tly divi ded u p . Talk or discourse, it bears recalling, is an existe n tial. See SZ 1 6 1 : "Tal king is the ' meaningfu l ' dividi ng of th e i n telligibility of be ing-in-the-wo rld , to which bei ng-with­ others belongs , and wh ich holds itse l f, respec tively, in a specific mann e r of be ing-with­ one-another in concern . " Whe n talk has been articulated, it is language . Various ges tu res

and sym bolic systems, sh ort of a natural language, can obvi ous �y suffice for th i s arti cu­ lation . But talk, as an existe n tial , is not sim ply o r, be tter, not p ri m arily the u m brella te rm

for nonlingu i st i c and l i nguistic exp ressi o n and commun ication .

THE TIMELINESS

OF

E X I STE NT I A L T R U T H

interpretation , and mere "hearsay" replaces hearing and understand­ ing what is origi nally articulated. If assertions of this sort become es­ tablished opinions, then there is no possibility of getting past the aver­ age understanding of the crowd and, with it, the "hegemony of the public, official state of interpretation" ( SZ 1 6g) . "With the absence of the righ t understanding, talk is, of course, uprooted, but still retains an intelligibility, and, to the extent that such talk, while no longer resting on any solid ground, still remains talk, it can be mimicked and passed on . . . . This talk [Rede] that develops in such uprooting by way of mim­ icking is palaver [Gerede] " (P 3 7 0£) . Heidegger employs the expressions 'uprooted, ' ' not resting on any solid ground, ' and ' everywhere and nowhere ' in an attempt to capture that self-eviden tial character of so much palavering that at once un­ derstands everything and nothing. Such drivel makes common cause with a certain sort of curiosity and ambiguity in constituting the decline and downfall of human existence. The curiosity characteristic of this downfall assumes that nothing is hidden or closed off, while ambiguity undermines any possibility of saying what is disclosed in genuine un­ derstanding ( P 378-388; SZ 1 7o- 1 7 5 ) . This downfall and the phe­ nomenon of palaver in particular have important consequences, as far as the logical prejudice is concerned. For it is the very nature of palaver to mask things and hi nder the process of speaking with one another genui nely. Talk is an original manner of disclosing things but palaver perverts it into a manner of concealing them ( SZ 1 6g; P 3 7 7 ) . Extend­ ing Plato 's warnings about the written word (Phaedrus 2 75c) to this de­ generate way with words, Heidegger declares: "Once articulated, the word belongs to everyone and without any guarantee that the origi nal understanding is also reenacted in the restating [Nachreden] " (P 3 7 5 ) . Truth becomes a question of public opinion , secondhand judgments and assertions that relieve the person caught up in palaver of the re­ sponsibility of understanding, not merely what is said, but what is spo­ ken of. The logical prejudice is the presumption that truth is to be under­ stood as an assertion Uudgment) or as a state of affairs corresponding to the assertion and its structure . Such a prej udice is by no means equiv­ alent to palaver. In both unthematic and thematic asse rtions, what is as­ serted can be handy or on hand and accordingly understood. Yet, it is also possible and, indeed, typical for th e assertio n to become detached from what it is about. Once this detach ment occurs and truth is identi­ fied wi th a true assert i o n , th e n i t is a s m al l step to the sort of pal ave r

H F. I D E G G E R ' S

C O N C E PT

O F TR U T H

that "releases" or "excuses" itself from any responsibility for genuinely understanding (P 3 7off) . If palaver is in ascendance, the logical prej u­ dice becomes almost irresistible. In lectures on Plato 's Sophist, Heideg­ ger explicitly links palaver to the logical prej udice . After reviewing re­ cent Neo-Kan tian solutions to th e dilemmas about truth generated by the logical prejudice ( e.g. , What makes a true assertion true? How can a mental or subj ective phenomenon like judging be said to "agree" with a n on mental or obj ec tive phenomenon? ) , he observes: "This history of the concept of truth is not by chance but instead is grounded in being-here itself insofar as it moves about in the everyday sort of kn owing that is closest at hand , in the logos [Rede] , and in falling-prey to the world, falls prey to the legomenon [das Geredete als solches] '' ( PS 2 7 ) . Does Heidegger provide any positive clues to a manner of talking that would be characteristic of being together, that is, caring about one another, in an authen tic way? Would it be the sort of talk that, in con­ trast to an assertion, does not also obscure or conceal but only reveals? In the framework of the lectures given shortly before the publication of Being and Time, Heidegger alludes to two types or modes of talking that suggest a possible answer to the first question . It must be poin ted out, however, that Heidegger does not himself discuss how these two man­ ners of speaking might relate to one another, something that, while not unthinkable, would be no easy matter. Moreover, the import of both manners of talking for the problem of truth and the logical prejudice is not directly addressed by Heidegger. The first of these ways of "truly talking'' is communication (Kommu­ nikation) , understood as a manner of caring about others genuinely, or, in other words, a way of being concerned for someone else 's possibility of being genuinely who he or she is, precisely in the context of the work­ world. A crucial text in this regard has already been cited, namely, Hei­ degger's flee ting remark about how the primary bond or solidarity, inasmuch as it is based upon one 's own being-here , consists, not in what matters in the work-world, but in being-here-with-others . "An d what righ tly matters, that is to say, the right way of being con cerned about the same matter," Heidegger adds, "can genuinely spring only from this manner of being bound to one another, and what we today designate as communication grows only out of this" (L 2 2 4 ; SZ 1 63 ) . H e is thus thinking of a world of concern, bu t o n e that first emerges from a way of genuinely being together ( being-with-one-another) . In the context of this way of "cari n g toge th er for the satne world,". communication is carried ou t.

T H E TI M E LI NESS OF E X I STENTIAL T R U TH

Heidegger pays, to be sure , scant attention to this particular type of talk since, as already emphasized, on his analysis people first find them­ selves caught up in a world of concern , to which being with one another is subordinated. Moreover, the world of public opinion ("the crowd" and "palaver" ) thoroughly dominates the initial experience of being­ with-others. From this supposition Heidegger infers that the sort of talk that genuinely discloses must withdraw from the context of conversa­ tion. "Because talking is initially always a way of revealing by way of talk­ ing with one another in the public domain - in communication , the call of being-here to itself and to the original and genuine way it finds itself must ultimately have the mode of talk and in terpretation characteristic of being silent" (P 369 ) . Far from being a flight from speaking wi th one another, being silent is both based upon and preparatory for speaking to one another genuinely. "The ability genuinely to hear and be with one another transparently" as it is pu t in Being and Time, stems from a discreet silence (Verschwiegenheit) . "In order to be able to be silent, be­ ing-here must have something to say, that is to say, it must have a gen­ uine and rich disclosedness of itself' ( SZ 1 65 ) . Being silent is part of the second and decisive mode of genuine talk (authentic discourse ) : the voice of conscience . The interpretation of the phenomenon of conscience occupies a leading place in the argu­ ment mounted by Heidegger against the logical prej udice. The possi­ bility of an alternative to less-than-genuine modes of talking and, with it, the detnonstration of the difference between being-here and being-on­ hand rise and fall with the interpretation of conscience. Since the in­ terpretation of this phenomenon con tributes so essentially to the criti­ cal engagement with the logical prejudice, it is investigated below ( Section 4.4) as a separate premise of Heidegger's argument. Heidegger 's interpretation of the crowd helps explain how the logi­ cal prejudice comes to be entrenched . Talk is a basic existential , a self­ disclosive way of being-here that uncovers other entities and discloses th eir manners of being. While the palaver that is c onstitu tive of th e crowd presupposes th is disclosure , it reduces talk to something handy, referring, like any oth er tool in the service of worldly concerns, to other things that are handy or potentially handy (i.e . , on hand ) . Palaver is em­ inen tly useful , but especially as a way of conveying what others have said about something and , in the process, relieving oneself of the responsi­ bility of understandi ng-and-articulating it for oneself. The predomi­ nance of palaver reinforces the notion that truth consists merely in it­ erahle asse rt i o n s as the accessible repositories of what is said�

HEI DEGGER'S

C O N C E PT O F

TRUTH

indistinguishable from a n exus o f public opinion and the availability of things. 7 1 4 · 3 Care , Genuineness, and "th e Most Original

Phenomenon of Truth" 'Care,' as Heidegger employs the term in his analysis of being-here, does not stand for either a collection of various human cares and trou­ bles or even an exemplary form of them. When he speaks of care , he is supposing, to be sure , that his readers hear an echo, but only an echo of a particular worry or oppressive mood, as migh t be conveyed in such familiar colloquial utterances as "Who cares?" or "Be careful ." What Heidegger understands by 'care ' is more akin , as he himself indicates, to the care that Goethe deems "the ever-anxious companion" of human life. 72 ' Care ' is a formal indication of a manner of being, in which what is at stake is the respective manner of being itself, an individual 's own dis­ tinctive being-in-the-world (L 2 2 0, 2 2 5 f; P 4o6f; SZ 1 9 1 f; PIA 8gf) . Be­ ing who one respectively is matters for each individual who "is-here," distinguishing it from what is simply handy or on hand, that is, the man­ ners of being of implements and more or less potential implements in the environment. Providing an important clue to his understanding of care , Heidegger notes that Husserl 's description of inten tionality is the 7 1 I t is possible, of course , to consider truth, like palaver itself, in abstraction from this nexus. Th us, from a theoretical point of view, truth migh t be deemed not an iterable as­ sertion or even its perceivable coun terpart, but instead "a relation, on hand, obtaining between things on hand ( intellectus and res ) " ( SZ 2 2 5 ) . But this abstraction, depend­ ent as it is (qua abstraction ) u pon palaver, should not be confused with the disclosure that makes palaver's dissembling possible. 7 2 Goethe, �Faust, Act V: "Wiirde mich kei n Ohr verneh men, I Mi.i Bt' es doch i m Herzen drohnen I In verwandelter Gestalt I U b'ich grimmige Gewal t. I Auf den Pfaden, auf der Welle, I Ewig angstlicher c;eselle , I Ste ts gefunden, nie gesucht, I So geschmeichelt wie verflucht." As a means of indicating that the on tological in terpretatio n of being­ here as care is "no invention ," Heidegger refers to earlier treatme nts of the theme by Seneca and in the New Testatmen t and to the fact that he stun1bled upon the phe­ nomenon in the course of trying to get at the ontological foundations of Augusti nian an thropol ogy. He discove red Hygin us's fable with the ti tle "Cura" and the fact that Herder and Goethe used i t. One source of these discoveries is Konrad Burdach 's essay "Faust und die So rge , " Deutsche Vierteljahnchrift fiir Literaturwissenschaft und Geistes­ geschichte I ( 1 9 2 3 ) : 4ofl. See SZ 1 96-200, esp. 1 97 n. 1 ; P 4 1 7-4 2 0. Note, by con trast, the subordinate posi tion of "care an d fear'' in Sc hiller's l.Ptters. on the Aesthetir Education o(Man; cf. Friedrich Schiller, t.s.fiays, ed. Walte r Hindere r and Dan iel 0. Dahlstro m ( New York: Con ti n u um, 1 99 � ) . 1 5 q .

THE TI MELI NESS

OF

E X I STENT I A L TRU T H

basic phenomenon of care - "only seen from the outside" ( P 42 0; PRL 2 48 ) . Concerns in the context of the work-world and the ways we take care of one another are all modes of care . "Care is always, even if only priv­ atively, [worldly] concern [Besorgen] and solicitude [ or care for others: Fursorge] . "73 Concern and solicitude are constitutive of care, such that, if we use the term ' care ' for short, we ac tually always mean i t (and in the explication must concretely understand it) as care that is concerned and solicitous. What is thereby mean t by ' care ' is the n , i n the sense emphasized , the fact that what is at stake in this concern and solicitude qua care is the caring being itself. (L

2 2 sf)

As this quotation indicates, care is anything but a simple phenomenon ( see SZ 1 g6, 2 oo) . The exact interpretation of the unity of its complex struc ture holds the key for Heidegger to the clarification of the sense of being-here. Bei ng-here is not something that "comes" into a world . Instead it is the manner of being of an entity who, precisely in cari ng about her work and others, is "at the same time and always already" worldly. 74 As already mentioned, the characterization of being-here as funda­ mentally 'care ' is intended above all to signify that being-here is the en­ tity for which what matters is its being i tself or, equivalently, being one­ self. In anthropological terms judiciously avoided by Heidegger, a human being exists as a human being by virtue of caring about her own being, precisely as her own. She is this care or, better, anything else that she is or does is predicated upon her caring. Like any other existential, care is a distinctive kind of reflexive performative , a self-constituting and self-disclosing disclosure of manners of being. But unlike other ex­ isten tials, care is said to be the basic unifying structure for every man73 SZ 1 94; see 1 Corin thians 1 2 : 2 5 ; Psalm 40 : dt For the 1 5 2 9 Vulgate see Martin Luther, Werke, vol. 5 (Weimar: Bohlaus, 1 9 1 4) , 66o; for Luther's translations, see ibid . , vol. 7 ( 1 93 1 ) , 1 2 1 , and vol . 1 o ( 1 956) , 2 3 3 . As early as the winter semester of 1 9 2 1 I 2 2 , Hei­ degger stresses that caring is ''the basic relational sense of life in i tself: caring about on e 's daily bread," though he adds that the latter expression is to be understood "quite broadly, form ally-indicati ng" ( PIA go) . 74 Cf. Friedrich Gogarten , Illusionen Qena: Diederichs, 1 9 2 4 ) , 1 39: "What is most striking and most characteristic of the way a Protestant conducts his or her life is its radical wo rld­ liness [ Weltlichkeit] Cf. also Max Weber, "Die protestantisc he Ethik und der Geist des Kapi talismus" ( 1 904- 1 905 ) , in Gesammelte A ujsiitze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. 1 , fifth edi­ tio n (T\'lbin gen : Mohr, 1 96 :-\ ) , 1 08f. ."

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

ner of being-in-the-world as the site for things, others, and oneself to disclose their manners of being. In this self-reflexively constitutive man­ ner, care accordingly expresses the fundamental sense of being-in-the­ world, relative to which a person cannot be indifferen t. In this sense , care is the existen tial-on tological presupposition for relating to things, others, and oneself on an existentiel-ontic level. The entire structure of being-in-the-world ( being worldly, being-with-others, and being one­ self) is constituted by and disclosed in this care , the care about one 's own being, precisely as one 's own . 7 5 Though Heidegger occasionally lets his guard down (e.g. , L 1 50 n . 6; P 4 1 7 ; PS 2 3 ) , he i s generally leery about employing expressions like ' human being' (Mensch) , ' human nature, ' or even ' human existence ' to designate the en tity with this structure of being-in-the-world, consti­ tuted and disclosed by care. Instead he systematically employs the terms 'being-here ' (Dasein) or ' existence ' (Existenz) . These terms are often synonyms, each with a spatial componen t: the ' da' of 'Dasein' stands for 'here ' or ' there,' and the Latin preposition ' ex' of 'Existenz' designates ' from' or 'out' while the whole word apparently stems from ' ex-sistere' signifying ' to stand out. ' 76 Though Heidegger wants to deflect a certain naturalistic understanding of the spatiality intimated by these terms, he does intend for them to retain a sense of place or dwelling or - more precisely, underlying even that sense of dwelling - the sense of being­ in-the-world as a clearing. 77 The expressions 'being-here ' and 'exis­ ten ce ' seem to him less likely than ' human nature ' to be construed as designating a particular kind of en tity at hand in nature that is properly an object for an investigation conducted along the lines of natural sci­ ence. 'Being-here ' is thus a formal indication of its subject matte r, de­ signed to forestall ways in which various traditional senses of ' human nature ' might preempt consideration of it. The further determination of bei ng-here as care is mean t to indicate that to be-here is to be-in-theHerein lies undoubtedly the inspiration that Heidegger took from Goethe's depiction of care as life 's "ever-anxious companion ." There is a sense in which care or concern for one's existence never loses its grip on an individual. 76 Kluge, Etymologisches Worler buch, 23 9 . The English tern1 'exist, ' according to the Oxford English Doctionar)', is in fact remarkably late, not an entry in mid�sixteenth centu ry di c­ tionaries, though ' existence ' can be found in Chaucer; see Geoffrey Chaucer, The Com­ plete Works, intro. Thomas R. Lounsbury ( New York: Crowell, 1 900) , 265f. 77 SZ 54: "The expression ' am ' is con nected with 'at' ; ' I am ' says in turn: I dwel l , I hold up at/ in . . . the world as something reliable in this an d th at way. � To be , ' u n de r sto o d as the in finitive of the ' I am , ' that is to say, as an existential , signifies 'to dwell at/ by/ in . (wohnen bP'i ) . " See P :306-� 2 .� an d Chapter 2 . n. 1 36 above .

75

.

.

.

.

.

THE

T I M E L I N ES S OF E X I STENTI A L T R U T H

world, n o t merely i n the (existentiel ) sense of using and uncove ring things, but in the ( existential) sense of being the clearing in which they disclose their manners of being. "The ' here ' stands for this essen tial dis­ closedness. Through i t, this en tity ( the being-here ) is one with the world's being-here ' here' for i t itself' ( SZ 1 3 2 ) . Heidegger attetnpts to drive home th is point about th e disclosedness of being-here by invoking a pair of me taphors that converge in a single term in German : 'Lichtung. ' Being-here is "illuminated," he explains, not in the sense that it is "lit up" by another, but in the sense that it is the ligh ting or cleari ng itself (SZ 1 3 3 : . . . so, daB es selbst die Lich tung ist" ) . Things on hand in th e light, he continues, are only accessible to - an d things i n the dark are only hidden from - an entity that is illu­ minated or cleared (gelichtet) in this existential sense . Bringing toge ther the metaphors of a lumen naturale and a clearing in the midst of things, Heidegger concludes: "The being-h ere brings its here with it from the outse t [von Hause aus] ; if i ts here is dispensed with , not only is it not sim­ ply factual, it is not an en tity of th is essence at all. The being-here is its dis­ closedness. " 78 These observations provide part of the answer to th e question why Heidegger systematically reserves the terms ' care,' ' existence , ' and 'be­ ing-here ' for the particular manner of bei ng in question. "To exist" or "to be-here" - in con trast to merely being "at hand" or " available " - i s to care and thus to disclose or, more precisely, to b e the site o f the dis­ closure of its manner of being and that of other entities. This disclosure makes con cern and solicitude possible , though not, of course, as thotigh that disclosure occurs apart from the way things are used or even uncovered and others are cared for. "The uncoveredness of en ti­ ties wi thin-the-world is grounded in the disclosedness of the world" (SZ 2 20) . With the disclosedness of being-here , Heidegger alleges, "the most original phenomenon of the truth is reached" ( SZ 2 2 of) . This last claim is of decisive importance for th e presen t investigation . Th e most original phenomenon of truth , Heidegger is maintaining, is not a judgment, an assertion , or even a perception , but i nstead the "clearing" or "here" of being-here, which he understands as the disclo"

7 8 SZ 1 3 3 ; P 4 1 1 f. Thotn as Prufer fi rst called tny attention to H eidegge r's ambi g uous and

changi n g u�es of Lirh t u ng. ' H e su rveys son1 e of Heide gger 's l ater uses, especially h i s adam ant wa rn i n g not to take i t i n the se n se of l i g h t , but rat h e r in th e sense of "gra n t­ i n g . . . the " pace tree and open tor the i n te rpl ay of prese n c i n g /absencing an d th e pres­ e n n.-.. rl / ah� P n cPd . " See Pruter. " H e i d egge-r. E a rl � i-i n rl l .fl t f' . " 7 7 · 7 7 n . f1 . :-l n rl R 7 . ·

H E I DEGG ER ' S C O N C EPT O F TRUTH

sure of being i n all its senses: being-handy and being-on-hand, being­ with-others and being oneself. In a way roughly analogous to Aris­ totelian a isthesis and nous, being-here is the timely site ( later, the "event" or "time-space" ) of the coincidence of the manner in which something comes to presen t itself (comes to be present) and that to which it pre­ sents itself. This disclosure makes possible the discovery of entities and, wi th it, the truths of intuitions and assertions. The disclosure takes place precisely as a manner of being-here or existing and, hence, different ex­ istentials or modes of disclosing can be distinguished. Following Hei­ degger's lead, the foregoing exposi tions (4. 1 and 4. 2 ) have accentu­ ated the existential characte rs of concern and solicitude. Heidegger characterizes the disclosedness of care as "the most original phenome­ non of truth " because it informs these ways of disclosing/being-here. There is, however, a great deal more to be said about how care under­ lies and integrates these and other existentials. To this end, Heidegger singles out three "fundamental existentials" that are united in the struc­ ture of care : disposedness, understanding, and fallen ness. 79 4 · 3 I Disposedness and the Thrownness of Being-Here. For as long as we can

remember, we find ourselves delivered up to a world, a world that mat­ ters to us. Explicitly or not, to be-here is always to find ourselves already thrown into the world , burdened and threatened by it yet submi tti ng to i t, attuned to it, sometimes eve n embracing it, and in any event relying upon it, indeed, clinging to it for dear life. RO Not surprisingly, our lives are charged wi th a range of ever-changing moods from exaltation to sadness, rapture to boredom . The fact that each of us is always i n one mood or another testifies to a basic manner of being-here , namely, the disposedness or disposition of being-in-the-world. In one respect, Hei­ degger's accoun t of disposi tion and moods is simply one more exam79

8o

SZ I g t f, 2 2 1 f, 3 5 0. These passages refer to th ree basi c existen tials: di sposedness , un­ derstanding, and fallenness. However, Heidegger also gives ano ther list, replacing fall­ en ness with talk; cf. SZ 1 3 3 , 1 6 1 . At ye t another point he lists all four; cf. SZ 3 3 5 · Wh ile talk an d fallen ness are not iden tical, talk is typically engulfed in fallenness inasm uch as it is "fac tually" articulated for the most part in language and initially in the con text of addressi ng thi ngs, out of concern , in the environment. Re nderi ng-present thus usually provides the timely se nse of tal k as it does of fallen ness, though Heidegger states ex­ pl ici tly that talk is not restric ted to a specific ecstasis (SZ 349 ) . See Thomas Sheehan , "Heidegger's New A�pect: On ln-Sein, Zeitlichkeit, and The Genesis of Being and Tzme, " RP­ searrh in Phenomenology 2 5 ( 1 9 9 :J ) : 2 1 1 fT. The relation of th � existen tials to ecstases is addressed in s ecti on 4·5 below. O nce agai n , the difference between world and worldliness (see n . 4 2 ) is crucial .

T H E T I M E L I N E S S O F EX I S TEN T I A L T R U T H

29 3

pie of his consistent extension of the basic phenomenological insigh t into intentionality's ecstatic character, defying at a certain level any sort of distinction between inner and outer. Moods, he accordingly declares, "come neither from 'without' nor from 'within, ' but emerge from be­ ing-in-th e-world itself' (SZ 1 36 ) . At the same time that basic phenomenological insight is interpre ted existentially; that is to say, the phe nomenon is elaborated insofar as it constitutes and discloses existence. Moods are thus construed as the ways we "find ourselves" in being-in-the-world, the ontic counterparts to the underlying disposedness that "discloses in a primary way," that is to say, preontologically ( SZ 1 3 8 ) . More simply, dispositions and ways of being disposed, as the term 'Befindlichkeit' is translated here, are among the basic ways in which someone is "here" and her being-in-the-world is always already disclosed to her. Heidegger does not leave matters at this general level but proceeds to determine more precisely what this disposedness as a "fundamental existe ntial" allegedly discloses. It is said to disclose first, being-here 's thrownness into the world, the burden of being and having to be ; second, the holistic character of being-in-the-world , that is to say, disclosing equi­ primordially the world, being-here-wi th-others, and one 's own exis­ tence; and third, bei ng-here 's openness to the world, an exposure that makes it possible for the surrounding world and the things in it to mat­ ter to us , to be alluring and disappointi ng, useful and recalcitran t, and so forth. With Heidegger's account of this third feature , it becomes ev­ ident that disposedness is a way of being-here or in-the-world, a tran­ scendence prior to any talk - some legitimate, some not - of tran­ scending boundaries or a veil of consciousness. (Hence, too, the translation 'state of mind' for 'Befindlichkeit' would seem to be ill-ad­ vised . ) Just as importan tly, according to Heidegger, disposedness also discloses, along with the thrownness and ope nness of being-here , the propensity to self-evasion ("the flight from oneself' ) discussed in the last section ( 4 . 2 ) : "The disposedness discloses being-he re in its thrown­ ness, and it does so initially and for the most part in th e manner of turn­ ing away from it, evading it." R 1 8 t SZ 1 3 6, 1 39; these texts suggest that the account of disposedness i n general i s ove rde­ tennined by fear and the basic dispo�edness of A ngst. Once this accoun t of disposed­

ness is coun tenanced , then its close connection with fallenness is secured. But it is not clear, as Scheler notes, that taking oth er m oods as paradigmatic, e.g. , eros and love , would h ave fi t as wel l into the economy - if Scheler is righ t, the forced economy - of the relation between disposedness ( th rownne�s) and fallenness put forward by Hei-

2 94

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

These themes deserve some discussion , but first a word about the translation . ' Befindlichkeit' is one of the more difficult terms i n Hei­ degger'sjargon to translate. The German word is used in medical con­ texts to designate some thing like a person 's symptoms. 82 Not unre­ lated to this usage is the now outmoded query "Wie befinden Sie sich ?" which migh t be translated "How are you?" or "How are you feeling?" or "What is your disposition?" or even "How are you disposed?" In keeping with just these senses, there is reason to translate ' Befind­ lichkeit' as ' disposedness,' since we always find ourselves already placed or put "here" and , indeed , with specific inclinations. We are always al­ ready disposed ( predisposed ) in one way or another, ways that reveal to us the situation that we find ourselves in , as well as how we feel about it. 83 Translating ' Befindlichkeit' as ' disposedness' or 'disposi tion ' is not un­ problematic, however. The translation runs the risk of conflating the al­ legedly ontological meaning, that is , the preontological disclosiveness of this manner of being, with various on tic correlates such as moods, emotions , feelings, and the like. Ontology, it bears recalling, probes the senses of being and fundamental ontology the "existential" sense of bedegger. Obviously, eros and love can be fallen as well , but it is not clear that they need be described as indications fundamentally (existen tially) of fleeing bein g-here. If not, then the fact does not necessarily debilitate Heidegger's existenti al an alysis ( as Scheler seems to think) but wou ld re q u i re qual ifications a n d eve n revisions of it. Cf. Max Scheler, Spate Schriften, in Gesammelte Werke, vol. g , ed. Manfred Fri ngs ( Bern : F rancke, 1 9 7 6 ) ' 2 7 0- 2 7 9 ·

8 2 F orme rl y, "Wie ist lhr Befinden?," in some contexts, was best translated "How are yo u r

R�

symptoms?" Given Heidegger's basic claim that all moods poin t to the basic disposi ti on of the burden of being-here, the medical sense of ' Befindlichkeit' may have special im­ portance for h i m . In any case , he in dicates the aptness of 'dispositi on' as a translation for ' Stimmung' i n Wr1.\ ist daJ - die Philosophie ? ( Pfu l l i n gen : Neske, 1 95 6 ) , 2 6 . Ac cording to th e Oxford .t:nglish Dictionary, th e pri mary original significance o f 'dis' a n d i ts an tecedent cognates is ' two ways, in twain. ' I t is also often used as a prefix, rooted in a con trast with ' com-' (e.g., d i scord , concord ; dispari ty, comparison) . E a c h of these mean ings ( duality and divi "' i o n ) contribu tes to the aptness o f 'disposedness ' as a trans­ lation fo r ' Befindlichkeit. ' For the bei in ' Refindlichkeit' a l so alerts the reader or l istener to a duality, both in the se nse of fi n di ng oneself relative to s o m e th i n g else and i n the sense of having been thrown , not merely in to the world, but from somewhere else , a"i th o ugh o n e is co n s ta n tly d is-posed - i n th e sen s e of be i ng deposed, displaced, out of place - in the wo rld. At the same time, the division ( 'di s' in con trast to ' co m ' ) is re­ flected in finding oneself wi th ( bei' ) thi ngs and others an d , indeed, fi ndi ng oneself al­ ways m oved in re l a tion to them ( rep ul sed o r a t t r a c te d ) If a further metaphorical play on metaphors m igh t be in du lge d , being-here is a clearin g., but th at c lea r i n g in re n­ d e r i ng t h reat e n i n g or e n de a ri n g things v i s i b l e o r, bette r, palpable to s o me o n e wh o is ' here, also disc1uses that pe rson s vu l n e rability. '

'

'

.

,

T H E TI M E L I NESS OF E X I STENT I A L T R U T H

295

i ng-here, while ontic disciplines set their sigh ts on determining the makeup and relations of particular beings or entities. Here as elsewhere Heidegger's analysis demands that pains be taken to distinguish an on­ tological from an on tic level of consideration and his use of the some­ what artificial term ' Befindlichkeit, ' however con trived , is meant to insure that the distinction is maintained ( SZ 1 3 5 , 1 39) . He himself notes that the term is used ontologically to designate the same phenomenon that, from an on tic point of view, is sin1ply a mood or attunement (Stimmung) . ' Befindlichkeit' and ' Stimmung' are thus different designations of the same phenomenon, signifying differe nt ways of regarding it. As an ex­ istential, ' Befindlichkeit' signifies a basic mode of being-here , of disclos­ ing various manners of being, and, as such, it is presupposed by the ways in which, in its specific moods and attunements (Stimmungen, feelings, emotions) , an entity that "is-here" relates to and reveals its relation to other en tities. However, despite the difficulty of translating ' Befindlichkeit, ' there is conside rably more risk to comprehension - more risk of hiding behind jargon - in leaving it untranslated. For this reason and others cited be­ low, ' Befindlichkeit' is translated as ' disposedness' and, less frequen tly, ' disposition ' in what follows, with the caveat that these terms are to be understood existentially, that is to say, as indicating the ontologically significant way in which being-here is constituted and discloses ( i ts and other manners of being) in any specific ( ontically significan t) mood. 84 Thus, even "being indisposed" is to be taken as an instance of dis­ posedness, where the former is ontically, the latter ontologically in­ formative . In addi tion to being a normal English word, ' disposedness' has the virtue (as a translation of ' Befindlichkeit' ) of retaining the im­ plicit senses of place and predetermination ( "finding oneself' ) that Heidegger plays upon. We find ourselves always disposed not only in a certain way, but also toward the world into which we have already been thrown (SZ 1 36f) . Disposi tions disclose the sheer fact of our being-here

84 ' Disposedness' seems preferable to 'disposition , ' according to my Sprachgefiihl, since the latter term , as Dreyfus righ tly points out, ''because of its use by behaviorists as disposi­ tion to behave , can be heard as too outer" ( Dreyfus, Being-in-the- World, 1 68 ) . With some trepidation I balk at Dreyfus\ translation of 'Bifzndlirhknt ' as ' affectedness' precisely be­ cause it can be heard as too inner and because it too strongly suggests the existentiel­ ontic dimension at the expense of the existen tial-on tological dimension . I must adm it, h owever, that 'disposed ' and 'disposed ness ' have the distinct disadvantage of �oundi ng too weak for the force and range of what Heidegger means to include under the exis­ ten tial BPfindlirhknt. , ·

2 96

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

and, indeed, already being-here , though this disclosure is by no means to be confused with an individual 's ( ontic) knowledge of where she comes from or is headed ( SZ 1 34 , 1 3 8 ) . In this connection there is a further reason why 'disposedness ' and ' disposition ' seem suitable trans­ lations, namely, their use in conj unction with prepositional phrases or infinitives that designate emotions an d/ or actions. We speak, for ex­ ample , of a disposition to jealousy or ge nerosity or of someone being disposed to be fearful, to cry, to overeat. This usage captures not only the fact that the disposition is al ready in place ( thrown ) , but also its insep­ arability from ways of existing, understanding, and proj ecting ( the last two terms, metonyms for the first, i ndicate another basic existential ) . �5 Another virtue of the term ' disposedness ' as a translation for ' Befind­ lichkeit' is its ordinary scope . While philosophers might speak of dispo­ sitional properties ( e .g. , the fragility of some glass) , the terms ' disposi­ tion ' and 'disposed ' have been regularly used sin ce the fourteenth century to designate an inclination or propensity of sentient creatures. "Seemes he a dove? His feathers are but borrow' d, I For hee 's disposed as the hatefull rave n" (Henry VI, Part 2, III, 7 5-76 ) . In this respect, ' dis­ posedness ' is an apt translation of ' Be.findlichkeit' sin ce its scope is not limited to human beings, but is also not so broad as to include any sort of potential of any entity. "A stone," Heidegger notes, "never finds itself in any state , but instead is simply on hand." By contrast, a disposition can be ascribed to "an utterly primitive one-celled living entity" (P 3 5 2 ) . These last two claims indicate how, at least in a superficial way, Hei­ degger departs from a phenomenology that toes the line of pure de­ scription of human intentionality (and seemingly departs, too , from the strictures of fundamental on tology) . But for the same reason it is diffi­ cult to assess not only whether such claims are legitimate but what, if anything, is being asse rted by them. Moreove r, even if they are coun te­ nanced, they provide yet another obstacle to understanding disposed­ ness as an existential , namely, as one of the ways of being that is consti­ tutive and self-disclosive of being-here. For there is cl early a use of "disposi tion ," endorsed by Heidegger himself, that supposedly refers to what is constitutive and self-disclosive of, if not being-here, then at least something akin to being-here (li ke being a bat) . It is possible, of course , it is n ec e ss a ry to keep the existentiel and e x i ste n t i al c h a r­ d i s p o se dn e ss and understanding, are i n sep a r a ble d i sclosing toge th e r, b u t w h a t is t h e re b y disclosed is n o t as such kn own ( SZ 1 3 4 : " ' Dis­ closed ' does n o t say ' known ' [erkannt] as such " ) , and ye t the manner of d e t e rm i n i n g be­ ing-i n-th e-world by way of knowi n g is g r o u n d e d in a d ispos i t i on

85 I n this last

respect, howeve r,

ac te r� di sti n c t. The two existe n tials,

,

.

THE TI M E LINESS OF E X I STENTIAL TRUTH

2 97

to put a posi tive spin on such stateme n ts. Just as Hume underscored his analysis of causality by "analogical observations" of such experimental reasoning in animals other than humans , so Heidegger invokes an an al­ ogy with other animals as a means of clarifying what he calls "disposed­ ness." Even though we only understand the ways other animals are dis­ posed through analogies with our own disposedness, it is precisely our ease in doing so - something that can not be said about the other basic ex isten tials: understanding, talking, lapsing - that is distinctive of this existential. However Heidegger's talk of the disposedness of �'one-celled organ­ isms" is to be understood, his main concern is "disposedness" as a "ba­ sic existen tial ," that is to say, what and how it allegedly discloses and con­ stitutes being-here . Given the sui generis ( or, better, sui existentialis) character of the phenomenon , 86 Heidegger is compelled to clarify this existen tial by taking the usual route ( "via negativa" ) of bracketing pre­ cipitous and misleading interpretations. "Prior to all knowing and will­ ing," it is neither an acquaintance nor a belief ( SZ 1 3 5£) . Disposedness does not disclose in th e form of a perception ; it is not "the establish­ men t or observation ( intuition ) of a fact" (SZ 1 38 ) . Nor is it itself per­ ceived, for example via reflection or introspection , since we find our­ selves in this or that mood prior to any introspection or reflection. "In the disposition being-here is always al ready brought before itself, it has always found itself already, not in the sense of happening to find itself to be perceiving, but in the sense of finding itself attuned" (SZ 1 3 5 ) . The fact that we always find ourselves already disposed (prior to what are traditionally conceived as doxic, e pistemic , volitional, or even re­ flexive acts) provides the essen tial clue to Heidegge r's determination of disposition as an existential (how in a disposition being-here dis­ closes its and others ' manners of being) . Being-here finds itself con­ stan tly in "this or that mood" (Stimmung) , that is, "attuned" (gestimmt) from the outset ( P 35 1 ; SZ 1 34 ) . One mood can only be dispelled or disabled by another mood; even indifference is a mood; all of which points, Heidegge r observes, to the basic disposedness of human exis­ tence . In its mood, be it poised , indifferent, undisturbed, disgrun tled, restless, anxious, or raving, bei ng-he re has always already constituted86 SZ 1 40 : "Th e p h e n o m e n ological i n te rp re tation must p rovide bei n g-h ere i tself th e pos­ sib ili ty of th e o rigi n al d isclosi ng and allow it, as it were , to l ay i tself out [auslegen] . It [ th e in te rp re tatio n ] go es alon g i n th i s d isclosi n g, o n ly i n ord e r to e re c t i n to a c o n c e p t th e phenom e n al con te n t of what has been d i sc l osed . "

H E I D E G G E R ' s C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

and-disclosed itself and, indeed , a s being-in-the-world. In this case the "here" is by no means an object, a "possible thetne to be grasped" ; be­ ing-in-the-world is instead disclosed "unthematically, but, precisely for that reason, genuinely, " whereby this disclosedness "constitutes noth­ ing else but a man ner of being" ( P 354) . This way in wh ich disposedness discloses to someone her being-here also holds the key to what it discloses about being-here ( the jiTst of the determinations of disposed ness listed earlier) . What is disclosed by be­ ing-here's "attuned manner of finding i tself disposed" (gestimmtes Sich­ befinden) is not something fearful or threatening, alluri ng or despica­ ble, indeed, not any object or thing within the world, but instead simply '' the thrownness of this entity into its here." 87 I nasmuch as we are always in one mood or another, moved by this or that, we are already disposed to the fact that we are, and this disposedness discloses precisely that we are "here, " that we have been thrown into the world as such and have to take over the responsibility for existing. Heidegger characterizes th is "thrownness" as "the facticity of being handed over, " handed over, i n­ deed , to oneself in one 's entirety ( one's worldliness, being-with-others, and own poten tial-to-be ) and , thereby, in one 's dependency upon and orientation to the world. As already noted, such factici ty is not to be identified wi th the char­ ac ter of some brute fact ascertainable by perception , observation , and the like. Instead , what being-here 's disposition discloses is simply "that it is and has to be , " that precisely as a being-in-th e-world it is delive red up to itself as a "burden" that it would just as soon escape. Heidegger claims that the moods an d emotions in which a person (q ua being­ here) finds herself are the very ones that "at first and for the most part" sh e would generally rather flee from than "yield to . " As he puts it, �'be­ ing has become apparent as a burden ," even though we remain clueless why (SZ 1 34 ) . Even uplifting moods, those capabl e of lifting the ap­ parent burden away, disclose the basic burdensomeness of being-h ere. The fact that for the n1ost part we do our best "on an ontic and exis­ ten tiel level" to avoid the burden of bei ng-here supposedly confirms it "on an on tological and existen tial level" (SZ 1 35 ) . Being-here 's thrownness - its factici ty, the fact that it is and has to be - is disclosed to it in the very disposition to turn a\vay fro1n it, to try to elude an d es­ cape i t. In short, being-here 's disposition discloses to it th e fact that it �7

SZ

1 3 !) ;

P � 5 4 : "D isposcd n es" i ts e l f i s t h e n t h e g e n u i n e m a n n e r o f b e i n g-h ere,

i n g i t�e l f

a�

u n co\Tred, t h e 1n a n n c r i n wh i c h be ing-here is i t�elf i t'> h e re . "

o f h aY­

T H E T I M ELI N ESS OF EX I S TENTIA L TRU T H

2 99

has been th rown here and handed ove r to itself ( to its "here") and that in the process it has already found itsel f, albeit initially not by seeking but by fleeing itself. It would be a mistake , however, to think that th is fi nding is automatic or explicit. In fact, it is largely suppressed or even repressed (abge­ driingt) . Though the facticity of being-he re can break in upon "the most innocuous everydayness," a distinctive disposition - anxiety - is re­ quired to bring being-here back to itself (SZ 1 34 , t 8 8 ; see 4·34 below) . As Heidegger puts it, "the 'mere mood ' discloses the here more origi­ nally [than any immanent reflection] but also correspondingly closes it off more stubbornly than any not-perceiving" ( SZ 1 3 6 ) . Mention has already been made of the fact that disposition is prior to a reflection on some interior mental state. Moods ove rcome us; they do not come from wi th in or without, but emerge instead as ways of be­ ing-in-th e-world, disclosing it as a whole . Fear, for example, can hardly be described adequately without taking into accoun t the fearful object and its threatening character, the fearing of it and exposure to it, and the basis of the fear ( being-here i tself) . As exemplified by fear, itself "a mode of disposedness," being-in-the-world is disclosed in all its basic, related dimensions in moods. Therein lies "the second essential charac­ ter of disposedness," namely, the way it discloses "world, being-with-oth­ ers, and existence" as equally original constituents of being-in-the-world as a whole. Finally, not only the holistic character of being-in-the-world but also the worldly dependence and orientation of being-here is disclosed to it by its disposition . The possibility of encountering things in our circum­ spective concerns involves the possibility of being affected by them, and this possibility is grounded in a foregoing disclosure of the world, a dis­ closure co-constituted by one's disposition, indeed, even more basically than by one's senses or intuitions. In this way Heidegger introduces the third essential character of disposition : "The attunedness of the disposi­ tion existentially constitutes the openness of being-here to the world." RR In orde r for an encounter with things within the world to take place , it is not enough that some entity have the powers of sensation. It is nee88 SZ 1 3 7: ''Resistance would remain essen tially undiscovered if the disposed manner of

being-i n-the-world had not already referred it to the fact, prefigu red by [its] emo tions, th at it is affected by enti ties within-th e-world." Heidegger is alludi ng here to his account of real i ty, its grounding i n re s is ta n c e , and resistance's grounding in disclosedness; at stake is h is de b a te with Dilth ey and Scheler and, by e x te n s ion , Helmholtz ( i n tuition as implicit i nfere n c e ) ; cf. S Z 2 0o-2 1 2 ; P 2 93-:�o6.

300

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF T R U T H

essary for the entity with those powers to b e suitably disposed; in other words, it is necessary for the innerworldly things encountered to "mat­ ter" to being-here ( il faut les aimer pour les connaitre) . "This mattering is grounded in the disposition" (SZ 1 3 7 ) . Thus disposition and moods, more than sensation or intuition or the interplay of pressure and re­ sistance, form the basis of our encounter with the world. "In fac t, in an ontologieally fundamental way, we must leave the primary discovery of the world over to the ' mere mood "' ( SZ 1 38 ) . As Heidegger puts it in the Prolegomena Lectures: "It is necessary to represent phenomenally the original way in which being-disposed and the disclosure of the world be­ long toge ther. Being-here does not somehow first find itself [befindet sich nicht zunachst] by i tself in order then to look from here and itself to a world, but rather being-disposed is itself a character of being-in , that is to say, of always-already-being in a world'' (P 355 ) . Being disposed means, howeve r, more than mere being open to and dependent upon the world. It also indicates a way of being-here that al­ lows itself to be so taken - literally, "taken away'' or "ben umbed" 89 - by the world that it evades and even loses itself. This evasion is the phe­ nomenon of lapsin g or falling away from itself and, though this lapsing is itself an existential (see 4· 3 3 ) , Heidegger makes clear that it also de­ velops in a direction already given by the disposedness of being-here ( SZ 1 39, 1 79 ) . This direction is explicitly indicated in his formulations of the fi rst and third essential characters ( the thrownness and open­ ness) of this basic existential. For the theme of the present study, the analysis of "disposedness" as an existential is particularly importan t. For the analysis provides Hei­ degger with a means of elaborating in what way being-he re is disclosive ( or in what way the ' here ' of ' being-here ' is synonymous with ' dis­ closedness' or ' openness' ) . In this way he presents a side of the dis­ closedness ( truth ) that is primarily neither an intuition nor a judgment (assertion ) . Finding oneself always already attuned in some way is a manner of disclosing various manners of being. In a preeminent way, being disposed discloses our being-in-the-world and, indeed, the thrownness and openness of our being as a whole to the world - even if this attuneme nt "initially and for the most part" takes the form of a 1 1 3 : "Being-here is initially and for the most part taken by its world"; also SZ 6 1 , 7 6 . The term translated ' taken ' here , ' benommen, ' signals more precisely both being taken away and being benumbed by one's world. In just these senses, the earlier English te rm is a favorite of Chaucer; cf. C haucer, Complete Works, 75 2 : "Alias ! I t [ Ire] bynymeth fro n1an h i s witte"; also 7 4 8 , 7 5 2 f.

8g SZ

TH E T I M ELI N ES S OF EX I STEN T I A L TRUTH

30 1

"fligh t" from the facticity ( thrownness) of being-in-the-world. The dis­ posedness of being-here thus co-constitutes the worldliness of the world of concern, and it is this worldliness that makes possible the encounter with innerworldly things and thereby with the truths of intuitions and assertions. Seen from this perspective , the disclosedness of the disposi­ tion of being-here can be deemed " the more original truth." 4 . 3 2 Understanding and the Project of Being-Here. That being-he re as a

whole is " thrown" signifies by no means that the "throw" has been com­ pleted or even that its trajectory is automatic. "As long as it is, what it is," bein g-here remain "in that throw, " and where and how it lands remains, if the pun can be pardoned , "up in the air" ( SZ 1 7 9) . At the same time, if the manner of being-here is not a completed fac t or foregone con­ clusion , it is also not simply the fading ripple of previous events. Being­ here is a manner of "being-possible," but precisely that manner of "be­ ing-possible which is handed over to itself. " "Being-here is respectively what it can be and how it is this possibility" ( SZ 1 43 ) . Because this existential possibility is part of the original makeup of being-here, Heidegger takes pains to distinguish it from other, deriva­ tive or subordinate, senses of possibili ty. As being-here 's self-defining proj ection, this existential possibili ty cannot be equated with a logical possibility or with some contingency that appears to accrue to things on hand. Being-here is a project and thus in a fundamental sense a possi­ bility, a possibility more basic than actuality or necessity (PRL 2 48£) . For this reason, it does not fall under a modal category of possibility that is defined as not yet actual and not ever necessary, in effect, a negation and thus a derivative of what it means to be on hand. At the same time , anything but a "freetloating potential ," the existential possibility of be­ ing-here and its proj ec tion are by no means � ut off from the thrown­ ness of being-here . As Heidegge r puts it, somewhat clumsily: "And as thrown , being-here is thrown into the sort of being of projecting" ( SZ 1 45 ) . In other words, the proj ect of being-here in tersects with its th rownness. Yet the fact that we respe ctively proj ect our existence or, more precisely, that we exist as possibilities by way of proj ecting our­ selves onto certain possibilities, is not itself something we have projected. Instead, it is our "lot" to be-here, a lot that we have not ourselves "cast." Thus, despite the inseparability of the way that being-here is thrown into the world from the way in which it proj ects itself, they re­ main distinct. As Heidegger puts it: "Being-here is the possibility of be­ ing-free for the poten tial-to-be that is al l its own " (SZ 1 44) . In this way,

H E I DEGGER ' s C O N C EPT

OF

TRUTH

Heidegger's talk o f the possibility o f being-h ere as something "handed ove r to it'' (or as "the thrown ground" of itself) is meant to elucidate the claim made in the opening pages of Being and Time that the essence of being-here lies in "having to be its being on its own . " To be-here is pre­ cisely to project oneself as one 's own potential-to-be . Relating to being by way of projecting this "potential-to-be" - or, as Heidegger also puts it with characteristically effective awkwardness, "to be-projecting" (Ent­ werfend-sein) - is designated "existence" ( SZ 1 2 , 2 84) . ' Understanding' (Verstehen) , in the existential sense of the term , stands for the way in which being-here discloses by projecting itself- its being-here - as a possibility (Seinkonnen) . To understand (existen tially) is to project oneself and, in the process, to disclose and constitute one's manner of being-here as a possibility. This understanding is thus es­ sentially related to its potential; being-here understands that what is at stake is itself as a possibility or potential proj ected by it and that it only exists as this project ( P 35 7 ) . In Being and Time Heidegger relates this accoun t of u nderstanding as an existential to h is earlier analyses of the work-world's meaningfulness (Bedeutsamkeit) and its grounding in some aim (or, literally, some for-the-sake-of-which : Worumwillen) . The way be­ i ng-here understands, that is, projects, itself as a possibility defines the "here" in bei ng-here as the final meaning of the world ( see 4. 1 above ) . I n other words, existential understanding is the projection that consti­ tutes being-here , disclosing its manner of being to it by way of disclos­ ing wh at it is here for. In addition to th e sense in wh ich existence is itself thrown , th at is to say, in which we are thrown into the world but precisely to be on our own, there is another sense in which the possibility projec ted by being­ here is inseparable from i ts th rownness. To be-here is to project oneself as a possibility onto possibilities presen ted to one by the world. "Being­ here always understands itself from th e outset and con tinues to under­ stand itself, as long as it is , on the basis of possibilities," possibilities that it can only take from a world in wh ich it fac tually always already dwells ( SZ 1 45 ) . To exist, in other words, is to project possibilities into which one has been th rown, bringing them into play precisely as possibilities of being-in-the-world. 90 This projection is not to be confused with car90 SZ 1 45 : "The proj e c tion is the existen tial con sti tution of the be i ng of the pl ay-space [or ro o m to rnane uver: Spielraum] of the factual poten ti al-to-be . ·� See Dre yfus , Bring-in-thf­ World, 1 86: "Thus what H e idegge r cal ls r oo m fo r m aneuver' (SpiPlraum) perm i ts par­ ticular coping activi ti es to show up as possible i n th e c u rren t world . " '

T H E T I M ELI N ES S OF EXI STENT I A L TRUTH

ryi n g out some preconceived plan , n o r are the possibilities proj ected grasped thematically. "Instead, as being-here it has in each respec tive case already projected itself and is projecting, as long as it is" (SZ 1 45 ; see also 2 70 , 2 84) . To grasp these possibilities thematically, that is, as something poten tially on hand, is to rob them of their character as pos­ sibilities and reduce them - literally "pull them down" (herabziehen) - to some already "given , intended elemen t'' (SZ 1 45 ) . Yet, while always sit­ uated , th e projec t of being-here is unable, as it were, to "cover its tracks," no more able to locate or time its origin than i ts end. In Chapter 3 reference was already made to the primary (hermeneu­ tic , un thematic) understanding as a way of "having to do and deal with something" (in Heidegger's jargon : Mit-etwas-zu-tun-haben) . This pri­ mary understanding, it was noted, reveals the "presence" (Priisenz) of the work-world as well as things handy and on hand in this world; i t ac­ cordingly also underlies the apophan tic structure of assertions about those things. In Being and Time this interpretation of understanding, al­ ready elaborated in the logic lectures, is iterated in terms of a certain "view" (Sicht) .9 1 As in the logic lectures, Heidegger emphasizes that un­ derstanding underlies intuiting and thinking, eve n "the phenomeno­ logical eidetic intuition" ( Wesenschau) . What is now being added to the interpre tation of hermeneutic understanding (outlined in 3 . 1 above ) is Heidegger's existential interpretation of the understandin g as a way of projecting that co-constitutes the disclosedness of being-here . To be­ here is to understand that one is "here" and, i ndeed, as that "for the sake of which" its bein g-in-the-world exists (projects itself) as a whole. Thanks to understanding/projecting in this existen tial sense and not sim­ ply in the sense of pre thematic prac tices of using things, to be-here is to be originally familiar with and relian t upon the world. As already noted, in the understanding of that "for-the-sake-of-which," the mean­ ing of the world is grounded and codisclosed. 9 2 Heidegger gives a further clue to the existen tial significance of ' un91 SZ 1 46: "The sight [or view: Siehl] that existen tially resides with the disclosedness of the here is equiprimordially being-here accordi ng to the characterized basic manners of its being as circumspection [or look arou nd: Umsicht] of con cern , considerateness [Ruck­ sichi] of solicitude, as a sight on [or view to : SiehL] being as such, for the sake of which the being-here respectively is, as it is." See, too, SZ 3 36. 92 The vague notion of the ''concernedness-presence" (Besorgtheit�priisenz) of the work­ world surfaced in sec tion 4. 1 above as so mething that is always already here wi thout be­ ing always on han d . Th e meaning of th at ' presence ' is related to worldliness as an exis­

tential, a way

of

being-h ere. See

SZ

334: "The structure of worldliness, the meaning, up with what the und erst anding esse n ti ally be-

� h owed i tsel f , h owever, to he bou nd

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

derstanding' by elaborating it as being-here's own potential to be "such that this being of itself discloses what its being is about" (das Woran des mit ihm selbst Seins) ( SZ 1 44) . Heidegger's equation of 'understanding' (Verstehen) and 'being-possible ' or 'potential-to-be' (Seinkonnen) in this connection also plays on familiar cognate uses of these words in Ger­ man, where understanding how to do something and being able to do it are construed as equivalent, if not the same. Thus, for example, ' Kann er Deutsch ?, ' which might be rendered ' Can he (speak) German?, ' is equivalent to ' Versteht er Deutsch ?' or ' Does he understand German?' So, too, there are scenarios where the English expressions 'being able to play chess' and 'understanding chess' might be regarded as equivalent. As exemplified by these examples, 'understanding' and 'being able ' signifY a kind o f know-how or level of mastery o f certain skills, the struc­ ture of which he elaborates under the rubric of the "hermeneutic ' as "' of a primary or original understanding. That "hermeneutic 'as' -structure," it bears recalling, is Heidegger's way of formally indicating the process of taking x as F in prethematic practices ("having to do and deal with things" ) , which is itself rooted in the fac t that we are always ahead of ourselves. As noted in the last chap­ ter, this structure works simultaneously on both existentiel-ontic and ex­ istential-on tological levels. In proj ec ting and thus disclosing itself as a possibility, being-here is also the si te for the proj ection and disclosure of other manners of being as well as for the proj ection and discovery of entities, itself and others. At both levels, the understanding - as a projection - preconceives what is understood. In this manner Heidegger links a basic phenomenon of being-here, namely, being ahead of one­ self, with the fac t that understanding, by projecting and thus disclosing i tself in terms of possipilities, is inherently interpretive. In other words, the re is always a forestructure to understanding and the difference be­ tween understanding and interpretation is nothing more than the dif­ ference between proj ecting certain possibilities and explicitly carrying them out (P 4 1 4 ) . As Heidegger sums up this point: "In the interpre­ tation, the understanding does not become something else, but instead becomes itself' (SZ 1 48 ) . Heidegger's account of the relation between understanding and in­ terpretation is brief but clear. While claiming, on the one hand, that in­ terpretation is grounded in understanding and not vice versa, he also longing to the disclosedness projects itself upo n , wi th the potential-to-be of being-here , of which it exis ts . "

for the sake

T H E T I M E LI N E S S O F E X I S T E N T I A L T R U T H

argues that the ' as '-structure constituting interpretation is implicit in understanding. "All prepredicative straightforward seeing of some­ thing handy is in itself already interpretively-understanding [verstehend­ auslegenaj " (SZ 1 4 9 ) The understanding, it bears ite rating, is the basic existential in which being-here constitutes and discloses itself by projecting itself as a possibility. Any more explicit understanding, that is, interpretation, presupposes understanding in this sense. 93 As also noted in th e last chapter, there is a temptation to give a prag­ matic reading to Heidegger's concept of "understanding. " Heidegger himself notes that the meaning of the referential whole that the work­ world comprises ( see 4. 1 above) is being-here itself, the potential for the sake of which it exists, proj ects, understands. The emphasis on the interpretive character of understanding suggests, moreover, the sort of fallibilism endorsed by some pragmatists . Yet Heidegger also makes it c lear that understanding is an existential, disclosing what it means to be and, preeminently, what it means to be-here. As such it is not to be confused with the sort of understanding that contrasts with explana­ tion. The understanding pursued by historical studies and humanities no less than the explanations proffered by the natural sciences sup­ poses an existential understanding of being. More importantly, not only historical understanding, theoretical knowledge, and practical-techni­ cal knowledge , but practical behavior itself presupposes understanding as an existential (GP 3 8 9-392 ; SZ 1 43 , 3 36; P 4 1 3 ) While prac tical be­ havior, like the various forms of cognition mentioned, is generally di­ rected at entities and what they are , "what the understanding as an ex­ isten tial is able to understand is not a what, but rather being as existing" (SZ 1 43 ) . Insofar as the difference that some thing (a theory, a belief, an activity, a policy) makes in practice is the hallmark criterion for the pragmatist tradition, i t is difficult to see how a pragmatic reading can be given of Heidegger's interpretation of the existential sense of un­ derstanding, without doing serious violence to i t. This is not to deny the .

.

93 One way of elaborating Heidegger's understanding of the difference between under­ standing and interpretation might be as follows. An explici t i n terpretation can be faulty

or false , depending upon wh ether it be practical ( existe n tiel ) or theoretical (strictly apophan tic ) . But it� faul tiness or falsi ty is m eani ngful only on the basis of some under­ standing - indeed, an e n tire context of im plicit in terpretations. In sofar as the under­ stan ding ( im plict in te rpretation ) has not bee n made expl icit, i t makes no sense to speak of faulti ness or falsity. Nor is every understan ding th at is supposed in this way on a par, at least not if phil osophy has any say in the matter. For fundam e n tal on tology is the ex­ plicit i n te rp retation , the falsity of whic h , while a formal possibi lity (given i ts apophan­ tic

form ) ,

ca n n o t

he mean i n gfu l ly �m�ta i n ed .

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C EPT OF TRUTH

pragmatic accents of Heidegger's analysis; in addition to those already mentioned, his insistence on a prethematic absorption in the world and on the unfinished proj ect of being-in-the-world migh t be added. 9 4 Nev­ ertheless, though there is in fact no understanding without practice ( practices that, in Heidegger's sense, are proj ected and set in a world of concern ) , 'understanding' in the existential sense of the term does not signifY a prac tice. In other words, the way in which the under­ standing discloses cannot be adequately mapped out onto the struc ture of a practice or set of practices , nor does the manner of being disclosed by it satisfY cri teria of making an ontic difference (theoretical , prac ti­ cal, political, e tc. ) . 9s In understanding, being-here discloses the manner of being of enti­ ties within-the-world. In the process, it also discloses itself and, indeed, precisely by finding itself disposed in the world; being so disposed, be­ ing-here understands what is at stake in being-in-the-world. As para­ doxical as it might sound, being-here is the "thrown proj ection," the un­ derstanding that is always already disposed and attuned. In the Prolegomena Lectures Heidegger goes so far as to declare that the "un­ derstanding," as a way of disclosing the world by finding ourselves dis­ posed in it (Sichbefinden) , is precisely the way of being disposed th at dis­ closes. 96 At the same time, he distinguishes understanding from disposedness. In understanding, being-here disc loses itself, not prima­ rily as an entity that in each case has already been thrown into the world, but instead as the entity that projects its potential-to-be onto possibilities. From the fact that being-here constitutes and discloses itself as th e po­ tential-to-be in this sense , it follows that being-here is not simply on hand but exists. "Being toward one 's ownmost potential-to-be says on­ tologically: being-here is respectively already ahead of itself in its being" (SZ 1 9 1 ) . 94 Hei degge r's i n te rpre tation ( that i s to say, his existe n tial an alysis ) e c h oes Dewey 's as­ saul ts on bifurcati n g su q j ec t and o bj e c t on suqjec tivism a n d in tellectual i s m , and o n th e ,

fa l l acy of �elective e m ph a�is. 9 5 Th ere is eve ry re ason , n o n e th el ess, to be ske ptical of th e privi l e ge d and insular s ta t us

that Heidegger a s sign s the ontological domai n . An atte m p t is made in the fi n al c h ap­ te r to weigh in on wh ether th i s on tological i n s u la ri ty is ge n u i n e or not, whethe r it i�

a

rh e torical ploy, a m ark of bad faith , i m po te n c e , or fai lure of n e rve , and , most i m p o r­ ta n t ly, w h e th e r it is d e b i l itating for h i s existe n tial an alys is or n o t .

g6

P 356; SZ 1 5 2: " I n e a c h un derstanding o f t h e wo rld , existe n c e is co-u n de rstood a n d vice ve rs a . " See P 34 8-3 5 9 , 4 1 1 -4 1 7 ; SZ 1 �� 4- 1 48 ; th e " decisive p o i n ts of orie nta tion fo r all the problems of h e rm e n e u tics" an d , i n dee d , fo r th e so-called c i rcle i n u n de rsta n d i n g e m e rge frorn the fac t that u n d e rs ta ndi n g t o g e t h er with d i s p o s i ti on disclose the e ntire bei n g-in-the-wo rld eq u i prin1 orrl i a l ly (P :� s fif) .

THE

T I M E LI N E S S O F

E X I STEN TIAL TRU TH

4 · 3 3 Fallen ness and the Palaver of Being-Here. Being-here is initially and,

indeed, for the most part involved with things that are handy within­ the-world. Mention has already been made of th e fac t that, in addition to being thrown into the world and projecting the world's possibilities as part of being-in-th e-world, being-h ere is so taken up with the world and the things within it that it can be said to "fall prey" to the world. Heidegger characterizes this phenomenon , the third basic existential , as a ki nd of "fallen ness" or "lapse" ( Verfallensein) . Since it has been nec­ essary to broach th e topic of this existential in earlier sections, it can be treated more briefly than were th e other two (disposedness and un­ de rstanding) . Our tendency to get wrapped up in a world of concern typically - but not i nevitably - defines our ways of being-with-another and, along the way, both what and who each of us is. In the process, individual possi­ bilities of being-in-the-world are largely handed over to the crowd. The work-world in sures that each individual can respectively be herself, but it is a lost self, "sucked up into the crowd 's lack of genuineness" (P 3 8 8 ) . Differences are smoothed out or even eliminated as being-here disap­ pears into the crowd , a vanishing ac t obscured by conformity to public opinion and standards of normalcy (P 390) . As Heidegger puts it, this sort of lapse is seduc tive , sedating, and alienating all at once (P 3 89 ; SZ 1 7 7£) . It is, in effect, an existential "free fall" in more than one sense of the term. On the one hand, we are already disposed to fall, that is, to evade the thrown ness of our existence by taking refuge in the world and worldly things (see 4· 3 1 above) . On th e other hand, we abet the fall our­ selves. Being-here thus "falls freely" in the sense that i t falls easily and spontaneously, with little resistance , and ultimately more or less delib­ erately (see 4. 2 above) . Yet falling in this way is, as Heidegger puts i t,"falling apart" (Zerfall) , a "fall from" being-here genuinely (Abfall also signifies 'waste ' or 'garbage ' ) . "Fallenness to th e 'world ' means immersion in being-with-on e-an­ other insofar as this is guided by palaver, curiosity, and ambiguity" ( SZ 1 7 5 ; cf. P 3 76-39 1 ) . Palaver, as also noted earlier (4. 2 ) , is the lapsed lo­ gos or articulation of everyday disposi tions and understanding. Wi th the aid of palaver, what is said becomes itself a matter of concern and some­ thing handy within the world. In an extreme form of palaver, what lit­ erally is said an d reproduced ( inc luding actual verbalizations and word combinations) takes precedence over the significance of what is said, over its b e i ng said, over what i t is said about, or even over the fact that this o r th a t pe rs o n is sayi ng it. Wh i l e so m � pal ave r is, � s n o terl e� r1 i e r,

' H E I D E G G E R S C O N C E PT O F T R UT H

308

eminently useful, necessary, and even inevitable , i t provides "the possi­ bili ty of understanding everything without a foregoing appropriation of the matter'' ( SZ t 6g) . What is said and passed on becomes overrid­ ing, as an average, all-too-obvious sort of interpretation holds sway. As long as a person "holds up" in this house of babble , she suspen ds her­ self, as it were , in midair. On the one hand, she is always alongside the "world," but on th e other hand she is "cut off' from the "primary and originally-genuine" manners of being related to the world, others, and herself - or, more precisely, the manner of being-here that is her own ( SZ 1 70 ) . More importantly for the purposes of the present study, palaver is as i t were the birthplace of the logical prej udice. The reduc­ tion of truth to perceptual (or intuitive) or propositional truths and the conception of being in the sense of onhandness ( presence) corre­ sponding to that reduction are symptoms of the fallenness typifi ed by palaver. Symptoms, it bears iterating, are not necessarily criteria or direct ef­ fects. In other words, the ontological commitments that Heidegger as­ cribes to the logical prejudice do not automatically follow from the fact that people palaver. Moreover, he does not provide much elaboration on ways of talking publicly ( the kinds of public discourse) that migh t promise some measure of escape from palaver. The lack of such an elab­ oration is clearly a weakness in his investigations in the 1 9 2 0s, especially since it bears on the status of the published (ver-offentlicht) text, Being and Time. It is worth noting that this lack dovetails with the confusing way in which , as noted earlier, Heidegger some times cites " talk," at other times "fallenness, " as the third basic existential. 97 The reason in both cases ( that is to say, for that lack of elaboration of genuine public discourse and for the confusing presentation of the basic existentials ) is the same. Fallenness and the public demands of discourse conspire to shape the way we "for the tnost part" find ourselves disposed and proj ect ( understand) our possibilities. 98 Yet there is no authentic way of be­ ing-here that might dispense with th ese existentials. Authen ticity is pos­ sible, and, indeed, as discttssed below (4.4 ) , even authentic discourse is

97 S e e n . 79 above.

however, if it suggests s o meth in g external to be in g prey to the world in the course of i m m ersi ng ourselves in it, flee­ ing from ourselves in th e process, the crowd, pal aver th ese are all existen tial s , that is · to say, they consti tute and disclose our ex i s te n c e inasm uch as we enact them.

g8 The term

'conspire '

is misleading,

­

in-th e-wo rld . Falling

-

THE TI M ELINESS O F EXI STENTIAL TRUTH

309

possible, according to Heidegger; yet it cannot eliminate, and can only modify, existentially fallen and palavering manners of being-here. 99 The "here" or "openness" of being-here is constituted by fallenness as much as it is by disposedness and understanding. These basic exis­ tentials - manners in which being-here is fundamentally constituted and disclosing as well as disclosed - are said to be "equally original . " 1 00 What characterizes a fallen or lapsed manner of disclosing is precisely the way in which it closes off (verschlieflen) the fundamental openness of being-here - in effe ct, concealing and masking the very disclosure that defines being-here . The phenomenon of fallen ness accordingly points to a tendency already suggested earlier, namely, the "urge and propen­ sity" (Drang und Hang) to flee from oneself. Heidegger's elaboration of his use of these terms in this context i n­ volves wordplays that deserve comment. An urge is a compulsion to move away from some state or way of being and toward something. In some circumstances, a compulsion can be blinding ( "love is blind") , overrunning dispositions and understanding. Seizing upon this phe­ nomenon , Heidegger characterizes urge as a way in which care re­ presses itself. Heidegger accordingly exploits l inks between the terms 'Drang and ' verdriingen' (repress) ( P 409 ) . While Freud employs the lat99 From a certain religious perspective , one that Heidegge r likely shared at so me point, this position is not only plausible, but compelling. See the quotations from Gogarten and Barth cited in these notes. D reyfus main tains that Heidegger's acco unt of fallen­ ness conflates "falling" and "fleei ng." In keepi ng with his econ omical diffe rentiation of Divisions I and II of SZ as structural and motivational accounts respectively, he suggests that, in place of "the psychological acco u n t of falling based on motivated flight," so­ cialization is sufficient to explain why being-here yields to the pull of the world; cf. D rey­

fus , Being-in-the-World, 2 2 5-2 2 9 , 2 3 3-2 3 7 , 3 1 3 , 33 3ff. But Heidegger's onto discendi et exhibitendi seems to have gotten the better of Dreyfus in this respect. There is n o more

a neutral struc tural account in Division I than there is in D ivision II - though, to be sure , th is fact only becomes fully perspicuous in the wake of Division II. In other words, to fall prey to the world is always more or less to flee and not simply to fall from one­ self, but it is a flight that can be more or less " taken back" or "retrieved. " The i nau­ thentic "thrown proj e c tion" that existe n tially defi n es being-here is a "fallen flight." Yet its "in e\itability" does not rule out authenticity any more or less than German citizen­ ship in 1 9 3 8 prevented some German c i tize ns from hidingjews; nor does authenticity render the fall back i n to the crowd any m o re or less "incomprehensible" than the fact that Kasparov, at the top of h is chess gam e , can s till occasionally make the wrong move. I oo Relative to th e other existentials , there is even a sense in which fallen ness e nj oys a cer­ tai n primacy as far as the determi nation of care is concerned, since th e fundamental care ( " the basic relati onal se nse of life in i tself') , namely, care about one 's daily bread , is dependent upon the world ( PIA 8gf) . See , too, the discussion of Augustine on Cu­ rare in PRL 2 04-2 1 o.

310

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E P T O F T R lT T H

ter term in a psychoanalytic sense , 1 01 Heidegger gives it an existential interpretation . Caught up in an urge, care expresses itself only as con­ cern , concern for what satisfies its urges "and nothing else" (P 4 1 o) . In this "care th at has not become free," as Heidegger puts it, care represses and obscures itself as the sense of being-here in its en tirety (P 4 1 o ) . De­ spite the fact that the urge presupposes the entire structure of care and its significance as the manner of being-here that, in its caring, fun da­ men tally discloses, the urge also conceals th at structure and signifi­ can ce, including the fact that being-here is already with things and ahead of itself. In Being and Time Heidegger introduces the existe n tial phenomenon of propensity with the German expression ' nachhiingen, ' the signifi­ can ce of which is perhaps best conveyed in English by the colloquial ex­ pression ' hanging on someone's every word or movemen t. ' 1 °2 ' Propen­ sity' stan ds for this hankering for the world that one is already involved with , the predilection to cling to it. Though the term ' Hang in some contexts stands for an addiction or obsession ( thus, a fallen state that is no longer a motivated flight) , it has been indelibly stamped in German philosophical nomenclature by Kan t's discussion of "the propensity to evil in human nature . " 1 03 In the Prolegomena Lectures Heidegger puts his own spin on this term by relating it to 'destiny' (Verhiingnis) , a term for a basic existen tial structure of being-here. "This propensity, to which the analysis of falling away returns phenomenally, constitutes the basic structure of being-here that we designate as 'destiny ' " (P 3 90) . This des­ tiny is nothing else than the flight of being-here , when faced with her­ self, in to the world disclosed by her. Fallen ness is the propensity " to be 'lived' by the world in which one respectively is" as well as the urge to "live" at others ' cost. In the Prole­ gomena Lectures, Hei degger presen ts "urge" as a necessary con diti on of "propensi ty," in contrast to Being and Time where they are merely 1 o 1 Sigm und Freud, �'or!Rsun!{en zur Einfi"ihrung in die Psychoanalyse, in Gesammelte �Verke, vo l . 1 1 , seve n th edi tion ( Fran kfurt am Mai n : Fisc h e r, 1 97 8 ) , 2 96-3 1 2 : "\Viderstan d u n d u s e o f this Fre u d i an t e r m poi n ts t o another i m portan t h is­ torical dimension of his brief accou n t o f the rootedness of th e urge in care : the ap­ propriation by Lebensphilosophen of the tho ugh t of the Sturm und )>rang and Schopen­ hauer's m etaphysics of the wi l l . 1 0 2 Or even 'b�ing h u ng up on som eone' or simply a ' h anger-on . ' 1 03 See Kan t, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen rler bloj3en Vernunft, Kants Werke, vo l . 6 ( Be rl i n : ci e Gruyte r, t g 68) , 2 8 . I n th is discussion , ' Hang' - trans l ate d a s ' p ropen sity' h e re - i� Kant's own tran slation of the Lat i n ' propen!l io, ' conceived as "the subjec tive basis of the po�� i b i l ity of a n i n cli n atio n . "

Ve rddingung." Hei degger's

THE TI MELINESS

OF

E X I STENT IAL TRUTH

31

l

con trasted ( the pure urge is a care that has not yet become free; in the prope nsity, care is always already bound) . 1 04 Ye t, however the relation between urge and propensity is to be understood, they are both grounded in care as ways in which care comes to modify itself. Urges and propensi ties are not the results of external compulsions, but ways that care manifests itself. "The urge ' to live ' is not to be destroyed, the prope nsi ty to be ' lived' by the world is not to be e radicated. Ye t be­ cause , and only because , they are on tologically groun ded in care , both are to be modified by authenti c care in an ontic and existentiel fash­ ion" ( SZ 1 96 ) . This last remark ite rates a point made earlier about the modifiabil­ ity, but ineradicability of being-here 's lapsing. Its "free fall" is, so to speak, as natural as weight. Yet there is also something about being-here that, while not able to defy gravity, can make suitable use of it. This talk of falling suggests images of balance and grace, familiar to athletes, tumblers, and dancers. The Kierkegaardian leap comes immediately to mind. Neither taking fligh t nor th e extent of th e bound is the final measure of the success of a leap. True success is measured by the grace with which one meets the ground. 1 0 5 Heidegger, it bears noting, does not shy away from quoting Kierkegaard, though always with qualifica­ tions. Mention has al ready been made of Heidegger's explicit warning that fallenness, as he conceives it, has nothing to do with morality. He is equally adaman t in disavowing any implicit th eology in his portrayal of the phenomena making up fallen ness. While acknowledging the pos­ sibility, perhaps even necessity that these struc tures reemerge in a " the­ ological anthropology," Heidegger mischievously adds ( palavers) that he cannotj udge how they would "since I [Heidegger] understand no th­ ing of such things" (P 39 1 ) . 4 · 3 4 Anxiety as a fundamental Disposition and the Unity of Care. Anxiety,

not about anything handy or on hand within the world, but rather about oneself as being-in-the-world, surfaces as a sudden , uncan ny feel­ ing, even in the midst of one 's most familiar and trusted surroundings, 1 04 P 3 90 , 4 o g ff; SZ 1 95 f.

1 0 5 S0ren Ki e rke gaard , Fear and Trembling, tr. Alastair Han nay ( London : Pengui n , 1 98 5 ) , 70 ( sl igh tly modified ) : "But to be a bl e to land in th at way, to look in the same second as th o ug h on e were up and wal k i n g, to transform the leap in life into a gai t, to expre ss the sublime in th e pedestrian - only the knigh t [ of faith ] can do that, - and that is th e one and only m a r v el Frygt og Bcrven, i n Samlede VcPrkPr, vo l . 5 ( Copenh age n: Gylden­ ."

rl<� l :

l

�)fl3 ) .

�9·

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

31 2

that one is not really at home anywhere . Anxiety is more than one state of mind among others, empirically or physiologically (ontically) con­ ditioned by a particular set of epigenetic ( nurture/nature ) factors. It is far more a fundamen tal way of being disposed, stemming from being­ here itself and placing whoever is here before herself as being-in-the­ world. Heidegger's elaboration of anxiety plays on two sets of prepositions frequently employed with the expression. On the one hand, being­ here, a person is said to be anxious "about" (vor) her facticity, the si tu­ ation into which she is thrown , as well as anxious "for'' (um) her exis­ tence, the possibilities that she inevitably and, more or less responsibly, proj ec ts herself. "Everyday trust and reliability break down on their own" and being-here , retrieved "from its lapsed and ever-lapsing im­ mersion in the 'world, "' is anxious about its ''being-in-the-world as thrown" and for its "po tential-to-be-in-the-world" ( SZ 1 89 , 1 9 1 ) . On the other hand, out of anxiety, in Hang und Drang, someone who is-here loses her being-here and thus herself to "the crowd ," in effect, leaving to public opinions and expectations the determination of her being, her self, and her own most possibility. In anxiety, h owever, "what is handy in one's surroundings, whatever is within the world, sinks away" as i r­ relevant and superfluous ( SZ 1 87 ) . "Anxiety thus takes from being-here the possibility, in lapsing, of understanding oneself on the basis of the 'world' and an official or public way of being interpreted" (SZ 1 8 7 ) . In short, anxiety discloses the utter individualness of being-in-the-world, throwing one back upon what it is that one is anxious about: one 's gen­ uine potential-to-be-in-the-world. By threatening the everyday loss to the " crowd," anxiety and uncanniness make apparent to being-here that it has this possibility of being genuine or not (P 400-404 ; SZ 1 84- 1 9 1 ) This existential anxiety thus at once grounds and exposes the all-too­ human phenomenon of lapsing, of falling away from one's own possi­ bili ties. For this very reason, it also provides the "phenomenal basis" for the interpretation of the entire structure of being-here, the structure that Heidegger designates as "care . " To be-here is to be-in-the-world and, indeed, in such a way that for this being-in-the-world what is at stake from the outset and in every case is being itself in i ts being-in-the­ world. The fact that what is at stake is her being itself is mean t to cap­ ture the fact that she always has something before her (a plan, Vorhabe) and hence is ahead of herself, factually projecting (entwirft ) and thus un­ .

Je rs tanding h e r bc ing-in-th e-\vo rl d ( th e \Vo rk-\vo rl d , be ing-,-vi th-o th e rs ,

TH E T I M ELI N E S S O F E X I S TE N T I A L T R U T H

her being itself and being herself) . At the same time , "from the outset and in every case" she is absorbed in a "world" of concern as well as a way of being-with-others that corresponds to that world. Heidegger's c haracterization of this manner of being as care is meant to indicate that for this sort of being (being-here ) what matters is precisely its be­ ing itself as a being-in-the-world. In anthropological terms, humans are beings that have been thrown into the world and are prone to become absorbed in it, turni ng from themselves, from their potential to be-he re authentically, in their very manner of projecting themselves. This interpretation of care is meant to capture the ontological dis­ tinctiveness of being-here. To be-he re is always to be ahead of oneself, beyond oneself, and never merely on hand; thrown into the world with the potential-to-be-in-the-world for itself, it is nonetheless preoccupied with - projects itself on to - a world of concern projected by others. Heidegger accordingly defines being-here, in terms of care, as "being­ ahead-of-oneself-already-being-in (a world) as being-involved-with ( en­ tities encountered within-the-world ) " (SZ 3 2 7 ) . Through this elucida­ tion of the positive sense of being-he re, Heidegger carries out the metacategorial distinction by means of which he contests the logical prejudice. The unified, "caring" structure of being-here stands in stark contrast to the conception of being and the ontological indifference that are characteristic of that prejudice. In other words, to be-here is to disclose , not in the sense of uncovering things o r even being a mirror of them ( that would be as on hand as they are ) . Instead, to be-here is to disclose in a way that is structured by care , proj ec ting one 's possibil­ i ties of being-in-the-world while never escaping one's thrownness and lapse into the world. To reiterate : i nsofar as care defines being-here , i t is not something handy or on hand within the world. Instead to be-here is to be-in-the­ world in th e sense of- equiprimordially - being cast into the world and proj ecting (forecasting) it. As the present chapter up to this point has attempted to demonstrate, Heidegger construes care as a unitary phe­ nomenon in at least two coinciding senses. At one level, care (Sorge) en­ compasses concern (Be-sorgen) and solicitude (Fiir-sorge) , the existentials reviewed in the first two sections of the present chapter. The way in which we care about (proj ect and disclose) ourselves underlies the con­ cerns that constitute the work-world and disclose the handiness and on­ hand ness of things as wel l as the ways we care for others and disclose their being-here-with us. At anoth er, equally fundamental level, care is th e u n i fied p h �n o m e n on of projecti ng oneself or hei ng ah ead of one-

H F: I D E G G E R ' S

C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

self, i n terms of possibilities presen ted by already having been thrown into the world and by always being bound up with i t. In other words, care is the unity of the existentials, that is to say, of the manners in which being-here is "here . " The entire struc ture of being-in-the-world ( the be­ ing of being-here as a whole) is co-constituted as well as co-disclosed by the way i t has been thrown into the world, projects its own possibility of being on to i t, and yet falls away from itself or lapses into the world. In other words, being-here is the "disclosedness" or "clearing" accom­ plished only by the thrown and , yes, even lapsed projection that defines our existence as care . In the final section of the chapter in Being and Time enti tled "Care as the Being of Being-Here," Heidegger in troduces the significance of this accoun t for his argument against the logical pr�j udice . According to the logical prej udice, the assertion (j udgment, proposi tion ) is the genuine site of truth . In the simplest form of the prejudice , truth can be regarded as the property of a judgment (as mirrored in the judgment ' S is true' ) , because ' truth ' in the final analysis signfies the on handness of a state of affairs that corresponds to the structure of a judgment or allows itself to be de termined in view of this structure. By con trast, Heidegger locates the most basic phenomenon of truth in the existen tial disclosedness of being-here structured by care , the "clearing" that makes the discovery of entities and thus perceptual as well as propositional truths possible. In care (being-here 's thrown and lapsed understanding for the sake of its own being-in-the-world ) , worldliness and, with it, the manners of be­ ing of things within-the-world ( being-handy and being-on-hand ) are prethematically disclosed. Thanks to this disclosedness, the possibility presents itself of discovering (as well as covering up or concealing) in­ traworldly enti ties or, in effect, arriving at perceptual and propositional truths. Heidegger accordingly deems the disclosedness of being-here , i n contrast to propositional and perceptual truth , "the most original phe­ nomenon of the truth" ( SZ 2 20£) . Even if being-here is closed off ( has fallen-away) from itself and the manner of being of entities within the world is "covered up ( concealed) or disguised" by the 'as' -structure of the assertion, such a "closing off' and "covering up" point to the origi­ nal truth ( disclosedness ) of being-here ( SZ 2 2 2 ) . Taking aim at the logical prejudice, Heidegger sums up the forego­ ing argument as follows: =

Th e asserti on is n o t the prim ary "place" of truth bu t rath er th e reverse, the

assertion as n 1 oue of appt up ricttion of the uncovc rc dncss and as a m an-

T H E T I M E L I N E S S O F E X I STE N T I A L T R U TH

ner of bei ng-i n-th e-world is grounded i n the uncove ri ng or, better, the disclosedness of being-h ere. Th e most o riginal "tru th" is the "place" of th e assertion and th e o ntological condition of the possibili ty for the fact th at asse rtions c an be true or false ( uncovering or coveri ng up) . (SZ 2 2 6 )

As reviewed in Chapter 3 , Heidegger interprets Aristotle's alleged de­ termination of truth as the preeminent sense of being in such a way that it not only excludes every composition and thereby any possibility of fal­ sity, but at the same time makes bivalence possible . In his logic lectures, Heidegger reconstrues this determination of truth as the original mean ing of hermeneutic understanding. While taking x as F can fail, there is a significance to the structure of such hermeneutic under­ standing that is presupposed by any possibility of success or failure and, by extension , the truth or falsity of assertions. Heidegger is echoing this same line of argument in Being and Time with his conception of the dis­ closedness of being-here as "the most original phenomenon of the truth . " What remains to be explained is the alleged certainty of this phe­ nomenon ( SZ 3 07£) . 4·4 The Logos of Conscience, Resolute n ess, and

"the Most O rigi n al Truth" Care constitutes the fundamental sense of ' being-here. ' However, if care can be genuine or not, this manner of being is not regarded in its entire ty ( i . e . , in an adequately complete or comprehensive fashion ) , as long as attention is fixed only on a way of caring that is less than au­ thentic. So, too, the case that being-he re is not something on h and but has, instead, the unified struc ture indicated by care cannot be success­ fully made as long as the evidence for this sense of genuine ( authen­ tic) care has not been provided. "For only when this entity h as become accessible phenome nally in its genuineness and entirety, does the ques­ tion of the sense of the being of this entity, the existence of which in­ cludes an understanding of being as such , attain a basis that can with­ stand a test" (SZ 30 1 ) . In order to appreciate the necessi ty of this step, it m ay help to recall Heidegger's claim that those lost to th e crowd fail to recognize differences in n1anners of being. Everyday existence ( non­ genuine care ) satisfies itself wi th the economic equation of being and being-on-han d, an equation that gives rise to the hegemony of the log­ ical p r ej u dic e . In o rde r to show that th is equation is a "category mis­ =

ttl k P '' ;-l n rl ovP rl ooks t h P m a n n e r of hP i n g t h � t i s

prnjJPr to h � i n g-h � r� ; i t

H E I D E G G E R ' S C O N C E PT OF TRUTH

is necessary to demonstrate what it means to care, that is, "to be-here" genuinely. This task is yet a further consequence of the reversal and transfor­ mation demanded by Heidegger's "formally indicative method" of phi­ losophizing. Philosophical concepts are formal indications in the sense that they refer in an allegedly strictly formal way to care ( or existence, the sense of being, and the like ) as "a task to be carried out by oneself," that is to say, something that the philosopher has to re trieve from obliv­ ion and only can retrieve by reenacting. In order to establish that " the rui nation of factual life" - a lapsed caring or forgottenness of being ­ is the status quo and, in the process, demonstrate the possibility of philosophically ("coun ter-ruinously" ) retrieving the sense of being, genuine care must be exhibited and interpre ted. The interpre tation of ge nuine existence depends, like any other in­ terpretation, upon a specific sort of logos. The logos in question is a call or summons, not an assertion. Being-here is "summoned" (angerufen) to its own proper self or, more precisely, to th e potential-to-be that is most distinctively i ts own. The call that summons being-here from its lapsed state and to its ge nuine potential-to-be-itself is called "con­ science" (Gewissen) . Conscience " testifies" to the possibility of auth en­ ticity - and thus the disclosure of genuine care as the manner of being proper to being-here ( SZ 2 8 8 ) . The conscience in question is not a religious or ethical experience, but instead a mode of talking (Rede) , one of the basic existentials. ( Ex­ istentials, it bears recalling, constitute the manner of existing or "being­ here," where ' here ' signifies the fundamental disclosedness of itself and other manners of being; cf. SZ 1 3 2f, 2 2 of. ) This emphasis on analyzing conscience as an existential does not mean that the usual understand­ ing of the phenomenon may be left out of consideration completely or that it is not closely connected with the way the phenomenon is un­ packed by Heidegger. If the existential analysis of conscience is legiti­ mate, then "the ordinary interpretations must be intelligible precisely on the basis of it, not least in regard to that in which they mistake the phenomenon and why they conceal it.'' � 06 Heidegger accordingly de­ votes a section (§59 ) of Being and Time to the relation between the ex­ istential interpretation and the "vulgar" interpretation of conscience , 1 o6 SZ 2go ; see al s o 2 68f, 2 7 1 f, 2 8 1 , an d 295: S ti l l , the existentially more original inter­ pretation also discloses pol 5ibilities of m o re ori ginal , existe n ti el understandi ng, as long a � on tulo�ically cunccivi ng docs not allo\v it()clf to be cut off fro m the on tic experience. " "

TH E T I M E L I N E S S O F EX I S T E N T I A L T R U T H

subsuming under the latter "the everyday understanding of con­ science" and the "anthropological, psychological, and theological the­ ories of conscience" based upon that understanding ( SZ 2 90 ) . Never­ theless, the discussion of that relation is relatively scanty, something that Heidegger excuses by noting that "in the con text of the problem of this treatise , the analysis of conscience is only in the service of the funda­ mental ontological question" (SZ 2 90 ) . In other words, conscience is principally examined as an existential phenomenon, "testifying" to the genuine manner of being that is proper to being-here , namely, its dis­ closiveness. In what follows, unless otherwise specified, the term 'con­ science' is used exclusively in this existential sense. Conscience stems from bei ng-he re itself; it interrupts a pattern of constantly listening to the crowd and calls being-here to the potential­ to-be that is most properly its own. 1 07 Heidegger interprets the flight to the crowd as a flight in the face of the eeriness of being-here at all, an eeri ness attributable , at least in part, to the fact that each individual that is-he re is thrown into a world that he or she is not completely "at home in. " This eeriness about existence is the same eeriness that "genuinely" reveals itself in the basic disposition of anxiety and confronts being­ here with the nothingness of the world ( SZ 2 7 6 ) . "Insofar as what mat­ ters to being-here - as care - is i ts being, it calls itself as it is in fact laps­ ing i nto the crowd, calling itself out of the eeriness [ of being in-the-world] to i ts own potential-to-be. " 1 08 Conscience is accordingly not the voice of an alien force that is somehow on hand over and against being-here. Since conscience calls being-here in a way "contrary to what one might expect and even contrary to the will ," it does, indeed, sug­ gest such a "typical" interpretation ( SZ 2 7 5 ) . Yet, for all its contrariness to what the person who "is-here" wants or expects, the call of conscience not on ly is about being-here , but also both comes from her being-here and comes over it. According to Heidegger, this character of the phe­ nomenon, in which being-here is the one summoning as well as the one

1 07 SZ

2 7 0f, 2 8g. Not t o b e overlooked is th e fact that this poten tial-to-be is n o t t h e

te n tial to be on hand , but rather the

po­

po te n tial of not be i n g at al l . Cf. SZ 2 6 2 : "As a pos­

s i bi l i ty, death gives be i ng here n ot h i ng to ' ac tualize ' and n o th i n g that it could itself be -

as ac tual. I t

is

th e

pos s ib i l i ty of th e

i m possibil ity of every way of behaving towards . . . ,

of every way of existing . . . . Bei n g towards de ath in the sense of an ti ci pa ti ng t h e

s ibi l ity first

mables t h i s possibility and m akes i t free as suc h . "

pos

­

1 o8 SZ 2 8 7 ; th e expression ' ou t of t h e eeri n e ss ' (au� de-r Unheimlirhkeit) can mean fr o m ' or ' o n the basis of th e eeri ness. ' Both ' u nca n n i n ess' a n d ' e eriness ' captu re th e sense of l) tra ngeness o r n 0 t be i n g {lf h o me indict ted by ' l 'n hez mlirhkeit. ' '

' H EI D EGGER S

C O N C E PT O F T R U T H

summoned , underscores the fact that care defines being-here (as the being for whom what matters is one 's own being itself) . Conscience con­ firms (with an "eerie" or "uncanny" certainty discussed below) that what matters to being-here is its being i tself or, equivalently, to be oneself. In this sense the call of conscience is originally, that is to say, existentially " the call of care ." Conscience reveals itself as care: the caller i s bei ng-here, anxie ty-ridden in the th rown ness (being-already in . . . ) about its potential-to-be . The called is equally this bei ng-here , summoned to i t� ownmost potential-to-be ( ahead-of-i tself . . . ) . And being-here is summon ed th rough the call from lapsing i n to th e crowd (being-already-involved-in th e world of concern ) . ( SZ 2 7 7 ; see 2 7 4-2 79 )

In this way Heidegger explains how the same being-here calls and is called on ( addressed ) in the call of conscience. As a means of elabo­ rating the content of the call, he first points to what is the same "in all experiences and interpretations of conscience ," namely, guilt ( SZ 2 8of) . However, caveats are immediately in order. If the call of con­ scien ce is the call of care, ' guilty' cannot have the usual sense here, as though being-here were, for example, indebted to others or somehow culpable or liable in regard to something (other than itself) . Con­ science says nothin g; it provides "no information about events in the world," it comtnunicates "no knowledge about affairs" and also "no ideal , universal potential-to-be" ( SZ 2 7 3, 2 8o) . Conscience testifies in an original way to a guil t but this guilt is not to be understood in terms of what stems from the domain of some "reckoning concern" (verrech­ nendes Besorgen) , like that of maintaining a balance in a bank accoun t or de termining the deficiency of something that should be on hand (and thus remains determ