Being and Time is a negative book and every positive exposition ends up putting something which, in fact, cannot be put. A positum is that which is put, that on which a certain handful of tenets can be maintained. That is to say that doctrine can only be ontic, for the exposition itself implies that there is something on which discourse is all about. But Being and Time attempts to signal that which is not itself an entity, and this means that it necessarily consists in no doctrinal exposition.
This is grosso modo the plot of a text which appears in the horizon of twentieth-century philosophy avoiding the impression of being a book with contents. (Contents regarding what?). And this means that from the Heideggerian magnum opus a series of happy statements and apothegms cannot be deduced, because its task consists in signaling in entities (that Befragtes referred to in the consideration of the Seinsfrage’s formal structure, § 2), that which is never an entity; that non-entitative which the ontological tradition did, however, positivize and ontify, thus losing what supposedly was to be gained: an understanding of the meaning of being. The meaning of being is that which does not appear and which properly cannot appear because, whenever it is made relevant, it then goes unnoticed and it’s concealed ipso facto. This is why, contrary to what Critchley thinks (see the former post which provokes this reply), Heidegger does not say so carelessly that the ‘thesis’ he is holding in Being and Time can be summed up nicely in the utterance (extremely simple, according to Critchley): ‘being is time’.
One would rather stubbornly think that some Heidegger scholars, like Critchley, should confess that for a long time Being and Time’s prologue has simply been overlooked or rather not understood at all, because in that prologue it is stressed that the ensuing text will not provide any answers whatsoever. Rather we stumple upon the explicit purpose of the text: to work out the question of the meaning of being. And this explains why Heidegger, indeed, does not say what Critchley says he says, but just this: Our provisional aim is the interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of being. That is to say: this aim has to be proved attainable within the book’s development and cannot at all be taken as supposed or already attained.
Heidegger proceeds quite cautiously, contrary to Critchley for whom much can be said, when contrariwise the positive stance is undermined in every page of the book. Being is not this nor that, neither what is beyond nor what is closer. It is, strictly speaking, no-thing. And this makes one understand why in Was ist Metaphysik? (1929) Heidegger does not hesitate to talk about working out the question of nothingness (ausarbeiten die Frage nach dem Nichts).
Critchley asserts that being is time; Heidegger affirms, however, that the connection between the intepretation of time and the understanding of being is just a provisional goal. And, as we all know, Being and Time (the projected work) remained a fragment.
This is grosso modo the plot of a text which appears in the horizon of twentieth-century philosophy avoiding the impression of being a book with contents. (Contents regarding what?). And this means that from the Heideggerian magnum opus a series of happy statements and apothegms cannot be deduced, because its task consists in signaling in entities (that Befragtes referred to in the consideration of the Seinsfrage’s formal structure, § 2), that which is never an entity; that non-entitative which the ontological tradition did, however, positivize and ontify, thus losing what supposedly was to be gained: an understanding of the meaning of being. The meaning of being is that which does not appear and which properly cannot appear because, whenever it is made relevant, it then goes unnoticed and it’s concealed ipso facto. This is why, contrary to what Critchley thinks (see the former post which provokes this reply), Heidegger does not say so carelessly that the ‘thesis’ he is holding in Being and Time can be summed up nicely in the utterance (extremely simple, according to Critchley): ‘being is time’.
One would rather stubbornly think that some Heidegger scholars, like Critchley, should confess that for a long time Being and Time’s prologue has simply been overlooked or rather not understood at all, because in that prologue it is stressed that the ensuing text will not provide any answers whatsoever. Rather we stumple upon the explicit purpose of the text: to work out the question of the meaning of being. And this explains why Heidegger, indeed, does not say what Critchley says he says, but just this: Our provisional aim is the interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of being. That is to say: this aim has to be proved attainable within the book’s development and cannot at all be taken as supposed or already attained.
Heidegger proceeds quite cautiously, contrary to Critchley for whom much can be said, when contrariwise the positive stance is undermined in every page of the book. Being is not this nor that, neither what is beyond nor what is closer. It is, strictly speaking, no-thing. And this makes one understand why in Was ist Metaphysik? (1929) Heidegger does not hesitate to talk about working out the question of nothingness (ausarbeiten die Frage nach dem Nichts).
Critchley asserts that being is time; Heidegger affirms, however, that the connection between the intepretation of time and the understanding of being is just a provisional goal. And, as we all know, Being and Time (the projected work) remained a fragment.
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