Being without Time: Possibility as existentiale and furthering the preliminary investigation in Sein und

Zeit

0. Introduction

In Sein und Zeit Heidegger makes ground-breaking forays into issues concerning

phenomenology, existentialism, ontology and time, all in service to answering what he called "the

question of the meaning of Being" SZ 1. The goal of this paper is to question as to how far

Heidegger has answered this question and what, if anything remains to be further done. Clearly

there is yet some work outstanding, given that a whole third of the first book was planned and not

finished, in addition to a second book1. However, an inference from this particular fact that

something more was planned and was not completed does not itself tell us exactly what it is that is

still outstanding, nor the next step in undertaking that completion. I argue that what has been

completed thus far gives us sufficient insight and clues at least as to what the next step in the

investigation is to be, which is re-interpreting temporality as it has been disclosed thus far in the

book in terms of possibility, once it has been rigorously analyzed in the fashion of the other

existentiales2 and phenomena within the book. To start, I will explicate some of the terms and

concepts that I will be using (1 and 2). Then, I will argue that given said analyses and Heidegger's

own thoughts, that there is still outstanding work to be done as regards his initial question (3).

Finally, I will argue that possibility is the next step in carrying the investigation further, and some of

the ways that it fills in the gaps and what further analysis would look like (4).

1 SZ 39-40, The third division of the first book was to be time and Being, while the second book was to handle the question of temporality in comparison with Kant, Descartes and Aristotle.

2 Existentiale is a technical term for Heidegger roughly corresponding to what others would call a 'concept'. The reason we use this term is analogous to why we use the term Dasein instead of human being, which will be explained later. I can say however that anything denoted by 'existentiale' is something that we necessarily must be involved with insofar as we exist, which is something unique only to Dasein. Further, any phenomena that may occur in our actual lives will be experienced mediately through these existentiales, or after having grappled with them first.

1. Phenomena and Being

The first crucial tool for both this paper and Sein und Zeit is the distinction between beings

and Being3, 'concepts' that we even now still conflate. The first is a something that we are more

familiar with or is in common parlance; roughly, beings would correspond to anything we'd call

objects, or something you would denote with a noun and predicate a property of. Such beings can

range from fairly straight forward such as cat, cup, human being, house, to more complicated such

as country, society, couple, nine, etc. While beings are necessary for any sort of analysis in any

discipline as being the who or what inquired about, Heidegger is not interested in doing an analysis

of what makes a being a being and it's properties and classifications. Rather, his analysis is

interested in Being, or the maner in which beings act or occupy time. More simply, the way beings

are, in the sense of a verb or an adverb, not a predication. For example, we may have the hammer as

a being before us, we can look it over and catalogue its properties, but it is the act of hammering

that shows this beings Being, or it's being left in a place until the appropriate time, or in trying to

use it and finding it unsuited to the task. Note that 'being' as an object is relatively less important

when considering Being. In considering a hammer, when concerned with it's Being by using it, the

hammer as mere object is inconspicuous (SZ 71 section 16.). We rarely measure or check the colour

or weigh or in any other way try to evaluate the properties of a hammer that we plan on

immediately using. All that matters is that it can be easily located and that it performs its task i.e.

Isn't in a state of disrepair or is unwieldy.

This distinction explains both what Dasein means and why Heidegger infamously

introduced the term into our vocabulary. The phrase 'human being' is something we are all already

familiar with and what it entails and what properties a being is supposed to have to count as one.

However, given our lack of interest or attention to Being, we are far much less aware of ourselves

as a distinct being amongst all beings when it comes to analyzing the world temporally or

existentially; we are such that Being in general, particularly our Being, matters to us and we are

3 I'll use a capitalized B for the existential signification of Being to help disambiguate the two.

responsible for that Being. What this Being is, how we are responsible for it and how we choose to

act or maintain ourselves towards that Being shall be what occupies the contents of the book.

Something that we would find in another book of philosophy, such as a 'human nature', 'essence' or

'ethics' in traditional usages of the terms is not what is discussed here, and we can tell so for

ourselves via my previous distinction of beings and Being. One would describe the properties of

human nature or essence, for example, in the predicative sense. It would make no sense to describe

the action of, nor how human essence occupies time; nor how we would comport ourselves to it. It

would require a Da-sein in their Being to be factically (actually) occupied with the question of

human essence for human essence to come into the light of Being i.e. By stuying it. On the other

hand, however, the analysis we shall give of Da-seins Being will be such that we are always

involved and comported towards the existentiales disclosed in some way. We cannot be without

having always already been involved with the existentiales of our existence. A consideration of

human essence may only occur after humanity has reached a historiacl point where such a question

can be articulated and investigated; however, we are always the being whose worldly meaning is

care, that is Being-towards-death, temporal, etc

So, now we know what it is that we shall be studying, which is the Being of the distinctive

being Da-sein. The next question, is how we shall carry out the investigation. Depending on the

manner of investigation and discipline, there are different tools, methods and procedures to follow

and available at hand. So the question is what methodology will provide the best tools and

procedures for analyzing something like Being, particularly of Da-sein. The answer given is

phenomenology and how we may glimpse Being through phenomena. Now, to give a formal

definition in the form of assertions would not do justice to this methodology, and so I shall omit

such here4. Rather, there are two aspects of phenomena and Heidegger's approach that I would like

to emphasize and leave the rest to the unfolding of the book to show through action what the

phenomenological method is. The first is his early characterization of phenomenology as "to let that

which shows itself from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself." SZ 34. This is as

4 See pg 195 'Assertion as a derivative mode of interpretation' such a point.

opposed to a phenomena which resembles or is seemingly another but really isn't (a case of

mistaken identity), or where the presence of one being announces itself through another phenomena

(i.e. The presence of a fever being sighted through the phenomena of raised temperature, swelled

glands, etc SZ 29). In the first place, we will ceaselessly see Heidegger trying to clarify our initial,

ordinary misconceptions and wrong presuppositions, with many being identifiable as our naively

taking one phenomena as true that seems to be what we intend, but really is not. The way we take

presence-at-hand as constituting the reality of countless phenomena and existentiales, the everyday

interpretation of death that obscures the existential interpretation of it, and countless other such

examples are precisely things that we are warned against in this part of the introduction. In contrast

to this, the phenomena of announcing is, roughly, the manner in which the book will unfold; indeed,

any positive work done and new existentiales brought into our disclosure in the book will take the

form of being sighted or caught glimpse of in how it shows itself from a more common place, more

everyday phenomena. This leads to the second point I want to emphasize, which is the existentiale

to be disclosed 'showing itself as itself and from itself'. In bringing something into our sight, the

way we conceptualize and articulate our understanding should take its guidance from the very thing

we are trying to speak of. The artists continual glancing back at the actual subject in creating his

own, limited duplicate for himself, so to speak. Thus, if we are ever in a situation where our

understanding of a phenomena or Being does not take its direction from the very thing we wish to

disclose, then we have to reason to suspect whether or not the analysis has been carried out as

thoroughly as it may be, nor even adequately up until that point. This point will hopefully be made

clearer shortly.

2. Understanding and disclosure

From the beginning Heidegger tells us that time is going to be the ultimate horizon or

vantage point from which to understand or see the Being of Da-sein SZ 1. Thus, we rely on a couple

crucial passages in Division 5, Being-in-as-such5 to determine what is involved in any act of

understanding whatsoever before we ask about what sort of understanding of temporality we have

arrived at by the end of the book. Now, an immediate objection that could be raised is that the

discussion of understanding comes after Heidegger's analysis of beings we encounter within-the-

world, and thus that his analysis of understanding only applies to such worldly beings and their

Being (presence-at-hand, ready-to-hand, Being-with-others). However, we quickly find in the

second division of the book that this is not the case, as we will find there numerous references to

components of understanding applied to phenomena and existentiales different in kind from the

beings mentioned above i.e. The whole of Da-sein, death, temporality or even the investigation into

Dasein's Being itself, etc. Thus, if the analysis of understanding does indeed apply to these, then

having it on the table will allow us to both answer whether or not time has been understood with

what has already been written in the book, and if not, what would be necessary for a further

disclosure.

So then, what does understanding a being and its Being entail? To start, in section 31

Heidegger gives a lengthy discussion of the existentiale of possibility. Consider the quotes: "Da-sein

is in every case what it can be, and in the way in which it is its possibility", or, "...possibility as an

existentiale is the most primordial and ultimate positive way in which Da-sein can be characterized

ontologically" (my emphasis) SZ 143. Cleary, Heidegger sees a connection between possibility and

understanding. If the latter quote is to be taken seriously, possibility is in fact the more primordial of

the two, and thus understanding itself should be understood or sighted from the horizon of

possibility. So does he say himself, "Why does the understanding... always press forward into

possibilities? It is because the understanding has in itself the existential structure which we call

"projection". SZ 145. Projection is, roughly, where we understand something by determining what

possibilities it holds for us from amongst what possibilities we already understand, with a particular

emphasis on the type of understanding where we say we are competent or mastered something, our

ability to do or use as opposed to a theoretical, formal cognition.

5 Particularly 31 'Being-there as understanding' and 32 'Understanding and interpretation'

As an example, suppose a compass and when the first colonists from Europe engaged with

the indigenous peoples of America. For a colonist, while the compass has a primary designation as

an instrument for determining direction, it nonetheless also has other significations, such as being a

trinket of value, possibly a family heirloom, signifying authority, etc. All of these are possibilities

drawn from the throwness or past that lies behind that individual Da-sein; it is a projecting-upon the

object in front of themselves the possibilities that have been handed down to them from others as to

how to comport themselves towards this object. Taking an indigenous person who comes across it

for the first time, they also may be said to understand the object in front of them, but their

understanding is different from that of the colonist. Because they have to project from their

throwness or Situation, the instrument in front of them as telling direction is not something that they

will initially have available, and thus not be able to project. Far more likely are interpretations such

as "child's play thing", "valuable object", "worship artifact", etc. The way that this object can be

taken in hand and used and mastered is dependent upon what we bring along with us as possibilities

to project upon it. Any understanding or interpretation of a being and its Being is an extension of

the Being of us, Da-sein, over and upon the entity at hand. Moreover, this way of understanding, in

terms of the possibilities with which this being can be used in our Being is a more authentic and

primordial undertanding than a definition in terms of formal properties and mental representation6.

Thus, an act of understanding is a thrown projection of of our, Da-seins Being upon a being before

us and its possibilities. "As understanding, Dasein projects its Being upon possibilities". SZ 148

Having sketched out what role possibility plays here, it would prudent to remind ourselves

of what kind of possibility we are not talking about, as Heidegger himself rules out. Typically we

understand possibility in terms of logical possibility, or as something which resides in the future and

is not yet here but could be. "... to be sharply distinguished both from empty logical possibility and

from the contingency of something present-at-hand, so far as with the present-at-hand this or that

can 'come to pass'" SZ 143. Something is logically possible if it is any way mentally conceivable or

does not entail a logical contradiction. Thus, the realm of logical possibility is immense, and while

6 See Heideggers discussion of ready-to-hand and presence-at-hand.

the possibilities there do reflect Da-seins Being in so far as they could be thrown projections from

our own Being, the question of how we comport ourselves to those possibilities or bring them along

with us in Being-in-the-world is almost entirely invalid. In almost any facet of your, my or any Da-

seins Being that we can imagine, we almost never brace ourselves nor weigh our possibilities for

Being or acting with the threat or fear of spontaneously combusting, nor any such other outlandish

logical possibility. Thus, logical possibility is far from being a useful nor instructive concept if what

we are concerned with is our Being. On the other hand, we can think of possibility as the absence of

an object (presence-at-hand), that currently is not in its place and soon will be. If someone is to

bring me a coffee while I write, currently the location of the cup is elsewhere from here, and soon it

will be in my hand. Before I undertake to procure my cup of coffee, I have the ability to decide to

undertake the actions that will change that objects location to being in my grasp. However, what is

it that is occurring when I actually set out to actualize this possibility? Is it the case that I am

thinking of just some arbitrary configuration of particles that will be mechanistically brought into

my grasp? To describe the situation in abstract, maybe, but certainly not from the lived perspective

of the one undertaking the experience. The feeling of a lack, a thirst, an anticipation of its

quenching, my shyness in allowing a lesser known acquaintance to purchase it, the snobbishness

with which I choose a preferred coffee shop, these are ways of describing the phenomenal content

of my deciding to purchase a coffee, and it is how we wrestle with possibilities in this phenomenal

way that we are concerned with. While it may seem easier to understand such a mundane example

in the initial formal, abstract fashion, the way we comport ourselves to possibilities, the closing out

of alternative possibilities that we must take responsibility for and our anticipation in actualizing

that possibility would be some of the phenomenal, existential content that is present in deciding

upon any possibility whatsoever, and is what we are interested in. Thus, such a formal description

of possibility is not what we are interested in.

The last structure we need raise from his discussion of understanding is the existentiale of

Interpretation, which is an existentiale grounded upon understanding. As stated previously,

understanding is the projection of the Being of us, Da-sein, upon the entity in front of us, freeing it

into the possibilities with which we are concerned in our Being. However, if we are speaking of

understanding in general, then we are similarly speaking of possibilities in general, or we are

speaking of the entirety of the projections upon the being understood. Take a hammer for instance.

One possibility is to see it as a thing to hammer with; another is a nuisance that has been left in the

wrong place; another is a possible weapon in case of home invasion. In possessing a hammer, even

if I do not mentally represent or theoretically conceive of these possibilities, I understand these as

possibilities of this being in that if the situations arose I would take the item in hand in that manner

and use it. Understanding is general, does not imply articulability, and is more oriented around

mastery and action than thought and representation. Interpretation, on the other hand, is particular,

involves prior conception and moves towards expressibility, and it does so in the following way.

The core of interpretation is the sighting of an entity as something. "...-that which is

explicitly understood has the structure of something as something". SZ 149. Notice that he claims

when something is explicitly understood, we have moved into interpretation. "In the mere

encountering of something it is understood in the totality of its involvements" SZ 149; in

interpretation we move away from just seeing the object as absorbed in all of its involvements to

assigning it to a particular one. In the language of possibility, interpretation is the projection of a

definite, explicit and articulable possibility upon the being before us from amongst the totality of

possibilities that being has. For example, in using the hammer as a hammer, I exclude its other

possibilities as toy, art piece, weapon, etc.

While the as structure, or something as something else gives a hint as to what interpretation

is, Heidegger gives us a more rigorous analysis in the tri-partite structure fore-having, fore-sight and

fore-conception SZ 150. Fore-having is the entire wealth of understanding and interpretation that

we already have available to us. In coming across an entity to interpret, whatever possibilities we

may project upon it are selected from our fore-having i.e. In the previous example of indigenous

peoples and colonists, what each side has available in their fore-having to project upon the being we

would describe as a 'compass' is different, and thus the understanding and range of interpretations

each group may project on this entity is different. Fore-sight is where we look only at certain parts

of our fore-having and the entity in front of us from the perspective or position we are currently in.

If for example I am thirsty and a glass is before me, from the position that I am in I am looking for

something which will aid in slaking that thirst, and thus the possibilities in my fore-having that

serve that purpose will come to the fore over others i.e. Using the glass as a paper weight or a door

stop. "This fore-sight 'takes the first cut' out of what has been taking into our fore-having, and it

does with a view to a definite way in which this can be interpreted"SZ 150 . Finally, in fore-

conception we assign a definite possibility from our fore-having that satisfies or accords with the

perspective from our fore-seeing. The interpretation in question becomes one that we can conceive

or picture to ourselves prior to the actual action, and thus similarly express and share in language.

"... The interpretation has already decided for a definite way of conceiving it [the being to be

understood]... is ground in something we grasp in advance – in a fore-conception." SZ 150. To

share an understanding of a being is an onerous task given the wide-ranging nature of

understanding; even Heidegger describes Being and Time in its entirety as a act of interpretation of

Dasein. Such, or any act of interpretation however, is a much easier task to accomplish, granted that

the interlocuter you wish to discourse with has the same posibilities available in their fore-having;

for example, to instruct them to grasp the hammer as the thing to hammer nails in with they must

already have available in their fore-having what the action of hammering looks like, and if they do

not then we must first labour to bring such an understanding into their fore-having.

Thus, to take all the pieces together as a whole, an intepretation is an assignment of a being

to be understood as something, where the possibility projected is drawn from our fore-having from

the point of view of our fore-sight and that we fore-conceive, or can imagine and articulate said

interpretation prior to our action. In the next section we shall see how Heideggers use of the tri-

partite interpretation structure will show both the role of understanding in temporality, and that

temporality is not as yet properly understood.

3. Time and temporality

With the forgoing analyses, we may now ask the deciding question; has time or temporality

been disclosed or brought into our understanding to the level of depth and rigour promised both by

Heideggers own signposting throughout the book, and also in accordance with what the relevant

prior existentiales outline for any sort of grasp of something viz. Understanding, interpretation,

phenomenology, etc? I believe the answer to this question, even without the knowledge that the last

section of the second division was not written, is clearly no, and that we can infer as much from the

second division of the book with the previous analyses I brought forth in hand.

First, consider one of the prior quotes put forth ("...possibility as an existentiale is the most

primordial and ultimate positive way in which Da-sein can be characterized ontologically") or even

"... we can, in the first instance, only prepare for the problem of possibility. The phenomenal basis

for seeing it at all is provided by the understanding as a disclosive potentiality-for-Being." SZ 144

and the rife mention of possibility throughout the entirety of the book, including the second division

as we shall we see. Leaving aside the question of primordiality, which I will return to in the next

section, there are immediately two issues that signify that something is missing; 1) possibility has

been identifed as an existentiale, and a particularly important one at that, and yet there has only

been numerous mentions of possibilty, not its own definitive analysis to the level of the other so far

identified existentiales, and 2) even if a rigorous analysis was considered not necessary, if

possibility is so important to Daseins Being, then at the very least it will be necessary to explain the

relationship between temporality and possibility and this analysis is also not present.

Next, Heidegger makes it fairly clear that the fore-structure of interpretation, and hence also

the entirety of the analysis of understanding, applies to our grasp of time or temporality. Take the

beginning of division two, where we are explicitly told that we are now going to be concerned with

moving towards temporality. "Ontologcal investigation is a possible kind of interpreting... Every

interpretation has its fore-having, its fore-sight, and its fore-conception." SZ 231/232. The entirety

of the ontological-existential investigation being carried out in the book is hence assigned to being

one amongst innumerable means of interpretation, and therefore we will have to grapple with

everything that interpretation implies. In trying to bring time into articulability in our fore-

conception, we need have the appropriate phenomena already available to us in our fore-having, and

the perspective or point of view required in our fore-sight. "What is the staus of the fore-sight by

which our ontological procedure has hitherto been guided?" SZ 232, or "And how about what we

have had in advance in our hermeneutical Situation hitherto? How about its fore-having?" SZ 233.

Thus, we have clear criteria for what an analysis or interpretation of temporality will entail.

So, we may next begin utilizing interpretation as guidance. The first half of the second

division is dedicated to the question of Daseins Being-a-whole which, once brought into our fore-

having, is intended to give us our first glimpse or fore-sight of temporality. And so does the analysis

continue after the first half of the second division, once Da-seins Being-a-whole has been

existentially analyzed and guaranteed as existentielly possible. Afterwards, Heidegger sets out to

disentangle temporality from how it shows itself through more proximal phenomena, such as

average everydayness and within-timeness (sections IV, V division 2 SZ). Thus, at this point we are

concerned with how temporality shows itself through the already disclosed and available

phenomena listed above. In the language of the introduction of the book, at this point we are

engaged with how temporality announces itself through intermediary phenomena. If this is

appropriate to the kind of Being that temporality possess', then we have no need to inquire any

further and have investigated this phenomena as far as needs and can be. However, from what has

been discussed thus far, this does not seem to be the appropriate sort of disclosure nor role for

temporality. "Time must be brought to light -and genuinely conceived- as the horizon for all

understanding of Being, for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to

be explicated as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the

Being of Da-sein, which understand Being." SZ 17. The role that time is to play in the investigation

into the meaning of Being is not supposed to be that of a fugitive fore-conception that we only

haphazardly fore-see through everyday or average phenomena that are easily available in our fore-

having. Rather, in my interpretation from how I have explicated all these structures that Heidegger

worked with, time is supposed to be that which we have in our fore-having, and from which we can

fore-see and thus articulate or fore-conceive any and all of the existentiales and phenomena related

to the Being of Da-sein or beyond. Our interpretation and conception of temporality needs to be

more than only mediately announced if it is to perform the role that Heidegger has promised it

should, and the way to approach temporality need be guided by temporality itself; as stated from the

introduction, "it must show itself as itself and from itself". Thus, it is evident from the latter parts of

the second divsion that we have not achieved the goal promised earlier on.

To complete our question as to where the status of the investigation completed thus far has

arrived, we can take the very last section 83, 'the existential-temporal analytic of Da-sein, and the

question of fundamental ontology as to the meaning of Being in general'. The question raised at the

beginning of the book was as to the meaning of Being in general, and we took Da-sein as our clue

as a distinctive being amongst beings to be that which we investigate. Thus far in the book we have

investigated Da-sein into its Being. So, where is it that we have actually ended up? "Temporality

has manifested itself... as the meaning of the Being of care" SZ 436. Indeed, temporality has been

disclosed to us insofar as it can be sighted and conceived through the existentiales pertaining to Da-

sein's Being-in-the-world, and how temporality is itsef the ground of the possibility of Da-seins

having-a-world. "Nevertheles, our way of exhibiting the constitution of Da-sein's Being remains

only one way which we may take. Our aim is to work out the question of Being in general". SZ 436.

As stated by Heidegger himself, the original aim of working out the question of Being in general is

as yet unsatisfied, and the explicit aim of the entirety of the investigation that has been completed

has been to put us on a better footing or a better horizon from which to try and interpret the

question again. Using the analysis of the interpretation structure, it is with the existential-temporal

analytic of Da-sein available to us in our fore-having that we wish to fore-see our first glimpse as to

how to reformulate the question as to the meaning of Being in general and thus conceive it and

bring it into articulability. "And can we even seek the answer as long as the question of the meaning

of Being remains unformulated?" SZ 437. The following quotes to finish the section sum up

"One must seek a way of casting light on the fundamental question of ontology, and this is

the way one must go" SZ 437. This is to say, that we are still preoccupied with the question of what

to have in our fore-having and how to fore-see in that fore-having that which we seek. "The conflict

as to the Interpretation of Being cannot be allayed, because it has not yet been enkindledI... Towards

this alone the forgoing investigation is on the way" SZ 437. Explicitly, as regards our initial goal,

we have only begun to go down a path that will allow us to appropriately interpret the first question

asked. "Someting like 'Being' has been disclosed in the understand-of-Being which belongs to

existent Dasein as a way in which it understands". SZ 437. Using the analysis of understanding

given previously, we may now state clearly exactly what kind of grasp we have of Being, which is a

mediate understanding insofar as we only know how Being announces itself through the phenomena

of Da-seins unique Being. "How is this disclosive understanding of Being at all possible for Da-

sein?...Hence the ecstatical projection of Being must be made possible by some primordial way in

which ecstactical temporality temporalizes. How is this mode of the temporalizing of temporality to

be Interpreted? Is there a way that which leads from primordial time to the meaning of Being? Does

time itself manifest itself as the horizon of Being?" SZ 437. It is precisely these questions as to

where to carry the investigation next that I wish attempt to shed some light upon, with the

phenomena and clue available in our fore-having to wrestle with being possibility.

4. Possibility as phenomena within which we may carry forth further the Interpretation of

the meaning of Being.

At this point I have shown, either explicitly from Heidegger's own word or as an inference

from the analyses he has provided, that the analysis he initially sought and promised was in fact not

completed. It is clear that he believed time is the direction we need to move in, but what more is

there to disclose about time that he has not done so already? From what, and to where are we to

look to give us a better footing with which to sight time? In my view, the phenomena and

existentiale of possibility provides us the means for moving forward in such a way, and I argue both

that Heidegger himself had such in mind, and even if that wasn't explicitly what he intended, that it

is still a strong inference from the analysis he has put forth thus far.

Let us return to one of our titular quotes, "...possibility as an existentiale is the most

primordial and ultimate positive way in which Da-sein can be characterized ontologically". Now

we are concerned with the question of primordiality, or what is the highest vantage point from

which we can sight Da-seins Being, and then Being in general in turn. Thus far we have one of

many possible Interpretations of the Being of Da-sein, but not an interpretation where we fore-see

and fore-conceive the Being of Da-sein with possibility as that from which we project in our fore-

having. Moreover, if possibility is more primordial than the fore-going Interpretation, then we

should be able to re-interpret the analysis done so far in terms of possibility. What shall we take as

our point of departure, however, or which pheonema should we appeal to to try to bring possibility

into our sight in this fashion?

As stated in the last section, there is more than one way to carry out an interpretation and no

one correct way over and above others. Thus, I will suggset a couple of phenomena that we could

try to wrest our interpretation from, starting with Heidegger's analysis of death.

The phenomena of death is originally adduced as a means to bring the wholeness of Da-sein

into our understanding, which is a step prior to being able sight temporality as being constitutive of

that wholeness. So in death do we sight numerous significations that death has for us and that is

constitutive for any Dasein, namely death being non-relational, certain, indefinite, and not to be

outstripped SZ 258/259. It is also the impossibility of existence, in that death is something that no

Da-sein may ever factically Be, as it is the end of any possible way of Being. These are a couple of

the ultimate characteristics of death that Heidegger brings into the discussion and thus uses further.

However, as important as they are and they do indeed get used further in the analysis of conscience

and authenticity, I argue that these are only prepatory ways of explaining the value that death plays,

and it is rather possibility that is the more fundamental characterization, and that makes these prior

ones even possible. Heidegger himself says as much, although a more formal analysis of possibility

has been omitted. "In the first instance, we must characterize Being-towards-death as a Being-

towards-a-possibility- indeed, towards a distinctive possibiliy of Da-sein itself" SZ 261. Indeed,

even all the qualifiers that we just previously mentioned are not predicated on "death" itself as some

free floating phenomena, but death as a distinctive possibility, a possibility that has those qualities.

"On the other hand, if Being-towards-death has to disclose understandingly the possibility which we

have characterized, and if it is to disclose it as a possibility, then in such Being-towards-death this

possibility must not be weakened: it must be understood as a possibility, it must be cultivated as a

possibility, and we must put up with it as a possibility, in the way we comport ourselves to it" SZ

261. Death is both to be understood and thought of as a possibility, we are to be towards it as if it is

a possbility, and keeping it as possibility is the highest injunction Heidegger gives to it; however,

none of this has been shown with possibility being already riorously analyzed. Further, while

Heidegger has discussed Being-towards-death as a phenomena, whether that of others or our own or

in average everdayness, how we can choose authentically or inauthentically comport ourselves to it,

the structure of how to comport ourselves to a possibility whatsoever and how to cultivate those

possibilities is also absent.

Interestingly, the phenomena of birth is only mentioned in passing, even though it as well is

a distinctive possibility of Dasein and also contributes to the wholeness and finitude of Dasein. "But

it remains all the more enigmatic in what way this historizing, as fate, is to constitute the whole

'connectedness' of Dasein from its birth to its death" SZ 387. Or "It (Dasein) stretches itself along in

such a way that its own Being is constituted in advance as a stretching along. The 'between' which

relates to birth and death already lies in the Being of Da-sein... Understood existentially, birth is not

and never is something past in the sense of no longer present-at-hand; and death is just as far from

having the kind of Being of something still oustanding, not yet present-at-hand but coming along.

Factical Dasein exists as born... As long as Dasein factically exists, both the 'ends' and their

'between' are..." SZ 374. The reason that I bring up birth in a discussion of possibility is that we are

still searching for a good vantage point from which to disclose possibility. However, not all

possibilities are the same; namely, we have the different tenses of past, present and future. Death

may offer us an insight into possibility as being one of the most, if not the most distinctive of

futural possibilities; Death is a possibility from the future that never gets actualized nor

experienced, and is always imminent. The closest we can have to experiencing death is our Being-

towards-death, which is the way we comport ourself towards this distinctive futural possibility. In

the same way, birth is a possibility from the past that never was actualized nor experienced and is

always already behind us and yet that we always already are. A more structured analysis of birth and

our Being-towards-birth could afford us the appropriate phenomenal vantage point of possibility as

past; any investigation into possibility as an existentiale need address the fact that, as Dasein, we

comport ourselves to possibilties both ahead of us, behind us, and immediately before us, and here

we have a the chance to accomplish one more of these.

Now here we need pause for a moment and ask, what is the value of the forgoing

suggestions? So far I have sketched a path on how to see possibility in a certain light but how does

that show that possibility is more 'primordial', indeed that it's any more relevant to the prior

interpretation than what Heidegger already disclosed? My response is this; if possibility is indeed

more primordial, then as I mentioned previously, we should be able to re-interpret previous

existentiales and phenomena in terms of possibility. So we may we now do so. Authenticity, in

which one resolutely takes upon one's ownmost possibilities by having the wholeness of Dasein

disclosed to us through death (and birth) is only a way of comporting ourselves to our own

possibilities, bounded on both sides by those distinctive possibilities of the tenses of past and future.

In the same way that Being-towards-death-or-birth is a way of Being towards distinctive

possibilities of Dasein, so is authenticity a way of comporting ourselves to the possibilities

disclosed inbeween those two extremes. Understanding birth and death as possibilities allows us to

bring the whole of Da-sein to the fore, with the 'inbetween' being those possibilities that do come,

run their course and then pass and that we must choose or not choose and be responsible for. With

our new interpretation,we can characterize the enirety of authenticity and inauthenticity as ways of

comporting ourselves to our possibilities and the kinds of those possibilities that we have to

comport ourselves to. The previous analysis has been lifted out of its being disclosed through the

proximal, nearest phenomena that we most commonly interpret beings through. So, such is one

advantage, but another is that if we can uniformly re-interpret other existentiales in terms of

possibility then we will have succeeded in describing Da-sein from an appropriate phenomenal

basis that truly keeps its wholeness together.

So, let us try re-interpreting another existentiale. Thus, let us take this phenomenal vantage

point, that we make our departure from the ecstases of temporality. "The future, the character of

having been, and the Present, show the phenomenal characteristics of the 'towards-oneself', the

'back-to', and the 'letting-oneself-be-encountered-by'... Temporality is the prmordial 'outside-of-

itself' in and for itself" SZ 328/329. "The question is.... about how "coming-towards-oneself" is, as

such, to be primordially defined." SZ 330. The term 'ecstasis' comes from the etymology of ek-,

meaning "outside" or "beyond" and -stasis, meaning to "stand" or "remain in place". The

connotation of the word was that of a mystical or holy trance, an 'out-of-body experience' or an

absorption and lostness in the divine outside of oneself. So here too does Heidegger play with this

connotation in using the word esctasis to refer to Da-seins absorption with that which is beyond or

outside of itself. A rock never gets outside of itself nor beyond itself. A change of location, a scratch

on it, being picked up and carried along by an animal or person, the rock itself is not concerned nor

interested with any of these occurrences. A rock is never drawn outside of itself or its 'body' into a

lostness in what occurs around it. Perhaps more arguably would be the further assertion that living

entities such as trees and animals are not open ecstatically in the manner that Da-sein is either. A

tree is at least responsive to stimuli in a way that a rock is not; watering it will aid it in growing and

brighten its foliage; it will try and grow its leaves wherever the sunlight is coming from. However,

this is not yet an 'out-of-body', other-concerned phenomena as of yet. A tree does not discriminate,

acknowledge or 'see' the entities that affect it; there is no sighting nor interpreting of the sunlight

that nourishes it but rather a mechanistic response to the suns rays the same as if we dropped a rock

and allowed it to be carried by gravity. Thus living beings such as trees are not open ecstatically in

the way we have defined it. More debatable would be if this applied to animals as well; I think that

animals are indeed more than just passive recipients or mechanisms that respond to external stimuli

but rather, that they have the consciousness to be involved, interpret and in trance with what is

outside of themselves. Nonetheless, Heidegger would state that it is Da-sein that is uniquely

ecstatical; qua human being we are indeed affected by psychological, chemical, biological and

physical laws and thus mechanistically determined like the previously mentioned entities, but qua

Dasein, as the entity that is its there and for whom the possibilities disclosed in that situation matter,

we are something distinct. More than just being passive recipients, we can lose ourselves in our

absorption with what would affect us or what we will affect, we can be enthralled by possibilities.

"Here it remains an open question whether through existentia -in these explanations of it as actuality

that at first seem quite different- the being of a stone or even life as the being of plants and animals

is adequately thought. In any case living creatures are as they are without standing outside their

being as such and within the truth of being, preserving in such standing the essential nature of their

being. Of all the beings that are, presumably the most difficult to think about are living creatures,

because on the one hand they are in a certain way most closely akin to us, and on the other they are

at the same time separated from our ek-sistent essence by an abyss" LOH 248. Thus, to sum up

ecstasis, a way of stating it is that, in our concern for the future, the possibilities in said future is of

great concern for us and we sight them from the possibilities that lie behind us in in the current

factical situation, or the moment of vision (SZ 328). "The ecstatical character of the primordial

future lies precisely in the fact that the future closes one's potentiality-for-being..." SZ 330, or, the

future is the privileged tense insofar as we are considering ecstasis and existence.

However, now that we have characterized ecstatical openness and its bias for the future, we

may yet again re-interpret this phenomena in terms of possibility; Da-sein's Being-ecstatically-open

is a way of saying that it is the being that liberates the world around it to come into Being. Da-sein

is primarily Being-possible, and in its Being-such it frees (SZ 83) other entities to come into Being,

by understanding them in terms of possibility. Qua human being who receives a stimulus via light in

our eyes that is sent to the brain, we are not discussing ourselves at the level of existence; being

mechanistically affected in such a manner is no different from a rock kicked down the road or a

plants leaves seeking light. In understanding and interpreting the suns light as giver of sight, food,

harm or whatever our preoccupation is with how it will partake in those roles in our future

endeavours, we become immersed or enthalled with what is outside and ahead of us. In having what

is outside of us matter, we begin to exist for the first time, or rather, it is by being ecstatically open

that Dasein is in its very Being existential. "The "being" of the Da, and only it, has the fundamental

character of ek-sistence, that is, of an ecstatic inherence in the truth of being. The ecstatic essence of

the human being consists in ek-sistence..." 248 LOH.

As further strength that Being-open ecstatically is equivalent to saying that Dasein is the

being that is enthralled by possibility, we may consider the following from Letter on Humanism:

"Thought in a more original way such favoring means the bestowal of their essence as a gift. Such

favoring [Mögen] is the proper essence of enabling [Vermögen], which not only can achieve this or

that but also can let something essentially unfold in its provenance, that is, let it be. It is on the

"strength"of such enabling by Favoring that something is properly able to be. This enabling is what

is properly "possible" [das "Mögliche"], whose essence resides in favoring. From this favoring

Being enables thinking. The former makes the latter possible. Being is the enabling-favoring, the

"may be" [das Mög-liche]" LOH 2417. Here we have perhaps the clearest endorsements of

possibility and its role in our investigation of Da-sein, particularly ecstasis. We may take the

"favouring" and "enabling" of Dasein as being equivalent to the ecstatical Being-entranced-by. This

desiring 'enables' that which we desire to come into Being, or to Be-possible. From the etymology

7"Möglich" and "Möglichkeit" are the German words for "possible" and "possibility" respectively, while "Mögen" is the verb "to want/what one would like" and "Vermögen" is to be capable of doing something.

of the words (in German), the entirety of the process of moving from favouring/desiring to Being-

possible is tied together. To be open to the world around us in terms of existing is to say that we let

that which we desire come into possibility. As a further note, Heidegger states that this allowing

that which we favour to be possible is the basis for allowing there to be thought; thus, whatever role

we give to thought, the way we express ourselves and conceptualization, prior to that is our

engagement as favouring and enabling and bringing into possibility.

Now, given that our previous existentiale of Interpretation involves conceptualization, we

have the fact that describing Dasein in terms of possibility has priority over describing Dasein as the

entity that Interprets. Here, however, comes a question that I believe is particularly important for

furthering the investigation; what is the relationship between ecstatical openness, in terms of

favouring and making possible, and understanding and disclosure of Dasein's world and the entities

therein. "Being is cleared for the human being in ecstatic projection" LOH 257. "Projection" is a

part of the understanding, where we throw upon the entity before us the possibilities and

involvements that that thing carries for us in our world and Being from our thrownness, or fore-

having. In Sein und Zeit understanding is initially put forth in the analysis of the world and the

entities we meet therein. From the vantage point of possibility however, the bringing-into-the-light-

and-out-of-darkness of ecstasy and also the projecting of possibilities on an entity are seemingly

coming very close to each other, if not identical.

As an example of this I will turn to Heideggers "A question concerning technology", as a

post Being-and-Time work that exemplifies exactly this line of thinking. In this piece, Heidegger is

concerned about asking what the 'essence' of technology is, a question very akin to Sein und Zeits

question of the meaning of Being. So does it begin with his clarification of what the question

amounts to and an attempt to find an appropriate phenomenal vantage point from which to ask the

question. On the way to his conclusion he rejects what would immediately come to mind in asking

the quesion, particularly instrumentality, technical complexity or goal satisfaction. Rather, the turn

he takes is to desribe the essence of technology as how technology discloses or brings into our sight

the entities that it deals with. Technology is therefore no mere means, "Technology is a way of

revealing." QCT 5 or "The revealing that rules throughout modern technology has the character of a

setting-upon, in the sense of a challenging-forth. That challenging happens in that the energy

concealed in nature is unlocked, what is unlocked is transformed, what is transformed is stored up,

what is stored up is, in turn, distributed, and what is distributed is switched about ever anew. " QCT

7. The answer to the question of technologies essence is the same as asking how is it that

technology brings the entities that it deals with into our sight and the possibilities they hold before

us. In this piece, the particular possibility allowed to that which is disclosed is 'Gestell' or

'enframing', where technology makes the resources the world has to offer us stand in reserve and

stockpiles, ready at our convenience. The sight and clearedness afforded to us by understanding

technology as that which brings entities out of concealment into unconcealment via enframing, is

equivalent to saying how it is that enframing makes things possible for us.

Thus have I arrived at the place I initially sought out, which is that continuing on

Heidegger's efforts in Being and time with the notion of possibility gives us a more primordial

vantage point from which to envisage Being, and that it brings together the previously disparate

analysis into a genuine whole.

5. Conclusion.

My closing remarks shall be some quotes from Heidegger where he explicitly states that

Being and Time is only preliminary, as opposed to the inferences and implicatons I worked with

above. "In Being and Time no statement about the relation of essentia and existentia can yet be

expressed, since there it is still a question of preparing precursory" LOH 250-251, or "It is

everywhere supposed that the attempt in Being and Time ended in a blind alley. Let us not comment

any further upon that opinion. The thinking that hazards a few steps in Being and Time [pg74] has

even today not advanced beyond that publication" LOH pg 261. Being and Time represents, and is,

an incredible first foray into the issues of ontology, existence and Being, using these terms as he

defined them in said work. However, a first foray is all that it is, and it is still replete with such

issues as using terminology still steeped in the language of the history of philosophy, not having the

appropriate phenomenal viewpoint from which to carry out a further investigation, and indeed still

having presuppositions and hidden biases that need be explictly brought out into the light. In both

the works 'A question concerning Technology' and 'Letter on Humanism', we see that Heidegger

almost has to start from the beginning as in Being and Time, working in a different manner through

the topic of the paper until he arrives at the appropriate phenomenal viewpoint with which to

answer the questions originlly raised. I have detailed a bit of this working through in these later

works, but if Being and Time is a rough work and only go steps along the way, these latter attempts

are only fragments and whispers on an unsteady footing. Nonetheless, we can glean enough from

them, in conjunction with Being and Time itself, to determine what the next step is on how to

further the investigaton into fundamental ontology that Heidegger initially sought, and whatever

would be implied to come after that. The carrying forth of such task will have to wait at least a little

longer, however.

Howard Williams

Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (SZ). Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Blackwell Publishing 1962.

Martin Heidegger, Letter on "Humanism" (LOH). Trans. Frank A. Capuzzi, found in Pathmarks, edited William McNeil. Cambridge university press 1998.

Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (QCT). Trans. William Lovitt. Garland Publishing inc, 1977.