Abstract
During the years subsequent to the publication of Being and Time Heidegger’s project to restate explicitly the question of being, the question that “has been forgotten” and lost some of its power but has never ceased to be at work in the history of philosophy, becomes more and more clearly outlined. How must philosophy question being? What does it mean to “ask in a primordial manner,” to ask de profundis? In the second half of the 20’s Heidegger already has an answer: “Only as phenomenology, is ontology possible”(SZ 35). The reverse is true also: “with regard to its subject-matter, phenomenology is the science of the being of beings — ontology” (SZ 37). Being of beings, being of the entity insofar as it dyers from the entity, this enigmatic difference of being (esse) and entity (ens) — such is, according to Heidegger, the main problem ofphenomenology. In a series of lectures entitled precisely The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie), delivered at Marburg University in summer 1927, while pursuing his usual hermeneutical strategy, Heidegger tries to introduce his audience to phenomenological ontology (or ontology-as-phenomenology) by explaining phenomenologically several important statements, or “theses” concerning being (Thesen überdas Sein), “which have been advocated in the course of Western philosophy since Antiquity” (GP 20). One of these statements requiring a phenomenological elucidation is “the thesis of medieval ontology (Scholasticism) which goes back to Aristotle [and asserts that] to the constitution of being of a being belong (a) whatness (Wassein,essentia), and (b) being-at-hand or extantness (Vorhandensein,existentia) (ibid.).
Diversum est esse et id quod est. Boethius, Quomndo substantiae in en quod sin! bonne sinb...
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It is the German language, of course, that allows Heidegger to express immediately the difference in question. We already referred to the difficulties one encounters while discussing the same topic in English.
Presence in the sense of extantness, being-ready-to-hand. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason the terms Existenz and Dasein are complete synonyms.
Aristotle, Metaph. IV I, 11103a21. The traditional Latin translation of this formula (which Suarez also refers to) is: ens in quantum ens.
F. Suarez, Disputationes meraphysicae, disp. XXXI, sect. I, 1.
Ibid., disp. II, sect. IV, 4.
Distinctio et compositio essentiae et existentiae in ente creato.
This vocable was uttered first, as we know, by the goddess of Parmenides’ metaphysical revelation. The Stranger in Plato’s Sophist says to Theaetetus: “it seems to me that Parmenides and all those who ever undertook an attempt to take the beings (‘rà (Ma) on trial... have talked to us rather carelessly. [...] Every one of them seems to tell us a story as if we were children. L.I Then since we are in perplexity, do you (sc. Parmenides and the other great thinkers of the past) tell us plainly what you wish to designate when you say ‘a being’ (Tò öv). For it is clear that you have known this all along, whereas we formerly thought we knew, but are now perplexed” (242c-244a). These last words were chosen by Heidegger as epigraph to Being and Time.
Disp. II, sect. IV, 5.
Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia, ed. 3 (Torino: Marietti, 1957), cap. I, sect. 2.
The fact that Leibniz (as well as Descartes) was strongly influenced by Suarez’ Disputationes is well known and amply discussed by the historians of philosophy.
See section II entitled “Die Wahrnehmung. das Ding und die Täuschung.”
This interpretation of the concept of natura can be traced back to Boethius. In the treatise entitled Liber de persona et duabus naturis Boethius says that in whatever sense one may understand a being (ens), it is due to the nature of this being that the intellect is capable to grasp it. Cf. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Ser. latina, t. 64, col. 1541B.
Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia 12. impossibile est, existere nequit. Impossibile est id, quod contradictionem involvit.” (§132) “Quod possibile est, thud existere potest.” (§ 133) “Ens dicitur quod existere potest, consequenter cui existentia non repugnat.” (§134) “Quae in ente sibi mutuo non repugnant, nec tarnen per se invicem determinantur, essentialia appellantur atque essentiam entis constituunt.” (§ 143)
G. W. Leibniz, op. cit.
quia non sunt duae res sed una tantum, quae per intellectum concipitur, et comparatur ac si essent duae.” Suarez, op. cit., disp. XXXI, sect. III, 1.
This thesis as to its form is very similar to Kant’s famous sentence (in the section “On the Impossibility of the Ontological Proof of God’s Existence” of the Critique of Pure Reason) stating that existence is not a real predicate. Yet Kant makes one essential addition to that: existence is the absolute position (within the horizon of experience). Later on we shall analyse this statement of Kant in more detail.
Ens primum ac praecipuum, quod et est totius metaphysicae primarium objectum, et primum significatum et analogatum totius significationis et habitudinis entis.” Suarez, op. cit., disp. XXXI, “Introductio.”
Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles II 49. Thomas speaks also about “separate substances” (substantiaeseparatae), which means substantial forms without (or separated of) the matter. To this latter class belong the First Cause (i.e. God), the pure intelligences (angels), and the souls.
Suarez, op. cit., disp. XXXI, sect. I, 3.
Dico esse formaliter in aliquo, in quo manet secundum suam rationem formalem et quidditativam.” Duns Scotus, Reportata Parisiensia I, dist. XLV, quest. II.
Duns Scotus states exprofesso in one passage of his Report ara Parisiensia: “Dico igitur, loquendo de esseactualis existentiae, vel non est res sine actuali existentia, vel non differt existentia a re extra causam suam, nisi sola ratione.” Reportata Parisiensia III, dist. VI, quest. I, 7. Yet strictly speaking here the difference between the thing itself and its existence is under consideration, and not the one between essence and existence in the thing. The former distinction — between a thing and its being — is exactly what Heidegger calls ontological difference in GP.
Inter actualem existentiam, quarr vocant esse in actu exercito, et actualem essentiam existentem.” Suarez, op. cit., disp. XXXI, sect. I, 13.
Aegidius... ait, esse imprimi essentiae dum creatur et fit existens.”
Disp. XXXI, sect. III, 5.
Ibid., sect. III, 8: “Est ergo in universum verum secundum principium supra positum, scilicet, ens in actu et ens in potentia distingui formaliter immediate tanquam ens et non ens, et non tanquam addens unum ens supra aliud ens.”
Suarez, op. cit., disp. II, sect. IV, 4–12.
Ibid., sect. VI, 23: “Est enim essentia id quo primo aliquid constituitur intra latitudunem entis realis, ut distinguitur ad ente fido...”
Ex hoc enim fit ut essentiam creaturae nos concipiamus, ut indifferentem ad esse vel non esse actu, quae indifferentia non est per modum abstractionis negativae, sed praecisivae...” (ibid.)
formats ratio essendi extra causas” (ibid.).
Dicendum ergo est, eamdem rem esse essentiam et existentiam...” (ibid.)
To be more accurate, we should express this in the following way: “an object, which is constituted as being external, alongside of its ontic claim.”
It is quite possible to vociv with one’s eyes. Cf. in Homer: èvóilncv...ücpBU?.Noicsty (//. XV, 422), iv 60Oa7 jtoicst voílcstxç (XXV, 294).
Aristotle writes in the Nicomachean Ethics that the wise men like Anaxagoras and Thales may (or even must) be ignorant of their own interests, because they possess knowledge that is not an everyday cleverness, but rare, marvellous, difficult, and even superhuman. But people declare the wise (nocpoi) to be not prudent (cppóvs.ot), because these sages do not seek to know the things that are good for human beings Ott ob tà tìvOpcúrztva C.yccer (Irtoüatv), and so their knowledge is useless (Eih. Nic. VI 7, 1141b1–10). Aristotle insists that the “wondering.’ (eaupizCctv), which is declared to be the origin of philosophising, must be in a sense care-less or serene. To think that prudence is in authority over wisdom would amount to believing that political science governs the gods, because it gives orders how to worship them (VI 13, 1145a 1011’.1.
We shall come back to this topic in chapter 6.
The latter, being a collective noun, has become the traditional English translation for Heidegger’s Zeug.
We shall discuss this structure in detail in chapter 6, where the ontology of the being-ready-to-hand will become the subject of our special interest.
Ad hoc uno verbo suflìcienter responderi posset: seipso, et ex vi entitatis suae esse limitatur et tinitum...” (ibid., sect. XIII, 18). To be sure, while translating the expression “entitas sua” as “its own way of being,” I deliberately shift the quotation a little towards Heidegger’s terminological horizon.
Et hoc modo... admittere possumus, essentiam tiniri et limitari in ordine ad esse, et, e converso, ipsum esse finiri ac limitari, quia est actus talis essentiae.” (ibid.)
Omne quod praeter essentiam rei dicatur accidens.” (Quodlib. II. quaest. II, art. III.)
We find both questions as corresponding to different species of knowledge in Aristotle ‘s list of questions in the beginning of the Anal. post. I 11.
Cf. De ente et essentia V 3.
The latter term (forma essend,), as the reader might remember, goes back to Boethius’ treatise Quomodo substantiae in eo quod situ bonae sins...
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica I 3, 4.
Johannes Capreolus, Questiones in quantum libros Sententiarum, sent. I, dist. VIII, qu. I, art. II (solutions IV).
Existenz ist als Seinsart in sich Endlichkeit und als diese nur möglich auf dem Grunde des Seinsverständnisses. Dergleichen wie Sein gibt es nur und muss es geben, wo Endlichkeit existierend geworden ist.” (KPM 222) In KPM the finiteness of human being becomes the central theme of the “metaphysics of Dasein” and the clue to Heidegger’s interpretation of Kantian metaphysics (cf. §§ 3941). The finiteness of Dasein underlies the project of fundamental ontology as it is presented in this book (§§ 42— 45). Of course, Heidegger recognizes the fact that medieval metaphysics asserted the finiteness of human being as an important thesis, but at the same time, he says, the medieval thinkers did not acknowledge “its rightful due” (KPM 213).
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Chernyakov, A. (2002). Distinctio et Compositio Essentiae et Existentiae as Interpreted by Martin Heidegger. In: The Ontology of Time. Phaenomenologica, vol 163. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3407-3_4
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