in und Zeit" redirects here. For the episode of The X-Files, see Sein und Zeit (The X-Files).

Being and Time

Author(s)

Martin Heidegger

Original title

Sein und Zeit

Translator

1962: John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson 1996: Joan Stambaugh

Country

Germany

Language

German

Subject(s)

deconstructionism, existentialism,hermeneutics, phenomenology

Publisher

1962: SCM Press 1996: State University of New York Press

2008: Harper Perennial Modern Thought

Publication 1927 date

Published in English

1962, 2008 (Macquarrie & Robinson) 1996 (Stambaugh)

Being and Time (German: Sein und Zeit, 1927) is a book by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Although written quickly, and despite the fact that Heidegger never completed the project outlined in the introduction, it remains his most important work and has profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, particularly existentialism, hermeneutics and deconstruction.
Contents
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1 Heidegger's original project 2 Introductory summary

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2.1 Being 2.2 Dasein 2.3 Time

3 Phenomenology in Heidegger and Husserl 4 Hermeneutics 5 Destruction of metaphysics 6 Translations 7 Related work 8 Influence 9 References 10 Bibliography

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10.1 Primary literature 10.2 Secondary literature

11 External links

Heidegger's original project[edit]

Being and Time was originally intended to consist of two major parts, each part consisting of [1] three divisions. Heidegger was forced to prepare the book for publication when he had

completed only the first two divisions of part one. The remaining divisions planned forBeing and Time (particularly the divisions on time and being, Kant, and Aristotle) were never published, although in many respects they are addressed in one form or another in Heidegger's other works. In terms of structure, Being and Time remains as it was when it first appeared in print; it consists of the lengthy two-part introduction, followed by Division One, the "Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein," and Division Two, "Dasein and Temporality."

Introductory summary[edit]
Being[edit]
On the first page of Being and Time, Heidegger describes the project in the following way: "our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the sense of being and to do so [2] concretely." Heidegger claims that traditional ontology has prejudicially overlooked this [3] question, dismissing it as overly general, undefinable, or obvious. Instead Heidegger proposes to understand being itself, as distinguished from any specific entities [4] [5] (beings). "'Being' is not something like a being." Being, Heidegger claims, is "what determines [6] beings as beings, that in terms of which beings are already understood." Heidegger is seeking to identify the criteria or conditions by which any specific entity can show up at all (see world [7] disclosure). If we grasp Being, we will clarify the meaning of being, or "sense" of being ("Sinn des Seins"), where by "sense" Heidegger means that "in terms of which something becomes intelligible as [8] something." According to Heidegger, as this sense of being precedes any notions of how or in what manner any particular being or beings exist, it is pre-conceptual, non-propositional, and [9] hence pre-scientific. Thus, in Heidegger's view, fundamental ontology would be an explanation of the understanding preceding any other way of knowing, such as the use of logic, theory, [10] specific ontology or act of reflective thought. At the same time, there is no access to being other than via beings themselveshence pursuing the question of being inevitably means asking [11] about a being with regard to its being. Heidegger argues that a true understanding of being (Seinsverstndnis) can only proceed by referring to particular beings, and that the best method of pursuing being must inevitably, he says, involve a kind of hermeneutic circle, that is (as he explains in his critique of prior work in the field of hermeneutics), it must rely upon repetitive yet progressive acts of interpretation. "The methodological sense of phenomenological description [12] is interpretation."

Dasein[edit]
Thus the question Heidegger asks in the introduction to Being and Time is: what is the being that will give access to the question of the meaning of Being? Heidegger's answer is that it can only be that being for whom the question of Being is important, the being for whom Being [10] matters. As this answer already indicates, the being for whom Being is a question is not a what, but a who. Heidegger calls this being Dasein (an ordinary German word literally meaning "being-there"), and the method pursued in Being and Time consists in the attempt to delimit the characteristics of Dasein, in order thereby to approach the meaning of Being itself through an interpretation of the temporality of Dasein. Dasein is not "man," but is nothing other than "man"

it is this distinction that enables Heidegger to claim that Being and Time is something other than philosophical anthropology. Heidegger's account of Dasein passes through a dissection of the experiences of Angst and mortality, and then through an analysis of the structure of "care" as such. From there he raises the problem of "authenticity," that is, the potentiality or otherwise for mortal Dasein to exist fully enough that it might actually understand being. Heidegger is clear throughout the book that nothing makes certain that Dasein is capable of this understanding.

Time[edit]
Finally, this question of the authenticity of individual Dasein cannot be separated from the "historicality" of Dasein. On the one hand, Dasein, as mortal, is "stretched along" between birth and death, and thrown into its world, that is, thrown into its possibilities, possibilities which Dasein is charged with the task of assuming. On the other hand, Dasein's access to this world and these possibilities is always via a history and a tradition this is the question of "world historicality," and among its consequences is Heidegger's argument thatDasein's potential for authenticity lies in the possibility of choosing a "hero." Thus, more generally, the outcome of the progression of Heidegger's argument is the thought that the being of Dasein is time. Nevertheless, Heidegger concludes his work with a set of enigmatic questions foreshadowing the necessity of a destruction (that is, a transformation) of the history of philosophy in relation to temporalitythese were the questions to be taken up in the never completed continuation of his project: The existential and ontological constitution of the totality of Dasein is grounded in temporality. Accordingly, a primordial mode of temporalizing of ecstatic temporality itself must make the ecstatic project of being in general possible. How is this mode of temporalizing of temporality to be interpreted? Is there a way leading from primordial time to the meaning of being? Does time itself reveal itself as the horizon of being?
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Phenomenology in Heidegger and Husserl[edit]

Although Heidegger describes his method in Being and Time as phenomenological, the question of its relation to the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl is complex. The fact that Heidegger believes that ontology includes an irreducible hermeneutic (interpretative) aspect, for example, might be thought to run counter to Husserl's claim that phenomenological description is capable of a form of scientific positivity. On the other hand, however, several aspects of the approach and method of Being and Time seem to relate more directly to Husserl's work. The central Husserlian concept of the directedness of all thought intentionalityfor example, while scarcely mentioned in Being and Time, has been identified by some with Heidegger's central notion of "Sorge" (Cura, care or concern). However, for Heidegger, theoretical knowledge represents only one kind of intentional behaviour, and he asserts that it is grounded in more fundamental modes of behaviour and forms of practical engagement with the surrounding world. Whereas a theoretical understanding of things grasps them according to "presence," for example, this may conceal that our first experience of a being may be in terms of its being "ready-to-hand." Thus, for instance, when someone reaches for a tool such as a hammer, their understanding of

what a hammer is is not determined by a theoretical understanding of its presence, but by the fact that it is something we need at the moment we wish to do hammering. Only a later understanding might come to contemplate a hammer as an object.

Hermeneutics[edit]
The total understanding of being results from an explication of the implicit knowledge of being that inheres in Dasein. Philosophy thus becomes a form of interpretation, but since there is no external reference point outside being from which to begin this interpretation, the question becomes to know in which way to proceed with this interpretation. This is the problem of the "hermeneutic circle," and the necessity for the interpretation of the meaning of being to proceed in stages: this is why Heidegger's technique in Being and Time is sometimes referred to as hermeneutical phenomenology. This interpretative aspect of Heidegger's project had a profound influence on the hermeneutic approach of his student Hans-Georg Gadamer.

Destruction of metaphysics[edit]
As part of his ontological project, Heidegger undertakes a reinterpretation of previous Western philosophy. He wants to explain why and how theoretical knowledge came to seem like the most fundamental relation to being. This explanation takes the form of a destructuring ( Destruktion) of the philosophical tradition, an interpretative strategy that reveals the fundamental experience of being at the base of previous philosophies that had become entrenched and hidden within the theoretical attitude of the metaphysics of presence. ThisDestruktion is not simply a negative operation but rather a positive transformation, or recovery. In Being and Time Heidegger briefly undertakes a destructuring of the philosophy of Descartes, but the second volume, which was intended to be a Destruktion of Western philosophy in all its stages, was never written. In later works Heidegger uses this approach to interpret the philosophies of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Plato, among others. This aspect of Heidegger's work exerted a profound influence on Jacques Derrida, although there are also important differences between Heidegger's Destruktion and Derrida'sdeconstruction.

Translations[edit]
So far, there are complete translations of Sein und Zeit in 23 languages: Bulgarian, Chinese, [citation needed] Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Gaelic , Georgian, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, and Turkish. An Arabic translation is in preparation.

Related work[edit]
Being and Time is the towering achievement of Heidegger's early career, but there are other important works from this period:

The publication in 1992 of the early lecture course, Platon: Sophistes (Plato's Sophist, 1924), made clear the way in which Heidegger's reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics was crucial to the formulation of the thought expressed in Being and Time. The lecture course, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, 1925), was something like an early version of Being and Time. The lecture courses immediately following the publication of Being and Time, such as Die Grundprobleme der Phnomenologie (The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 1927), and Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, 1929), elaborated some elements of the destruction of metaphysics which Heidegger intended to pursue in the unwritten second part of Being and Time.

Although Heidegger never completed the project outlined in Being and Time, later works explicitly addressed the themes and concepts of Being and Time. Most important among the works which do so are the following: Heidegger's inaugural lecture upon his return to Freiburg, "Was ist Metaphysik?" ("What Is Metaphysics?", 1929), was an important and influential clarification of what Heidegger meant by being, non-being, and nothingness. Einfhrung in die Metaphysik (An Introduction to Metaphysics), a lecture course delivered in 1935, is identified by Heidegger, in his preface to the seventh German edition of Being and Time, as relevant to the concerns which the second half of the book would have addressed. Beitrge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (Contributions to Philosophy [From Enowning], composed 193638, published 1989), perhaps Heidegger's most sustained attempt at reckoning with the legacy of Being and Time. Zeit und Sein ("Time and Being"), a lecture delivered at the University of Freiburg on January 31, 1962. This was Heidegger's most direct confrontation with Being and Time. It was followed by a seminar on the lecture, which took place at Todtnauberg on September 1113, 1962, a summary of which was written by Alfred Guzzoni. Both the lecture and the summary of the seminar are included in Zur Sache des Denkens (1969; translated as On Time and Being [New York: Harper & Row, 1972]).
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Influence[edit]
Being and Time influenced many philosophers and writers, among them Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Alexandre Kojeve, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Paul Sartre,Emmanuel Lvinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alain Badiou, Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Bernard Stiegler. More specifically, several important philosophical works were directly influenced by Being and Time, although in very different ways in each case. Most notable among the works influenced by B