Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Philosophy Education Society Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
The Review of Metaphysics
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY:
REFLECTIONS ON A RECENT CRITICISM
DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
96 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
141-69; also noteworthy are Piotr Hoffman, "Death, Time, History: Division
II of Being and Time" in Heidegger: A Critical Reader, 195-214 and David
FarreU KreU, "The Raptures of Ontology and the Finitude of Time," in Inti
mations of Time and Being: Time, Truth, and Finitude in Heidegger's
Thinking of Being (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1986), 47-63.
3 Hubert Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's
Being and Time, Division I (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), vin. For reasons
discussed below, it is noteworthy that Dreyfus in this connection objects
not only to the account of temporaUty, but to the entire Division II in which
Heidegger gives what he considers the requisite interpretation of authentic
existence. Dreyfus finds corroboration for his assessment of Division II in
the fact that Heidegger had originaUy submitted only Division I for pubfica
tion; because the Ministry of Education considered this insufficient, Heideg
ger is said to have "agreed, in exchange for tenure, to pubfish a hastily
finished version of Division H"; ibid.
4 Mark Okrent, Heidegger's Pragmatism: Understanding, Being, and
the Critique of Metaphysics (Ithaca: CorneU University Press, 1988). Ok
rent's interpretation has been praised by Rorty. "In Part I of his Heidegger's
Pragmatism, Mark Okrent has shown, very carefuUy and lucidly, how to read
Being and Time as a pragmatist treatise"; Richard Rorty, Essays on Heideg
ger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 32. See,
however, ibid., 33 and 38-9 n. 22 for Rorty's own conception of how to read
Division II of Sein und Zeit and his criticism of Okrent's view that "all
pragmatism either must be based on a transcendental semantics or be self
contradictory."
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 97
5 Okrent, Heidegger's Pragmatism, 212 n. 67; Okrent does not speU out
exactly what he has in mind here. By this point in Sein und Zeit, it seems
highly unfair to interpret such expressions as indications of some sort of
Cartesian mentalism or representationalism on Heidegger's part. Perhaps
he is aUuding to the curiosity?to put it m?dly?that the final account of
time refies on such visual and/or spatial metaphors and expressions as "hori
zon" and "outside itself" (Au?er sich). For pertinent remarks in this regard,
see Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B50 and Sallis, Echoes, 60-1, 63.
6 "What it is to be is specified by our understanding of what it is to be
only if what it is to be is nothing other than the conditions under which we
would be warranted in thinking or asserting that some thing is, because our
intention that it is would be fulfiUed. If there is no such intention, and thus
no such conditions (for example, because there does not happen to be any
Dasein), then there 'is' no being"; Okrent, Heidegger's Pragmatism, 217.
7 Among the few exceptions to this trend are the foUowing: Klaus D?s
ing, "Objektive und subjektive Zeit. Untersuchungen zu Kants Zeittheorie
und zu ihrer modernen kritischen Rezeption," Kant-Studien 71 (1980): 1
34; Marion Heinz, Zeitlichkeit und Temporalit?t. Die Konstitution der Ex
istenz und die Grundlegung einer temporalen Ontologie im Fr?hwerk Mar
tin Heideggers (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1982); Otto P?ggeler, "Heidegger und
das Problem der Zeit," in L'H?ritage de Kant. M?langes Philosophiques
offerts au P. Marcel R?gnier (Paris: Beauchesne, 1982), 287-307; Rainer
Thurnhers, "Heideggers 'Sein und Zeit' als ph?osophisches Programm," All
gemeine Zeitschrift f?r Philosophie 11 (1986): 29-51; and, more recently,
Dietmar K?hler, Martin Heidegger: Die Schematisierung des Seinssinnes
als Thematik des dritten Abschnitts von 'Sein und Zeit' (Bonn: Bouvier,
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
98 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 99
tence and temporality. The appeal, she submits, is forced and unwar
ranted by the task at hand, namely, a consideration of what it means,
in the case of Dasein, to be. Fleischer singles out this sort of appeal
and thus directs her critique at three junctures in Sein und Zeit.
At the most general level, in view of Heidegger's articulation of the
fundamental and unitary structure of care constituting Dasein as a
whole,11 Fleischer questions the need "for the exhibition of a stiU
more original phenomenon [namely, temporality] that ontologicaUy
bears the unity and the totaUty of the manifold of the structure of
care."12 If the structure of care does, indeed, constitute what it
means for Dasein in its entirety to be, then there is no phenomenolog
ical reason for a (transcendental) analysis of temporality, that is to
say, no consideration of temporaUty that an understanding of the
phenomenon at hand as a whole demands?or so Fleischer seems to
be suggesting.13 The paraUel and perhaps even the complementarity
between this criticism and those voiced by Dreyfus and Okrent from
the standpoint of a pragmatic interpretation of Sein und Zeit are
patent.
At a more particular level Heidegger also appeals to the need to
consider the phenomenon of Dasein in its totaUty in order to explain
the crucial transition to an examination of authentic existence. But
in this regard, Fleischer argues, the artificiality of the appeal becomes
even more evident. After affirming that "care is the totaUty of the
whole of the structure of Dasein's constitution," Heidegger notes that
the very point of departure for the initial analysis, namely, everyday
ness (the being between birth and death) is in a certain sense at odds
with a consideration of Dasein as a whole; at the same time, however,
he notes that Dasein "essentiaUy sets itself against a possible compre
hension of itself as a whole entity."14 Fleischer regards these remarks
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
100 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
15 "Man sieht: Heidegger f?hrt die neue FragesteUung aus einer Per
spektive ein, deren v?lUge Unangemessenheit im Kontext von SZ zutage
?egt, so da? das aufgeworfene Ganzheitsproblem auch f?r Heidegger selbst
der Echtheit eines Sachproblems ermangelt"; Fleischer, Die Zeitanalysen,
14. The expressions "in its entirety," "as a whole," and "in its totaUty" are
used in this paper to translate "als Ganzes" and its variants.
16 SZ, 304 (emphasis added).
17 SZ, 328 (emphasis added).
18 "Heideggers Ansatz, mit der Zeitigung der Zeitlichkeit ein Seinsge
schehen des Daseins aufzuweisen, das von den formal-existenzial fa?baren
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 101
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
102 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
20 SZ, 325.
21 Ibid.
22 Fleischer, Die Zeitanalysen, 20-1. AS evidence of the conflation of
original with authentic temporaUty, Fleischer singles out the same passages
that, in Blattner's view, are mistakenly interpreted as indicating that original
time is to be exclusively associated with authentic time; see Blattner, "Exis
tential TemporaUty," 101.
23 SZ, 326.
24 SZ, 328.
25 "Eingeschlossen in Zukunft und Gewesenheit, ist das Gegenw?rtigen
wohl kaum eine gezeitigte Ekstase. Wenn aber Zeitlichkeit das 'einheitUche
Ph?nomen' dreier Ekstasen ist, bedeutet das nichts Geringeres als: Es gibt
die urspr?ngUche Zeit?chkeit nicht"; Fleischer, Die Zeitanalysen, 25.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 103
26 "Die Analyse der Zeit?chkeit kann das nicht leisten, was Heidegger
sich mit ihr offensichtiich vorgenommen hat?eben, wie erw?hnt, eine onto
logische Meta-ebene, d.h. die Sorge als Sein des Daseins auf ein zugrundeUe
gendes Sein hin zu ?berschreiten und also in der Zeitiichkeit ein Seins
geschehen zu fassen, das gegen die Seinsvollz?ge der 'a?t?gUchen' und der
eigent?chen Sorge wie das Fundierende vom Fundierten abzugrenzen w?re";
Fleischer, Die Zeitanalysen, 25. In addition to the weighty challenge of
these first two criticisms, Fleischer mentions a further, fundamental problem
associated with what she regards as Heidegger's failure to elaborate the
original dimension of temporality. Without such an elaboration, there is
no basis for the "degeneration" thesis, on which Heidegger constructs the
argument of SZ. According to that thesis (alles 'Entspringen' im ontolo
gischen Felde ist Degeneration), inauthentic temporality, that is to say, the
temporality of inauthentic understanding, feelings, and concerns together
with the ordinary concept of time, is to be construed as "degenerating" from
the original and authentic temporality. However, the present is in fact said
by Heidegger to spring, not from an authentic present, but from "its authen
tic future and past, in order to permit Dasein to come to authentic existence
first on the detour over it [the present]"; SZ, 348. According to Fleischer,
this observation confirms the distinction between original and authentic
temporality (on which she has been insisting). But it also, in effect, ascribes
"falling" as an ecstasis to original temporaUty and this ascription stands in
the way of any attempt to conceive authentic temporaUty as the existenzieU
execution (Vollzug) of original temporaUty; see Fleischer, Die Zeitanalysen,
29. In this same connection, Fleischer adds, the fact that worldly time (Welt
zeit) is characterized only in terms of the presenting that is fallen and inau
thentic presents a dUemma inasmuch as authentic Dasein is, no less than
inauthentic Dasein, in need of worldly time; see ibid., 31-2.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
104 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
II
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 105
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
106 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 107
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
108 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 109
35 The horizon for the respective ecstasis, that is to say, the horizon
over against which the "looking forward," the "retaining or forgetting," and
the "encountering" stand out is constituted by the other ecstases.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
110 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
36 SZ, 325.
37 Blattner argues, to the contrary, that "Heidegger clearly indicates that
originary temporality is not authentic," that "authentic temporality is merely
one mode of originary temporality"; Cf. Blattner, "Existential Temporality,"
100-101.
38 SZ, 325.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 111
39 SZ, 326. This reading of these passages also forms the backbone of
Blattner's interpretation: "But what s. 65 says about authentic temporality
is that it is only possible because Dasein is temporal in a more fundamental
way"; Blattner, "Existential TemporaUty," 101. In what foUows I suggest, to
the contrary, that for Heidegger there is no more fundamental way for Da
sein to be temporal.
40 In another context I referred to the notion of temporality in general,
in contrast to that of original temporaUty, as a "placeholder concept" (Platz
halter-Begriff); see Dahlstrom, Das logische Vorurteil, 232-6.
41 Another passage that may be construed as supporting the Fleischer/
Blattner interpretation is the transition from paragraph 11 to paragraph 12.
After noting that a concrete development of the "original phenomenon" of
temporaUty is required (in order to show "the origin of inauthentic temporal
ity in original and authentic temporaUty"!), Heidegger speaks of resoluteness
as "a modality of temporaUty"; see SZ, 327.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
112 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
manifold of the modes of being of Dasein, above aU, the basic possi
bUity of authentic and inauthentic existence."42 Yet even in this con
text Heidegger does not refer to temporaUty, insofar as it is to be
construed as the condition of the possibUity of authentic temporaUty,
expUcitly as "original temporaUty."
The fact that Heidegger does not expUcitly assert the nonequiva
lence of original temporaUty and authentic temporaUty does not, by
itself, rule out Fleischer's contention that he impUcitly does so and
that, when he does not, he meant to or should have.43 AU the refer
ences to temporaUty as the condition of the possibUity of authentic,
existentiell care can be read as references to an "original temporal
ity," the transcendental condition of care, itself "modaUy indifferent"
with respect to matters of authenticity and inauthenticity.44
Nevertheless, the fact that Heidegger so expUcitly and constantly
links original and authentic temporaUty should give one pause before
endorsing Fleischer's interpretation.45 Moreover, there are weighty
reasons for rejecting this interpretation. In the first place, Heidegger
42 SZ, 328.
43 The sense of 'equivalence' intended here in the expression 'nonequiv
alence' is not identity, but vafid biconditionaUty. The thesis defended in this
paper is that Heidegger asserts, with good reason, that there is orig
inal temporaUty if and only if (and to the extent that) temporaUty can be
authentic.
44 Wh?e Blattner, much Uke Fleischer, argues that "originary temporal
ity is indeed indifferent between authenticity and inauthenticity," he con
tends that Heidegger, nonetheless, had good reasons for postponing the dis
cussion of originary temporaUty until he had discussed the themes of gu?t
and death. Like originary temporality, gu?t and death are "modaUy indiffer
ent features," Blattner argues, the response to which can be authentic or
inauthentic. At the same time, however, gu?t and death are features of
Dasein that cannot be assim?ated to a "sequential temporality" and, accord
ingly, are "the source of Heidegger's argument for the necessity of a non
sequential manifold of originary temporaUty." Thus, wh?e Fleischer argues
that the notion of original temporaUty is ultimately not sustained on its own
terms or, at least, conflated with that of authentic temporaUty in Heidegger's
analysis, Blattner contends that the two notions are properly distinguished.
Yet, despite this significant difference, both scholars insist on a thesis con
tested in this paper, namely, the nonequivalence of original temporality and
authentic temporaUty; see Blattner, "Existential Temporality," 100-101, 112.
45 In Section 65 the expression "urspr?ngUch und eigentiich" (in modi
fication of "Zeit?chkeit," "Zukunft," "Auf-sich-zukommen") surfaces eight
times, wh?e Heidegger refers to temporality, the future, time, and the phe
nomenon of time merely as "urspr?ngUch" nine times; yet "urspr?ngUch"
and "uneigentUch" are never used together to modify anything.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 113
46 SZ, 329.
47 See note 41 above.
48 See Heidegger's opening remarks about "Ursprung" in "Ursprung des
Kunstwerkes," in Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1972), 7.
49 SZ, 334.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
114 DANIEL O. DAHLSTROM
50 Or, to put it in another, cognate way that exploits the famUy of mean
ings of the terms 'eigen', 'eigenste', and 'eigentlich' (usually translated 'own',
'ownmosf, 'authentic'), Dasein is the potential to be itself, that is to say, to
be in the sort of way that is most proper to it or most properly its own.
51 Cf.: "Das Dasein wird >wesentliche in der eigentlichen Existenz,
die sich als vorlaufende Entschlossenheit konstituiert. Dieser Modus der
Eigent?chkeit der Sorge enth?lt die urspr?ng?che Selbst-st?ndigkeit und
Ganzheit des Daseins"; SZ, 323.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPT OF TEMPORALITY 115
makes present the actual situation in which it finds itself. This reso
lute anticipation of death is existentiell, but it is also unthematically
existential, namely, a temporaUzing (ecstatic-horizonal) that dis
closes the sense of Dasein originally and authenticaUy (or, alterna
tively, from the thematic standpoint of fundamental ontology, the
original and authentic meaning of 'da sein': 'being here').52
Perhaps what misled Fleischer and others is the fact that Heideg
ger construes the anticipatory resoluteness as "the existentiell, au
thentic potential to be entirely" (das existenziell eigentliche Ganz
seink?nnenf3 and that temporality, by contrast, is construed as the
"ontological," that is, existential sense of care, making possible "the
existentiell being of factual being-potential (das existenzielle Sein
des faktischen Seink?nnens), authentic or inauthentic.54 Given this
contrast between existential and existentieU levels, it may seem legit
imate to assume that the original temporality is existential, wh?e au
thentic temporaUty and inauthentic temporality are existentieU. But
the assumption is incorrect. Authentic existence and inauthentic ex
istence are, in addition to being existential, always existentiell,55 but
the temporaUzing of authentic temporality and that of inauthentic
temporality are existential, that is to say, they are the respective ec
static horizons, imp?cit yet constitutive of what it means, authenti
cally or inauthentically da zu sein.
52 "Being here" comes closer to the Alemmanic use of "ich bin da" in
contrast to 'being there,' the regular use of the expression.
53 SZ, 305, 309.
64 SZ, 325.
55 ut
"Die Frage nach dem Ganzseink?nnen ist eine faktisch-existenzieUe";
SZ, 309.
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:41:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms