Reading: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Introductory Section

I begin my readings of Heidegger's primary texts not with Being and Time but rather with the Basic Problems because I find the latter to act as something of a key to unlocking the former. BP is typically taken as containing some of the ideas that would complete the unfinished and prematurely published BT -  in particular the intended sections on the destruction of the history of philosophy. However in several ways it is simply more readable than BT and as such, it serves as a better starting point for a close reading of H, assuming, of course, at least some familiarity with the aims and designs of BT. As many have observed, H seems to be a more lucid lecturer than writer. BP does not contain the sentence long definitions of the structures of existence; nor does it contain the large scale repetitions of chapters at the deeper, and often more obscure, level. This is largely due to the fact that BP is focused on historical figures and their own ontological struggles, rather than an attempt at original ontology, which, for related reasons, had to invent a new nomenclature and, where this was not possible, to trend carefully.

As such, H's thought - what he means by certain basic concepts - is refracted through the more familiar and approachable thought of recognizable historical figures and the more familiar language in which they chose to speak about being. This contextualizing of his own thought within the tradition is augmented by his contrasting his own concept of philosophy with that of the "world-view" philosophy - philosophy conceived as producing a stance toward beings and an attitude toward life. Again, in his critical dealings with others, I often find H more reveling of himself than when he intentionally tries to be so. This is perhaps because the 'traditional language of metaphysics' that H is forced to use to present others often acts as a bridge between traditional, familiar notions and Heidegger's appropriated usages. This also fits with H's often expressed admonition against a purely historical treatment of philosophy - we should not seek to merely accumulate knowledge of what past philosophers thought as such, but we revisit the past so that we ourselves are able to philosophize. This holds true not only of H's relationship to the tradition he scrutinizes in BP, but also to us, as we begin to read H.

The goal of the lectures given in BP is quite literally the basic problems of phenomenology. The "illumination" of the problems themselves, not the solutions, are the end point. Heidegger, as well as Husserl, often sets himself such preliminary tasks, which as often recede in a kafkaesque manner: at a faster rate than the progress is made toward them (e.g., the gulf that opens between the final destination, viz., the meaning of being, and the proximate goal of the conditions of the possibility of understanding the meaning of being, ie, the meaning of truth). Still, H sets himself the prior task of legitimating his demarcation of the problems: since we get to the basic problems by looking at (or past) particular "individual problems", how do we choose these initial problems?

Since any study is understood by understanding the things it investigates - it's basic problematic, that is - we might think that we are able to derive these basic problems from the concept of phenomenology we already possess. This fails not only because we possess no such precise concept but also because the "familiar" concept of phenomenology is neither equivocal nor beyond reproach. In particular, H is unsatisfied with phenomenology conceived as one style of philosophy among others, or as preparatory science - laying the groundwork for the "proper philosophical disciplines of logic, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion" (3).

H's move at this point is something of a leap: "Does not phenomenology contain within itself the possibility of reversing the alienation of philosophy into these disciplines and of revitalizing and reappropriating in its basic tendencies the great tradition of philosophy with its essential answers?" (3). To deny phenom's status as one method among others or as a preparatory philosophy is, for H, to claim it as "the method of scientific philosophy in general". At this point this tells us very little of what phenomenology is; we then seem no closer to legitimizing H's choice of the "individual problems".
 
But H will persist in this negative definition of phenom by giving a negative definition of "scientific" philosophy: it is differentiated (spuriously - as it turns out) from philosophy as worldview ie:

"...philosophy is supposed not only, and not in the first place, to be a theoretical science, but to give practical guidance to our view of things and their interconnection and our attitudes toward them, and to regulate and direct our interpretation of existence and its meaning. Philosophy is wisdom of the world and of life" (4)
 "...a self-realized, productive as well as conscious way of apprehending and interpreting the universe of beings." (5)
"...a conception of the contexture of natural things but at the same time an interpretation of the sense and purpose of human Dasein and hence of history"


As such, a world-view always is taking a stand toward some particular beings, at a particular time and place. And accordingly:

"To determine whether philosophy succeeds or fails [in the construction of a scientific world-view] its history is examined for unequivocal confirmation that it deals knowingly with the ultimate questions" (7)

Of course, H will take issue with the appraisal of the efforts of philosophy on the same scale as those of science. Much of modern philosophy can be seen as a soul-searching in response to a perceived inadequacy in the face of the progress of science toward convergence and consensus, as well as its practical results. My understanding of H has him not only reject these from the purpose of philosophy, but moreover to set them - the need for univocality and results - positively against the true essence of philosophy. But what H really rejects is the idea that philosophy could most basically concern itself with a factical, historical position taken toward particular beings. Philosophy concerns itself with and only with being as such - which we can say, roughly, means that which we must already understand if we are to comport ourselves toward beings.

Here H's rejection of world-view formation from philosophy seems to rest partially on the idea of the priority of our understanding of being to our encounter with this or that being. If there is any non-blind, non-random, understanding-differentiation between things that are and things that are in no way whatsoever (ie, nothing), or between the actual and the non-actual, the real and the un-real, between the living and the un-living (which seems indisputably to be the case)  then there must be a prior understanding of what it is for anything to be, or to be actual, real, living, etc. "Philosophy is the theoretical conceptual interpretation of being, of being's structure and its possibilities.

Do we have to grant this priority? Could we speak, not in terms of priority, but in terms of granting pride of place to contentfulnesss, so that while being may be, in H's sense, 'prior' to beings, we might find it a more important fact that some concrete individual being is more contentful than the barest, most abstract property it bears. And as such, couldn't we argue that the further we move away from the contentful, the more meaningless our concepts become, so that being is, in a way derivative of individual beings? Couldn't abstraction be posterior to the concrete? Many of these worries H will sidestep by claiming that we've already presupposed too much with our terms - but certainly he is not immune from this same response. And even if we agree that there is this priority, it is still a leap to the claims of exclusivity, and basicness.

I think at this point where argumentation stops. In fact, if you thought that H was going to lead you down a path by ruling out all other possibilities, you'd be disappointed. There comes a point in reading H where argumentation stops (or reveals itself to be something other than argumentation) and 'going along with' begins. This is probably one reason that Heideggerians tend to be such a dogmatic bunch - those unwilling to follow never got past the first few pages. As far as I can tell, at this point H claims that a discussion of the basic problems will substantiate the claim that philosophy is the science of being as such. Here we see for the first time the so called Hermeneutic circle. Only upon reaching the final destination will we be able to see the appropriateness of the starting point. "Philosophy must legitimate by its own resources its claim to be universal ontology." In the meantime, however, the statement that philosophy is the science of being remains a pure assertion. Correspondingly, the elimination of world-view formation from the range of philosophical tasks has not yet been warranted." Have we made any progress? If so, how?

Still, what is at stake has at least been sketched out - pursuing this line of thought we can anticipate to see why phenom is not a preparatory to a fragmented philosophical field of study, nor the formation of one's "own philosophy". Finally, H considers a further claim that the 'is' is too meaningless to study - which is in effect a response to anglo-american philosophy. Again, the response is a question - not an argument, but the provocation to consider a possibility: while the analytic tradition has dismissed being as a philosophical red herring, reducible to quantification or the copula, in turn reducible to predication, and as such the simplest and most self-evident concept, H asks what if it is in fact the most complex and obscure concept? What if instead of being a mere 'matter of course', the question of being is the most urgent of all questions? In BT H gives some prestige to this question by showing how Plato too was compelled by it. And indeed much of what follows will be an attempt to invoke a sense of mystery when it comes to our understanding of being, which is, according to H, the only way philosophy can properly get started anyhow, no matter how much introductory argumentation about the proper starting point is offered. And indeed, too, the only way to truly settle the question of the significance of the seinsfrage is to pose the question and pursue it to the end.