Stephen Scheidell | 75629 | CPO W143

Dr. Benson
PHIL 280
Word count: 1034
Heidegger | Being and Time
"To the things themselves!" (58) sounds Heidegger's maxim for ontological, or
more specifically phenomenological, research. He presents a methodology to understand
the world from an angle not wholly dependent on the transcendental ego, breaking from
the German Idealism of prior generations. "Only as phenomenology is ontology possible"
(60). Now what makes this claim so significant? Keep in mind last week's reading in
Fichte. For Fichte, our understanding of the world "came to us" as entirely our
construction to fit our needs. Heidegger rejoins with his definition of phenomenon the
focus of his analysis: "that which shows itself " (51). The significance here lies in that
phenomena first appear in themselves, apart from any formal conceptions brought upon
them by the perceiver. In other words, Heidegger asserts an external world detached from
the transcendental ego. This maneuver allows him to examine the "Being of entities" as
something other than mere constructions of the perceiving mind. As we shall see later,
however, this hardly means that phenomena appear ready to be understood in their
entirety; simple perception hardly constitutes understanding. "When we merely stare at
something, our just-having-it-before-us lies before us as a failure to understand it any
more" (190). Therefore, understanding lies at that tension between perceiving phenomena
as themselves in themselves and our interpretation through logos of these phenomena. To
better clarify Heidegger's position, we must clarify what he says on phenomena, logos,
and interpretation.

"'Phenomenon' signifies that which shows itself in itself, the manifest. Now an
entity can show itself f r o m itself in many ways" (51). Entities can seem (as something
else), appear ("announcing" something else) or simply show itself. In this second manner
of "appearance" is a pivotal consideration on phenomena: "What thus shows itself is at
the same time an 'appearance' as an emanation of something which hides itself" (54). For
example, when a disease "shows itself" in symptoms, we do not see the disease as such,
but we see the symptoms. It thus shows itself by symptoms, but it at the same time hides
"underneath" the symptoms. This reveals for us an even further implication: a "referencerelationship" (54) between the disease and the symptoms that make the disease manifest.
Heidegger asserts this reference-relationship in any entity that shows itself in itself as
such an "appearance." While phenomena show themselves, logos lets them be perceived.
For Heidegger, logos best translates as "discourse": 'to make manifest what one is
talking about' or 'to let something be seen in the structure of synthesis' (55). This
synthesis harks back to something else (57) and refers specifically to the referential
nature of logos. As a phenomenon can have a reference-relationship to something, logos
always refers to something else. Logos, then, both reveals and conceals by only revealing
explicitly what refers to something else. Therefore, it fulfills its function of letting
something be seen (58). In the synthesis structure of logos and the reference-relationship
of phenomena, we find one of the pivotal intersections between Heidegger's phenomenon
and logos.
Since phenomena show themselves in themselves, and the function of logos is to
let something be seen, "phenomenology" for Heidegger refers to the methodology of
inquiry. The next step in understanding comes as explication of the phenomena in the
hermeneutic, which can refer to: the general business of interpreting, working out the

conditions of ontology, or an analytic of the existentiality of existence, i.e. the working

out of ontology, which is philosophically primary (60).
In 32 Understanding and Interpretation, interpretation fleshes out the
relationship between phenomena and logos. For Heidegger, interpretation is the working
out of possibilities, of both the phenomena and Dasein itself, projected in the
understanding" (189). When we interpret, we "take apart" what is explicitly understood to
concern ourselves with the assignment-relations of the phenomena and in what way these
contribute to the possibilities of Dasein, which then get Articulated. This means that upon
perception of, for example, a pen we interpret its assignment-relations (what possible
"assignments" the pen might be used for) to decide that the pen possibly serves as a tool
for writing or possibly as a tool for murder. Now, being presented two possibilities for the
understanding of the pen, Dasein, now, projects its Being upon possibilities (188). For
Dasein to project its Being is for Dasein to perceive the pen as a murder tool or a writing
tool, and to "project" that by using this tool, it can become a murderer or a poet. Dasein,
hopefully, decides to be a poet rather than murderer and accordingly interprets the pen as
a tool for the sake of to become a poet. Heidegger replaces arbitrary construction with
improvisation. Here, we finally come to the full circle interpretation of phenomena. One
might summarize the start-to-finish process in the following way. 1) The phenomena
show itself in itself. 2) We neither perceive the Thing-in-itself nor preconceived formal
constructs but the phenomena as phenomena. 3) This perception results in a preliminary
understanding of phenomena. 4) We interpret the phenomena after working out its
possible assignment-relations. 6) Dasein sees its own possibilities limited to, but also
made possible by, these assignment-relations. 7) Dasein chooses from its possibilities and
interprets phenomena accordingly 8) This interpretation results in a modified and refined

understanding, 9) which, in turn, gets Articulated through the vehicle of logos as

"discourse". Once the assignment-relation gets articulated via discourse, the authentic
Being of a given phenomena becomes unhidden.
By thus steering between one extreme of bald claims of unmediated knowledge
and the other extreme of total subjective construction, Heidegger presents more of an
observation. His account does not propose a "better" way of thinking about the world, but
a practical this-is-how-we-relate to the world. An over-conservative Christian might
object to the (apparent) contingency of interpretation based of the choosing of Dasein's
possibilities, but in doing so would miss Heidegger's argument. For Heidegger, attempts
at more "objective" understanding of things resulted in reductionistic statements of
material composition and mechanism. He objected to this in saying that this account
proves lacking. In our understanding of things, there lies a relatedness to the phenomena,
which we supply. Since we naturally relate to phenomena around us, how the self does so
can only be supplied by the self.