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DOI: 10.1111/ejop.12096

Heidegger the Metaphysician: Modes-of-Being

and Grundbegriffe
Howard D. Kelly
Abstract: Modes-of-being (Seinsarten) figure centrally in Heideggers masterwork
Being and Time. Testimony to this is Heideggers characterisation of two of his
most celebrated enquiriesthe Existential analytic and the Zeug analysisas
investigations into the respective modes-of-being of the entities concerned. Yet
despite the importance of this concept, commentators disagree widely about
what a mode-of-being is. In this paper, I systematically outline and defend a
novel and exegetically grounded interpretation of this concept. Strongly opposed
to Kantian readings, such as those advocated by Taylor Carman and Cristina
Lafont, I interpret a mode-of-being as a universal that defines a district (Bezirk)
that is, a natural class of entities that ought to be conceptualised in a special way.
As such, every mode-of-being plays an important metaphysical and epistemic
role: serving both to unify a natural class of a high degree of generality and as
the interpretandum of an act yielding the basic-concepts (Grundbegriffe) pertaining
to the entities therein. In explicating and arguing for this interpretation, I
attribute a characteristically Aristotelian philosophical position to the early
Heidegger, encompassing both metaphysical and epistemological realism and a
conceptualist theory of universals.

Modes-of-being (Seinsarten)or, synonymously, ways-of-being (Seinsweisen or

Weisen zu Sein)figure centrally in Heideggers masterwork Being and Time
(Heidegger 1927/2006). Testimony to this is Heideggers characterisation of two
of his most celebrated enquiriesthe Existential analytic and the Zeuganalysisas investigations of the modes-of-being of the entities concerned, viz.
Existence (Existenz) and to-hand-ness (Zuhandenheit) respectively (Heidegger
1927/2006: 50, 68).1 Yet commentators disagree widely about what modes-ofbeing are (McDaniel 2009: 292). In this paper, I shall defend a novel, exegetically
grounded interpretation of this concept. I believe that my interpretation not only
represents Heideggers views accurately, but also embodies a philosophical
position plausible in its own right. Although Heidegger develops the concept of
a mode-of-being in subsequent works, this paper concerns Being and Time
exclusively.
I interpret a mode-of-being as a universal that defines a district (Bezirk)that
is, a natural class of entities that ought to be conceptualised in a special way. This
interpretation is divisible into four claims jointly capturing the necessary and
sufficient conditions for being a mode-of-being. After clarifying two terminological issues, I shall present these four claims and define each of the technical
European Journal of Philosophy : ISSN 0966-8373 pp. 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Howard D. Kelly

terms therein, before proceeding to defend each claim in turn. In the course of
doing so, I also assess various rival interpretations. My interpretation is metaphysically and epistemologically realist, presenting Heidegger as engaged in
revisionary metaphysics of a broadly Aristotelian form.2 Accordingly, I herein
attribute two characteristically Aristotelian metaphysical positions to Heidegger:
conceptualism and the property/concept duality of universals. My interpretation
thus contrasts with transcendental idealist interpretations of Being and Time,
which I criticise throughout.
The two aforementioned terminological issues are as follows. First, although
Heidegger uses the term mode-of-being in more than one sense in Being and
Time, I shall be concerned exclusively with the sense in which, for example,
to-hand-ness is described as the mode-of-being of gear [Zeug] (Heidegger
1927/2006: 69). Heideggers frequent use of the definite noun-phrase the modeof-being of x implies that nothing possesses more than one such mode-of-being
simultaneously.3 Second, Heidegger speaks of the being of x interchangeably
with the mode-of-being of x. For example: to-hand-ness and extantness
(Vorhandenheit) are each described as the being and the mode-of-being of
certain entities (Heidegger 1927/2006: 734, 83, 88).
I contend that in Being and Time, a mode-of-being is a universal that defines
a district (Bezirk). A district is a natural class of entities that ought to be
conceptualised in a special way. This interpretation is divisible into the following
four claims. As exegetical claims, these should be read as though prefixed with
Heidegger holds that. Since they are intended to capture Heideggers conceptions of mode-of-being and district, they are claims of necessity.
Claim
Claim
Claim
Claim

1:
2:
3:
4:

Every
Every
Every
Every

mode-of-being is a universal.
mode-of-being defines a district.
district is a natural class of entities.
district ought to be conceptualised in a special way.

I define the terms in these claims thus. First, if something is a predicable

capable of multiple application, then it is a universal. Something is a predicable
just in case it can be true or false of something, i.e. possess an extension and
anti-extension (Carmichael 2010: 373). Predicables might include properties, i.e.
ways things can be, concepts, i.e. ways things can be thought of as being, and
even linguistic expressions (cf. Carmichael 2010: 3734). Second, a class is a
collection with a membership-condition. So, for example, the collection to which
something belongs by virtue of being a living thing is a class. Because classes are
identified by their membership-conditions, there could be empty classes and
co-extensive classes. Third, any universal, F, defines any class, x, just in case xs
membership-condition is being F or being an F. Even nominalists might
recognise the existence of x, e.g. the class of all dogs, if they maintain that the
existence of an F, e.g. a dog, does not depend upon the existence of F, e.g.
dogness.
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Heidegger the Metaphysician

Fourth, any class is a natural class just in case it is found in or made by

nature, i.e. the world per se (Hacking 1990: 135). Natural classes are contradistinguished from classes found in cognition or made by cognisers, i.e. minddependent classes. This corresponds to Kants distinction between things as they
are in themselves and things as they appear to us (Allais 2004: 656).4 Only if
natural classes exist can enquirers carve nature at the joints, i.e. classify entities
according to natural classifications (Borghini and Slater 2011; cf. Sider 2011: i).
Claim 3 implies a minimal form of metaphysical realism: that the world is as it
is independently of how humans take it to be (Khlentzos 2011).
Finally, the notion of conceptualisation in Claim 4 is identical to Taylor
Carmans notion of making sense of something (Carman 2003: 40). The word
special implies that there should be a distinctive way of thinking and talking
about the members of a given natural class, i.e. that no other natural class of
entities, except for its proper subclasses, ought to be thought and talked about
in the same way. Conceptualisation is cashable in terms of the basic-concepts
(Grundbegriffe) deployed in thinking and talking about those things. Ought here
expresses an epistemic duty (see Dretske 2000). Claim 4 thus means [. . .] ought
to be conceptualised in a special way, in pursuing knowledge of the entities therein.
Claim 4 thus implies a commitment to epistemological realism: that we can obtain
knowledge of entities themselves (Kantorovich 1993: 44), rather than of their
appearances alone (Allais 2004: 656). For were knowledge of an entity itself
impossible, there could not be an epistemically correct way of conceptualising
that entity. Correct expresses epistemic correctness throughout.
1. Claim 1: Aristotelian Conceptualism and Metaphysical Realism
Almost all commentators endorse Claim 1, albeit usually only implicitly. Claim
1 is strongly supported by the following three facts. First, Heidegger almost
invariably denotes modes-of-being using a type of expression standardly used in
natural languages exclusively to denote universals, viz. bare adjective
nominalisations (see Moltmann 2013), v.g. Vorhandenheit (Heidegger 1927/2006:
83), Zuhandenheit (Heidegger 1927/2006: 69), Existenz (Heidegger 1927/2006:
12), Substanzialitt (Heidegger 1927/2006: 8990), Leben (Heidegger 1927/2006:
46, 4950), Natur (Heidegger 1927/2006: 63, 65). I say almost invariably because
Heidegger occasionally uses gerundive nominalisations to denote either modesof-being themselves or states of entities insofar as they possess modes-of-being,
v.g. Zuhandensein (Heidegger 1927/2006: 81, 82) and Vorhandensein (Heidegger
1927/2006: 29, 42). Second, Heidegger evidently recognises that modes-of-being
are predicables capable of multiple application. For instance, he holds to-handness and extantness to be the modes-of-being of many intraworldly entities
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 71, 88). Third, it is independently plausible that certain
examples of modes-of-being discussed by Heidegger are universals. For
example, life (Leben) (Heidegger 1927/2006: 910, 46, 4950) is a universal
because it is a multiply applicable predicable, i.e. something predicable of many
things, viz. all living things.5
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Howard D. Kelly

Nevertheless, Claim 1 leaves open three questions concerning the nature of

such universals. First, whether modes-of-being and entities instantiation thereof
are mind-independent or mind-dependent. Second, whether modes-of-being are
properties, i.e. ways things can be, or concepts, i.e. ways things can be thought of
as being (cf. Lowe 2006b: 856; Lowe 2009: 289). Third, whether modes-of-being
are relational or non-relational universals. I shall survey various answers to these
questions before offering my own. The purpose of the survey is not to analyse
these answers per se, but to determine the range of possible answers to the three
questions.
First, interpreting Heidegger as a transcendental idealist would imply the
mind-dependence of modes-of-being and entities instantiation thereof. Cristina
Lafont advocates this, expressing Heideggers position thus: that there are
entities has nothing to do with us, but what they are depends on our prior
projection of their being (Lafont 2007: 106); and she adverts to Heideggers
affirmation of the dependence of modes-of-being upon Dasein (Lafont 2007:
1056; Heidegger 1927/2006: 183, 212). Consequently, Heidegger would deny
both the naturalness of classes defined by modes-of-being (Claim 3) and the
mind-independence of the population of such classes. I shall discuss Lafonts
reading extensively later. Taylor Carmans interpretation of modes-of-being as a
priori categories of the understanding has implications for the first question,
depending on how such categories are conceived (Carman 2003: 136). If such
categories were mere structures of the human mind, and thus exclusively
concepts rather than properties, then both modes-of-being and their instantiation
would be mind-dependent. But if categories were mind-independent universals
that are merely cognised a priori, both modes-of-being and their instantiation
would be mind-independent. I consider both options in answering this question.6
In respect to whether modes-of-being are properties or concepts, whilst some
interpret modes-of-being as, primarily or exclusively, ways things can be, e.g.
Lafont (2007) and Blattner (Blattner 1999), others interpret modes-of-being as,
primarily or exclusively, ways things can be thought of as being, e.g. Frede (Frede
1993) and Carman (Carman 2003). Regarding the third question, some interpret
modes-of-being as essentially relational universals: whether dispositional, in the
broadest sense, or occurrent. For example, Hubert Dreyfus identifies modes-ofbeing with modes of intelligibility (Dreyfus 1991: xi). A mode-of-being is thus a
capacity to be understood in a certain way, with understanding extending to
know-how (Dreyfus 1991: 73). Mark Okrent (Okrent 1988: 199) and Gail Soffer
(Soffer 1999: 381) hold similar views. Frederick Olafson (Olafson 1987: xvii) and
Jeff Malpas (Malpas 2007: 125) interpret modes-of-being as occurrent relations:
specifically cognitive relations to Dasein. Conceiving of modes-of-being as
ontological frameworksi.e. sets of necessary conditions for entities to exist as the
kinds of entities they areBlattner might allow that the instantiation of both
non-relational and relational universals could figure in entities possession of
modes-of-being (Blattner 1999: 4). Batrice Han-Pile apparently follows Blattner
on this point (Han-Pile 2007), and Bruin Christensen favours a cognition-relative
variant thereof (Christensen 2007: 179).
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Heidegger the Metaphysician

I propose the following answers to the three questions. First, in light of his
claim that modes-of-being are, i.e. exist, only in acts of understanding
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 183), I interpret Heidegger as holding that both modesof-being themselves and their instantiation are mind-dependent. Crucially,
however, this does not entail an idealist reading of Heidegger, which I regard as
implausible. To reconcile the mind-dependence of both modes-of-being and their
instantiation with Heideggers metaphysical realism, I attribute to Heidegger, in
respect to modes-of-being, the Aristotelian conceptualist position of denying the
mind-independence of universals and their instantiation whilst affirming the
mind-independence of entities of various kinds qua entities of those kinds. This
entails that a district (Bezirk) could be mind-independent even if the universal
defining it were not. For example: although extantness as such enjoys only a
mind-dependent existenceand therefore no entity could stand in any relation
to extantness, including instantiation, mind-independentlythe existence of
extant entities qua extant, and therewith the district defined by extantness, is
mind-independent.7 Anthony Kenny expresses the Aristotelian position as that
there are no universals existing outside the mind (Kenny 2002: 74): though,
conversely, there are universals existing inside the mind (Kenny 2002: 73). It is not
historically implausible that Heidegger adopts an Aristotelian position, since
Aristotle and the Aristotelian Scholastics influenced Heidegger greatly (Kisiel
1994: 227308). Interestingly, Quine expresses a similar view, albeit without
countenancing the mind-dependence of universals:
One may admit that there are red houses, roses, and sunsets, but deny,
except as a popular and misleading manner of speaking, that they have
anything in common. The words houses, roses, and sunsets denote
each of sundry individual entities which are houses and roses and
sunsets, and the word red or red object denotes each of sundry
individual entities which are red houses, red roses, red sunsets; but there
is not, in addition, any entity whatever, individual or otherwise, which
is named by the word redness, nor, for that matter, by the word
househood, rosehood, sunsethood. That the houses and roses and
sunsets are all of them red may be taken as ultimate and irreducible
(Quine 1948: 2930).
Second, I interpret modes-of-being as essentially both properties and concepts.
For, again, in regard to modes-of-being, I ascribe to Heidegger the Aristotelian
view that talk of properties and talk of concepts represent two sides of the same
coin, two ways of talking about the same things (Putnam 2002: 106). Thus,
Heidegger may consistently speak of a mode-of-being as both something characterising entities themselves and a concept. Indeed, Heidegger classifies to-handness (Zuhandenheit) and extantness (Vorhandenheit) as both modes-of-being, i.e. as
somehow characterising entities, and concepts (Begriffe), i.e. ways entities can be
thought of as being (Heidegger 1927/2006: 69, 99100, 88).8
Finally, I maintain that Heidegger might permit the class of modes-of-being to
include both relational and non-relational universals. For Heidegger occasionally
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Howard D. Kelly

speaks of one mode-of-being, viz. to-hand-ness, as though it were a relational

universal. Consider the following passage, for instance:
On cars nowadays, a red, rotatable arrow is fixed, whose particular
positionfor example, at a junctionshows which road the car will
take. The position of the arrow is controlled by the driver. This sign is
an item of gear that is not only to-hand in the concern (steering) of the
driver. Those who are not travelling with himand they especially
also make use of this gear, namely in the manner of avoiding on the
corresponding side or stopping (Heidegger 1927/2006: 78).
On a metaphysical, as opposed to descriptive-phenomenological, reading, the
third sentence of this passage suggests that the arrow is to-hand only relative to
certain agents, viz. the driver controlling it and his fellow road users. The final
sentence of the passage, moreover, suggests that if the arrow is used or capable
of being used by someone, then the arrow is to-hand for that person. On this
reading, then, to-hand-ness is at least a capacity and perhaps even an occurrent
relation. The arrows being to-hand might consist, then, either in its capacity to
be used or in its actually being used by someone. If the former, then something
could be described as being to-hand simpliciter; but if the latter, then something
could be described as being to-hand only expressly relative to someone.
One reason for interpreting to-hand-ness as a capacity, rather as an occurrent
relation, is derivable from Denis McManus. McManus suggests that the occurrent relationality of to-hand-ness would lead Heidegger into idealism. For if
intraworldly entities were essentially to-hand, as Heidegger might hold
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 71), then intraworldly entities would depend existentially
upon Dasein (McManus 2007: 87). To retain metaphysical realism, then, we might
instead interpret to-hand-ness as a capacity, i.e. a dispositional universal. For, so
long as this capacity extends to remote possible worlds, the capacity of an entity
to relate to Dasein is independent of the actual existence of Dasein. For something could still be capable of being used by Dasein, say, even if no Dasein
actually existed.

2. Claim 2: Disregarding Modes-of-Being

The relationship between modes-of-being and districts (Bezirke) is rarely discussed. Nevertheless, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann elucidates this relationship in his commentary on Being and Time (von Herrmann 1987); and Bill Blattner
has more recently discussed certain aspects thereof (Blattner 2007).9 I shall clarify
this relationship and establish the sufficiency of district-definition for a universal
to qualify as a mode-of-being. I conclude the section by addressing an objection.
Von Herrmann adverts to Heideggers distinction between districts and subjectareas (Sachgebiete) (Heidegger 1927/2006: 9), which he interprets as a distinction
between divisions inherent within the totality of entities and the same divisions
as exposed and defined expressly (von Herrmann 1987: 83). Therefore, though
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Heidegger the Metaphysician

he does not say this, von Herrmann construes a districts becoming a subject-area
as a mere Cambridge change in the district. The property of being a subject-area
is therefore a mere Cambridge property. Von Herrmann accordingly affirms that
every subject-area is a district (von Herrmann 1987: 90).
Von Herrmann further adverts to Heideggers intimation that every district is
defined by a mode-of-being (von Herrmann 1987: 901, 97), i.e. that every entity
within any given district possesses the same mode-of-being. For Heidegger
writes, firstly, that so far as each [subject-area] is gained from the district of
entities itself, such prior research that draws out the basic-concepts [pertaining
to a subject-area] means nothing other than the interpreting [Auslegung] of these
entities in the basic-constitution of their being. In the same passage, Heidegger
states that an act of prior research into a subject-area discloses it primarily in its
constitution-of-being (Heidegger 1927/2006: 10). This implies that every district
and every subject-area qua district is defined by a mode-of-being. In the first
statement, the possessive noun-phrase their being implies that these entities,
i.e. all entities within a district, possess the same mode-of-being. For, as Barbara
Abbott notes, possessive noun-phrases are almost universally considered to be
definite, i.e. to denote unique objects (Abbott 2005: 123)the unique object here
being the mode-of-being of the members of a district. In the second statement,
the possessive noun-phrase its constitution-of-being implies that subject-areas
are unified by modes-of-being. Given that subject-areas are essentially districts,
the latter entails that, at least for the districts that are subject-areas, it is
necessarily true that every entity within any given district possesses the same
mode-of-being. This is further corroborated by Heideggers use of the terms life
and nature to denote both modes-of-being and subject-areas (Heidegger
1927/2006: 910, 46, 50, 9, 63, 65). For this implies that every living entity qua
living instantiates life and every natural entity qua natural instantiates nature.10
Moreover, in light of the first of the two statements above, this is seemingly an
essential feature of subject-areas qua districts.
Referring to districts as regions of being, Blattner echoes the above points.
Blattner names as examples of such regions the present-at-hand, i.e. the
extant (Vorhanden), the ready-to-hand, i.e. the to-hand (Zuhanden), and the
existent, i.e. entities possessing Existence (Existenz) (Blattner 2007: 178).
Blattner calls these large-scale regions of being, which he distinguishes from
regions investigated by specific sciences, e.g. quantum mechanics (Blattner
2007: 18). Since presence-at-hand, readiness-to-hand, and existence are all modesof-being, we may infer that Blattner endorses Claim 2. Furthermore, Blattners
use of the term region suggests a link between Heideggers districts and
Husserls regions (Region), i.e. maximally general domains of entities, e.g.
Nature, Culture, and Consciousness. Indeed, the metaphysical role Heidegger
assigns to modes-of-being, viz. defining districts, is assigned to material
essences by Husserl in respect to regions (Husserl 1913: 1923; Woodruff-Smith
2007: 55). Given their consistency with the textual data and internal coherence,
and in the absence of any objections or evidence to the contrary, I endorse all
of the foregoing points.
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Howard D. Kelly

The following objection targets the sufficiency of district-definition for a

universal to be a mode-of-being. As noted earlier, it is a datum that Heidegger
holds that no entity possesses more than one mode-of-being simultaneously.11 Yet
it is independently plausible that a single entity can belong to a plurality of
districts simultaneously: to which it would belong, ex hypothesi, by possessing a
plurality of modes-of-being. For example: Dasein belongs to the districts defined
by the modes-of-being Existence and life by possessing these modes-of-being.
Therefore, since this contradicts the datum, it would seem that district-definition
is insufficient for a universal to be a mode-of-being.
In rejoinder, I ascribe to Heidegger the position that a plurality of modes-ofbeing can, in some sense, be included within the single mode-of-being possessed
by an entity. For example: Dasein possesses only one mode-of-being, viz.
Existence (Heidegger 1927/2006: 12); but Existence includes life and perhaps
extantness, in that instantiating the former entails instantiating the latter. Consequently, Dasein can either belong to a plurality of districts simultaneously or
move into different districts, as Heidegger puts it (Heidegger 1927/2006: 246),
through being considered in different ways. In the following passages,
Heidegger adverts to the possibility of disregarding (absehen) somethings possession of a particular mode-of-being, or of considering something differently, in
order to consider it qua possessing a different mode-of-being. The first two
passages concern respectively the consideration of Dasein qua merely extant and
qua merely living, while the third describes the consideration of a particular
to-hand entity, viz. a hammer, qua extant.
[Even Dasein] is extant in the world, more precisely speaking: with a
certain right, within certain limits, can be conceived as only an extant entity.
To that end, a complete disregarding, or overlooking, of the Existential
constitution of being-in is necessary (Heidegger 1927/2006: 55).
Even Dasein can be considered as pure life. It moves, in that case, for the
biologico-physiological question-formulation, into the district-of-being
that we know as the animal- and plant-world. In this field, data and
statistics about the life of plants, animals, and human beings can be
obtained through ontical ascertainment. Connections between life, reproduction, and growth can be cognised (Heidegger 1927/2006: 246).
What is the reason that in the modified talk, [the hammer] shows itself
differently? Not that we stand back from the plying, nor even that we
merely disregard the gear-character of this entity, but rather that we
consider the appearing to-hand entity anew, as an extant entity. The
understanding-of-being that leads concernful engagement with
intraworldly entities has switched. [. . .] [I]nstead of considering a to-hand
entity circumspectively, [we] conceive it as an extant entity (Heidegger
1927/2006: 361).
In order for it to be epistemically justifiable to consider, say, a to-hand entity
qua extant, as Heidegger describes, it seems that the entity must possess both
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Heidegger the Metaphysician

to-hand-ness and extantness simultaneously. This would naturally be inconsistent

with the datum that no entity possesses more than one mode-of-being simultaneously. But by asserting that a plurality of modes-of-being can be included
within a single mode-of-being, Heidegger may consistently endorse both that
datum and the epistemic justifiability of considering an entity qua possessing
different modes-of-being. The relevant notion of inclusion is deployed by
Michael Loux in discussing kinds. Loux proposes that the kinds to which a thing
belongs form a nested hierarchy and [. . .] the more general kinds are included
in or implied by the less general kinds in the hierarchy. For instance, the kind
animal is included within the kind human being (Loux 2006: 115). A similar
position is plausible in respect to determinable and determinate colours. Suppose
that the most determinate colour instantiated by some wine is burgundy. The
wine has only one colour, viz. burgundy; but yet the wine is both burgundy and
red simultaneously. The relationship between burgundy and red might likewise be
that of inclusion (cf. Funkhouser 2006: 5489; Crane 2008). This issue resembles
the Scholastic question of whether a single entity, e.g. a man, can possess a
plurality of substantial forms simultaneously, e.g. animality and humanity.
Whereas Aquinas famously denied the multiplicity of substantial forms, others
affirmed it (Kenny 2002: 16). In conclusion, I propose that Heidegger may be
charitably construed as adopting a position on modes-of-being analogous to
Aquinass on substantial forms.
3. Claim 3: Revisionary Metaphysics and Epistemological Realism
Claim 3 is controversial insofar as it implies that modes-of-being, which are both
properties and concepts, carve nature, i.e. the world per se, at the joints. Claim
3 is therefore incompatible with popular transcendental idealist readings of
Heidegger, which imply the impossibility of knowledge of things as they are in
themselves (Allais 2004: 656). I thus read Heidegger as a metaphysical and
epistemological realist: as affirming that the world is as it is independently of
how cognisers take it to be and that it is possible to achieve knowledge of entities
themselves. My principal reason for reading Being and Time as founded upon
metaphysical and epistemological realism is that Heidegger appears throughout
to be seeking the correct basic-concepts (Grundbegriffe) for conceptualising entities
of various kinds. Testimony thereto is his criticism of philosophical and scientific
traditions for conceptualising entities of various kinds incorrectly, e.g. for conceptualising Dasein as merely extant (Heidegger 1927/2006: 49, 545, 59, 9899),
conceptualising intraworldly entities as merely extant rather than as to-hand
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 68, 99100), and conceptualising space imprecisely and
unsystematically (Heidegger 1927/2006: 113). Heidegger insists, moreover, that
instead of forcing objects of research into inappropriate concepts in this manner,
enquirers should draw the conceptualisation belonging to [an] entity from [the
entity] itself (Heidegger 1927/2006: 150).
This datum regarding the metaphysically revisionary motive of Heideggers
investigations is difficult to accommodate within any transcendental idealist
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Howard D. Kelly

interpretation. For it suggests that Heidegger holds both that the natures of
entities, i.e. the ways things themselves are, prescribe certain conceptualisations
of those entities and that knowledge thereof can be attained. Heideggers
conclusions about the conceptualisation of, say, Dasein or intraworldly entities
thus carry normative force, as conclusions about how entities ought to be conceptualised given the natures of the respective entities. If Heidegger were a
transcendental idealist, we should expect him instead to be occupied solely
with describing either the ways entities must be conceptualised given the nature
of the human mind, la Kant, or the ways entities are conceptualised de
facto during a certain period of history or within a particular tradition, la
Rorty (Rorty 1979: 34). Tellingly, Heidegger explicitly denies that his research
satisfies the latter description, contradistinguishing his project of laying the
foundations of the sciences from research that lags behind [the sciences], which
investigates the method of an accidental state of a science (Heidegger
1927/2006: 910).
Nevertheless, there are several possible challenges to Claim 3, of which I shall
discuss three. First, Heidegger apparently acknowledges the possibility of empty
districts, e.g. the districts of subjects, egos, spirits, and persons (Heidegger
1927/2006: 22, 46, 48). For Heidegger stresses throughout the Existential analytic
that Dasein is none of these things (Heidegger 1927/2006: 22, 46, 59, 60); and
Dasein seems to be the only potential candidate therefor. Now, it might seem that
no empty class could be a natural class, since the term nature is often used to
denote the realm of actual entities specifically. Therefore, it seems that Heidegger
would deny that districts are essentially natural classes.
In rejoinder, the term nature need not be understood so narrowly. For it is
plausible that there are natural divisions (joints) not only within the realm of
actuality, but also within the realm of metaphysical possibility. For example: even
if there were no actual living entities, there could still be a natural, i.e.
cognition-independent, distinction between the living and the non-living.
Indeed, such distinctions are posited by those philosophers who conceive
metaphysics as charting the domain of objective or real possibility (Lowe 2011:
100). The possibility at issue in such metaphysics is objective insofar as it is
cognition-independent and thereby natural. Since I read Heidegger as engaged
in precisely this sort of metaphysical research, his acknowledgement of empty
districts counts in favour of my interpretation rather than against it.
A second challenge is derivable from the work of Cristina Lafont. As previously noted, Lafont represents Heidegger as a sort of transcendental idealist, viz.
as denying that what entities are is independent of cognisers. She explicates this
as meaning that the world is not made out of self-identifying entities; we are the
ones who divide the world into different entities according to our interpretations
of their being. This is a denial of metaphysical realism (Lafont 2007: 106).
According to Lafont, then, Heidegger would deny not only that modes-of-being
define natural classes (Claim 3), but that there are any natural classes tout court.
For on Lafonts picture, the world per se consists of bare particulars and thus
features no natural divisions.
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Lafont presents the following argument for her interpretation. First, she
represents Heidegger as holding that the mode-of-being an entity possesses
essentially constitutes, at least partially, what the entity is. For instance, life
constitutes a living entity as a living entity. Second, Lafont assumes that in order
for entities to be what they are mind-independently, everything constituting
what they are must belong to those entities themselves; and, crucially, she
glosses this as meaning that it must be some ontic structure or properties that
those entities have. Since the word ontic means entitative (Heidegger
1927/2006: 63), this means that everything constituting what entities are must
itself be an entity (Lafont 2007: 106). As Heidegger affirms that [t]he being, i.e.
the modes-of-being, of entities is not itself an entity (Heidegger 1927/2006: 6),
it seems he would affirm that no entity is what it is mind-independently and
thereby reject metaphysical realism. Lafont notes, however, that Heidegger does
not deny outright that entities have quiddities (whatnesses), since he ascribes a
mind-dependent existence to modes-of-being (Lafont 2007: 106)[the] being [of
entities] is only in the act of understanding (Heidegger 1927/2006: 183).
I deny the cogency of Lafonts argument. Before presenting a counterargument, however, I shall first discuss an important omission on Lafonts part.
Lafont apparently assumes that Heideggers denial that the being of entities is an
entity is straightforwardly compatible with his claim that the being of entities is
in the act of understanding. For Lafont evidently regards Heideggers position as
ultimately coherent (Lafont 2007: 1056). But if Heideggers is in the second
claim, enclosed in scare quotes, means is an entity, then these positions are
blatantly incompatible. For a mind-dependent entity is an entity nonetheless, so
the second position would contradict the first. Charity demands, therefore, that
we attribute to Heidegger a distinction between being an entityliterally, a
being (Seiendes)and be-ing (sein), i.e. existing, simpliciter. Indeed, Heideggers
inclusion of is in scare quotes in ascribing a mind-dependent existence to
modes-of-being presumably signifies that despite be-ing (existing) in some sense,
modes-of-being nevertheless do not have being in the strict sense, i.e. are not
entities. Incidentally, to raise a point that commentators rarely pick up on,
Heideggers claim that the being of entities is not itself an entity, i.e. something
that has being (Seiendes), should be endorsed by everyone on pain of an infinite
regress. For if the being of an entity had being, then the being of this entity
would have being; and the being of this entity would have being, and so on, ad
infinitum.12
Now in direct rejoinder to Lafonts argument, I deny that Heidegger holds the
mode-of-being of an entity to constitute, even partially, what the entity is. For, as
stated in 1, I attribute to Heidegger the Aristotelian conceptualist distinction
between an entitys instantiation of a universal, e.g. Calliass instantiation of
humanitywhich, by virtue of the mind-dependent existence of universals, is
mind-dependentand an entitys being an entity of the kind it is, e.g. Calliass
being a human being, which is mind-independent. On this interpretation,
Heidegger can consistently espouse, and plausibly does espouse, metaphysical
realism whilst denying that modes-of-being enjoy mind-independent existence.
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Given the attractiveness of a metaphysically realist reading of Heidegger, and in

light of Aristotles considerable influence upon Heidegger (Kisiel 1994: 227308),
it is plausible that Heidegger endorses this distinction. Moreover, there are, to
my knowledge, no textual data manifestly inconsistent with this interpretation.
Therefore, Lafonts challenge fails to demonstrate the falsity of Claim 3.
A third objection to Claim 3 can be extracted from the work of Taylor Carman.
Carman interprets modes-of-being not as universals defining natural classes of
entities, but as a priori categories of the understanding in a broadly Kantian
sense (Carman 2003: 136). According to Carman, then, something is a mode-ofbeing just in case it is one of the determinate set of general ways we are
essentially capable of understanding things as being. For example, we can
understand something as being mere[ly] spatiotemporally present (vorhanden)
or as defined essentially by its functional role in the context of human practices
(zuhanden) (Carman 2003: 135). In addition, Carman maintains that every a priori
category of the understanding is not grounded in but grounds our experience
of objects (Carman 2003: 136). In other words, these categories are not acquired
by means of experience, in which case they would be a posteriori, but rather
enable experience to occur. For, on this position, whenever someone experiences
an object, they must experience it as instantiating one such category, e.g. as
merely spatiotemporally present or as fulfilling a functional role in human
practices. Consequently, the concept of a mode-of-being is primarily an epistemological (transcendental) concept rather than a metaphysical concept. Finally,
Carman goes further than claiming that modes-of-being are merely general ways
we can understand things as being, contending that these are the ways we
actually understand things as being: [Heideggers] phenomenology is an account
of the categories by which we do in fact make sense of things (Carman 2003:
136).
The hypothesis that Heidegger conceives of modes-of-being in this manner
might be supported by the following passage, in which Heidegger announces
the aim of his enquiry into being (Sein):
The question-of-being aims [. . .] at an a priori condition of the possibility
not only of the sciences that explore entities as such-and-such entities,
and which therein move ever already within an understanding-of-being,
but at the condition of the possibility of the ontologies themselves
underlying and founding the ontical sciences (Heidegger 1927/2006: 11).
Enquiring into the a priori condition of the possibility of something, la Kant,
consists in determining what must be the case for it to be possible for that thing
to occur (Grier 2012). Carmans a priori categories of the understanding might
figure in conditions of the possibility of science and ontology insofar as they
constitute the determinate range of general ways someone can understand things
as being. For, ex hypothesi, whenever any enquirer cognises something, they must
understand it as being one of these ways. Therefore, at every possible world at
which someone is capable of engaging in science or ontology, they possess at
least some of these categories.
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Responding to Carmans challenge, I shall first discuss certain points on

which Carman and I are in agreement. First, I agree that Heidegger holds that
modes-of-being are general ways someone could understand things as being (cf.
von Herrmann 2005: 124). Indeed, if this were not the case, then many of the
enquiries Heidegger undertakessuch as the Existential analytic, which investigates Existence, and the Zeug-analysis, which investigates to-hand-nesswould
be futile. For if human beings were incapable of comprehending Existence and
to-hand-ness, then enquiring into them would be a fools errand. Moreover, Claim
4 implies that modes-of-being essentially define districts capable of being conceptualised. Hence, I represent Heidegger as holding that every mode-of-being is
in principle capable of being cognised, insofar as enquirers can comprehend the
common property of every member of any class they can conceptualise.
Second, I grant that Heidegger holds modes-of-being to be a priori: in the
sense that they can be cognised, qua possible ways for things to be, without
recourse to experience. Indeed, the claim that metaphysical knowledge is a
priorimeaning that metaphysical knowledge is obtainable without recourse to
experienceis a core tenet of both traditional and contemporary Aristotelian
metaphysics, which I believe Heidegger to practise. For metaphysical knowledge
thus conceived is essentially knowledge of what is metaphysically possible or
necessary; and it is only knowledge of what is actual, qua actual, that depends
upon empirical support (Maritain 1932/1995: 71; Lowe 2011: 100; Tahko 2011:
1556).
I baulk at two aspects of Carmans interpretation, however. Firstly, there is the
claim that every mode-of-being is not grounded in but grounds our experience
of objects. This implies that a persons cognition of modes-of-being, qua a priori
categories of the understanding, is both a necessary condition of and partly
explains their capacity to experience objects. For these categories are said to
constitute the determinate range of ways we can understand entities as being,
whether in experience or thought. There is insufficient textual evidence to
warrant interpreting modes-of-being per se as either a necessary condition of or
explaining our capacity to experience objects, at least in any non-trivial sense.
Heideggers occasional advertence to Daseins essential understanding-of-being
as enabling cognition is only ostensibly evidence thereof (Heidegger 1927/2006:
4, 67, 183). For Heidegger states that this understanding is at first not separated
and articulated into determinate ways-of-being (Heidegger 1927/1975: 3956),
thereby falsifying the claim that he posits a priori categories of the understanding. Of course, there is a trivial sense in which any way something can be
contributes to explaining our capacity to experience objects, assuming that every
experience must represent an object as being a certain way. For if there were no
ways things could be, we could not experience anything.13 But this is not the
explanatory relation that Carman has in mind; rather, he holds a priori categories
of the understanding to be structures, of some kind, that condition and constrain
our experience of objects in a strong sense (Carman 2003: 234).
In the passage from Being and Time quoted above, Heideggers description of
his enquiry into the being of entities as ordered to the attainment of knowledge
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of the condition of the possibility of science and ontology may be read not as
alluding to knowledge of invariant features of human cognition as such, but
rather to knowledge of the invariant features of the objects of science and
ontology, e.g. of specific districts and the modes-of-being definitive thereof. In
the Existential analytic and the Zeug-analysis respectively, for example,
Heidegger pursues knowledge of invariant features of Dasein, qua Existent
entity, and of intraworldly entities qua to-hand. These are expressed in the
basic-concepts (Grundbegriffe) pertaining to the respective districts, viz. the
districts defined by Existence and to-hand-ness, which underlie philosophical and
scientific research (Heidegger 192728/1995: 289). That this is also the aim of
Heideggers enquiry into being more generally is suggested by two other
passages in which he uses the phrase a priori. Firstly, Heidegger states that an
enquiry into the being of an entity yields knowledge of the a priori determinations of the entity. Heidegger proceeds to explain that these are a priori
determinations insofar as they belong to an entity solely qua entity [Seiendes],
i.e. insofar as it has being (its mode-of-being), and can therefore be known a
priori to necessarily characterise every entity possessing the mode-of-being in
question (Heidegger 1927/2006: 445). For instance: being-by-the-world might be
described as an a priori determination of Dasein, insofar as an enquirer can
know that it necessarily characterises every particular Dasein merely by knowing
that Dasein possesses Existence (Heidegger 1927/2006: 545). Secondly,
Heidegger identifies the goal of the Existential analytic as:
The exposure of the a priori that must be visible if the question of what
man is is to be capable of becoming debated philosophically. The
Existential analytic of Dasein lies before all psychology, anthropology,
and, a fortiori, biology (Heidegger 1927/2006: 45).
Thus, although the Existential analytic, as an investigation yielding the
basic-concepts pertaining to Dasein, is epistemological (transcendental) insofar
as it yields that in terms of which Dasein ought to be understood in any
philosophical or scientific enquiry, it is equally metaphysical: insofar as it delivers
knowledge of the most general features of Dasein qua Existent entity. This again
corroborates the interpretation of modes-of-being as simultaneously both concepts and propertiesthe two sides of the same coin, as Putnam puts it
(Putnam 2002: 106). Therefore, Heideggers use of the term a priori should not
be taken to imply that modes-of-being, or any of the concepts yielded by
enquiries thereinto, explain and constrain human cognition in any strong sense
with the perhaps concomitant transcendental idealism. Rather, the conceptual
output of such enquiries is a priori in the sense that it is prior to philosophical
and scientific research of every other kind in constituting the epistemic foundations thereof.14
The second objectionable aspect of Carmans interpretation is the claim that
Heidegger holds modes-of-being to be the categories by which we do in fact
make sense of things (Carman 2003: 136). It is arguable that both the Existential
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analytic and Heideggers investigation into the being of intraworldly entities

reveal the falsity of this claim. Firstly, during the course of conducting the
former, Heidegger writes:
The sources relevant for traditional anthropologythe Greek definition
and the theological guideindicate that, by way of a determination-ofessence of the entity man, the question of its being remains forgotten;
this
being
[Sein]
is
instead
conceived
as
self-evident
[selbstverstndlich] in the sense of the extantness of the other created
things (Heidegger 1927/2006: 49).
In other words, human beings have traditionally been understood not as
possessing Existence, but as possessing extantness. Therefore, it seems, contrary to
Carmans interpretation, that Heidegger believes that Existence is not in fact the
way we standardly make sense of human beings.15 Secondly, Heidegger accuses
both Descartes and the ancient Greeks of failing to understand intraworldly
entities as possessing to-hand-ness. Heidegger tells us that Descartes postulates
for [intraworldly entities] [. . .] only the mode-of-being of pure extantness
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 99; emphasis removed). With respect to Greek philosophy, Heidegger writes:
The Greeks had an appropriate term for things: pragmatai.e. that
wherewith one has to do in concernful engagement (praxis).
Ontologically, however, they left precisely the specifically pragmatic
character of the pragmata in the dark and determined them primarily as
mere things (Heidegger 1927/2006: 68).
As stated previously, I construe both the Existential analytic and the Zeuganalysis as investigations into the basic-concepts (Grundbegriffe) that ought to be
employed in thinking and talking about entities of the respective kinds.
Heidegger thus intends these enquiries to have normative, revisionary force;
hence his goals therein are, pace Carman, neither exclusively nor even primarily
descriptive. Nevertheless, certain passages suggest that in rejecting traditional
views, Heidegger is seeking to return to the ways in which entities are understood pre-theoretically, and might therefore still be said to be describing the
categories in terms of which we do in fact make sense of things (Carman 2003:
136). Heidegger states that the Zeug-analysis, for example, brings to independent and explicit consummation the understanding-of-being that ever already
belongs to Dasein and is alive in every engagement with entities (Heidegger
1927/2006: 67). Yet such statements need not be read as heralding a pure
description of the basic-concepts ordinarily employed by Dasein, but merely as
a call to exploit Daseins essential capacity to understand the ways entities
themselves are. Indeed, Heidegger would thereby align once again with
Aristotelian-Scholastics who declare that [e]verything in the way of concepts
and ideal constructions that the intelligence [. . .] causes to surge up in itself is
only to serve that sense of being which is indeed the deepest [sc. the most natural]
thing in the intelligence (Maritain 1914/2007: 3078). To summarise, I have
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adverted to certain respects in which Carman and I are in agreement and others
in which we are in disagreement. In short, whereas Carman interprets
Heideggers project in Being and Time as primarily or exclusively epistemological
(transcendental), I interpret it as primarily metaphysical but carrying revisionary,
normative epistemic implications.

4. Claim 4: Interpreting and Conceptualisation

Claim 4 serves, importantly, to distinguish modes-of-being from other universals
that define natural classes. So, for example, although the class of all dogs might
well be a natural class, the universal dogness is not thereby a mode-of-being. For,
on my interpretation, Heidegger would deny that the dogs as such ought to be
conceptualised in a special way; rather, dogs ought to be conceptualised in the
same general way as all living things. Hence life, but not dogness, is a mode-ofbeing. Claim 4 amounts to the claim that for every district, there ought to be a
special way in which every entity within that district is thought and talked
about. So, to use two of Heideggers examples (Heidegger 1927/2006: 10), living
entities qua living ought to be thought and talked about in a different way from
historical entities qua historical. The qua phrases are included because, as we
noted in 3, there are some cases in which a single entity might legitimately be
thought and talked about in different general ways: either because it belongs to
a plurality of districts simultaneously or because it may justifiably be considered
as if it belonged to a different district from the one to which it actually belongs.
As it happens, one of the passages discussed earlier in which Heidegger
describes such a case bears directly upon the truth of Claim 4. Therein,
Heidegger states that through an act of disregarding (Absehen), Dasein can
become an object of biology simpliciter, rather than of anthropology. In this field,
Heidegger writes, data and statistics about the life [Lebensdauer] of plants,
animals, and human beings can be obtained through ontical ascertainment.
Connections between life, reproduction, and growth can be cognised (Heidegger
1927/2006: 246). In other words, upon disregarding the Existence of Dasein we
can think and talk about Dasein using the basic-concepts (Grundbegriffe) pertaining to living entities in general, e.g. life, reproduction, and growth, instead of
employing the basic-concepts proper to Existing entities, which Heidegger calls
Existentials (Heidegger 1927/2006: 44). In adverting to these epistemic implications of disregarding the mode-of-being of an entity, Heidegger thus implies
that Dasein and merely living entities, i.e. mere animals and plants, ought to be
conceptualised in different general ways.
Further evidence for Claim 4 may be derived from Heideggers general
discussions of basic-concepts (Grundbegriffe) in Being and Time and Phenomenological Interpretation of Kants Critique of Pure Reason.16 Firstly, in Being and Time,
Heidegger implies that there ought to be a group of basic-concepts tailored to
each subject-area (Sachgebiet). For he writes: Basic-concepts are the determinations in which the subject-area underlying all the thematic objects of a science
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reaches an understanding that is prior and guides all positive investigation

(Heidegger 1927/2006: 10). This implies that each science ought to command a
distinct group of basic-concepts tailored to the subject-area constituting its entire
subject-matter. Similarly, in Phenomenological Interpretation, Heidegger writes:
The genesis of a science consummates itself in the objectification of an
area of entities, and this means: in the development of the understanding
of the constitution-of-being of the entities concerned. In the development
of this understanding-of-being arise the concepts that contain this,
which, e.g., characterise historical actuality as such, [or] entities qua
living entities at root, i.e. the basic-concepts of the science concerned. With
the development of the basic-concepts, the respective ground and basis
of the specific science and its area [Gebiet] defines itself (Heidegger
192728/1995: 28).
Here, Heidegger speaks of the basic-concepts of the science concernedthat
is, the group of basic-concepts tailored to the common nature of the entities
within the subject-area in question, e.g. the historical or the living: the concepts
that characterise historical actuality as such, [or] entities qua living entities at
root. Finally, the interpretation I have defended is not uncharitable. For it is
independently plausible that certain natural classes of entities ought to be
thought and talked about in different ways from one another. For it stands to
reason that the joints in our thought and language, so to speak, ought to track
the joints inherent within nature, assuming that there are indeed such joints
(Claim 3).17
Cristina Lafont, however, would deny that Heidegger believes in the possibility of attaining knowledge of correct ways of conceptualising entities, even
if he were to admit that this notion is coherent. Lafont takes Heideggers
assertion that the being (mode-of-being) of an entity is that whereupon [sc. on
the basis of which] an entity, however it may be discussed, is ever already
understood (Heidegger 1927/2006: 6), and similar statements, as supporting her
interpretation. For such statements ostensibly suggest that Heidegger denies that
there is ever a point at which a cogniser has not already conceptualised entities
in a certain way (ever already) and concomitantly that he denies that any
cogniser could ever divest themselves of this conceptualisation to arrive at any
supposedly correct conceptualisation. Instead, Lafont reads Heidegger as
holding that different ways of conceptualisation are just (historically alterable)
cultural productions (Lafont 2007: 110), invoking passages such as the following
in support (Lafont 2007: 10810). Here, Heidegger describes the procedure of
interpreting (Auslegung): the act said to yield ways of conceptualisation and the
basic-concepts constituting them (Heidegger 1927/2006: 910, 150):
The interpreting of something as something is founded intrinsically by
foreholding [Vorhabe], foresight [Vorsicht], and anticipation [Vorgriff].
Interpreting is never a presuppositionless grasping of a given. [. . .]
[T]hat which primarily stands there [is] nothing other than the selfevident, undiscussed pre-conception of the interpreter, which necessarily
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Howard D. Kelly
in every approach of interpreting lies as that which with interpreting is
in general already placed, i.e. given in foreholding, foresight, anticipation (Heidegger 1927/2006: 150).

That passage ostensibly supports Lafonts interpretation. For Heidegger states

that every act of interpreting has ever already [. . .] decided in favour of a
definite conceptualisation and thus does not consist in a presuppositionless
grasping of a given. This suggests that cognisers cannot liberate themselves
from ways of conceptualisation already possessed. Hence, contrary to
Heideggers assertion on the same page (Heidegger 1927/2006: 150), it is
seemingly impossible to draw a way of conceptualisation from [an entity]
itself. Indeed, Heidegger adds that what might appear to be just such a given
is actually nothing other than the self-evident, undiscussed preconception of the
interpreter. That is, although it might seem that an enquirer is stripping away
all presuppositions to arrive at the pure phenomenon, they are in fact taking for
granted an unacknowledged preconception. Assuming that such preconceptions
are not necessarily correct, this implies that, in at least some cases, Heidegger
would deny the possibility of knowing which way of conceptualising something
is the correct one, since every enquirer would be essentially immured by
concepts already possessed. One might even speculate that Heideggers position
is motivated by a denial of the coherence of the notion of a correct way of
conceptualising something.18 One epistemological consequence of this position
might be that quests for mythically correct ways of thinking about the world
should be abandoned; we should perhaps instead, as Rorty puts it, simply relive
the history of the philosophical language-game we find ourselves playing (Rorty
1979: 34).
In order to establish the truth of Claim 4, in defiance of the challenge outlined
above, I must show how the above passage can be consistent with Heideggers
suggestions that an act of interpreting can draw the conceptualisation belonging
to the interpreted entity from [the entity] itself (Heidegger 1927/2006: 50) and
that entities can become objects of a pure discovering (Heidegger 1927/2006:
363). For whereas the above passage suggests, contra Claim 4, that Heidegger
holds, in at least some cases, that it is impossible to attain knowledge of the
correct ways of conceptualising entities, the last two quotations imply the
contrary. In rejoinder, I first reiterate that Heidegger presents many of his
investigations not as merely describing the ways things are conceptualised de
factounlike Carmans a priori categories and Rortys history of a languagegamebut as revisionary enquiries into how things ought to be conceptualised
given their natures. The Existential analytic, for example, seeks genuine
cognition-of-essence (Heidegger 1927/2006: 52) and aims at bringing into view
[. . .] the behaviour of Dasein appropriately ontologically (Heidegger 1927/2006:
989). Moreover, Heidegger castigates philosophical and scientific traditions for
promoting an inappropriate interpreting of the mode-of-being of Dasein
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 59) and admonishes Descartes in particular for conceiving of perception as a purely spatio-causal relation (Heidegger 1927/2006: 97).
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Similarly, Heidegger criticises Greek philosophers for keeping the specifically

pragmatic character of intraworldly entities in the dark and determin[ing]
them primarily as mere things , i.e. for conceptualising intraworldly entities
incorrectly, viz. as mere things (Heidegger 1927/2006: 68). Finally, Heidegger
rejects the contemporary conceptualisation of space because it features randomly available and, moreover, usually rough concepts-of-being (Heidegger
1927/2006: 113).
How, then, can Heideggers quests for the correct ways of conceptualising
entities and phenomena of various kinds possibly be consistent with his ostensibly pessimistic claim that every interpreting is essentially shackled by the
interpreters pre-conception of the interpretandum? I contend that Heideggers
affirmation of the necessary presence of a prior conception in every interpreting
commits him neither to the denial of the possibility of knowledge of the correct
ways of conceptualising entities nor, a fortiori, to the denial of the existence of
correct ways of conceptualising entities. Instead, this affirmation may be understood merely as a corollary of the thesis that every cognition, including perception, necessarily involves conceptualisation, either as a constitutive aspect
thereof or as otherwise necessarily attendant thereupon. Bruin Christensen reads
Heidegger as endorsing just such a thesis, pace Hubert Dreyfus (Dreyfus 1991:
23), ascribing to Heidegger the view that every intentional act features conceptual representational content (Christensen 1998: 75).19 Theodore Kisiel articulates
a similar interpretation:
Because of the a priori presence of categorial structures, [. . .] we see
what we say rather than say what we see. Even the simplest perception
is already expressed and interpreted by the prior understanding we have
of it, which determines how we perceive. This is not necessarily a bias
that we impose on our perception; it just happens to be the way we
perceive. On the one hand, language overlays our experience and
sometimes obscures our access to it, as in idle everyday chatter; on the
other hand, the articulations of experience underlie language and optimally manifest themselves through it (Kisiel 2002: 99).
Nevertheless, Kisiel reads Heidegger as an epistemological realist, and therewith as adopting the following position attributed to the early Husserl:
In a world that has already been talked over, words have been worked
into things and remain impaled on things. On the other hand, by means
of the proper reductive procedures, it is possible to loosen the grip that
our customary words have upon things and thereby glimpse how the
things themselves articulate their own structures (Kisiel 2002: 99100).
The lesson here is that the necessary involvement of conceptualisation in all
forms of cognition need not entail the imprisonment of enquirers by concepts
already possessed. The same point is made by Jacques Maritain, in the
Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition, and by John McDowell, in the analytic tradition.
Maritain states firstly that the intelligence sees by and in the concepts which it,
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Howard D. Kelly

in a living way, produces from its own depths. Yet he, like Heidegger, cautions
against accepting pre-existing [conceptual] equipment encumbered with errors
and deficiencies, and the expression of such in statements more or less
erroneoussometimes seriously, irremediably erroneous. Maritain affirms,
moreover, that [t]his will be the case as long [. . .] as our general scheme of
concepts has not been recast, and that the remedy is thus to subject to the most
careful verification [ones] conceptual equipment in rushing toward being
(Maritain 1914/2007: 3089).
McDowell, again seemingly like Heidegger, affirms that human experience
necessarily involves conceptualisation (McDowell 1994: 46), yet nevertheless
maintains that it must be possible to decide whether or not to judge that things
are as ones experience represents them to be (McDowell 1994: 11). In
Heideggers case, then, although every act of interpreting necessarily involves
conceptualisation, the interpreter need not endorse that conception as articulating the interpretandum adequately. Hence, epistemic progress is indeed possible.
Moreover, this alone does not commit Heidegger to the position that experience
per se is essentially conceptual, la McDowell. For Heidegger might hold that
although conceptualisation is indeed necessarily attendant upon experience, it is
nonetheless separate therefrom. Indeed, Blattner (Blattner 2007: 16) and Kisiel
(Kisiel 2002: 95100) suggest that an insight into the pre-conceptual is precisely
Heideggers objective. Kisiel summarises this enterprise of the early Heidegger
thus:
Heidegger repeatedly tries to point below our conceptual grasping and
logical defining to the horismos of meaning, which defines the scope as
well as the limits of the human situation, which is first of all given not
through the senses or the intellect but in actu exercitu of existence in the
world (Kisiel 2002: 99).
5. Conclusion
I have defended four claims intended to jointly capture Heideggers necessary
and sufficient conditions for something to be a mode-of-being in Being and Time.
Understanding modes-of-being in the broadly Aristotelian, metaphysically realist
and revisionary way I have proposed serves not only the exegetical end of
eliminating the vagueness, and even unintelligibility, often associated with the
concept of a mode-of-being (van Inwagen 1999: 2345; Searle 2005: 319), but also
renders this concept of potentially significant value for contemporary metaphysics and epistemology. For, as Heidegger himself notes, in playing the central
metaphysical role of defining a district, every mode-of-being must also play a
central epistemic role: as the interpretandum of an act yielding the basic-concepts
(Grundbegriffe) proper to that district (Heidegger 1927/2006: 910; Heidegger
192728/1995: 289). Positing a common mode-of-being thus serves to justify the
conceptualisation of a variety of distinct entities in the same general way. Hence,
far from being hostile to science and scientific philosophy, Heidegger is thus
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revealed in conducting investigations into modes-of-being to be seeking to lay

the foundations of philosophy and science in precisely the manner he describes
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 910).
Howard D. Kelly
School of Social Sciences
The University of Manchester
UK
howard.kelly@manchester.ac.uk
NOTES
1
Existence and variants are capitalised whenever denoting Existenz. Every translation of Heidegger herein is mine.
2
Descriptive metaphysics describes the de facto structure of our thought; revisionary
metaphysics aims to produce a better structure (Strawson 1959: 9).
3
See Abbott 2005 for why definite noun-phrases imply this. The verb to possess
expresses whatever of (von) expresses in Heideggers phrase the mode-of-being of x.
4
I assume a one-world conception of transcendental idealism throughout (see Allais
2004).
5
Kris McDaniel alone might deny that modes-of-being are universals. McDaniel
interprets modes-of-being as ways-of-existing, which are sui generis (McDaniel 2009: 3012).
Yet these are conceivable as universals in my sense. For these possess extensions and
anti-extensions, and many entities might exist in the same way (McDaniel 2009: 296). So
ways-of-existing are predicables capable of multiple application, and therefore universals.
6
Bill Blattner is a special case: interpreting both modes-of-being and their instantiation as mind-dependent, but solely because of the mind-dependence of time (temporal
idealism) (Blattner 1999: 30). Although I reject Blattners interpretation, space-constraints
necessitate bracketing it.
7
Relation is in scare quotes because of reservations about instantiations relational
status (see Gaskin 1995). I assume, however, that instantiation is sufficiently relation-like
that every instance of instantiation depends upon its relata.
8
The interpretation of modes-of-being as essentially both properties and concepts is
also espoused, though not justified, by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann 2005: 124. On
two occasions, Heidegger speaks as though structures-of-being (Seinsstrukturen) merely
correspond to concepts and thus are not numerically identical therewith (Heidegger
1927/2006: 36, 545). Yet on neither occasion does Heidegger suggest that structures and
concepts are qualitatively diverse. Moreover, since I have cited two instances in which
Heidegger expressly identifies modes-of-being with concepts, I induce that every modeof-being is a concept.
9
Heidegger uses five variants of district: district-of-being (Heidegger 1927/2006: 9,
22, 246), district of entities (Heidegger 1927/2006: 9, 403), phenomenon-district
(Heidegger 1927/2006: 46, 48), phenomenal-district (Heidegger 1927/2006: 43, 114), and
district-of-object (Heidegger 1927/2006: 303). Von Herrmann was Heideggers
Privatassistent from 1972 to 1976; but his commentaries have never been translated into
English, and his work is rarely discussed in Anglo-American circles.
10
See also Heidegger 19271928/1995: 289.
11
Pages 23; note 3.

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Howard D. Kelly
12

E. J. Lowe justifies his denial that the essence of an entity is an entity in a similar
way (Lowe 2006a: 8).
13
Von Herrmann reads Heidegger as holding that intentionality essentially involves
the representation of something as being of a certain kind or possessing a certain property
(von Herrmann 2005: 73). See also Christensen 1997.
14
Favouring a similar interpretation, von Herrmann adverts to Heideggers insistence
in Platos Sophist that his use of the term condition of possibility should be understood
purely formally and divorced from its Kantian connotations (Heidegger 19241925/1992:
322; von Herrmann 1987: 98).
15
Cf. Blattner: Heidegger thinks that our first hermeneutic instincts in ontology are
usually wrong, that we are inclined to run all the modes of being together and take
everything as occurrent, i.e. as extant (vorhanden) (Blattner 1999: 18).
16
Phenomenological Interpretation hereafter.
17
Compare the notion of domains of discourse in contemporary philosophy of
science (van Brakel 1996).
18
This would imply a denial of epistemological realism.
19
Cf. Christensen 1997.

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