NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

Introduction

p. 6, 1.7%: creative work of questioning,

➛ Note: can the Heidegger of BT be creative? Creative of what?

p. 7, 2.2% p. ➛ he transcendentalist reading of Being and Time, covers over and hides the
radicality of
Heidegger’s ambitions.

p. 7, 2.5% p. Heidegger’s efforts to bring about a genuinely new beginning, what he will later call the
“other beginning,” are eclipsed
➛ Note: but can this “other beginning” really be found in BT?

p. 8, 3.2% p. double-forgetfulness
➛ Note: and how does Heidegger himself start then? and what if Heidegger’s language of forgetting,
recollection, and memory were taken from Augustine?

p. 8, 4% p. • What will be argued, is that the preeminent position of the Seinsfrage situates it discursively
in such a way that it has the capacity to prepare for a radical ontological transformation, of not just
ourselves but our world

p. 9, 4.1% p. • The third and final chapter will explore how the question of being is to be worked out via
an existential analysis of Dasein.

Chapter I: Out of Oblivion

p. 11, 6.1% p. ➛ I argue that Heidegger is attempting to challenge a common interpretation of the
question-answer dynamic as a sequential, unidirectional movement that endeavors to go from absence to
fullness, ignorance to knowledge, or problem to solution
Note: Is this what Heidegger thought he was doing? Or is it the consequence of the way he thinks?

p. 12, 6.9% p. understanding whatsoever of being.7

p. 12, 7.2% p. What does it mean to “reawaken” such an understanding?

➛ Note: Note that it is the “reawaken an understanding for the meaning of this question”

p. 16, 10.6% p. If, therefore, our forgetfulness is an existential and epochal condition, how might we
conceptualize the “absence” and “inaccessibility” of understanding, both of being and its question?
➛ Note: is the forgetfulness of being really unique to our epoch? or are we not always, as Dasein,
thrown into a forgetfulness that defines our being there here in the world?

p. 17, 11.6% p. By breaking the word into its constitutive parts (Da meaning ‘there’ or ‘here,’ and Sein
meaning ‘being’) it can be presented as ‘being-there’ or ‘being-here.’ This is the most common
translation and is intended to convey a sense of locality. To be Dasein is not just to be, but to be (t)here in
the world.
➛ Note: “locality” ... but more importantly “presence”

p. 17, 11.9% p. “clearing” [Lichtung]

➛ Note: clearing in BT?
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

p. 17, 12.2% p. “Dasein brings the whole world along with it.”
➛ Note: what does “world” meaning in this context ... back to the question of the clearing in BT ...
two concepts of world?

p. 18, 13.1% p. Dasein both opens the world and steps out into it.
➛ Note: given the always already nature of Dasein’s being-in-the-world, how is that Dasein “opens”
the world and what does it mean that it steps out “into” it?

p. 18, 13.1% p. If, therefore, forgetfulness is an existential issue, then it is an issue concerning Dasein’s
disclosive inner-worldly standing.
➛ Note: Cf. above: is the forgetfulness unique to our epoch or an existential issue that conditions
the being of Dasein?

p. 20, 14.5% p. this understanding, as existential, is fundamentally disclosive.

➛ Note: is “understanding” “existential” or “an existential”?

p. 20, 14.7% p. the disclosure of existence does not necessitate nor ensure authentic being. I
➛ Note: 1) disclosure of existence? Or is existence the disclosure of being? 2) what does this sentence
mean? 3) relation between authentic and inauthentic ....

p. 20, 15% p. The ontological is eclipsed by the ontic, or as Heidegger puts it: “what is ontically nearest
and familiar is ontologically the farthest, unrecognized and constantly overlooked in its ontological
significance.”1
➛ Note: hmmmm this statement seems problematic .... and not entirely what the quote means

p. 20, 15.1% p. We forget being by perpetually presupposing it.

➛ Note: hmmmm “presupposing” ... is this really the problem ... or the word you want

p. 22, 16.3% p. For Heidegger, this is an existential problem and as such is one that finds expression in
our shared world.
Note: how so?

p. 22, 16.3% p. we find Heidegger claiming that we must “reawaken” [zu wecken] an understanding for
the meaning of the Seinsfrage.
➛ Note: above you have spoken about the forgetfulness of being, but not of the question of being?
In a way, you have only spoken about the first level of the forgetfulness and not the second which is
now referee to here

p. 23, 17.5% p. In Joan Stambaugh’s translation “zu wecken” is rendered as “reawaken.” This implies
repetition and return.
Note: wecken = to awaken or “arose” ... why not consider that Stambaugh is wrong here or at very least
misleading: especially given your main thesis about the importance of question and the goal of Heidegger
...

p. 25, 19% p. Questions represent want, and questioning is the movement out from want. We might say
that questioning is an act of being-toward-answer (to imitate a Heideggerian neologism).
➛ Note: can we not reverse this claim: that it is the awakening of the question that arises in us the
sense of a lacuna that is the bases of a wanting? Plato’s Republic?

p. 25, 19.3% p. This assumption regarding the question-answer dynamic is not only prevalent in the
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

common, everyday world of the average person, it can also be found in the work of the most advanced
analytic philosophers.
➛ Note: so analytic philosophers are above average people?

p. 25, 19.3% p. the average person

p. 25, 19.7% p. This way of conceptualizing the activity of questioning, in terms of information
exchange, puts questions into the service of answers.
➛ Note: At this point, it is curious that you have not entered into a consideration of the structure of
the question and how this structure is repeated throughout BT and forms one of its backbone
structures

p. 26, 20.6% p. The issue of reawakening does not involve rethinking questioning in general but rethinks
the path to an answer
Note: grammar: rethinking ➛ rethinks?

p. 28, 22.3% p. To explain why these efforts are inadequate and misguided, proponents of the ontological
reading of Being and Time (a reading which claims Heidegger’s efforts are directed towards the exposure
of an answering) often refer to Heidegger’s account of the ontological difference: i.e. the notion that “the
being of being ‘is’ itself not a being.”31
➛ Note: stating that BT attempts to think the ontological difference is not the same as to suggest
that it seeks to provide an answer ... it is through thinking the ontological difference that the
question is raise

p. 28, 22.4% p. The difference, as it is presented in Being and Time, seems to function as a way of
problematizing the tradition
➛ Note: is this so? Does Heidegger not suggest (state) that others have done this? Does it really
about to a failure of philosophy as if a philosophy could do other?

p. 29, 22.8% p. Reading the ontological difference in this way, the question of the meaning of being is
presented as the “problem of being.”32 And, as with any problem (question), it is just waiting to be
solved
(answered).
➛ Note: thinking the ontological difference as the “conditions of possibility” of the disclosure of
being and the raising the question of being, the problematizing of the meaning of being .... why does
this necessary lead to an attempt to determine the meaning of being i.e. providing an answer to the
question ...

p. 29, 23.5% p. It is not only the first text that many read, but, considered as the centerpiece of his
lifelong project, it is thought to gravitationally unite his disparate work on the themes of art and
technology, language and history.
➛ Note: this is a questionable claim ...

p. 30, 24.1% p. This failure is not said to have discouraged the philosopher; instead, it is considered
a productive failure.
➛ Note: why call this a “failure” ....

p. 31, 25.3% p. What does it mean to “work out” the question if not to search for an answer to it?
➛ Note: actually ... Heidegger says that he wants to work out the question “concretely” ... a) you
have not mentioned this once I think; b) what does Heidegger mean by this and is it important or
useful to your position
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

p. 33, 26.8% p. Indeed, as was discussed earlier, it is only on the basis of having an answer, in the form
of a preliminary understanding of being [Seinsverstandnis], that we can question being in the first place.
We might say that it is not the question that begets an answer, but the answer that begets the question.

p. 33, 26.9% p. preliminary understanding of being [Seinsverstandnis

➛ Note: 1) why have you not addressed Heidegger’s own analysis of the question?

2) and, with this, how have you not spoken about hermeneutics or phenomenology .... which go both
to method and to your thesis

3) why have you avoided the term “preontological understanding of being” ... that is to say,
prephilosophical ...

p. 34, 27.5% p. Indeed, to reawaken [zu wecken] an understanding for the meaning of being is to embark
on a journey, to provide answers is to guide that journey towards reawakening
➛ Note: again we see here that you slip from the reawakening of the question of the meaning of
being to the problem of the meaning of being ...

p. 34, 27.9% p. This answer underlies all of our projects and activities, our thoughts and our
actions; every moment of our lives, form the mundane to the extraordinary, is conditioned by it.
Note: there are two horizons in BT: that of this historical Umwelt that would include philosophy as
a historically inauthentic understanding of being and Time .... do not both of these condition of
being-in-the-world ....does not Heidegger want to demonstrate the underlying temporal structure of
the first ... and from this develop a concept of time for any understanding of being?

p. 34, 28.2% p. The answer to the question of the meaning of being, which underlies our everyday being
in the world and the projects that we take up within the world, is rarely made explicit. This meaning
resides in the disclosure of being. It lives in our assumptions.
➛ Note: “assumptions” does not meaning a pre-ontological understanding: it is this pre-ontological
understanding of being-time that provides the “relevance” of the significance of the worldly
projects

p. 36, 29.8% p. For Heidegger, the existential conditions of our time are such that we have forgotten
what we mean by the word ‘being.’
➛ Note: 1) what does it mean to speak of the “existential conditions of our time”

➛ 2) within the framework of BT, can one really say that “existential conditions” change?

p. 36, 30% p. Heidegger intends to prepare us for a questioning that arises from presumption by
putting those presumptions into doubt
Note: does Heidegger really do this?

1) the § of Intro where he sets out our presuppositions ...

2) does he dismiss these? Or can we not find them as unfolding aspects about being

3) does Heidegger really think he is that new? ➛ quote from Plato, starts, etc.

4) even his deconstruction of the tradition: Kant, Descartes, Aristotle ... is not the point that they
too have a temporal definition of being ... however, limited to one mode of time, the present

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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

Chapter II: Into the Open

p. 38, 31.7% p. It will be argued that questioning is not merely an action carried out by an otherwise
unaffected questioner but is a mode of Dasein’s being.

p. 38, 31.9% p. It will be argued that the Seinsfrage is a way of being wherein Dasein fundamentally
opens up to the issue (issuing) of being as such and in general, and that such openness is preparatory to a
free, creative transformation from the ground up.
➛ Note: hmmm ... can Dasein really be transformed?

p. 39, 32.8% p. As he tells us, “to retrieve the question of being means first of all to work out adequately
the formulation of the question [die Fragestellung].”41
➛ Note: Fragestellung needs some discussion here and it cannot be translated as “the formation of
the question” ... a better translation would be “the framing the question” ... in the sense of positing
or positioning the question.

p. 40, 33.2% p. tri-unitary structure.

➛ Note: equiprimordial?

p. 40, 33.4% p. d “fragen” [“questioning”].

Note: fragen = to question ≠ questioning

p. 41, 34.1% p. As such, questioning ought not be seen as something objectively present and describable,
an object of science, but as an activity performed by a questioning-being. More specifically, the fact that
it is carried out in relation to beings suggests that this questioning-being must be privy to being in the
existential sense, thus indicating that questioning is a possibility afforded to Dasein alone. To ask about
beings, to interrogate beings, and to ascertain beings, requires a preliminary understanding-relationship to
those beings. One must be in a world to question it. As Heidegger will say of the Seinsfrage, “[it is]
nothing else than the radicalization of an essential tendency of being that belongs to Dasein itself
➛ Note: 1) your discussion here is very good

2) I am still puzzled by the absence of the term hermeneutics

p. 44, 37.1% p. In an economy of information, for example, questioning is only set apart from other
linguistic expressions by the fact that it indicates an absence of “information” and marks a request for that
information.
Note: question create/open up possibility ...

p. 44, 37.7% p. What Heidegger seems to be claiming, however, is that the act of questioning is not like
using a tool but is a unique way of being-in-the-world.
➛ Note: let us be stronger here: it is not a unique way of being-in-the-worlds bit the very
hermeneutical horizon of the opening of the world ...

p. 47, 39.9% p. What is sought opens up a possible region in which to pursue the object sought after. In
this way, the Erfragtes, as the leading moment of questioning, is also the moment that first discloses and
delineates the ground upon which the search is to be conducted.
Note: goes to the point above that questioning is not one among others but the existential horizon of the
being of Dasein

p. 48, 40.7% p. That said, while there are a wide variety of different attitudes, from joyful to hateful,
from lazy to ambitious, the word “attitude” more often than not carries with it a negative connotation. We
might say that someone is “giving attitude,” or that they “have attitude” when they are posturing in an
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

abrasive, self-centered, or indolent manner. Moreover, an attitude is something uninhibited and

unchecked. We often tell others that they need to “lose the attitude” which is essentially a demand that
they regain composure
Note: and the importance of maintaining a positive attitude ... a way of thinking ... not sure why see it as
negative

p. 48, 40.9% p. Verhalten, on the other hand, carries slightly different connotations that are perhaps more
in line with the less common English “forhold” meaning “to withhold, to hold up, to hold back.” This is
because verhalten, used as an adverb, invokes a sense of caution, and of taking care.
➛ Note: Verhalten = behaviour or conduct ...

p. 50, 42.6% p. seeking [Suchen] and an attitude [Verhalten]. I

Note: again Verhalten = conduct...

p. 50, 43.2% p. In questioning, Dasein opens up a path on which the quest is to be carried out and then
follows it
➛ Note: and what about the idea of transcendence and its role in opening up ...

p. 52, 44.6% p. It is not as if Dasein can look to the future should it so choose, nor is it the case that
the projection of understanding is something willed. As an equiprimordial moment in Dasein’s
existential structure, understanding is always already underway so long as Dasein exists
➛ Note: but Dasein does look to the future and is conditioned by this orientation

p. 52, 45.2% p. always already

➛ Note: what does “always already” mean and what is its important to your question concerning
the questioning

p. 53, 45.4% p. As existentials, attunement and understanding characterize the primordial disclosedness
of being-in-the-world. In the mode of ‘being attuned’ Dasein ‘sees’ possibilities in terms of which it is. In
the projective disclosure of such possibilities, it is always already attuned. The project of its ownmost
potentiality of being is delivered over to the fact of thrownness into the there.
➛ Note: so always already in a situation (fundamental and non-fundamental) and from this we are
orientated toward possibilities ... how does this effect your question concerning the process of
raising the question ... not the problem of disclosure but of releasement is important ... and radical
beginnings ... what allows us to break from one situation

Connect with Erschlossenheit below

p. 56, 48.8% p. Um schweigen zu können, muß das Dasein etwas zu sagen haben, das heißt über eine
eigentliche und reiche Erschlossenheit seiner selbst verfügen.”
Note: translation p.
Tran: In order to be silent, Dasein must have something to say, that is, must be in command of an
authentic and rich disclosedness of itself.

yours : might read as: “to be silent, Dasein must have something to say, that is about an authentic and
rich self-disclosure.”

Heidegger
Note: just a thought: in What is Metaphysics? ... does Heidegger not ask about the question ... look it
up....

p. 61, 53% p. When situated among other questions, the Seinsfrage takes precedence because it is a
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

question to which all others inevitably defer. The question “what time is it?” for example, only makes
sense if we already have a vague understanding of the meaning of the word “time.” Thus, to fully answer
the question “what time is it?” we must first have an answer to the question “what is time?”
➛ Note: here we go: the hermeneutical structure of the question set out in the Introduction is
connected to the question of Sinn ... what is more, understanding has its own possibilities ... which is
where a project of BT and questioning is rooted

p. 61, 53.3% p. And since, an understanding of being is embedded in everything that is, the question
directly concerning it (die Seinsfrage) enjoys a level of priority over all other questions, which without
exception refer back to it. Just as all roads lead to Rome, all questions lead to being.
➛ Note: understanding has its own possibilities

p. 64, 55.9% p. In addition to its ontological priority, Heidegger tells us that the Seinsfrage enjoys an
ontic priority as well, suggesting that its influence stretches beyond the realm of the sciences. The word
“ontic” is derived from the same Greek root as ontological [ón], but without the addition of “logos.” The
ontic realm is, therefore, not limited to the same conceptual constraints as scientific discourse.
➛ Note: there is some confusion here: the sciences are precisely ontic in nature, they ask about
entities, things that have being, and work within a region of being that is set out for them by
philosophy (which Heidegger understands to be ontology) ... philosophy (ontology and not
metaphysics) thus frames the questions of the ontic sciences ... fundamental ontology frames the
question of the question ... if you like

p. 66, 57.8% p. Could it be that the Seinsfrage aims to “revise” the thatness with which the Gefragtes is
concerned, so that its Erfragtes is a new understanding of being? If so, this new understanding would
ostensibly be under the same constraints as the old and could not be expressed as an explicit and direct
statement about being.
Note: here as elsewhere ... different levels of understanding seem to be confused or levelled down ...
preontological understanding, ontological understanding, and ontic understanding (which is where
questions and answers make sense) ...

p. 69, 60.1% p. As Heidegger puts it, “the question of being is nothing else than the radicalization of an
essential tendency of being that belongs to Dasein itself.”78 This, however, tells us very little about what
is at stake in raising (i.e. becoming) the Seinsfrag
Note: what is worthy of questioning for Dasein ... only its own being ...

Chapter III: Toward the Seinsfrag

p. 72, 62.3% p. I, on the other hand, shall argue that, although fair in many respects, the
transcendental account ultimately underestimates the creative radicality of Heidegger’s project.
Approaching the text under the mistaken presupposition that questions are always being-toward-
answer, and that Heidegger’s aim is to “answer” the Seinsfrage, the proponents of a transcendental
Heidegger mistake his provisional and preliminary claims for definitive conclusions. This
assumption ultimately leads to a misconstrued view of Dasein’s existential structure as a universal
and unchangeable framework.
Note: ok
1) i guess I am a transcendentalist

2) what you say here about the transcendentalist is not how I understand myself

so: why take this position vis-a-vis the transcendentalist position ... what is the existential analytic
Note: “analytic” here is Kant.... a transcendental project that begins from the given and seeks its
conditions of possibility ... it is neither about asking questions or answering questions ...
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

p. 73, 63.7% p. When considering the incompleteness of Being and Time we must be careful not to
immediately consider the project a failure.
➛ Note: and yet above you have situated BT as a failure ...

p. 74, 64.1% p. standing out into a world.

➛ Note: above you say “stepping out” ... there is a difference ... here is correct

p. 74, 64.3% p. For what makes Dasein unique, its existence, according to Heidegger, is also what
disqualifies it from being considered one being among others in a totality of beings. For Dasein is not any
one actualized possibility but is the condition of our varied possibilities of being. Thus, Heidegger limits
the existential analysis to an explication of Dasein’s capacity as a conditioning potentiality.
➛ Note: problems ... Dasein is unique and yet what Heidegger wants to say applies to all Dasein’s ...

p. 74, 64.8% p. existentials

➛ Note: existential are categories that apply not to beings but to Dasein ... categories is again a
Kantian thing

p. 75, 65.8% p. In no way does the discovery of anticipatory-resoluteness as Dasein’s authentic mode of
existence represent the conclusion of the analysis nor the posing of the Seinsfrage. It is a path-mark not a
destination.
Note: what then is the destination ... again two levels: the destination and question for Dasein as Dasein ...
and the question of Dasein for fundamental ontology ...

p. 78, 67.9% p. The existential structure of Dasein, therefore, is taken by the transcendentalist to be
an a- historical, a priori condition of all possibility of being; it “transcends” all ontic/existentiell
possibilities in the manner of a surpassing that maintains an essential priority over them.
➛ Note: this again does not follow ... and in fact is not what we are saying ...

p. 79, 69.7% p. Heidegger looks only to pose one.

Note: but this raising of the question was only preliminary ...

p. 81, 71.2% p. Thus, by emphasizing that existence is the condition of possibility of questioning, we can
begin to cast doubt on the necessity of considering it in such definitive “transcendental” term
➛ Note: does not your own position of the nature of questioning itself assume that questioning has a
transcendental structure ... otherwise, it too changes, it too is different for you as it is for me, it too
is never the same but always a unique once happening that is so unique we cannot even talk about it
...

p. 81, 71.3% p. Being is the transcendens pure and simple.”9

➛ Note: this transcendence is the condition of possibility of true questioning ... it is therefore a
transcendental transcendence...

p. 82, 72.1% p. , the disclosure of existence is ecstatic

➛ Note: can you disclose existence? or is existence not itself disclosure ...

p. 82, 72.3% p. Being and its structure “transcend every being and every possible existent determination
of a being” [jede mögliche seiende Bestimmtheit eines Seienden hinaus]. What, though, does Heidegger
mean by ‘possible existent determination’? The transcendentalist Heideggerian takes this to mean that the
existential structure transcends any and all possible disclosures of being. I, however, am skeptical of this
hasty conclusion. The crux of my skepticism revolves around the interpretation of the phrase ‘possible

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existent.’ Does Heidegger, as the transcendentalist contend, use the word ‘possible’ [mögliche] to mean
anytime and anywhere, in any world or epoch that being manifests and is existent? Or, does he mean the
possibilities that are open to us right now, at this time, as current possibilities? Is the emphasis on
‘possible’ or ‘existent’
Note: it is both ... this needs discussion

p. 83, 73.2% p. It is, after all, an attempt to examine Dasein in order to expose and isolate the most
basic structure of its existence. We may wonder, though, how this examination is to take place. How
should we break down our own experience in order to discover the existential structure informing
it? How do we know what constitutes an existential (verses an existentiell) aspect of our being? How
does Heidegger distinguish the fundamental from the incidental?
➛ Note: but this is precisely a Kantian project ... and this problem is one Kant too has to deal with

p. 83, 73.7% p. The examiner and the examined are one and the same.
Note: yes and no

p. 84, 74.1% p. initially and for the most part, Dasein is taken over [benommen] by its world.”101
Note: but this means that Dasein always already (though not always) has a phenomenological
understanding of the structures of being

p. 85, 75.1% p. l. This is undoubtedly an arduous task. For Heidegger, we tend to understand
ourselves in ways offered up by the world we live in; a world that none of us chose to be born into,
and a context that none of us chose to be a part of
➛ Note: here again is there problem of the two levels of understanding ... and double situation we
find ourselves in ... difference between BT and later = being-understandings is or is not historical

p. 86, 76.5% p. hermeneutically

➛ Note: first mention of hermeneutical

p. 90, 80.3% p. brokenness pulls it out of the flow of the ready-to-hand to stand present and
objectifiable.
➛ Note: this is a missed opportunity for your main project ... what is the connection with all this to
your question about questioning ... what happens when the hammer breaks, or is too light or too
heavy, or misplaced ... what happens? A question arises from the situation ... that conditions the
situation ....

p. 92, 81.9% p. the existential condition of possibility, d

Note: transcendental language

p. 94, 84% p. Taking the form of a loosening and unraveling, Heideggerian phenomenological analysis is
carried out via repetitive and ever deepening descriptions that are intended to allow the beings under
investigation to reveal themselves on their own terms, rather than try to forcibly pull them out of oblivion.
Note: this, given your project, should have been a whole chapter ... show us how it happens ...

p. 95, 84.4% p. destructive

Note: this is a misleading view of Heidegger’s project

p. 96, 85.4% p. Indeed, the transcendentalists interpret the preparatory nature of Heidegger’s
fundamental ontology in this way.
➛ Note: this is said so much that is has become a corner stone of your work... if it falls the
foundations of your project become threatened
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

p. 98, 87.4% p. bracket-ing.

Note: what is bracketed ... our historical understanding ...

p. 98, 87.6% p. The structure of understanding, what we are calling an “answer” to the Seinsfrage, is
what is to be exposed via the existential analysis. And so, when Heidegger explains that he is, “searching
for the answer to the question of the meaning of being in general, and above all the possibility of radically
developing this basic question of all ontology,”129 we must not think of this an act of being-toward-
answer, but as a preparatory act of exposing the horizon in which the question is constrained by an always
already preconceived answer in order to then unravel it. Heidegger’s questioning is not predicated on a
desire to settle on a definitive conclusion, but to loosen its grip on us. The existential structure that is
exposed via the existential analysis does not represent the transcendental place of all places, but the
ecstatic transcendental condition of all possibilities that we are today, in our time of forgetfulness
Note: again the problem of the double horizon

p. 99, 88.7% p. unchanging transcendental horizon.

p. 100, 89.1% p. While it was at the outset thought to be a necessary aspect of posing the Seinsfrage,
through the analysis, and based on the success of the analysis, the second half as originally envisioned
comes to be unnecessary. Thus, Dennis Schmidt is wrong when he characterizes Being and Time as the
“torso of its own intensions.”130 Heidegger’s intentions from the beginning have been to question being,
and this is what he does. The abandonment of the second half of Being and Time is not exemplary of
Heidegger’s failure, but his success. His realization that the second half was no longer necessary,
demonstrates the existential analysis’ effective loosening of our understanding of Being, such that the task
itself is transformed.
➛ Note: ah no

p. 101, 89.9% p. It is to prepare for a radically transformed future.

Note: what is transformed ... Dasein?

p. 101, 90.2% p. And, as Heidegger is careful to point out, all such projects rely on a predefined, albeit
largely implicit, understanding of being. Thus, the transcendentalist, by interpreting Being and Time in
this way, closes down the questioning that Heidegger fought so hard to foster. H
Note: but Heidegger too argues that there is an authentic understanding ...

Conclusion

p. 102, 90.7% p. Questioning is the piety of thought.”

1

p. 103, 91.8% p. To question is to ontologically open ourselves up to and clear the way for a free
disclosive issuing of being. As Heidegger writes in the Introduction to Metaphysics: “[Questioning is] the
open resoluteness to be able to stand in the openness of beings.”
133

p. 103, 92.1% p. Instead, we sojourn. We meditate. We do not embark on a frantic search, wherein
everything is laid out in advance and the path followed is carefully marked and well used. Instead, we
move forward slowly, listening carefully and looking attentively to beings as they present themselves

p. 104, 92.5% p. I argued that the Seinsfrage, has the potential to ignite a radical ontological
transformation.

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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

p. 104, 92.8% p. It is preparatory to a complete transformation of the disclosure of ourselves and our
world. Such questioning, therefore, is no mere frivolity. For it has the power to incite radical change and
inspire creative newness. As Heidegger will declare in the sporadic and esoteric Contributions to
Philosophy, “in questioning resides the tempestuous advance that says ‘yes’ to what has not been
mastered and the broadening out into ponderable, yet unexplored, realms.”
➛ NOTE: transform: umwelt (who cares), the world (think not), Dasein (almost certainly not)

p. 105, 93.5% p. • when we first entered into this world.

p. 106, 94.6% p. Thus, I argue that the existential structure of Dasein, as ecstatic temporality,
should not be read in any absolute terms. It is not a universal condition of all possibility but is the
fundamental horizon of our world today. Engaging the interpretations given by Jeff Malpas and
John D. Caputo, I argued that the transcendental interpretation of Being and Time is a misreading
of the text encouraged by an unquestioned assumption that questioning is a striving, being- toward-
answer.

p. 106, 94.8% p. Ecstatic temporality, as the horizon in which our shared world is situated, represents the
implicit understanding of being that we all live by
note: so it is a transcendental? And this is an answer

p. 107, 95.5% p. The nature of this quest is such that he cannot provide a clear-cut map for us to follow.
For any such map will undoubtedly be constrained by the horizon of a limited understanding of being.

p. 107, 95.6% p. the issue is neither to describe nor to explain, neither to promulgate nor to teach. Here
the speaking is not something over and against what is to be said but is this latter itself as the essential
occurrence of beyng.”1
➛ Note: Sein vs Seyn

p. 108, 96.7% p. By “making sense” of Heidegger, and reducing his provisional claims to definitive
statements, he settles the issue. There is no longer any need to question, for we now “understand”
what Heidegger was all about.
➛ Note: and have you not made sense of Heidegger .... spoken of the right vs the wrong
interpretation

➛ note: Introduction to Metaphysics: no discussion of the most important question: “why is there
something rather than nothing?”
• “"Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?" Many never run into this question at all, if
running into the question means not only hearing and reading the interrogative sentence as uttered,
but asking the question, that is, taking a stand on it, posing it, compelling oneself into the state of
this questioning.”
• The asking of this question is not, in relation to beings as such and as a whole, some arbitrary
occurrence amid beings, such as the falling of raindrops. The why-question challenges beings as a
whole, so to speak, outstrips them, though never completely. But this is precisely how the
questioning gains its distinction. What is asked in this question rebounds upon the questioning
itself, for the questioning challenges beings as a whole but does not after all wrest itself free from
them. Why the Why? What is the ground of this why-question itself, a question that presumes to
establish the ground of beings as a whole?”
• No questioning, and consequently no single scientific "problem" either, understands it-self if it
does not grasp the question of all questions, that is, if it does not ask it. We want to be clear about
this from the start: it can never be determined objectively whether anyone is asking - whether we
are actually asking this question, that is, whether we are leaping, or whether we are just mouthing
the words. The question loses its rank at once in the sphere of a human-historical Dasein to whom
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NOTES: Joshua Livingstone – On the Revolutionary Questioning of Being

questioning as an originary power remains foreign. For example, anyone for whom the Bible is
divine revelation and truth already has the answer to the question "Why are there beings at all
instead of nothing?" before it is even asked: beings, with the exception of God Himself, are created
by Him. God Himself "is" as the uncreated Creator.”
•

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