Heidegger and The Question of Being in "Being and Time"

The main theme of Heidegger's "Being and Time" is the question of the meaning of being. Heidegger starts by quoting Plato's question of being at the beginning of the investigation. Heidegger writes that "For apparently you have long been familiar with what you actually mean when you use the expression 'being', but although we once thought we understood it, we are now embarrassed."  Even after two thousand years, according to Heidegger, this question is still unanswered: "Do we have an answer today to the question of what we actually mean by the word "being"? no way. And so it is important to ask the question about the meaning of being again.” 

So what does it mean to be? 

Heidegger asked about being as an action which one does within the world. He assumed that the world is not a formless mass, but that there are meaningful references in it. These meanings are not inherit in things themselves, but always have something to do with our relationship towards them. Therefore being for Heidegger is structured and possesses a certain unity in its diversity.  For example, there is a meaningful connection between the hammer and the nail – but how can this be understood? "From where, that is: from which given horizon do we understand something like being?". Heidegger's answer to this was: "The horizon from which something like being becomes understandable at all is time." According to Heidegger, the importance of time for being has not been considered in all previous philosophy. Time is needed as the dimension in which things can gain meaning. The question of being for Heidegger is therefore inseparable from its relation to time.

See also: Ontological Difference

 

Here you can read an introduction and find summaries and explanations on Heidegger’s “Being and Time”. You can also check out our introduction to Heidegger or our introduction to phenomenology.