Summary Introduction to Being and Time of Martin Heidegger

The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being

1. The Necessity for Explicite restating the Question of Being
Heidegger calls for the reiteration of the question of what is the meaning of "to be".  By indirectly referring to Peter Wust's work "Auferstehung der Metaphysik" ("Rebirth of Metaphysics"),  Heidegger claims that while it may be progressive to reactualize Metaphysics, we forgot the fundamental question and we cannot be exempted from the debate upon the meaning of "to be".

Plato - Sophist 246a "γιγαντομαχία περί τῆς οὐσίας" - "battle of giants concerning Being"

The question on the meaning of "to be" is of Ancient origins, and it suffered throughout the History of Philosophy distortions or neglect, succumbing ultimately into dogmatic superfluousness. Heidegger attempts to identify and dismisses three historical presuppositions which may stand against renewed inquiring on the meaning of "to be", in a systematic manner.

Before moving towards the summarizing of those three presupposition, some remarks upon the translation and the language used:

a. Heidegger is aware of the limitation of the language and in order to do away with all sort of confusions and tautologies he forges new words which are not usually employed in natural German language, nor in philosophical jargon.

b. immediate translation into English of such words is impossible without turning to licences which may distort original meaning or etymological unity of the "Heideggerian language"

c. a simple summarizing of the text is impossible without some hermeneutical and exegetical effort. By this I mean not a critical attitude towards the content or the meaning of the text itself, but instead a critical attitude towards any translation of the text.

d. as repeatedly mentioned in various footnotes of the text, we are in need of constant clarification of certain concepts used by Heidegger and of which mere translation is if not only limitative, but also distortive.

During the presentation I will insist upon the discrepancies between original meaning and translation.

German	Translation	Observation
Sein	Being	Heidegger uses the infinitive here, i.e. "to be". He is thus looking into the meaning of "what is to be"
Seiende	Entity	Substantivation of the present participle "seiend" - "being", like in the artificial construction: I am being. Another example of present participles: "writing" from  "I am writing" "dreaming" from I am "dreaming".
Allgemeinste	universal	Translated as "the most universal", the German word means "the most general".
Allgemeinheit	universality	Again, translated as "universality", the German word means "generality".

 

As asserted before, Heidegger claims that there are three prejudices which lead us to the belief that an inquiry into the meaning of Being (Sein) is unnecessary.

1. The presuposition regarding the "generality" of Being.

Guidelines:-
Das "Sein" is der "allgemeinste" Begriff. -  τὸ ὂν έστι καθόλου μάλιστα πάντων - Being is the most universal concept.
Heidegger employs here the adjective absolute "algemeinste" (the most general) as a rhetoric tool of consistency with the following discussion upon genus.

Illud quod primo cadit sub apprehensione est ens, cuius intellectur includitur in omnibus quaecumquae quis apprehendit  - An understanding of Being is already included in conceiving anything which one apprehends as an entity  - That which first falls under apprehension is being, which the intellect includes in all things, whatever they may be, that it apprehends.

οὔτε τὸ ὂν γένος - Being is not a genus.

Being (Sein) is not a generic nomination for all the multiplicity of entities (Seiende). By citing Aristotle, Heidegger argues that, although the Ancient philosopher had discovered that Being is not the highest generic concept that comprises into its grasp all multiple instances of entities, and although he attempted a system of categorization he failed to bring to light the meaning of Being, because he did not clarify the interrelations between his categories. Scholasticism lingered upon similar Aristotelian matters,  but despite rigorous principles did not clarify the meaning of Being.  Hegel defines Being indefinite and indeterminate, and discards the problem of multiplicity of Aristotle's categories applicable to individual things;  nevertheless he still has an Ancient view, i.e.  of "a Being", as in Plato and Aristotle, thus failing to properly define the concept.  Generality of the concept is insufficient to shed light upon the

 designated.

2. The presupposition regarding the indefinability of the concept.

Definitio fit per genus proximum et differentiam specificam - A definition is made from the closest genus and the specific difference. This is not the cases because it means to relate "to be" to inferior predicaments.

enti non additur aliqua natura - Being adds nothing to [a thing’s] nature

Heidegger points out that Being cannot be conceived as an entity because of its absolute generality. Thus, a definition from higher concepts or derivation from lower ones is impossible. Traditional Logic, i.e. Aristotelian logic, can at most define entities (Seiendem) in relation. Nevertheless, the impossibility of defining  Being does not exempt us from inquiring into its meaning.

3. The third presupposition concerning the self-evidence of Being

Being is a straightforward concept, which is taken for granted. Relating towards entities is a relation towards Being. Common sense, and by this I mean reductively spoken for "Kant's covert judgements of the common reason' would lead us to dubious conclusions, to tautologies with no amplative role. This does not offer any support to intelligibility but to immediate assumptions about Being.
Heidegger, as others before him, endeavors a systematic approach, as it was stated before: "theme for actual investigation". This approach can be only formal from a logical point of view, therefore in order to inquire into the meaning of being the question must be properly and formally formulated.

2. The formal structure of the Question of Being

Such question must bear transparency,that is clarity and penetrability, the prerequisite for appropriateness of the question. Heidegger turns to an allegoric play of words which comprises transparency and visibility and argues that nature of the questioning itself is of a very special nature and imposes certain formalism within the questioning itself.
I believe that this call is of utmost importance because it demands us to regress in the history of philosophy towards a pre-ontological moment. This regress can be understood as a quantum leap into the past. Transparency, I gather, does not mean only clarity of the question itself, but, at the same time, transparency throughout any philosophical prejudice or dogmatism that we may gathered in the study of philosophy or particularly, in the study of Ontology. It means that a guided, structured seeing through is the condition for any reiteration on the question of meaning of Being.

Transparency does not entail immediate contact with inquiring, otherwise we would succumb to prejudices above and multiplicity of opinion, rather it is guaranteed by formalism.  As Aristotle established an ontology for the Logical system, Heidegger establishes concepts and guidelines around the fundamental question. Heidegger remains thus a systematic thinker.
Since he is about to fundament anew the Ontology he goes to the core and posits the questioning itself into the fundamental position and, from what it follows he looks at the formal structure of the questioning itself.

Every inquiry is a seeking (Suchen) which takes its orientation from what is sought (das Gesuchte). Inquiry (Untersuchen) is directed seeking into  "the to be", (the fact that it is) and "to be so" (Being as it is).

 "Jedes Suchen hat seine vorgängige Direktion aus dem Gesuchten her. Fragen ist erkennendes Suchen des Seienden in seinem Daß- und Sosein."

I would like to pause a second on the meaning of the words Daβein and Sosein, which in the English translation has been identified by "that it is" and "Being as it is". Both of them are concerned with the verb "to be". A more clumpsy translation would render Daβein as "the to be" and Sosein "to be so".

 Thus, Heidegger does not mean that when we look inquire into entities we get our orientation from "some thing that is" or "some thing as it is", rather he means that we  proceed towards an ontological shift from entities (die Seienden) towards occurrence and  state of being, thus towards the ongoing state of Being.

Das Gesuchte	what is sought	Being
das Gefragte	What is asked about	Being
Ein Befragtes	That which is interrogated	Entity, Dasein
Das Erfragte	That which is to be found out by asking	Meaning of being
Der Frager	Questioner	Dasein

 In "what is asked" is contained the actual intention of "what is to be found", and thus situating the inquirer closer to his target. The inquiring itself is in relation to an entity (eines Seienden), to the entity of the inquirer, bearing the subjectivity of the inquirer, and thus immediately related to "Being " (Sein).

"Inquiry itself is the behaviour of the questioner, and therefore of an entity, and as such has its own character of Being"

Heidegger asserts that, in the moment that we pose the question, we already receive some guidance from "what is sought" (das Gesuchte), therefore, the meaning of Being (der Sinn von Sein) is already available in a certain way and this situates the questioner in dichotomic paradox from which:

 a. the explicit question on the meaning of being arises,

b. the tendency towards the conceptualization originates.

However, it does not mean that we do have the concept at hand, because of the void in the understanding of "to be". This vague understanding of Being  (as "to be") is a fact.
Heidegger proposes as point of departure into the question of meaning of Being, precisely this vagueness or indefiniteness, which he interprets as positive phenomenon. Thus an inquiry within the phenomenon is possible through specific inquiry into the obscurity of the phenomenon. Once we are able to illuminate that obscurity, to understand how it functions,  we can proceed to the elucidation of the meaning of Being. Despite of the fact that inoculated hidden presupposition can account for hinder, "what is sought" is not an absolute unknown, although at first we cannot grasp it.

 What is asked about (Das Gefragte) is in fact Being, which determines entities qua entities and on which basis entities are already understood.

"Das Sein des Seienden "ist" nicht selbst ein Seiendes"

"The Being of entities "is" not itself an entity.

Through this formulation, Heidegger emphasizes that the discourse upon Being, upon "to be" presupposes the exodus from the realm of entities, an ontological shift from entity towards Being. When I assert what "is" that entity (the pen, the Moon or the chair)that "is" (Being or "to be" ) which I predicate about entity is not an entity, but signification of an entity.  As long as it is possible to point out that an entity "is", showing thus its significance, it follows that each entity is pertained by "Being" in a significant manner. What is that "Being", what is that "is" represent the object of inquiry in Heidegger.  Being as "what is asked about" must be exhibited in a different way than the manner in which entities are dis-covered (ent-decken).  What is to be found by asking (Das Erfragte) demands an appropriate conceptual aparatus, opposed to those concepts in which entities acquire their definite signification.

The distinction between Being, its meaning and entity:
Into the interrogation of entities (Das Befragte), Being is that which is asked about (Das Gefragte) and the meaning of Being is what is found by asking (Das Erfragte).
Everything towards we orientate our inquiry is "being" (seiend). Being lies Daβein and Sosein, in Reality, in presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit), in subsistence, validity, in Dasein and in "there is".

The question of the meaning of Being is always asked by an entity, Dasein, and in order to reach transparency towards the question, it is necessary to look into this concept. Moreover, it is necessary to determine the relationship between entities and their Being. Dasein is the unity of a human entity capable of inquiring:

“This entity which each of us is himself  and which includes inquiring as one of the possibilities of its Being, we shall denote as Dasein. If we are to formulate our question explicitly and transparently, we must first give a proper explication of an entity (Dasein) with regard to its Being”.

Heidegger dismisses the possibility of having a circular reasoning. This problem may lay in the fact that we are presupposing Being, when we are defining entities, and then from entities we look for the meaning of Being. He argues firstly that pointing out this problem will prevent us from penetrating the field of study. And this seems to be a truism. However he goes further and dismisses the problematic of circularity all together.
He argues that entities can be in their Being defined without having available an explicit concept of the Meaning of Being. Being was always presupposed but not as an available concept, not as “what is sought” (Das Gesuchte).
The presupposition of Being always takes place in an average ways, and this is essential way in which Dasein works. However it sheds light upon entities. In other words, the fact that we are gives us a basic understanding of Being. Since Being is a part of ourselves there cannot be derivation / deduction, thus there is not circular reasoning.

“Concept… which in the end belongs to the essential constitution of Dasein itself.”

Instead of circular reasoning Heidegger points out “relatedness backward or forward”, a link between Sein and Dasein. This link is constituted by the interrogation of the Dasein (Der Frager) about Sein (Das Gesuchte). Therefore, in determining the meaning of Being, Dasein is the gateway to answer the Question about Dasein.