Temporality as the foundation of the transcendence of Dasein, of intraworldly, and of intratemporality
A temporaneidade como fundamento da transcendência do Dasein, da intramundanidade e da intratemporalidade
Acylene M. Cabral Ferreira
UFBA – Universidade Federal da Bahia
Recebido: 16/08/2024
Received: 16/08/2024
Aprovado:17/12/2024
Approved: 17/12/2024
Publicado: 31/12/2024
Published: 31/12/2024
ABSTRACT
We aim to explain how the temporality of time (it gives time) and the temporality of Being (the temporalization of Being) occur. In this article, we will try to show how the characters of openness and horizon, which are proper to the temporality of time, give meaning to the manifestation of Being. To achieve this, we will take the concept of temporality ekstatikon-horizonal, because we suppose that this concept can help us to show how the temporalities of time and of Being are constituted in this period of Heidegger’s philosophy. We intend to clarify how the concepts of intraworldly, the transcendence of Dasein, and intratemporality are constituted by the temporalities of time and of Being.
Keywords: temporality; time; being intraworldly; intratemporality.
RESUMO
Nosso objetivo consiste em explicitar como acontece a temporaneidade de tempo (dar-se do tempo) e a temporaneidade de ser (temporanização de ser). O problema que enfrentaremos, nesse artigo, será mostrar como os caráteres de abertura e de horizonte, próprios das temporaneidades de tempo, concedem sentido à manifestação de ser. Enfrentaremos esse desafio pautados no conceito de temporalidade ekstático-horizontal, porque pressupomos que através dele poderemos apontar como as temporaneidades de tempo e de ser são constituídas nesse período da filosofia de Heidegger. Nossa finalidade é clarificar como a intramundanidade, a transcendência do Dasein e a intratemporalidade são constituídas pelas temporaneidades de tempo e de ser.
Palavras-chave: temporaneidade; tempo; ser; intramundanidade; transcendência.
Introduction
To address the theme of the Colloquium: Martin Heidegger, reader of Aristotle, I will start from the conference The Concept of Time given in Marburg in July 1924. I will take the guiding question of that conference: what is time? to highlight how Aristotle's thought was essential for Heidegger to develop his conception of original time and vulgar time. I will also refer to the History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena (1924), Being and Time and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, both from 1927, because in addition to indicating a possible answer to the aforementioned question, they are equally important for clarifying the concepts of temporality (Temporalität) and temporal (Zeitlichkeit). Our challenge here is not only to explain the conception of the temporality of being, but first of all it will be to highlight how the temporality of time underlies the temporality of being. From this perspective, we will have a double difficulty, since Heidegger did not say how he engenders the temporality of being nor did he use the term “temporality of time.” We instituted this term to refer to the temporalizations of original time, considering that it is totally pertinent to Heidegger's thought to name how the “it gives time” happens (see Heidegger, 2002). During our exposition it will be easier to see how, from the History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, Being and Time, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, it is possible to build both the temporality of being and the temporality of time. We will face this challenge based on the concept of ecstatic-horizonal temporality, since we assume that through it we will be able to point out how, in the 1920s, the temporalities of time and the temporalities of being are architected in Heidegger's philosophy. Our purpose is to clarify how intraworldliness, the transcendence of Dasein and intratemporality are constituted by the temporalizations of the temporalities of time and of being. We will divide our presentation into three parts. In the first, we will elucidate the phenomenon of stretchedness temporality, to demonstrate that it is a determination of vulgar time characterized as intratemporality. Due to a methodological issue, we will purposely begin our presentation by thematizing intratemporality in line with the methodology of existential analytic. We know that in Being and Time the author returns to the everyday modes of being (ontic) of Dasein, to describe the characters of being, i.e., existential (ontological) that structure Dasein. Phenomenologically, the author returns to the ontic to scrutinize the ontological and explore his existential analytic. From our point of view, we believe that Heidegger uses the same resource to describe the temporalities of time, that is, he analyzes the everyday temporals of vulgar time to describe the temporalizations of original time. In the second part, we will investigate how we can inquire the temporality of time, to highlight why it is called original time. Our aim in this part is to outline how the temporality of time composes the ecstatic-horizonal temporality and the temporality of being. In the third part, we will discuss how the temporalities of time and of being determine the intraworldliness of the world and the character of transcendence of Dasein.
In the conference The Concept of Time and in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, the philosopher uses passages from Aristotle's Physics, to highlight that the Stagirite conceives time linked to nature, since he treats time through the relationship with the change of place and with the measurement of movement. Thus, time is seen as a “here” that happens between “over there and there” or, as a “now” that happens between “before and after.” Heidegger also emphasizes that in Physics time is described as continuity and as relative to numbers, that is, as long or short time and as much or little time. We also need to remember that after these reflections on the nature of time, Aristotle ends up asking himself: would time exist if there was not someone who was capable of dealing with numbers, counting, measuring displacements and pointing out changes of place? Does the existence of time depend on the existence of the soul? (See Aristotle, 1991, 4.10.217b29-4.14.224ª17). Perhaps it was influenced by this Aristotelian questioning that, in the conference The Concept of Time, Heidegger established an intrinsic relationship between time and Dasein, the entity that we ourselves are, stating that “time is temporal. Dasein is not time, but temporality. [...Based on this reasoning, he concluded that the question] What is time? Became the question: Who is time? [Faced with this conclusion, he asked himself:] Are we ourselves time? Am I time?” (Heidegger, 2004, p. 123, 125; Heidegger, 1999, p. 20E, 22E). Why, when questioning time, did Aristotle and Heidegger correlate time with human existence? If time is temporal and the human being is not time, how is he the temporalization of time? Do we have a contradiction here?
In order to reflect on this issue, it is first important to recall that, in the 1920s, one of the objectives of Heideggerian philosophy was, on the one hand, to investigate how to treat being as being and no longer in relation to the entity, as it has predominantly been the case in Western metaphysics since the Greeks. And on the other hand, it was to research how to conceptualize time from time itself and no longer with a view to nature or movement, as Aristotle did in Antiquity, for example; nor was it to approach time in relation to the observer (see Heidegger, 2004, p. 109; Heidegger, 1999, p. 3E), as Einstein proposed in his theory of relativity in Contemporary Times. In this vein, Heidegger stated that being manifests itself and time temporalizes itself. This implies that we access the manifestation of being as a phenomenon or character of being. In the Prolegomena to the Concept of Time (see Heidegger, 1979; Heidegger, 1992) the phenomenon of being is conceived as an a priori and in Being and Time the characters of being are defined as existentials and categories, with the existentials structuring the modes of being of Dasein and the categories determining the modes of being of objective presence of things. On another occasion, he characterized the phenomena of time as ecstasies, namely: future [Zukunft], having-been [Gewesenheit] and present [Gegenwart] (see Heidegger, 1986, p. 329; Heidegger, 2010, p. 314). In both Being and Time and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, the unity of these ecstasies constitutes the phenomenon of temporal, through which we appropriate that which we understand as time. In these texts, each temporalization of the ecstatic unity of temporality is considered as a phenomenon of original time (see Heidegger, 1997, p. 376; Heidegger, 1982, p.266). But to what extent does the co-appropriation of the characteristics of being and ecstatic unity engender the temporality of Dasein? How do the phenomena of original time determine the intraworldliness of objective presence of things, the transcendence of Dasein and the intratemporality of time? To what extent did Aristotle's questions about time in Physics contribute to Heidegger's elaboration of his concept of time?
The phenomenon of stretchedness temporality
The fact that in our everyday language we constantly use expressions that indicate temporal references confirms Heidegger's reasoning according to which our existence is tied to temporalizations of time. However, how do we identify such references in our daily lives? When we say that we do not have time to carry out certain activities or that we spend a lot of time to perform a certain task. When we attribute that a situation happened before or after an event, or when we say that the climate on Earth was milder in the past, but today we observe that climate change can affect our tomorrow. Or even when, on the one hand, we assume that our existence is a continuous temporal event composed of a succession of hours, days, years, seasons, etc. On the other hand, we also notice temporalizations in our daily lives when we quantify time, that is, when we count the time we have already lived and the time we have left to live, when we calculate the time it takes us to leave one place and arrive at another, or when scientists fight to establish when the universe was created or when humans appeared on Earth. Through this scaling of the constant presence of temporalizations in our daily lives, Heidegger inferred that the time of our existence consists of a unity of nexuses of temporalities that extend from our birth to our death. He named this extension of temporality as an arc or a span of extended temporalities (see Ferreira, 2015). Due to this scope of stretchedness temporality, we generally conceive of time as an arc formed by lapses of time, for example, past, present, future, yesterday, today, tomorrow, before, now, after, once upon a time, etc. It is precisely because our daily existence is permeated by this range of time lapses established by the stretchedness temporality nexus that we designate our existence as temporal and historical. This implies that the range of time lapses underlies the range of Dasein's existence as a unity of the nexus of stretchedness temporalities. What is this nexus of temporalities called? Intratemporality: the mode of temporalization through which we appropriate the lapses of time, through which we understand the temporals that we interpret as dimensions of time on a daily basis. This reasoning about the constitution of stretchedness temporality in Heidegger makes it clear that Aristotle's questioning of time contributed to the definition of intratemporality as the mode of temporalization that we experience in our daily lives. From this perspective, Heidegger claims that intratemporality is a way of temporalizing vulgar time.
What is the determining character of intratemporality? Levelling. Why? Since stretchedness temporality and its time lapses, as modes of temporalization of intratemporality, concern the counting, measurement and dating of time. While intratemporality reduces the temporalizations of original time to spatial, geometric and mathematical conceptions, it levels such temporalizations to the modes of being of extended entities, which involve division, summation, standardization, regulation, among others. With this reduction, intratemporality levels the temporalities of time to the modalities of space and being, which is why it is characterized as levelling. Drawing a parallel with Heidegger’s purpose in Being and Time, which is “to show that time is that from which Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like being at all. [Better, than] time as the horizon of every understanding and interpretation of being” (Heidegger, 1986, p. 17; Heidegger, 2010, p. 17). we infer that if, on the one hand, time is the opening in which the manifestation of being as meaning takes place, and if, on the other hand, we find intratemporality in force in the understanding and interpretation of being of Dasein and the world, reciprocally, we can think that, as a levelling, intratemporality is structured by a character of closedness For, to the extent that it levels the temporalizations of original time to temporal data such as: hours, day, month, year, decade, century, eternity, etc., it covers up the temporalizations of ecstatic-horizonal temporality. From which we can conclude that such concealment embodies ecstatic-horizonal temporality as if it were a pile of temporal data inherent to worldly or natural events. How? In the mode of levelling of intratemporality, anticipation, a mode proper to the future, is embodied as the expectation of future events; the instant, a mode proper to the present, is reduced to the now of our daily lives; and memory, a mode proper to the having-been, is leveled to past facts. It is precisely in this consubstantiation that covers the modes proper to ecstatic-horizonal temporality that the levelling characteristic of intratemporality occurs. Therefore, we believe that intratemporality is a mode of closedness that obscures the opening of the horizon that characterizes original time. In this context, intratemporality is the temporalization of vulgar time from which Dasein understands itself as historical and through which it interprets the intraworldly of the world.
What is the relevance, for philosophy, when Heidegger conceives time as a horizon? For us, with the characterization of time as a horizon from which all temporalizations of time and being derive, Heidegger was able to introduce a philosophical definition of time, which is no longer centered on the subject or consciousness nor on the object, nature or the world, but rather in an opening in which being is appropriated as meaning. We think that such a characterization of time was crucial for the philosopher to substantiate the intrinsic relationship he intended to establish between the appropriation of time and the event of being, in such a way that the time horizon opens up the meaning of being, through which Dasein understands, interprets and means entities in general. In this intertwining between time and being, the temporalities of original time are appropriated and named via manifestations of being. In this theoretical perspective, it is appropriate to emphasize that this intertwining also underlies the temporalizations of ordinary time and the constitutions of the sense of being of entities in general. Therefore, with the definition of time as a horizon, at the same time, Heidegger was able to expose that the openness of the horizon determines the origin of time as the one from which we understand and interpret being; how much he was able to emphasize that the everyday conceptions we have of time and being originate and, therefore, derive from the horizon of time. Precisely because stretchedness temporalities and time lapses are derived, intratemporality is conceived as a mode of temporalization of vulgar time, which conceals and levels the temporal modes of ecstatic-horizonal temporality. Since we have already presented intratemporality as a mode of temporalization of ordinary time, we can only ask: what is the Heideggerian constitution of original time? How do the ecstasis of the future, having-been and present express the temporality of time?
The temporality of time
The essence of future lies in coming-toward-oneself [Auf-sich-zukommen]; that of the past (having-been-ness) lies in going-back-to [Zurück-zu]; and that of the present in staying-with, dwelling-with [Sichaufhalten], that is, being-with. [...] As determined by this toward, back-to, and with, temporality is outside itself. Time is carried away [entrückt] within itself as future, past [having-been], and present. [...] Temporality as unity of future, past [having-been], and present [...] as temporality, it is itself the original outside-itself, the ekstatikon. For this character of carrying-away we employ the expression the ecstatic character of time (Heidegger, 1997, p. 377; Heidegger, 1982, p. 266-267).
In Being and Time, we saw that the horizon is the determining character of original time, while the recently mentioned quote from The Basic Problems of Phenomenology clarifies that the temporality of time has an ecstatic character. Such statements make it clear that original temporality is temporalized as an ecstatic-horizonal unity. Both in Being and Time (see Heidegger, 1986, p. 329; Heidegger, 2010, p. 314) and in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, ecstatikon means the original being-outside-self in which each temporal is outside itself toward another temporal. Given that the ecstatic character determines the temporalizations of time, Heidegger names the temporalities of original time as ecstasis. Due to the ecstatic characterization, as a temporality, the future is outside itself towards the having-been and the present and, reciprocally, these two temporalities are also outside-of-itself towards the others. This denotes that each temporality is beyond itself. While each temporality is defined as outside itself-beyond-itself in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, temporals are determined by the character of carrying away. According to Heideggerian thought, the unity of the characters of carrying away, outside itself, beyond itself and coming towards constitutes each and every form of temporality, whether the temporalizations of intratemporality, for example, those of stretchedness temporality such as past, present and future; or the temporalizations of ecstatic-horizonal temporality: future, having-been and present. In this line of argument, we can infer that the ecstatic-horizonal characters are the condition of possibility for us to approach the constitution of the temporality of time. Why?
Because the expression. “temporal” belongs to both pre-philosophical and philosophical usage, and because that expression will be used in a different sense in the following investigations, we shall call the original determination of the meaning of being and its characters and modes which devolve from time its temporal [temporale] determination. The fundamental ontological task of the interpretation of being as such thus includes the elaboration of the temporality of being [Temporälitat des Seins] (Heidegger, 1986, p. 19; Heidegger, 2010, p. 18).
We have used these words from Being and Time to reinforce the fact that with the expression “temporality” Heidegger intends to make a distinction between the temporal and temporality senses of time. He simply maintains the term “temporal” to designate the temporalizations of vulgar time, such as intratemporality; and he preserves the expression “temporality” to define the temporalizations of original time, namely, ecstatic-horizonal temporality. He also preserves the word “temporality” to show how the temporalizations of time and being occur. In line with this terminological distinction, at this point, we will return to our hypothesis to investigate to what extent the characteristics of ecstatic-horizonal temporality express the constitution of the temporality of time and the temporality of being.
To this end, we will turn our attention to the determining characteristics of ecstatic temporal, namely, outside itself, beyond itself, carrying away and coming towards, to inform that each ecstasis has a horizon or schematic pre-designation, which is conceived as a formal structure of the whereto of the removal (see Heidegger, 1997, p. 429; Heidegger, 1982, p. 302). That is to say: in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology the horizon is whereto each ecstasis is directed insofar as it is determined by the character of carrying way. This implies that “each ecstasis as such has a horizon that is determined by it and that first of all completes that ecstasis’ own structure” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 435; Heidegger, 1982, p. 306). In this consummation, each ecstasis is constituted by a horizon with a view to which each of them projects itself outside itself and temporalizes itself as the ecstasis that it is.
Now, if in Being and Time we consider the horizon of time as the from which of openness, and in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology we witness that the horizon is marked as the whereto of the removal, we ask: does this conceptual difference indicate a contradiction? We assume that instead of contradicting each other, these concepts complement each other. Let us remember that, in Being and Time, openness or disclosedness are conceived as anticipation. In the theoretical context of existential analytic, on the one hand, anticipation is both the proper mode of the ecstasis of the future, and it is the whereto the instant comes towards, i.e., the whereto from which the instant is temporalized as a proper mode of the ecstasis of the present. In this case, anticipation is a character of the temporality of time. But, on the other hand, anticipation temporalizes the character of being of Dasein, determining it as the entity that, in existing, projects its possibilities of being toward the understanding and interpretation of the meaning of being of entities in general. In this case, anticipation is a character of the temporality of being. It is necessary to point out here that the temporal character of anticipation is so crucial to existential analytic that it is present in the very semantics of the word “Dasein.” How? We only need to recall that the prefix “da” that appears next to the verb “sein” and constitutes the being of Dasein, in Being and Time, is defined as anticipation and disclosedness (see Heidegger, 1986, p. 132, 133; Heidegger, 2010, p. 129). In accordance with this definition of “Da,” existentials, as a character of being that structures Dasein, are founded as disclosedness, and existence, as the essence of Dasein, is conceived as possibilities of being toward which Dasein projects itself. Therefore, within the scope of Being and Time we can emphasize that the horizon, as an anticipatory opening of time, is both the whereto being manifests itself as meaning, and the from which Dasein understands the meaning of being of entities. In this manner, the horizon can be seen as Dasein's sending [Schicksal], that is, as the whereto from which Dasein “first starts upon a way of revealing” (Heidegger, 2008, p. 329), and comes toward to understand and interpret its possibilities of being. Therefore, from the perspective of openness and sending, the horizon is also determined by the ecstatic character of carrying away, that is, the outside-itself-beyond-itself.
We saw that in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology the horizon or schematic pre-designation constitutes the sending or the whereto which each ecstasis is directed. This suggests that the direction in this lecture is referred to the ecstasies of temporality themselves and no longer to the possibilities of being as in Being and Time. So, on the horizon as a schematic pre-designation or whereto of ecstasis we do not find the conception of time as that from which Dasein understands and interprets being, rather, in that lecture we suppose that Heidegger chooses to clarify how the temporalities of original time and vulgar time happen. Obviously, we know that Being and Time presents a clear distinction between time and being, as well as unequivocally establishing the differences between the temporalities of time and the modalities of understanding and interpreting being. By equating these two writings of the philosopher, our intention is not only to indicate the peculiarities of each of these writings with a view to defining horizon, but rather to defend that the lecture The Basic Problems of Phenomenology complements and better explains the conception of temporality treated in Being and Time. Why? Since in this lecture Heidegger describes how the temporalization of original time is constituted, which underlies the ecstatic-horizonal temporality, which he had already explained in the History of the Concept of Time and in Being and Time. As we already announced in the introduction to our exposition, we are calling the temporalizations of original time temporality of time. That said, nothing more opportune than asking: how is the temporality of time constituted?
We previously said that due to the ecstatic structure each ecstasis projects outside itself towards the other ecstasis. Now, our purpose is to highlight that due to the character of carrying away that constitutes the ecstasis of original temporality, each ecstasis projects itself outwards towards its horizontal schemes or schematic pre-designations. In this projection, there is a modification of the unity of the ecstatic-horizonal temporality and, along with this, with each projection and carrying away of the ecstasis beyond themselves, there is a modification of the unity of the schematic pre-designations where to each ecstasis project itself. In other words, as the temporality of each ecstasis occurs, reciprocally, the schematic pre-designations that constitute them modify themselves and become temporalized. In short, the temporality of the ecstasis consists in their projecting themselves outwards towards their horizon. Precisely for this reason, in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, the horizon is defined as the whereto each ecstasis is directed and consumed as the ecstasis that it is. This means that the horizon or schematic pre-designation, formally characterized as the whereto of the removal, determines the temporal structures that constitute each ecstasis as such. In this temporality, the horizon is the outside of the ecstasis and, consequently, it is beyond the ecstasis that it determines as this and not another ecstasis. It is worth noting that, although the horizon is constituted as the whereto of the removal and is defined as ecstatic, it does not have an ecstatic structure like the ecstasis that it structures (see Heidegger, 1997, p. 435; Heidegger, 1982, p. 306). In this way, all temporalization is ecstatic, but only the ectasis have an ecstatic structure.
After this presentation on how the temporalization of ecstatic-horizonal temporality is based, we conclude that the temporality of time is constituted by the horizon or schematic pre-designation, which structures the ecstasies of the future, the having-been and the present, and brings them together in an ecstatic-horizonal unity. It is important to emphasize here that as a mode of the temporality of time, the ecstatic-horizonal unity changes both when the ecstasis are carried away from themselves towards their horizon, and when they project themselves towards other ecstasies. At the same time, we need to note that the temporality of time also determines the stretchedness temporality and the lapses of time, because when the ecstatic-horizonal unity changes structurally, it can change in the proper mode of temporality or in the improper mode of temporality. What are the horizons or schematic pre-designations that structure the temporality of time?
What does praesens mean with regard to time and temporality in general? [...] The name “praesens” itself already indicates that we do not mean by it an ecstatic phenomenon as we do with present and future. [...] Nevertheless, there exists a connection between present and praesens which is not accidental. [...] The ecstasis of present has within itself a schematic pre-designation of the where out there this “beyond itself” is. That which lies beyond the ecstasis as such, due to the character of removal and as determined by that character, or, more precisely, that which determines the whither of the “beyond itself” as such in general, is praesens as horizon. The present projects itself within itself ecstatically upon praesens. Praesens [...] as basic determination of the horizonal schema of this ecstasis, it joins in constituting the complete time-structure of the present. Corresponding remarks apply to the other two ecstasies, future and present (Heidegger, 1997, p. 433, 435; Heidegger, 1982, p. 305, 306).
Unfortunately, Heidegger only named the horizon of temporality that structures the ecstasis of present. He called it Praesenz and conceived it as the whereto the ecstasis of present is projected and temporalized (see Ferreira, 2015). In other words, it is as the ecstasis of present is projected towards Praesenz that it temporalizes itself as present. As we have already anticipated, the temporal and ecstatic character of this ecstasis is the instant. However, the instant also temporalizes itself and changes in the “mode of the present, of the entpresenting of something, which can express itself with saying of ‘now’” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 434; Heidegger, 1982, p. 306). Because the now is a modification of the instant, it is considered a mode derived from ecstatic-horizonal temporality, which we have already described as intratemporality. Simultaneously with the modification of the instant in now, a structural modification occurs in the temporal character of the ecstasis of the present, that is, the enpresent. In this characterization, the enpresent is a mode derived from the temporality of time. Hence, we understand that the ecstasis of the present with its structural modification is the condition of possibility both for the constitution of intratemporality, which embodies the temporality of the original temporality, and for the intraworldliness that determines the significance of the world. These findings allow us, on the one hand, to conclude that intratemporality is a modification of the ecstatic-horizonal temporality and, on the other hand, to add that the temporal horizon of the constitution of the sense of being of the intraworldly entities is Praesenz. By explaining the connection between the horizon or schematic pre-designation of Praesenz and the ectasis of the present, we believe we have shown that the temporality of time occurs through the connection between the schematic pre-designations and their corresponding ecstasis. To what extent does the temporality of time constitute the temporality of being?
Temporality of being, transcendence of Dasein and intraworldliness of entities
According to Heidegger, “the fundamental ontological task of the interpretation of being as such includes the elaboration of the temporality of being [Temporalität des Seins]” (Heidegger, 1986, p. 19; Heidegger, 2010, p. 18). Although he makes this statement in Being and Time, he did not explain, in that work, what the temporality of being is. For this reason, at this point, our objective will be to point out how we can think about the temporality of being. However, before we continue, it is worth pointing out that in History of the Concept of Time and in Being and Time, when the author exposes the temporalization of existentials, he is revealing how ecstatic-horizonal temporality determines the proper or improper modes of being of Dasein and not how the temporality of being occurs. From our point of view, we believe that the temporality of being occurs when the temporality of time temporalizes the manifestation of being that is shown in the horizon of time. We know that in the History of the Concept of Time and in Being and Time, the horizon of time is seen as the opening in which the manifestation of being is understood as meaning. We assume that in this temporalization, being is appropriated in the sense of an a priori. This assumption of ours derives from the following statement in the “History of the Concept of Time: “the apriori phenomenologically understood is [...] a title for being. [...] The original sense of the apriori [..., consists of] preparation for the specification of the structure of the apriori as a feature of the being of entities and not a feature of entities themselves” (Heidegger, 1979, p. 101,102; Heidegger, 1992, p. 74, 75). In other words, within the scope of the History of the Concept of Time and Being and Time, being is temporalized in the sense of apriori and the latter, in turn, is temporalized in the sense of the character of being. Therefore, the temporality of time, characterized by the horizon as openness, constitutes the temporality of being as apriori and as the character of being. If in Basic Problems of Phenomenology, the horizon is conceived as the whereto of the removal, how can we reflect on the temporalization of being in this lecture? We understand that while being is temporalized in the horizon of carrying away, the manifestation of being is appropriated as concealment. Why? As the horizon of carrying away characterizes the ecstasis of temporality as outside itself, we infer that the manifestation of being is temporalized in the sense of withdrawal. This understanding makes it easier for us to understand why, from the 1930s onwards, it becomes increasingly clear that, together with the manifestation of being, the concealment of being occurs. For us, the reflection on the temporalization of being by the horizon of carrying away makes more evident the linguistic choices made by Heidegger to express the mode of the event of being. Among them we can list the terms “unapparent, ungrounded, abyss, fold and mystery,” the latter of which was defined by the philosopher as “concealed and always concealing itself, [...] in a way that opens to light [i.e. that unconceals]” (Heidegger, 2008, p. 330).
After these clarifications, finally, we are able to corroborate that the investigative line of Heideggerian philosophy in the 1920s aimed to elaborate both the temporary modalities of time, namely, the ecstatic-horizonal temporalities that expose the meaning of being, and the temporary modalities of being that reveal the characters of being that constitute Dasein and the characters of being that determine the intraworldliness of objective presence of things. While in the History of the Concept of Time and in Being and Time the manifestation of being is temporalized as a character of being, Dasein's constitution of being is structured by temporality characters such as anticipation, openness, carrying away, outside itself, beyond itself and projective direction.
This constitution allows us to attest that the characters of being that structure Dasein are determined by the temporality of being. Only at the level of example, we remember that the temporality characters underlie the existentials of being-in (outside-self), understanding (disclosedness), fundamental disposedness (carrying away), falling (beyond-itself), spatiality (projective direction) and, reciprocally, the totality of the existential whole of Dasein's constitution of being, which is named care (Sorge). Due to this temporalization of the characters of being that structure Dasein, in Being and Time the unity of ecstatic-horizonal temporality is seen as the meaning of care (see Heidegger, 1986, p. 326; Heidegger, 2010, p. 311). Considering that on the time horizon the manifestation of being is temporalized as a character of being and that care exposes the existential totality of Dasein, we can infer that the temporality of time and the temporality of being determine the meaning of being that existentially constitutes the Dasein. From this perspective, the temporality of time, which reveals the meaning of being as an apriori, is the condition of possibility for us to access the temporality of being, which reveals the meaning of apriori as a character of being. Therefore, the temporality of time is the condition of possibility of the sense of being, and the temporality of being is the condition of possibility for the constitution of the sense of being of Dasein and, simultaneously, the sense of being of entities in general, since it is Dasein that constitutes the significance of the world. How does ecstatic-horizonal temporality, which is a mode of temporality of time, constitute the being of Dasein and the meaning of care?
For this character of carrying away [Entrückung] we employ the expression the ecstatic character of time. [...] It is with this ecstatic character that we interpret existence, which, viewed ontologically, is the original unity of being-outside-self that comes-toward-self, comes back-to-self, and enpresents. In its ecstatic character, temporality is the condition of the constitution of the Dasein’s being (Heidegger, 1997, 377, 378; Heidegger, 1982, p. 267).
According to this quote, we can say that the characters of coming-toward, outside-itself and beyond-itself, constitutive of ecstatic temporality, temporalize the character of being of Dasein as “being-outside-self that comes-toward-self, comes back-to-self, and enpresents.” However, we cannot forget that temporality is also horizonal, as such, it is characterized as carrying away, and that the character of being of Dasein is temporalized as disclosedness and as whereto towards Dasein goes toward being to come back to the understanding and interpretation of the meaning of being of entities in general. Because the temporality characters of carrying away, openness, directionality and outside-itself-beyond-itself structure the characters of being of Dasein, we understand that they set up the temporality of being, which grounds the modalities of being of Dasein. In other words: While ecstatic-horizonal temporality temporalizes Dasein's characters of being, the temporalization of these characters exposes Dasein's temporality of being. While Dasein's characters of being are temporalized by ecstatic-horizonal temporality, Dasein is constituted as the entity that exists outside-of-itself, beyond entities toward the meaning of being. This implies that ecstatic-horizonal temporality grounds Dasein's being as carrying away and constitutes the meaning of care as anticipation. In this temporalization of being, Dasein is determined as care, that is, as the entity that exists thrown into a world significance [being-in], that lives alongside beings [being-alongside] anticipating and projecting possibilities of being [being-ahead-of-itself]. From which we can add that, as care, Dasein is defined by the characteristics of coming-toward-oneself, going-back-to and being-outside-self. As such, Dasein is characterized as the entity that precedes itself and projects the meaning of being towards the world. This means that the constitution of the meaning of being of Dasein and of entities in general occurs in the carrying away and overtaking of the significance of the world towards the manifestation of being in the horizon of time. Thus, we ask: how does the temporality of being structure Dasein? As transcendence, since Dasein is the entity that overtakes other entities and goes beyond itself towards being, to return to the interpretation of the meaning of being of the world. In this being-outside-self, Dasein projects the temporalized meaning of being, through which it understands and determines the way of being of entities in general. In light of these statements, we conclude: because the meaning of care concerns Dasein’s always preceding itself in and alongside the world, ecstatic-horizonal temporality temporalizes Dasein’s being as transcendence. We support this observation in the following sentence by Heidegger: “The transcendence of [...Dasein] is founded in its specific wholeness on the original ecstatic-horizonal unity of temporality [Zeitlichkeit]” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 429; Heidegger, 1982, p. 302). We believe that this quote from The Basic Problems of Phenomenology allows us to add that ecstatic-horizonal temporality grounds transcendence as a character of Dasein’s temporality of being. But how does the temporality of being constitute the meaning of being of objective presence of things?
Taking into account, on the one hand, that Dasein only understands being insofar as it is temporalized as meaning and, on the other hand, that intratemporality is a structural modification of ecstatic-horizonal temporality, which consubstantiates the modes of original temporality in lapses of time, we can consider that, in Heideggerian philosophy, intratemporality is the mode of temporalization through which Dasein understands the meaning of being of objective presence of things as the significance of the world. Why? Since objective presence of things are structured by the character of being called a category, which “to let it be seen for everyone in its being” (Heidegger, 1986, p. 44-45; Heidegger, 2010, p. 44). Due to this structuring of being, objective presence of things are not characterized by existentials nor temporalized by the character of time as openness, carrying away or anticipation. In this way, ecstatic-horizonal temporality does not temporalize objective presence of things; rather, the temporalization of these entities is constituted by Dasein, which, by temporalizing itself, temporalizes the entities that are with it in the world. This temporalization occurs because when Dasein is temporalized, it simultaneously understands being as meaning and understands itself as a mode of being temporalized in this or that way. And alongside this temporalization, it understands and interprets the meaning of being of objective presence of things and institutes the significance of the world. In existential analytic, when objective presence of things are understood and temporalized by Dasein, they are worlded and, therefore, they are called intraworldly entities. This means that the worldliness of the world is a character of being of Dasein and not of objective presence of things. In this sense, intraworldliness is determined by the character of being of Dasein (See Heidegger, 1997, p. 420, 240, 241; Heidegger, 1982, p. 296, 169), through which it understands, interprets and communicates the significance of objective presence of things. Since the intraworldliness of objective presence of things is founded on the characters of being that structure Dasein, we can affirm that the intraworldliness of objective presence of things is rooted in the temporality of being. How? When Dasein understands the temporality meaning of being of objective presence of things, it enpresents the temporal character of intraworldliness entities and transfigures the worldliness of the world. Because the temporal mode of intraworldliness entities is that of enpresenting, they are determined by stretchedness temporality and its lapses of time. In this way, the mode of temporalization of intraworldliness entities is that of intratemporality. Considering that objective presence of things are temporalized and worldly by Dasein, and that Dasein only understands and interprets the meaning of being of entities in general when it goes toward being and overtakes entities towards being, we can infer that while intraworldliness is a mode of understanding the temporal meaning of being of objective presence of things, it is constituted by the transcendence of Dasein which, as already stated, is a character of the temporality of being. Therefore, we understand that the meaning of objective presence of things is projected as world significance and the constitution of being of these entities is determined as intraworldliness. To this extent, we judge that intraworldliness is a mode of understanding and interpreting the meaning of being of the world, which is updated with each temporalization of Dasein. If intraworldliness is a possible determination of being of the objective presence of things (see Heidegger, 1997, p. 240; Heidegger, 1982, p. 169) signified and temporalized by Dasein, then, “everything extant that the Dasein encounters is necessarily intraworldly” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 360; Heidegger, 1982, p. 255).
Final Considerations
Throughout our exposition on the correlation between temporality, transcendence, intraworldliness and intratemporality, we have arrived at the following theses: [i] ecstatic-horizonal temporality, as a mode of the temporality of time, grounds Dasein’s temporal sense of being, namely, anticipation, openness and carrying away; [ii] Dasein’s transcendence is a character of the temporality of being; [iii] intratemporality is a structural modification of ecstatic-horizonal temporality; [iv] intraworldliness is a determination of Dasein’s transcendence and, consequently, of the temporalities of time and being; [v] the temporality of time is the horizon in which the meaning of being appears as an apriori, as such it is the condition of possibility of the temporality of being; [vi] the temporality of being reveals the meaning of apriori as a character of being that structures beings, which is why it is the condition of possibility for the constitution of the meaning of being of entities. Such theses were essential for us to clarify that the temporality of time is the most original mode of temporalization, because by founding ecstatic-horizonal temporality and the temporality of being, the temporality of time becomes the structural basis for the constitution of Dasein's transcendence, of intratemporality and intraworldliness. For this reason, we defend both that the temporality of time is the original and founding source of the nexuses of temporalities, which make up ecstatic-horizonal temporality and intratemporality; and that the temporality of time grounds the nexuses of the temporality of being, which constitute the structural totality of Dasein and the worldliness of objective presence of things.
As a conclusion, it is important to emphasize that through the analysis of the characters of carrying away, outside-itself, beyond-self and projective direction, which constitute ecstatic-horizonal temporality, on the one hand, we show how it is possible to elaborate the temporality of time as “it gives time,” which temporalizes the sense of being as openness, carrying away and anticipation; and on the other hand, we clarify that in the temporality of being, Dasein is temporalized as transcendence and care. In short, we can conclude that the temporality of time is the openness and the horizon from which and whereto the manifestation of being is temporalized as apriori, and that the temporality of being is the openness and the horizon from which and whereto the sense of apriori is temporalized as a character of being.
To what extent do the theses listed above demarcate the importance of Aristotle's philosophy for the elaboration of Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology? Clearly, we can conclude that Aristotle's issues about time led Heidegger to name one of the modes of time as vulgar and to treat it as a structural modification of the other mode of time that he called original. Obviously, he considered the modalities of original time as the foundation for the modalities of vulgar time. As we reported previously, in the same way that Heidegger elaborates the characters of being, which structure Dasein and intraworldly entities, returning to Dasein's everyday modes of being, we presuppose that he conceives the temporalities of time and being by turning to the modalities of vulgar time, which he conceptualized in accordance with his reading of Aristotelian works on time. Furthermore, we cannot fail to point out here that Aristotle's philosophy was also crucial for Heidegger to outline his concept of ontological difference and hermeneutical situation.
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Acylene Maria Ferreira
Acylene Maria Cabral Ferreira is a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Federal University of Bahia. She holds a degree in Philosophy from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1988), a Master's (1993) and a Ph.D. (1997) in Philosophy from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and has completed postdoctoral research at the University of São Paulo (2010), Boston College (2016), Fordham University (2021), and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2022). Her work focuses on contemporary philosophy, with an emphasis on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and artificial intelligence.
The texts in this article were reviewed by third parties and submitted for validation by the author(s) before publication