Notes on the lecture “The Concept of Time” by Martin Heidegger
Anotações sobre a conferência “O conceito de tempo” de Martin Heidegger
Renato Kirchner
PUC-Campinas – Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas
Recebido: 03/10/2024
Received: 03/10/2024
Aprovado:17/12/2024
Approved: 17/12/2024
Publicado: 31/12/2024
Published: 31/12/2024
ABSTRACT
With the lecture The Concept of Time as its main reference, the purpose of this article is to detail the context in which it was given. In addition, the aim is to highlight the extent to which the reflection proposed by Heidegger on that occasion moves conceptually in a very specific and peculiar perspective. Finally, the aim is also to point out the relationships that the text of the 1924 conference has with other texts by the philosopher from Messkirch and, in this case, both the years before and the years after, as is unequivocally the case with the treatise Being and Time, published in 1927.
Keywords: being-there; being-in-the-world; time; temporality; Martin Heidegger.
RESUMO
Tendo como referência principal a conferência O conceito de tempo, o presente artigo assume o propósito circunstanciar o contexto em que ela foi pronunciada. Além disso, trata-se de evidenciar em que medida a reflexão proposta por Heidegger, naquela ocasião, se movimenta conceitualmente numa perspectiva muito própria e peculiar. Por fim, pretende-se também apontar relações que o texto da conferência de 1924 tem com outros textos do filósofo de Messkirch e, neste caso, tanto a anos anteriores como aos anos seguintes, como é o caso, inequivocamente, do tratado Ser e tempo, publicado em 1927.
Palavras-chave: ser-aí; ser-no-mundo; tempo; temporalidade; Martin Heidegger
Introduction
The Concept of Time (Der Begriff der Zeit) is the title of a lecture given by Martin Heidegger on July 25, 1924, at the Marburg Theologate, at the invitation of the theologian Rudolf Bultmann (Safranski, 2000, pp. 171-172). The text of the lecture was first published in German in 1989 by Max Niemeyer, a publisher in Tübingen. The decision to publish this lecture in the year that marked the centenary of the birth of the philosopher from Messkirch is well known.
However, as recorded in the prologue to the Portuguese edition, the text of this conference “had already appeared in French, in an edition by Michel Haar, in 1983” and, furthermore, “to a large extent, it is due to the American Thomas Sheehan, who published a broad systematic summary of it in 1979, that it controversially relaunched its fame” (Borges-Duarte, 2003, p. 9-10).
In the afterword to the German edition, Hartmut Tietjen clarifies specific characteristics and the vicissitudes faced by the conference text and also provides information regarding its reconstruction. Therefore, right at the beginning of the afterword, Tietjen notes: “This conference text must be distinguished from the treatise, also prepared in 1924, but much broader, which under the title The Concept of Time will be published in Gesamtausgabe, volume 64” (Tietjen, 1989, p. 29).
In fact, it was only in 2004 that volume 64 of the complete works (Gesamtausgabe) was published by the Frankfurt publishing house Vittorio Klostermann, which, in addition to the text of the 1924 conference, mainly contains the treatise with the same title and originating from the same year: “This treatise was prepared on the occasion of reading the correspondence between Wilhelm Dilthey and Count York von Wartenburg, which appeared in 1923” (Tietjen, 1989, p. 29). Hartmut Tietjen also reports that part of the first chapter of this treatise was incorporated by Heidegger in § 77 of Being and Time. In fact, the title of this paragraph appears as follows in Being and Time: “The nexus of the present exposition of the problem of historicity with the research of W. Dilthey and the ideas of Count York” (Heidegger, 2006, p. 490-497).
Thus, we have that volume 64 of the complete works (Gesamtausgabe), in addition to the text of the 1924 conference (Heidegger, 2004, p. 105-125), brings together the treatise under the same title containing four parts, namely: I. The posing of Dilthey’s question and Yorck’s fundamental tendency; II. The ontological characteristics originating from being-there; III. Being-there and temporality; IV. Temporality and historicity (Heidegger, 2004, p. 1-103).
Thus, in the afterword to the treatise The Concept of Time, published only in 2004, the editor Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann ends by clarifying:
The treatise The concept of time thus contains the fundamental elements of Being and time and, as such, also includes the theme of the third section of Being and time, since in the last pages of the abbreviated section IV of the treatise, the interpretation of the meaning of being from the point of view of time is presented. And finally, the phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology, that is, the problematic of the second part of Being and Time, is also explicitly mentioned. For all these reasons, it can be rightly said that the 1924 treatise The Concept of Time constitutes an originary version of Being and Time (von Herrmann, 2004, p. 132-133).
In a 1964 text, in homage to Rudolf Bultmann, entitled “Margurgo’s Theology”, Hans-Georg Gadamer also wrote: “The original form (Urform) of Being and time was a lecture before Margurgo’s theological faculty (1924)” (Gadamer, 2012, p. 266).
In fact, both in the prologue to the Portuguese edition and in the introduction to the Brazilian edition, we can read respectively the translators’ position regarding the 1924 conference:
In fact, the repeated mentions that Gadamer had made of the content of the lecture [conference], which he himself had attended, considering it as an Urform of Being and Time, left hovering, during decades of futile waiting for its publication, a halo of expectation of finding in it a kind of missing link between the works of the first period of Heideggerian production and the consummation of the work of 1927 (Borges-Duarte, 2003, p. 10).
Despite the differences in relation to Being and Time, mainly with regard to a clearer definition of the question of being, since the theme is the being of time from the being of the human being, we can affirm that this conference already constitutes a condensed version of the 1927 treatise. The main existential structures of the being of Dasein are already outlined in it. This text provides a beautiful example of how, in the mid-1920s, Heidegger found himself in an intense elaboration of his fundamental philosophical question (Werle, 1997, p. 5).
Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann also presents other relevant information about the context of the conference based on correspondence exchanged between Karl Löwith and Martin Heidegger:
In a letter to Karl Löwith dated November 6, 1924, Heidegger writes: “If the essay is published in January, you will receive a copy. Unfortunately, I was forced to omit important aspects, especially the question of the ‘formal indication’, which is indispensable for a final understanding; I have worked intensively on it” (von Herrmann, 2004, p. 131).
In another letter from Heidegger to Löwith, dated December 17, 1924, we can also read:
“My ‘time’ was too long for Rothacker (5 pages); the review will appear somewhat enlarged in the Jahrbuch. Printing will begin at the end of January.” Instead of the publication announced here, Being and Time, the typesetting of which had begun in April 1926, appeared in Volume VIII of the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung in April 1927 (von Herrmann, 2004, p. 132).
In fact, for those who are familiar with the themes around which the existential and temporal analysis of being-there revolves, which permeate the treatise Being and Time, and who read the 1924 conference carefully, it will be impossible to disagree with what the different authors cited maintain. In this way, it is a matter of seeing and highlighting the guiding ideas of Heidegger’s elaboration of the concept of time, which is why many related themes cannot be specifically developed in this article.
Central ideas of the conference “The concept of time”
The first idea, apparently unimportant, is in these words, at the end of the brief introduction to the conference: “The philosopher does not believe. If the philosopher asks about time, he is determined to understand time from the perspective of time related to the aei, which concerns eternity but reveals itself as a mere derivative of temporal being” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 8/9; Heidegger, 1989, p. 6). It can be inferred from this that, although Heidegger was speaking to an audience of mostly theologians, the approach to time that he proposes on that occasion is not theological, but philosophical, or even better, ontological. Therefore, Heidegger writes:
The treatment that follows is not of a theological nature. [...] The treatment is also not philosophical, insofar as it does not claim to provide a universally valid systematic determination of time, the determination of which would have to turn to what lies behind time, in association with the other categories (Heidegger, 1997, p. 8/9; Heidegger, 1989, p. 6).
Heidegger establishes a fundamental difference between the dimension of faith and the philosophical way of dealing with time. For him, approaching or reflecting on time from eternity is no longer possible on the basis he proposes to discuss in the conference (Safranski, 2000, p. 172; Dastur, 1997, p. 27). Therefore, philosophically speaking, it is a matter of understanding time from time, that is, from time itself. This is evident in many other passages of temporal analytics in the form of expressions such as, for example, “time temporalizes itself”. And, in the sequence, we can read:
The following reflections perhaps belong to a prescience (Vorwissenschaft), whose task encompasses the following: to begin research into what could ultimately be meant by what philosophy, science and the explanatory discourse of being-there (Dasein) say about itself and the world. If we clarify something about what a clock is, the type of apprehension that exists in physics will come alive and, with it, the way in which time gains the opportunity to reveal itself. This prescience, within which this observation moves, lives on the perhaps stubborn assumption that philosophy and science move by means of concepts. Its possibility subsists to the extent that each researcher clarifies for himself what he understands and what he does not understand (Heidegger, 1997, p. 8/11; Heidegger, 1989, p. 6-7).
What is called “prescience” (Vorwissenschaft) here? Prescience must be understood as ontological science. Therefore, it is not ontic, insofar as this prescience must be a condition of possibility for any and all regional or ontic scientific investigation. This science, then, aims to investigate the foundations and the ways in which the being-there deals with itself and with the world in which it lives its everyday life.
Heidegger establishes a counterposition in relation to the usual way of understanding time, namely: the way of conceiving time from the perspective of physics is what, in some way, guides the use of the clock as an instrument for measuring time. In addition, however, it may be that, from a pre-ontological point of view, the being-there itself measures, that is, understands time, without this understanding necessarily having to be related to an approach from the point of view of physics or even of mere measurement, for example.
In this regard, Heidegger emphasizes that time comes to meet in everyday life (Alltäglichkeit) and also for natural time (Naturzeit) and the time of the world (Weltzeit). In this context, he recognizes that even Einstein’s theory of relativity is anchored in the Aristotelian understanding of time. Putting in Einstein’s mouth the words that “space in itself is nothing; there is no absolute space”, and refers to an old Aristotelian statement: “time is also nothing” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 10/11; Heidegger, 1989, p. 7-8)
What is time, then? It is that in which (Worin) events unfold. From the Aristotelian treatise on Physics, Heidegger quotes in the conference The Concept of Time: “Since time is not movement, it must have something to do with movement” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 12/13; Heidegger, 1989, p. 8) and, also, in Being and Time: “Time is this, namely, what is counted in the movement that occurs in the encounter on the horizon of the previous and the subsequent” (Heidegger, 2006, p. 517). Time is what comes to meet the being that changes and, in this sense, all change occurs in time. However, how can time be encountered, that is, seen, as it changes? After all, what is time in itself?
Heidegger then asks: how does time manifest itself to the physical? From the character of measurability. However, in measurement, the “how much time” (Wielange) and the when (Wann) are measured, that is, the “from-when-to-when” (Von-wann-bis-wann) is measured (Heidegger, 1997, p. 12/13; Heidegger, 1989, p. 8-9). In this case, the clock is an example of a remarkable instrument. When measuring, the clock indicates time. Being a physical system, the temporal moments, although successive, can be constantly resumed, under the assumption, of course, that these temporal moments can and even should always be identical and equal. In fact, the resumption of the clock is cyclical. Thus, because it provides an equal and identical duration, it is always possible, through the use of the clock, to resort to time safely and, furthermore, to the extent that it is always already available in some way. What is striking, in the case of chronometry, is that the distribution of the spaces of duration is always equal and identical, but, above all, that it is indifferent and indistinct and, therefore, homogeneous.
Heidegger then asks himself: “What do we experience of time through the clock?” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 12/13; Heidegger, 1989, p. 9). Through the clock, time comes to us as something indifferent to the point of being able to be fixed as a point-of-now (Jetztpunkt). Thus, through two points-of-time, one is prior and the other is posterior. In this sense, neither of the points (nows) has privilege over the other. As for now, one is prior (Früher) and the other is posterior (Später). This time is completely “equal” (gleichartig) and “homogeneous” (homogen). It is thus revealed, once again, that time is only capable of being measured to the extent that it can be conceived and measured in its homogeneity, that is, the previous and the subsequent can only be determined from a now, being, however, “in itself”, totally equal and indifferent.
However, Heidegger recognizes that the “primary determination” (primäre Bestimmung) evidenced by the use of the clock does not reach the indication of the “how much time” (Wielange), nor even the “how much” (Wieviel) of the time that passes. What it determines is the constant fixation of the now, or rather, of each now that passes. Given this, if I look at the clock on my wrist or on my cell phone, what is the first thing I say? I say, for example: “It is now 9 pm” and, to be more precise, we say: “10 minutes after this or that happened” and, in the sequence, we certainly still say or think: “in 3 hours it will be midnight”. In this expressly assumed speech of timed time, even seeing or reading the time on the clock, a very curious thing is revealed: what is each of the three nows? Are they equal and indifferent? Not exactly! When I say 9 p.m., I may be thinking that it is the time when class ends; 10 minutes later, I will be or will have been in the teachers’ lounge or the office; in 3 hours it will be midnight and I will probably be at home. Finally, even if in our speech numbers are pronounced relative to the hours, these hours are not figures, let alone equal and indifferent (Heidegger, 1997, p. 14/15; Heidegger, 1989, p. 9-10).
From this experience of time, Heidegger asks several questions of capital importance for the purposes of the conference:
Time now, when I look at the clock: What is this now? Now when I do it; now, when the light here goes out. What is the now? Do I have the now? Am I the now? Is every other person the now? Then time would be myself, and every other person would be time. And in our common being (unserem Miteinander) we would be time – nobody (keiner) and everyone (jeder). Am I the now or only the one who says the now? With or without a clock that can express something? Now, in the afternoon, tomorrow, this evening, today: Here we come across a clock that human being-there (menschliche Dasein) has long since arranged, the natural clock of the alternation between day and night (Heidegger, 1997, p. 14/15; Heidegger, 1989, p. 10).
However, the main questions Heidegger asks himself are these two: “Am I the now? Is each of the other people the now?” What does Heidegger’s “eye” see here? What does the thinker highlight? It is, in essence, one and the same question. Now, if I myself am the now, then are the other, each other, all the others, as many others as there can be, they the now? There is only one question at stake: the condition of possibility for each and every individuality to experience its own time.
Thus, although it may seem redundant and even pleonastic, we must consider that each individuality is singular, unique, unrepeatable, that is, “time is the adequate principium individuationis”:
If time is understood in this way as being-there, then it only becomes clear what the traditional statement about time means when it says: time is the adequate principium individuationis. This is generally understood as an irreversible succession (umkehrbare Sukzession), as time of the present (Gegenwartzeit) and natural time (Naturzeit). But to what extent is time, as something authentic, the principle of individuation (Individuationsprinzip), that is, from where is being-there in being each time? In the future of anticipation, the being-there that is in the middle is itself; in anticipation, being-there becomes visible as the only being that is this time (Diesmaligkeit) in its only destiny (Schicksal) in the possibility of its only passing (Heidegger, 1997, p. 36/37; Heidegger, 1989, p. 26-27).
In short, in addition to each individual being able to experience each now in its singularity, each individual experiences the passage of each and every now that comes to him/her and, furthermore, it must also be possible, in some way, to experience the passage of each now in coexistence with others, that is, with those similar to myself (Mitdasein). What makes this possibility evident is that the now pronounced is, in being together with others, comprehensible to each being-there. The question, however, is to show how this happens.
Thus, in the conference The Concept of Time, when elaborating the ontological concept of time, Heidegger returns to another important related theme, namely, the theme of the historicity of being-there:
The consideration of history, which grows in the present, sees in it only non-returnable undertakings: that which has already been. The consideration of something that has already been is inexhaustible. It loses itself in matter. Because this history and temporality of the present in no way reach the past, it has another present. The past will remain locked into a present until the moment when being-there (Dasein) itself is historical. But being-there is in itself historical insofar as it is its possibility. In future being, being-there is its past; it returns to it in the how (Wie). The mode of going back is, among other things, consciousness (Gewissen). Only the how can be taken up again. The past – experienced as authentic historicity – is anything but the passing. It is something to which I can always return (Heidegger, 1997, p. 34/35; Heidegger, 1989, p. 24-25).
Heidegger points out here a “well-determined method” from which historical science itself could renew itself, that is, rethink its own investigative foundations. Thus, well considered, the concept of time has an intrinsic implication with historical science, or rather, with the historicity of being-there. Heidegger himself continues in these terms:
The past, as authentic history, is recoverable in the how. The possibility of accessing history is based on the possibility that a present can truly understand itself as something future. This is the first statement of all hermeneutics. It says something about the being of being-there, which is historicity itself. Philosophy will never know what historicity is as long as it continues to classify it as an object of observation. The secret of history lies in the question of knowing what it means to be historical (was es heißt, geschichtlich zu sein) (Heidegger, 1997, p. 36/37; Heidegger, 1989, p. 25-26).
However, in the 1924 conference, two other important ideas appear: irreversibility (Nicht-Umkerhbarkeit) and homogenization (Homogenisierung). According to Heidegger, the fundamental thing is to conquer one’s own way of accessing (Wie) that which one seeks to understand and interpret as “already past” and, in this case, “if time is defined as clock time, then the hope of trying to reach its original meaning (ursprünglichen Sinn zu gelangen) is really lost” (Heidegger, 1997, p. 34/35; Heidegger, 1989, p. 24).
Ultimately, the issue at stake is to show and substantiate the reason why the being-there is the entity that can and must ask itself the fundamental question: “who” am I? This task is underway in Being and Time, a treatise that Heidegger was developing when he gave the lecture The Concept of Time. This lecture allows us to see and understand, preliminarily, the way in which Heidegger, when developing his concept of time, also asks himself in a completely new way:
We want to return to the question – what is time – temporally. Time is the how (Wie). If one really investigates what time is, then one should not hastily settle for an answer, this or that is time, an answer that always means a what (Was). We are not looking for the answer, but we are returning to the question. What has happened to the question? It has changed. What is time? It has changed into the question: who (Wer) is time? Or even more closely: am I my time? With this I come to the culmination of the closeness of the question, and if I understand it correctly, then everything has become more serious with it. Therefore, such questioning – which asks about each case mine – is thus the most appropriate manner of access to and of dealing with time as in each case mine. Being-there would come to the surface as being is in the mode of being of the question (Heidegger, 1997, p. 38/39; Heidegger, 1989, p. 27).
In our understanding, this is one of the densest passages of the lecture and, for this very reason, one should not simply skip over it and move on. The first thing to do, in order to understand it properly, is to consider it and read it from the text and context of the lecture. In fact, in the way Heidegger addresses the conceptualization of time in the 1924 lecture, what is particularly striking is the unusual and therefore completely new way in which he formulates the question of time. He asks: “Who is time?” This new way of asking the question is found in this context:
In short, it can be said: time is being-there. Being-there is my being in each case (Jeweiligkeit), and it can be. Being future, it anticipates itself (Vorlaufen) in the known but indeterminate ‘being-past’ (Vorbei). Being-there is always in one of the modes of its possibility of being temporal. Being-there is time, time is temporal. Being-there is not time, but temporality. The fundamental expression: time is temporal, it is from then on the most proper determination – and it is not a tautology, because the being of temporality signifies a reality with nothing comparable. Being-there is its ‘past’, it is its possibility in anticipating this ‘past’. In this anticipation I am time itself, I have time. Although time is increasingly mine, there are many times. Time is meaningless; time is temporal (Heidegger, 1997, p. 38/39; Heidegger, 1989, p. 27).
Heidegger proposes a change in the way of posing the question about time. Thus, from the traditional question, what is time?, he proposes: who is time? This is not a simple substitution of terms, nor a fad, nor even a new and eccentric way of asking about time. It is not a question of answering these questions objectively, in short, it is either this or that, or neither this nor that.
Who is time? Heidegger claims that it is the being-there. Now, the being-there is the being that I myself am and, in this sense, it is the being in which its own being is at stake in each case insofar as it is always being mine (Jeweiligkeit als meiniges). The philosopher uses two important concepts here, both related to the experience that the being-there has of time. Both Jeweiligkeit and Jemeinigkeit play important roles in Heideggerian terminology in the 1920s.
Etymologically, the noun “Je-weilig-keit” contains the word jeweilig, often translated as “respective”. However, it has a temporal sense: “a little while”, “a moment”, “a lapse of time”... The particle “je” brings together the idea of a particularization of the time of being-there in its individuality, which is evident in the expression “I am”. This expression, in turn, properly designates the Heideggerian use of Jemeinigkeit, insofar as it contains both “je” and “mein”, that is, “my” or “mine”. On the one hand, it is noteworthy that, in Being and Time, Heidegger no longer uses the noun form Jeweiligkeit, but only the adjective jeweilig and, on the other hand, he gives preference to the noun Jemeinigkeit.
From this, then, we could ask some questions: How is time a who? What would the who or this who be like in this case? Am “I” the who? Is the who always an “I”? And, in this case, what is the character of this “I” as it always already temporalizes itself? Or is time merely a predicate, a category, an attribute of a who? After all, how and what is the character of this “who” that is in the mode of time, that is, that is temporal? What does it mean to exist “in time”? In what sense is this “who” the being-there itself in its temporality?
In fact, when formulating the question about time we use interrogative pronouns: what? (Was) and who? (Wer). However, in a certain sense, Heidegger does not bring into play the pronouns themselves, but the way (Wie) of asking about time. In Heidegger, philosophy revives as thought by renewing itself from the fundamental way of asking, which is as old as philosophy itself. The problematic of time, that is, the question of time, is a truly “old” question. Perhaps one of the “oldest” ones. As “old” as man is man (Wer). As “old” as man understands himself (Wie). As “old” as philosophy is philosophy (Was). In Heidegger, philosophy becomes synonymous with the question of being. In this sense, we could also dare to say: as “old” as the triad man–world–language, as “old” as the triad man–being–time, as “old” as the triad man–time–history. It can be seen, therefore, that the question of time is part of a relatively restricted repertoire of essential questions of thought, constituting itself as the primary question of any and all attempts to think. To thematize time is to conceptualize it as and whereas the question of thought.
From what we have seen so far, therefore, the following should be considered: both the question “what” and the question “who” are two questions that point to one and the same issue, to one and the same central and fundamental problem. From this perspective, Heidegger’s question is neither new nor does it claim to be a new or simply interesting question.
Despite this, however, the change in the way of asking has its reason for being, has its foundation. This is because, when asking about the temporality of time, one can no longer make use of a way of asking whose structure always indicates substantiality (ousia), quiddity (quidditas, essentia). It is no longer possible to simply ask about time from the idea of substance, of thing, or rather, “of what” time in itself “is not”. For this very reason one must ask about the temporality of time, which results, above all, in the temporality of being-there in its own being.
Although there is a common tendency to understand time in an improper way, we seek here to place ourselves before the way Heidegger sees and understands and, from this, comprehends and conceptualizes the phenomenon of time. Therefore, in order to gain adequate and due access to “the very thing” “of time,” that is, to what is at stake, one must ask temporally about the temporality of the time of being-there, that is, “who” is time?
However, how does Heidegger accomplish the task of liberating time in its fundamental ontological structure? What does it mean to make time explicit in its ontological structuring? This is possible through an elaboration (Ausarbeitung) of the fundamental structures of human being-there as existential (Heidegger, 2006, p. 88-89).
In this sense, there are, in the text of the 1924 conference, many words, expressions and ideas relating to the way of being of the being-there, of which we will briefly highlight a few, although we cannot analyze them in detail here. Among these words, expressions and ideas are:
– being-there (Dasein) is being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein), in the sense that it deals with, occupies itself with and takes care of itself and other beings;
– the being-there is the being that I myself am and, in this sense, it is the being that is in being each time while it is always mine (Jeweiligkeit als meiniges), words that express the singularity and uniqueness of the being-there;
– the being-there always already lives and coexists with others (Mit-einander-sein);
– being-there always already interprets itself (Selbstauslegung);
– in everyday life no one is oneself (keiner ist in der Alltäglichkeit er selbst);
– through healing (Sorge), being-there always and each time establishes a concern for being (Die Sorge um das Daseins hat jeweils das Sein in die Sorge gestellt); ]
– in the averageness (Durschnittlichkeit) of everyday being-there there is no reflection on the self and on oneself, and yet being-there finds itself (befindet); the authenticity of being-there is what constitutes its most extreme possibility (äußerste Seinsmöglichkeit);
– the fact that being-there suddenly no longer is reveals that, ultimately and in the proper sense, I cannot replace the being-there of others (the other, strictly speaking, I never am and cannot be);
– the extreme possibility of itself, death, can be experienced by the being-there through consciousness in anticipation; death is the most proper possibility as being-at-the-end (Zu-Ende-sein), although undetermined;
– the being-there is together with itself, because, while it exists authentically, it remains in anticipation; anticipation is nothing more than the authentic and singular future and singular of the being-there itself (die eigentliche und enzige Zukunft des eigenen Daseins);
– the fundamental phenomenon of time is the future (das Grundphänomen der Zeit ist die Zukunft);
– in everyday life, the being-there is not the being that I am, because in everyday life the being-there is much more that way of being that one is (Man ist) and, therefore, the being-there is time, in which one is with others: the time of the impersonal;
– the clock that one possesses, every clock, indicates the time of coexistence-in-the-world (Miteinander-in-der-Welt-sein);
– the clock indicates the now, but no clock has ever indicated the future or the past; every measurement of time implies: bringing time to the how (Wieviel);
– the fact that, in a first approximation and most of the time (zunächst und zumeist), time can be defined, in this or that way, resides fundamentally in the possibility of being-there itself;
– what being-there says about time, it says from everyday life; in the future, being-there is its past, that is, it can return to it in the how (Wie).
In view of all these words, expressions and ideas present in the text and context of the conference The Concept of Time, it is necessary to keep alive the fundamental intuition of the thematization of temporality from the perspective of being-there. It is the basis from which the Heideggerian concept of time is born, grows and develops. Does this mean that we can see in the time of everyday use, but mainly in the way in which time is always in some way occupied and at the hand of each being-there, a mode derived from the original and proper temporality? In fact, the problem of time involves the fundamental thesis according to which Heidegger proposes to place ontology itself on new bases. The realization of this task was called by him fundamental ontology. It is rooted in the existential and temporal analysis of the facticity of being-there.
Final Remarks
In a footnote to § 54 of Being and Time, Heidegger states: “The preceding considerations and those that will follow were presented in the form of a thesis at the Marburg conference (July 1924) on the concept of time” (Heidegger, 2006, p. 346). In this footnote, Heidegger states that the considerations made previously (vorstehenden) and those that will follow (nachfolgenden) were presented in the form of a thesis at the 1924 conference. From this we can conclude that there are ideas in the conference – according to Heidegger, “in the form of theses” (in thesenartiger Form) – that directly concern the thematization of time or, at least, are directly linked to existential analytics.
However, in the 1924 conference, some aspects related to the phenomenological investigations of time are only intuitively indicated, but not yet developed. Thus, for example, in Being and Time and The Fundamental Problems of Phenomenology Heidegger presents and analyzes four structural characterizations of time in the world in everyday occupation. Therefore, seeking to understand in them one of the closest concretions of temporality in the world of everyday occupation, that is, the way in which Heidegger conceives temporality. Heidegger shows that, in every “now”, one or another of these structures already operates and, according to him, they always have a well-determined purpose.
The four structural characterizations of world time in everyday occupation seem to speak of evidence, but they do not. For this reason, they need to be duly explained, seeking to capture in them one of the closest concretions of temporality in the world of everyday occupation. In the task of explaining the entire structure of world time, therefore, Heidegger shows that, in every “now”, one or another of these structures already operates and, as he himself says, they always have a well-determined purpose: “by elucidating the structural moments of significance (Bedeutsamkeit), possibility of dating (Datierbarkeit), time lapse (Gespanntheit) and public time (Öffentlichkeit) we will distinguish what and how the fundamental determination of the vulgar understanding of time emerges from the ecstatic-horizontal unity of actualizing, retaining and attending” (Heidegger, 2004, p. 500-516; Heidegger, 1975, p. 383-388).
Through this fourfold structure of world time, Heidegger establishes, so to speak, in an unquestionable and definitive manner, a link between existential analytics and temporal analytics and between the proper and improper modes of the temporality of being-there. Through this fourfold structure, Heidegger highlights how the fundamental modes of being, behaving and understanding are essentially and constitutively related, with which being-there, in being, its own being is at stake: “Being-in-the-world is always already in decline. One can therefore determine the median everydayness of being-there as being-in-the-world open in the decline that, once launched, projects itself and that, in its being with the ‘world’ and in its being-with others, its most proper power-to-be is at stake” (Heidegger, 2004, p. 247).
Heidegger called the experience of the temporalization of being-there and the possibilities of temporalization of being-there originary and proper temporality. Thus, in each and every passage of time, being-there is temporalized, whether in a proper or improper way. Being-there, as it exists, experiences time in its existence.
Given these considerations regarding the 1924 conference, we can draw two important conclusions: 1) the human being should not be interpreted phenomenally in terms of what he is and how he is, ignoring the primordial situation of being (being-in-the-world and factual experience), which is why no thinker before Heidegger posed the question of being from the ontological analysis of being-there. In fact, if being-there is not seen and understood constitutively as being temporal, then: 2) the fact of always being already “in time” can be seen by Heidegger as the basis for the thematization of what is historical, therefore, one must also thematize – phenomenologically speaking – the historicity of being-there in a completely original and proper way. This is why, when addressing the problematic of time, Heidegger also and necessarily confronts the problem of historicity.
In fact, Aristotle and Saint Augustine had already argued that the human being is the entity par excellence that experiences time, and that the origin and destiny of time itself are in him. Heidegger’s concern, therefore, when dealing with the problem of time, is to understand in what sense time is the time of being-there or, more specifically, in what sense it is time itself that is temporalized, already always, in this or that way (Wie). On the other hand, the more time is the time of quantity and mere measurability, the less possibility there is of experiencing time as the temporality of being-there and, nevertheless, the task of philosophy consists in explaining how time is temporalized to being-there or as being-there.
Among some textual coincidences present, respectively, in both the conference and the 1924 treaty, we highlight these:
Aristotle used to emphasize strongly in his writings that what is important is the adequate paideia, the original security in the subject, which grows from a familiarity with the question itself, the security in dealing with the question adequately. In order to correspond to the character of being of what is the subject here, we must speak temporally about time (Heidegger, 1997, p. 38/39; Heidegger, 1989, p. 27).
In a scientific investigation, alongside all mastery of method and mastery of material, paideia is decisive. Precisely Aristotle, the model of a sensible researcher, demands that not only should one not lose sight of the subject, but, above all, that one initially appropriates the original certainty of the appropriate way of dealing with it” (Heidegger, 2004, p. 83).
This second quotation, which is in one of the parts of the treatise The Concept of Time – namely, “III. Being-there and Temporality” – is very similar or practically identical to the one that appears in the conference. Our objective, however, is not to make a textual comparison analysis. However, there are two central ideas here that are repeated in both quotations. Let us see: a) using Aristotle, Heidegger emphasizes the need to conduct the investigation adequately, that is, adequate paideia is necessary and decisive; b) corresponding to the ontological character of what is thematized implies speaking temporally about time; what is at stake, then, is finding the appropriate way to deal with time. In our understanding, these are two important methodological orientations according to Heidegger’s purpose in the 1924 conference.
Finally, our goal was to raise and present some notes and also indicate the movement that took place behind the scenes of the elaboration of Being and Time in the years preceding the publication of the treatise in 1927. Now, knowing this behind the scenes is only possible by going into each text from those years, especially the lectures published in the complete works. In fact, each of the lectures can be assumed as a possible path in the process in which Heidegger elaborates the concept of time as temporality and historicity of being-there. It is no coincidence that the philosopher insisted that the motto of the complete works be: “Paths – not works” (“Wege – nicht Werke”). In this regard, Otto Pöggeler, one of the scholars of Heidegger’s work, once wrote:
When Martin Heidegger himself finally decided to plan and initiate an edition of his works, he wanted to present this provisional “complete edition” with a preface. A few days before his death, he limited himself to the motto “Paths – not works.” It is significant that Heidegger does not contrast “works” here with the path of his thought, but with paths in the plural. [...] The complete edition is intended to show “in various ways” a “journey along the path of the changing questions of the question of being.” However, the reader will miss some things that are dear to him in this complete edition. Above all, he will bring his own place of thought into the field of Heidegger’s path and will then weigh the gain and loss of the paths (Pöggeler, 1999, p. 17).
References
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DASTUR, Françoise. Heidegger e a questão do tempo. Tradução de João Paz. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget, 1997.
GADAMER, Hans-Georg. Hegel – Husserl – Heidegger. Tradução de Marco Antônio Casanova. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2012.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. Der Begriff der Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1989.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. Der Begriff der Zeit: 1. Der Begriff der Zeit (1924); 2. Der Begriff der Zeit (Vortrag 1924). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2004.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. “O conceito de tempo”. Tradução e apresentação de Marco Aurélio Werle. In: Cadernos de Tradução, Departamento de Filosofia da USP, n. 2, 1997, p. 6-39.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975.
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SAFRANSKI, Rüdiger. Heidegger: um mestre da Alemanha entre o bem e o mal. Tradução de Lyz Luft; apresentação de Ernildo Stein. São Paulo, Geração Editorial, 2000.
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VON HERRMANN, Friedrich-Wilhelm. “Nachwort des Herausgebers”. In: Der Begriff der Zeit. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2004.
WERLE, Marco Aurélio. “Apresentação”, O conceito de tempo (Der Begriff der Zeit). In: Cadernos de Tradução, Departamento de Filosofia da USP, n. 2, 1997.
Renato Kirchner
Professor e pesquisador na Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas desde 2010. Membro do corpo docente permanente da Faculdade de Filosofia e do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências da Religião. Doutor e mestre em Filosofia pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Atualmente, coordena o Programa de Mestrado Stricto Sensu em Ciências da Religião na PUC-Campinas e é membro do conselho fiscal da Anptecre.
The texts in this article were reviewed by third parties and submitted for validation by the author(s) prior to publication