American Decline

Where then lies our starting point for the initial grasping of the purpose of Being and Time? A clue is offered by the definition of philosophy presented in the beginning of the book and quoted at its end:

Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, and takes its departure from the hermeneutic of Dasein, which, as an analytic of existence, has made fast the guiding-line for all philosophical inquiry at the point where it arises and to which it returns. (H. 38 and H.436)

In this quotation, Heidegger captures both the goal and the method of his philosophy. In other words, he sees philosophy as the general assessment of what things are phenomenologically for all, and he see the basis for this assessment in the iterative process of coming to understand conscious existence. The iterative process of understanding conscious existence (“hermeneutic”) in turn contains the beginning and end of all philosophical inquiry, since as inquiry philosophy must begin and end by refining and testing its ideas in this same manner. Thus, what it is that we must share with Heidegger concerns both the nature of universal phenomenology and our own ability to refine our process of understanding. This phenomenological assessment of what has being must reveal what is truly common to all yet utterly concealed, “the question of the meaning of Being” (H. 1). Certainly, “Being” is a word which is used by all, but only philosophers — and not even all of those — concern themselves with its meaning. As Heidegger notes, “the meaning of Being must already be available to us in some way,” but at the same time, “We do not know what ‘Being’ means” (H. 5). It is only when we seek to explain Being that we realize our own incapacity to do so. Without such a prompting, we could easily remain ignorant of the signification of the question. However, once the question has been made explicit, it is inescapable, for as Heidegger asserts repeatedly, Dasein is a being for which, “Being is an issue for it” (H. 12 et al.). As such, any avoidance of the question of Being is a regrettable denial of our own natures, and investigations of human nature which do not attempt to address it, according to Heidegger, “have no right to claim that they can accomplish that for which they are basically striving” (H. 45).