This paper argues that an aspect of the problem that later led Heidegger to abandon the earlier project can be found already within the theoretical framework of Being and Time. I will highlight the tension by closely evaluating the connection between the first and the second divisions of Being and Time, focusing on a particular foundational relation--that of space and time--which Heidegger discusses explicitly in Section 70. The space-time relation is chosen as an example, since Heidegger's notion of spatiality is one of the central structural components of Being-in-the-world. The space-time relation moreover is one which continued to concern Heidegger for the next forty years: In his 1962 lecture "Time and Being," Heidegger admits that "the attempt in Being and Time, section 70, to derive human spatiality from temporality is untenable" (OTB 23).3 Why did Heidegger change his mind? A careful analysis of Being and Time will show that to found space in time, Heidegger would have to abandon his whole phenomenological framework.
The problem can be stated in terms of Heidegger's distinction between what he calls the "equiprimordial" (gleichursprunglich) relation and the "foundational" relation. These are two alternative ways in which we can think about the relation between space and time. While Heidegger argues that the space-time relation is foundational, I argue that it must be considered equiprimordial.4 Let me begin by explaining what Heidegger means by this distinction.
A.) Equiprimordiality: If X and Y are equiprimordial, then they are equally basic (primordial) and mutually interdependent. They pick out different aspects within a unified, integrally connected whole, and one cannot exist without the other. This is a non-hierarchical relation. Neither term is more basic than the other. For Heidegger, since we are mutually interdependent with the others and things with which we interact, Dasein and "world" are equiprimordial constituents of Being-in-the-world.
B.) Foundation: If X supervenes on Y, then X is founded on Y. For example, dreams presuppose perception which supplies its content, so dreams are said to be founded on perception, or perception is said to be founding for dreams. The relation is hierarchical in the sense that the content of dreams depends on perception, but not vice versa. This relation is also expressed in terms of conditions; if Y founds X, then Y is the condition for X. In order for X and Y to stand in such a relation of dependence, the two terms must share some features, yet one of the terms must have additional features which constitute the hierarchy. Heidegger is most concerned with relations of ontological dependence: the possibility of the mode of existence of X depends on the mode of existence of Y, in which Y contains some ontological features above and beyond X. For example, since representations supervene on Being-in-the-world, Vorhandenheit is a founded mode of existence in this ontological sense.5 His foundational project, at least as he conceived it at the outset of Being and Time, was to provide the ultimate basis for ontology.
Since Heidegger thinks that space-of-action is the condition for world-space, he must explain the former without appealing to the latter. Heidegger's task then is to describe the space-of-action without presupposing such world-space and the derived concept of a system of spatial coordinates. However, this is difficult because all our usual linguistic expressions for describing spatial relations presuppose world-space. For example, how can one talk about the "distance between you and me" without presupposing some sort of metric, i.e., without presupposing an objective access to the relation? Our spatial notions such as "distance," "location," etc. must now be redescribed from a standpoint within the spatial relation of self (Dasein) to the things dealt with. This problem is what motivates Heidegger to invent his own terminology and makes his discussion of space awkward. In what follows I will try to use ordinary language whenever possible to explain his principal ideas.
The space-of-action has two aspects: regions (space as Zuhandenheit) and Dasein's spatiality (space as Existentiale). The sort of space we deal with in our daily activity is "functional" or zuhanden, and Heidegger's term for it is "region." The places we work and live--the office, the park, the kitchen, etc.--all have different regions which organize our activities and contexualize “equipment.” My desk area as my work region has a computer, printer, telephone, books, etc., in their appropriate “places,” according to the spatiality of the way in which I work. Regions differ from space viewed as a "container"; the latter notion lacks a "referential" organization with respect to our context of activities.7 Heidegger wants to claim that referential functionality is an inherent feature of space itself, and not just a "human" characteristic added to a container-like space.
In our activity, how do we specifically stand with respect to functional space? We are not "in" space as things are, but we do exist in some spatially salient manner. What Heidegger is trying to capture is the difference between the nominal expression "we exist in space" and the adverbial expression "we exist spatially." He wants to describe spatiality as a mode of our existence rather than conceiving space as an independent entity. Heidegger identifies two features of Dasein's spatiality--"de-severance" (Ent-fernung) and "directionality" (Ausrichtung).8
De-severance describes the way we exist as a process of spatial self-determination by “making things available” to ourselves. In Heidegger's language, in making things available we "take in space" by "making the farness vanish" and by "bringing things close" (BT 139, 105). We are not simply contemplative beings, but we exist through concretely acting in the world--by reaching for things and going to places. When I walk from my desk area into the kitchen, I am not simply changing locations from point A to B in an arena-like space, but I am “taking in space” as I move, continuously making the “farness” of the kitchen “vanish,” as the shifting spatial perspectives are opened up as I go along.
This process is also inherently "directional." Every de-severing is aimed toward something or in a certain direction which is determined by our concern and by specific regions. I must always face and move in a certain direction that is dictated by a specific region. If I want to get a glass of ice tea, instead of going out into the yard, I face toward the kitchen and move in that direction, following the region of the hallway and the kitchen. Regions determine where things belong, and our actions are coordinated in directional ways accordingly.
De-severance, directionality, and regionality are three ways of describing the spatiality of a unified Being-in-the-world. As aspects of Being-in-the-world, these spatial modes of being are equiprimordial.9 10 Regions "refer" to our activities, since they are established by our ways of being and our activities. Our activities, in turn, are defined in terms of regions. Only through the region can our de-severance and directionality be established. Our object of concern always appears in a certain context and place, in a certain direction. It is because things appear in a certain direction and in their places “there” that we have our “here.” We orient ourselves and organize our activities, always within regions which must already be given to us.11
We can begin by excluding Dasein's inauthentic temporality. This mode of time refers to our unengaged, "average" way in which we regard time. It is the “past we forget” and the “future we expect,” all without decisiveness and resolute understanding. Heidegger seems to consider that this mode of temporality is the temporal dimension of de-severance and directionality, since de-severance and directionality deal only with everyday actions. As such, inauthentic temporality must itself be founded in an authentic basis of some sort. The two remaining candidates for the foundation are Dasein's authentic temporality and originary temporality.
Dasein's authentic temporality is the "resolute" mode of temporal existence. Authentic temporality is realized when Dasein becomes aware of its own finite existence.12 This temporality has to do with one's grasp of his or her own life as a whole from one's own unique perspective. Life gains meaning as one's own life-project, bounded by the sense of one's realization that he or she is not immortal. This mode of time appears to have a normative function within Heidegger's theory. In the second half of BT he often refers to inauthentic or "everyday" mode of time as lacking some primordial quality which authentic temporality possesses.13
In contrast, originary temporality is the formal structure of Dasein's temporality itself.14 In addition to its spatial Being-in-the-world, Dasein also exists essentially as "projection." Projection is oriented toward the future, and this futural orientation regulates our concern by constantly realizing various possibilities. Temporality is characterized formally as this dynamic structure of "a future which makes present in the process of having been" (BT 374, 326). Heidegger calls the three moments of temporality--the future, the present, and the past--the three ecstases of temporality (BT 377, 329). This mode of time is not normative but rather formal or neutral; as Blattner argues, the temporal features which constitute Dasein's temporality describe both inauthentic and authentic temporality.15
There are some passages which indicate that authentic temporality is the primary manifestation of temporality, because of its essential orientation toward the future. For instance, Heidegger states that "temporality first showed itself in anticipatory resoluteness" (BT 380, 331). Elsewhere, he argues that "the ‘time’ which is accessible to Dasein's common sense is not primordial, but arises rather from authentic temporality" (BT 377, 329). In these formulations, authentic temporality is said to found other inauthentic modes. According to Blattner, this is "by far the most common" interpretation of the status of authentic time (Blattner "Existential" 99).
However, I agree with Blattner and Haar that there are far more
passages where Heidegger considers originary temporality as distinct from
authentic temporality, and founding for it and for Being-in-the-world as
well.16 Here are some examples:
Temporality has different possibilities and different ways of temporalizing itself. The basic possibilities of existence, the authenticity and inauthenticity of Dasein, are grounded ontologically on possible temporalizations of temporality. (BT 352, 304)
Time is primordial as the temporalizing of temporality, and as such it makes possible the Constitution of the structure of care. (BT 380, 331)17
Heidegger's conception seems to be that it is because we are fundamentally
temporal--having the formal structure of ecstatico-horizonal unity--that
we can project, authentically or inauthentically, our concernful dealings
in the world and exist as Being-in-the-world. It is on this account
that temporality is said to found spatiality.
Since Heidegger uses the term "temporality" rather than "authentic temporality" whenever the founding relation is discussed between space and time, I will begin the following analysis by assuming that it is originary temporality that founds Dasein's spatiality. On this assumption two interpretations of the argument are possible, but both are unsuccessful given his phenomenological framework.
I will then consider the possibility that it is "authentic temporality" which founds spatiality. Two interpretations are also possible in this case, but neither will establish a founding relation successfully. I will conclude that despite Heidegger's claim, an equiprimordial relation between time and space is most consistent with his own theoretical framework. I will now evaluate the specific arguments in which Heidegger tries to prove that temporality founds spatiality.
Though the expression `temporality' does not signify what one understands by "time" when one talks about `space and time', nevertheless spatiality seems to make up another basic attribute of Dasein corresponding to temporality. Thus with Dasein's spatiality, existential-temporal analysis seems to come to a limit, so that this entity which we call "Dasein," must be considered as `temporal' `and also' as spatial coordinately. (BT 418, 367)
Accordingly, Heidegger asks, "Has our existential-temporal analysis of Dasein thus been brought to a halt...by the spatiality that is characteristic of Dasein...and Being-in-the-world?" (BT 418, 367) His answer is no. He argues that since "Dasein's constitution and its ways to be are possible ontologically only on the basis of temporality," and since the "spatiality that is characteristic of Dasein...belongs to Being-in-the-world," it follows that "Dasein's specific spatiality must be grounded in temporality" (BT 418-419, 367).
Heidegger's claim is that the totality of regions-de-severance-directionality can be organized and re-organized, "because Dasein as temporality is ecstatico-horizonal in its Being" (BT 420, 369). Because Dasein exists futurally as "for-the-sake-of-which," it can discover regions. Thus, Heidegger remarks: "Only on the basis of its ecstatico-horizonal temporality is it possible for Dasein to break into space" (BT 421, 369).
However, in order to establish that temporality founds spatiality, Heidegger would have to show that spatiality and temporality must be distinguished in such a way that temporality not only shares a content with spatiality but also has additional content as well. In other words, they must be truly distinct and not just analytically distinguishable. But what is the content of "the ecstatico-horizonal constitution of temporality?" Does it have a content above and beyond Being-in-the-world? Nicholson poses the same question as follows:
Is it human care which accounts for the characteristic features of human
temporality? Or is it, as Heidegger says, human temporality which
accounts for the characteristic features of human care, serves as their
foundation? (Nicholson 214)
The first alternative, according to Nicholson, is to reduce temporality to care: "the specific attributes of the temporality of Dasein...would be in their roots not aspects of temporality but reflections of Dasein's care" (Nicholson 215). The second alternative is to treat temporality as having some content above and beyond care: "the three-fold constitution of care stems from the three-fold constitution of temporality" (Nicholson 216, my emphasis).
Nicholson argues that the second alternative is the correct reading.18
Dasein lives in the world by making choices, but "the ekstasis of temporality
lies well prior to any choice...so our study of care introduces us to a
matter whose scope outreaches care: the ekstases of temporality itself"
(Nicholson 224). Accordingly, "What SZ was able to make clear is
that the reign of temporal ekstasis over the choices we make accords with
the place we occupy as finite beings in the world" (Nicholson 224).
But if Nicholson's interpretation is right, what would be the content of "the ekstases of temporality itself," if not some sort of purely formal entity or condition such as Kant's "pure intuition?" But this would imply that Heidegger has left phenomenology behind and is now engaging in establishing a transcendental framework outside the analysis of Being-in-the-world, such that this formal structure founds Being-in-the-world. This is inconsistent with his initial claim that Being-in-the-world is itself foundational.19
I believe Nicholson's first alternative offers a more consistent reading. The structure of temporality should be treated as an abstraction from Dasein's Being-in-the-world, specifically from care.20 In this case, the content of temporality just is the past and the present and the future ways of Being-in-the-world. Heidegger's own words support this reading: "as Dasein temporalizes itself, a world is too," and "the world is neither present-at-hand nor ready-to-hand, but temporalizes itself in temporality" (BT 416-417, 364-367). He also states that the zuhanden "world-time, in the rigorous sense of the existential-temporal conception of the world, belongs to temporality itself" (BT 457, 405). In this reading, "temporality temporalizing itself," "Dasein's projection," and "the temporal projection of the world" are three different ways of describing the same "happening" of Being-in-the-world, which Heidegger calls "self-directive" (BT 420, 368).
However, if this is the case, then temporality does not found spatiality, except perhaps in the trivial sense that spatiality is built into the notion of care which is identified with temporality. The content of "temporality temporalizing itself" simply is the various openings of regions, i.e., Dasein's "breaking into space."21 Certainly, as Stroeker points out, it is true that "nearness and remoteness are spatio-temporal phenomena and cannot be conceived without a temporal moment" (Stroeker 30). But this necessity does not constitute a foundation. Rather, they are equiprimordial. The addition of temporal dimensions does indeed complete the discussion of spatiality, which abstracted from time. But this completion, while it better articulates the whole of Being-in-the-world, does not show that temporality is more fundamental.
If temporality and spatiality are equiprimordial, then all of the supposedly founding relations between temporality and spatiality discussed in Section 70 could just as well be reversed and still hold true. Heidegger's view is that "because Dasein as temporality is ecstatico-horizonal in its Being, it can take along with it a space for which it has made room, and it can do so factically and constantly" (BT 420, 369). But if Dasein is essentially a factical projection, then the reverse should also be true.22 Heidegger appears to have assumed the priority of temporality over spatiality perhaps under the influence of Kant, Husserl, or Dilthey, and then based his analyses on that assumption.23
However, there may still be a way to save Heidegger's foundational project in terms of authentic temporality. Heidegger never specifically mentions authentic temporality in Section 70, but since he suggests earlier that the primary manifestation of temporality is authentic temporality, such a reading may perhaps be justified. This reading would treat the whole spatio-temporal structure of Being-in-the-world--as described in Section 70--as inauthentic. The resoluteness of authentic temporality, arising out of Dasein's own "Being-towards-death," would supply a content to temporality above and beyond everyday involvements.
Heidegger's discussion of "Situation" suggests such a reading. "Situation" is said to have its foundations in resoluteness (BT 346, 299).24 Dasein determines its own Situation through anticipatory resoluteness, which includes particular locations and involvements, i.e., the spatiality of Being-in-the-world. The same set of circumstances could be transformed into a new Situation with different significance, if Dasein chooses resolutely to bring that about. Authentic temporality in this case can be said to found spatiality, since Dasein's spatiality is determined by resoluteness. This reading moreover enables Heidegger to construct a hierarchical relation between temporality and spatiality within Being-in-the-world rather than going outside of it to a formal transcendental principle, since the choice of spatiality is grasped phenomenologically in terms of the concrete experience of decision.
Moreover, one might argue that according to Heidegger one's own grasp of "death" is uniquely a temporal mode of existence, whereas there is no such weighty conception involving spatiality. Death is what makes Dasein "stand before itself in its ownmost potentiality-for-Being" (BT 294, 250). Authentic Being-towards-death is a "Being towards a possibility--indeed, towards a distinctive possibility of Dasein itself" (BT 305, 261). One could argue that notions such as "potentiality" and "possibility" are distinctively temporal, nonspatial notions. So "Being-towards-death," as temporal, appears to be much more ontologically "fundamental" than spatiality.
However, Heidegger is not yet out of the woods. I believe that labeling the notions of anticipatory resoluteness, Being-towards-death, potentiality, and possibility specifically as temporal modes of being (to the exclusion of spatiality) begs the question. Given Heidegger's phenomenological framework, why assume that these notions are only temporal (without spatial dimensions)? If Being-towards-death, potentiality-for-Being, and possibility were "purely" temporal notions, what phenomenological sense can we make of such abstract conceptions, given that these are manifestly our modes of existence as bodily beings? Heidegger cannot have in mind such an abstract notion of time, if he wants to treat authentic temporality as the meaning of care. It would seem more consistent with his theoretical framework to say that Being-towards-death is a rich spatio-temporal mode of being, given that Dasein is Being-in-the-world.
Furthermore, the interpretation which defines resoluteness as uniquely temporal suggests too much of a voluntaristic or subjectivistic notion of the self that controls its own Being-in-the-world from the standpoint of its future. This would drive a wedge between the self and its Being-in-the-world, thereby creating a temporal "inner self" which can decide its own spatiality.25 However, if Dasein is Being-in-the-world as Heidegger claims, then all of Dasein's decisions should be viewed as concretely grounded in Being-in-the-world. If so, spatiality must be an essential constitutive element.
Hence, authentic temporality, if construed narrowly as the mode of temporality, at first appears to be able to found spatiality, but it also commits Heidegger either to an account of time which is too abstract, or to the notion of the self far more like Sartre's than his own. What is lacking in Heidegger's theory that generates this sort of difficulty is a developed conception of Dasein as a lived body--a notion more fully developed by Merleau-Ponty.
The elements of a more consistent interpretation of authentic temporality are present in Being and Time. This interpretation incorporates a view of "authentic spatiality" in the notion of authentic temporality.26 This would be Dasein's resolutely grasping its own spatio-temporal finitude with respect to its place and its world. Dasein is born at a particular place, lives in a particular place, dies in a particular place, all of which it can relate to in an authentic way. The place Dasein lives is not a place of anonymous involvements. The place of Dasein must be there where its own potentiality-for-Being is realized. Dasein's place is thus a determination of its existence. Had Heidegger developed such a conception more fully, he would have seen that temporality is equiprimordial with thoroughly spatial and contextual Being-in-the-world. They are distinguishable but equally fundamental ways of emphasizing our finitude.
But the idea of dwelling is in fact already discussed in Being and Time. In Section 12, regarding the term "Being-in-the-world," Heidegger explains that the word "in" is derived from "innan"--to "reside," "habitare," "to dwell."28 The emphasis on "dwelling" highlights the essentially "worldly" character of the self.
Thus from the beginning Heidegger had a conception of spatial finitude, but this fundamental insight was undeveloped because of his ambition to carry out the foundational project which favored time. From the 1930's on, as Heidegger abandons the foundational project focusing on temporality, the conception of authentic spatiality comes to the fore. For example, in Discourse on Thinking Heidegger considers the spatial character of Being as "that-which-regions (die Gegnet)" (Sefler 249). The peculiar expression is a re-conceptualization of the notion of "region" as it appeared in Being and Time. Region is given an active character and defined as the "openness that surrounds us" which "comes to meet us" (DT 65-66). By giving it an active character, Heidegger wants to emphasize that region is not brought into being by us, but rather exists in its own right, as that which expresses our spatial existence. Heidegger states that "one needs to understand ‘resolve’ (Entschlossenheit) as it is understood in Being and Time: as the opening of man [Dasein] particularly undertaken by him for openness,...which we think of as that-which-regions" (DT 81). Here Heidegger is asserting an authentic conception of spatiality. The finitude expressed in the notion of Being-in-the-world is thus transformed into an authentic recognition of our finite worldly existence in later writings.
The return to the conception of spatial finitude in the later
period shows that Heidegger never abandoned the original insight behind
his conception of Being-in-the-world. But once committed to this
idea, it is hard to justify singling out an aspect of the self--temporality--as
the foundation for the rest of the structure. All of the existentiale
and zuhanden modes, which constitute the whole of Being-in-the-world, are
equiprimordial, each mode articulating different aspects of a unified whole.
The preference for temporality as the privileged meaning of existence reflects
the Kantian residue in Heidegger's early doctrine which he later rejected
as still excessively subjectivistic.
Many people have commented on the earlier versions of this paper. I would like to thank Steven Crowell, Andrew Feenberg, Piet Hut, Nobuo Kazashi, Pierre Keller, Ryosuke Ohashi, Frederick Olafson, and Mark Ravizza for their comments.
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