The Origin of Time by Massey Heath

Author:Massey, Heath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2015-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

4

Reversing Bergsonism

Time and Temporality in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology

1. Thinking More Radically about Time

Toward the end of the footnote in Being and Time in which Heidegger dismisses Bergson, he postpones a more detailed critique with the comment, “This is not the place for a critical discussion of Bergson’s concept of time and other present-day interpretations of time” (BT 410n/433n), adding a promissory note: “We shall come back to this in the first and third divisions of Part Two” (BT 433n).1 Although no decisive confrontation with Bergson occurs in Heidegger’s subsequent works, there are additional references to Bergson and his philosophy of time in his summer courses of 1927 (The Basic Problems of Phenomenology) and 1928 (The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic). In both works, as in his 1925–6 summer and winter courses (History of the Concept of Time and Logic: The Question of Truth), Heidegger acknowledges Bergson’s importance in a way that he never does in Being and Time. In Basic Problems, he even fills in some of the details of the critique of Bergson sketched toward the end of Being and Time. During his lengthy discussion of Aristotle’s account of time, Heidegger continues his engagement with Bergson and gives it a new twist: he argues not only that Bergson’s understanding of time remains fundamentally Aristotelian, but also that Bergson’s misunderstandings of Aristotle underlie his thesis that “time is space.”

Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of time, sketched in Being and Time and fleshed out in Basic Problems, serves not just as a critique, but also as an indication of untapped resources in Aristotle’s thought. In Being and Time, as we have just seen, Heidegger’s brief discussion of Aristotle’s concept of time is limited to showing how his definition of it in the Physics makes “world time,” which is dominated by making-present, explicit as “now-time.” In this way, Aristotle raises the ordinary understanding of time to conceptual comprehension as a succession of “nows.” Thus, Aristotle’s definition of time, which is decisive for all subsequent philosophical discussions of the issue, produces a leveled-down version of ecstatic temporality. Understanding being as substance (ousia) or presence (parousia), Aristotle treats time and its components, the nows, as objectively present things, thereby covering over temporality and even world time with a “natural” interpretation of it.

In Basic Problems, Heidegger returns to this critique of Aristotle, going into much greater detail about the kind of experience on which his account of time is based, namely the experience of motion, and the assumptions about being that lead Aristotle to focus on the “now” as the essence of time. Heidegger emphasizes that this interpretation of Aristotle is phenomenological, focusing on how exactly time shows itself in Aristotle’s concept, and ontological, bringing to light the understanding of being that guides Aristotle’s investigation. In addition, Heidegger interprets Aristotle according to his strategy for the destruction of traditional ontology, which means not only criticizing or exposing the limits of Aristotle’s thought, but also revealing untapped resources or hidden possibilities for positive appropriation. As

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