Heidegger, Metaphysics and the Univocity of Being by Tonner Philip;

Author:Tonner, Philip;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2019-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

Univocity and Analogy

The mistake of the tradition beginning with the Greeks was to mistake the full temporal character of being by identifying it with but one modality of time: the present. The shortcoming of the analogical interpretation of Heidegger is that it does not take full account of his temporal univocity of being. Heidegger was indeed concerned with the unity of being and there is evidence that he found this unity in terms of analogy: animals are understood as poor in the world, stones as worldless. These determinations of being operate in terms of a discrete analogy with Dasein. The analogy of being operates in terms of its focal reference or meaning to a particular fundamental reality. In Aristotle, this fundamental reality or mode of being is ousia. The meaning of being can be unified in terms of an analogy to the focal reference or meaning of ousia.

For Heidegger, the meaning of being is constituted in Dasein’s understanding and this means that it is ultimately grounded in the temporal structure underpinning that understanding. The only possible access to being, including the being of animals and rocks, is through Dasein’s understanding of being and that understanding of being is conditioned by temporality. As I have argued, in any determination of analogy, a univocal conception of being is presupposed. Analogy is not wrong; it is just not the full story, for analogy tends to ontotheology: the status of the focal reference tends towards ontological privilege. Now, despite Dasein’s manifest privilege in fundamental ontology, there is a co-dependence between Dasein and being: there would not be being if there were no Dasein and there would not be Dasein if there were no being. Later, Heidegger will say that being is the gift of an ‘It’ which gives. In Heidegger, the univocity of being is rooted in temporality.

Since being can only ever be projected upon its transcendental horizon and understood by virtue of this projection, it is clear that the unitary meaning of being is in some sense temporal. Dasein’s temporality, as transcendental condition, is the condition of possibility for the meaningfulness of beings in toto. The unitary meaning of being is constituted by Dasein’s understanding and is grounded in Dasein’s temporality. The being of the beings that Dasein encounters in its dealings with the world are disclosed to it out of a temporal horizon. By contrast, Dasein is its disclosedness, Dasein’s being is disclosed to it only through existing. Dasein ‘is’ time.

Being and Time ends with a series of questions, one of which is, is it possible to get from the account primordial time to the meaning of being? Heidegger’s lectures The Basic Problems of Phenomenology were initially charged with finding this way. In these lectures Heidegger analyses being in terms of its modifications and structure. This project is consistent with the project of Being and Time; of developing fundamental ontology and providing the basis for regional ontologies. Dasein’s understanding is fundamentally temporal and Dasein’s temporality constitutes the foundation for Heidegger’s analysis of the transcendental horizon of being itself, which is located in Dasein’s temporal nature.

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