Maverick Philosopher

Quick correction: you did not 'miss' that quote per se, but you did miss the significance of it in light of Heidegger's later thought.

Yes, no beings, but not no entities (according to Heidegger's distinction). Being is always the being of beings, but entities are that which exist outside of any given world. Again, in line with his later thought, entities are essentially no-things--infinite possibilities that are only made definite (or are, in Heidegger's special sense of that term) by being disclosed within some world. But even this disclosure points to the excess, the un-said that we can coherently say exists without Dasein.

But if we accept Heidegger's claim that being (Sein) is not a being (Seienden), then your claim that "being just is an entity" is wrong, a category mistake (metaphysics). Being is always the being of entities, so there is a distinction. Without a being that has a world, there would be entities, but not the being of entities.

I was not trying to interpret Being and Time through Heidegger's later thought. I was trying to point out a continuity and expansion of the earlier thought in his later work. Either way, if we do look at his later thought then Heidegger would agree with you: no Being, no-thing (as the positive excess). But then we still do not have a problem: Heidegger can coherently claim that without man there would be entities, though there would be no being of entities.

Just a few thoughts.

First, there is a distinct (and since Richardson's Through Phenomenology to Thought perhaps common) reading of Heidegger that sees the Kehr as more of a change of emphasis than a change of "dogma." Which isn't to dispute some differences, just that arguing any reading of 1927 documents in terms of post Kehr documents isn't really a response likely to persuade many people. There are a lot of people who read Heidegger's middle period writings in terms of his later writings and see no problem with it.

To the other point I completely agree with your distinction. (I really enjoyed your paper, btw - sorry for not having time to say such) Roughly the problem Kevin is missing is that something has to ground the ontic existence of beings. For Aristotle this was the discussion of being. Heidegger probably influenced by Kant as much as Aristotle is adopting a quasi-idealism where being is the grounding of things as ideas. Thus he moves a discussion of being in terms of truth (although I'm not sure it works as a reduction given his analysis of semblance or roughly the being of a lie).

The question, especially for those like Mark Wrathall, Taylor Carman, or myself who take Heidegger as an ontic realist, is what grounds the ontic beings which we take Heidegger being a realist towards. It seems to me that the serious question you raise simply isn't addressed by Heidegger.

Part of this is the unfortunate ambiguity of the various forms of "to be" in German and English. I think this might be true of your paper as well even though I acknowledge a real issue you bring up.

So I'm still thinking through it. Out of curiosity have you read Carman's Heidegger's Analytic where he addresses several readings of this passage that seem to bear on your paper. (Starting roughly around page 250)

BTW - is there any chance for a rss feed for comments?

Acrobat will convert photocopies into PDFs. If you have a scanner it should have software that will do this either directly or indirectly via OCR. If you need something converted I could do it although I don't know if BYU will have the paper you wrote here.

My sense is that while I agree with you as to what Heidegger does I'm still not convinced it causes the problems you suggest. I'm still thinking through the contradiction you raise and will hopefully comment on it later this weekend. (I don't want to react in a hasty fashion)

I know that Derrida argues that differance is different from Heidegger's sense of being. Even if it functions in a similar fashion. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were three complete senses of being demanded by Heidegger's discourse. (I recognize raising Derrida won't endear me to you - but ignoring the later Derrida of the 70's through 90's the early works are interesting even if one disagrees with them)

I raise this up not to confuse matters. (Although I recognize the names carry negative weight to many) Merely to ask whether Derrida's approach offers a way of thinking through this. After all for all their many faults the neoPlatonists offered many interesting attempts to reconcile Aristotle and Plato - especially the concept of matter in the Timaeus. I halfway wonder if for the problems you raise if there isn't something pointed in this manner.

On the other hand you might pose a problem insolvable for me and lead me to abandon Continental philosophy entirely and make me weep at all the thousands of dollars I spent on the books in my library. (grin)

I think relative to Heidegger and Kant though that Heidegger just isn't interested in what grounds things ontically. But I agree then that this entails an odd equivocation over being relative to realists like Aristotle. My sense then is that Heidegger while he uses "to be" relative to ontic grounds doesn't mean them as being. But this does mean there is a huge oversight for Heidegger. He takes beings as occurent without wondering why except in terms of their transcendent (for consciousness) natures. But their natures in themselves seem left for science which I don't think is quite up to the task.

Anyway, enough typing. I'm still thinking through this and will comment later...

Clark,

Thanks for these comments. I've been rereading some Levinas. He has an interesting critique of Heidegger near the beginning of Totality and Infinity as I'm sure you already know. I think what he is saying is consistent with what I am saying above.