understanding of being. Heidegger therefore concludes that “in this sense all ontology is idealism” (241). Then discussion turns to the relation between being and time (241–242).
That being must be understood in terms of time is shown not only by Heidegger’s own demonstration that the original structure of our Dasein is temporality (Zeitlichkeit), but even by the Greek interpretation of being as presence and Aristotle’s supposed identification of what is real in time with the “now” (in contrast to what is no longer and what is not yet). Then there is discussion of the need to ground the interpretation of being in an existential analysis of Dasein, here described as a grounding in “my own exemplary Dasein as characterized by these phenomena [death, conscience, and so forth]” (242), with Heidegger’s explicit recognition of a hermeneutical circle here (243). Significantly, Heidegger admits that the Greeks were already aware of such a need. (Did we not just see in the previous class that Plato’s ontology arises out of the need to account for the being of the soul?) But Heidegger observes: “Antiquity indeed recognized Dasein as the basis for the examination of being, as the saying of Parmenides or the dialogues of Plato show, but here the concept of existence is still not adequately interpreted ontologically” (242). What the Greeks miss in particular is that the essence of Dasein lies in its historicity (Geschichtlichkeit), which in turn is to be interpreted as temporality. Without recognizing this they cannot even raise the question of the relation between being and time. The most important contribution of this class for the theme of the seminar comes at the end, when Heidegger distinguishes between two ways of comprehending Aristotle’s interpretation of motion: (1) as interpreting motion as a relation to time of what is ontically in motion; or (2) as interpreting it as a character of being from the perspective of time (243–244; als eines Seinscharakteres aus der Zeit). The time in question in this latter case is not the time within which motion occurs, but the temporality of motion itself (and if motion defines our being, the temporality of our being as such). It is clearly this latter approach that Heidegger is taking in his reading of Aristotle’s text. What does this text tells us about the motion and temporality of being itself?
The topic of the June 18 class, again as reported by Liselotte Richter, is the existentiell function of genuine philosophizing. This discussion is clearly instigated by Heidegger’s claim in the preceding class that the analysis of Dasein must proceed by way of “my own exemplary Dasein,” which is of course the Dasein of a philosopher. Recall what the term existentiell means in Being and Time: “Existence is decided only by each particular Dasein