firsthand in one’s lived world and that are primarily oriented to use. Because of that the things of the lived world—things of use or in general anything oriented to concern-about as a non-theoretical comportment—are leveled down to things that are merely present, so that they are no longer differentiated as being implements adapted to certain functions.
However, the statement’s modification of the as-structure always presupposes the original as-structure, the underlying understanding of the thing that gets flattened out in and through the statement. Thus, determination-via-statement is never a primary act of uncovering. It never determines a primary and original comportment toward beings, and as a result this form of λόγος can never become our guide to the question of what beings are.
In the logic and doctrine of being of the Greeks, and in the tradition up to Husserl,21 λόγος as determination-via-statements has in fact been the guide for pursuing the inquiry into being. [160] That is to say, beings are there as objects of a possible determination or determinability. But once we recognize that this very determining, along with its entire structure, is a derived phenomenon, we also see that the phenomenon of determination cannot be the starting point for the question of being—if, that is, this question is supposed to understand the phenomenon of being in its roots.
We have shown the extent to which the as-structure of primary understanding—i.e., the “as” of the basic hermeneutical structure of existence—can be characterized formally and extrinsically as σύνθεσις and διαίρεσις. We also emphasized that when Aristotle speaks of σύνθεσις and διαίρεσις, he does not and cannot mean the structure of this primary “as.” Rather he is referring to another structure, that of the derived, flattened-out and flattening “as.” Now, on the basis of our interpretation of the “as” used in determining thereness, we need to explain why the formal structure of synthesis is used to characterize this “as.”
In the first place, why did the as-structure necessarily come to the fore at this point? We answer: Here the “as” structures a concernful comportment that highlights an as-what and thereby highlights the determination of something as something in terms of that as-what. The statement, when performed explicitly, thematically highlights an as-what, and it does so explicitly in terms of the subject matter itself that is to be determined in light of this as-what. What is more, in this case the “as” is flattened out into a determination. Formally speaking, determination is a relation and specifically a synthetic relation. In any
21. On being and truth in correlation with the ideas of statement, judgment, “doxa” qua determination, see Husserl, Ideen I, §§103ff., especially §142, “Rational Positing and Being,” which concerns the essential correlation between the idea of true being and truth, reason, consciousness.