BEING AND TIME: INTRODUCTION AND DIVISION I
word, and arrives at the conclusion that logos essentially means making something manifest (56/33). To do "phenomeno-logy", then, is to make manifest that which manifests itself - "to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself" (58/34).
This definition looks like an extremely elaborate tautology. After all this fuss, phenomenology turns out to be something very simple: revealing things. And this definition is also empty (one might say), since it says nothing about how we are supposed to reveal things. Heidegger is aware that his concept of phenomenology is, in a sense, simple and empty. The slogan "To the things themselves!" is "self-evident" because it is "the underlying principle of any scientific knowledge whatsoever" (50/28): of course we are trying to know things themselves. However, it is worth dedicating ourselves to this principle carefully, because it is so tempting to rely on ready-made techniques and concepts instead of letting the things themselves have the last word. Phenomenology is no "easy science, where one, as it were, lies on a sofa smoking a pipe and intuiting essences"25 — it demands commitment and rigorous attention.
Even though there is no radical opposition between appearance and reality, there is a profound problem of illusion, falsehood and concealment. Being tends to lie hidden (59-60/35-6). We are normally so absorbed in entities, which display themselves obviously to us, that it takes a great effort to bring Being into focus, including our own Being. We tend to fall back into superficial and misguided interpretations. "It is therefore essential that Dasein should explicitly appropriate what has already been uncovered, defend it against semblance and disguise, and assure itself of its uncoveredness again and again" (265/222).
Although he calls phenomenology his "method", Heidegger has not specified any particular steps that must be followed by the phenomenologist. Like every thinker, he does have certain favorite approaches and turns of thought. But these are not codified techniques for thinking. In his view, the thing one is studying has to dictate one's approach. In this sense, "phenomenology" is an empty label - but its emptiness is a virtue, since it leaves us room for developing approaches that are appropriate to what we are examining.
What we can say about phenomenology is that it is fundamentally descriptive (59/35), not explanatory: Heidegger will be describing how Dasein and the world show themselves, rather than proving that they are this way or explaining why they are this way. His "existential analytic ... does not do any proving at all by the rules of the 'logic of consistency'" (363/315). He is not "grounding" a proposition by constructing a deductive argument for it, but rather "laying bare" or "exhibiting" phenomena (28/8). If one looks for formalizable arguments in Being and Time, with identifiable premises and conclusions, one will find precious few.
For the English-speaking philosopher this can be disconcerting, as many of us have been trained to identify philosophy itself with the process of generating, analyzing and criticizing arguments. If there is no argument — we might
25. Heidegger, Plato's Sophist, p. 406.
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