Franco Volpi - Heidegger and Aristotle

Translated by Pete Ferreira

74

This articulation of temporality, which Heidegger describes extensively in Being and Time (§§ 65-71), is intrinsically linked with the practical determination of being-there regarding care, whose original temporality is the unitary ontological sense. Bearing in mind the observations made about the practical connotations of the being of being-there, even this connection can be seen in new light, which Heidegger vocabulary describes thus: care is the unity of existentiality, facticity and abandonment; but existentiality is a being-ahead-of-oneself (Sich-vorweg-sein) that corresponds to the future dimension, facticity is a being-already-in-the-world (Schon-sein-in-der-Welt) that matches the past dimension, and abandonment is a being-ahead-of-itself-in-already-being-in-a-world (Sein-bei-innerweltlich-begegnendem-Seienden) that matches the present dimension. Therefore, temporality corresponds in its threefold articulation with the articulation of care and represents its unitary ontological basis. And because care is the character of the being of being-there, it also represents the unitary ontological structure of this being. This connection can also be illustrated with a diagram.

From these details about the Heideggerian interpretation of the Aristotelian conception of time, it is clear that Heidegger reaches, by starting from Aristotle, to grasp the issue that is at the center of his speculative concerns, and that is the problem of determining the fundamental mode of being-there. And as before, through the analysis of the phenomenon of the truth, he had come to grasp in the being-discovering a primal characteristic of the being of being-there, as before, on facing the problem of the 'subject', he had identified the eminently practical connotations of this being, so now, in light of the interpretation of the Aristotelian understanding of time, he comes to establish the ontological equation of being-there and originary temporality.