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Phenomenological Perspectivism: The Interweaving of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, and Ontology in Martin Heidegger


Michael Steinmann


1.

"Ontology is possible only as phenomenology" (BT 33/48). This phrase from the introduction to Being and Time is more challenging than it might seem. If we take it seriously, phenomenology is more than an available method by the help of which an ontological investigation can be conducted, it is the only possible way. And strictly speaking it is even more than a method, insofar as phenomenology simply is ontology and nothing else. The object of phenomenology, we learn in the introduction, is nothing else than being, and this is the same as in ontology. The names of the two disciplines refer to the same.

But there is more. Insofar as phenomenology takes as its point of departure the analysis of Dasein, Heidegger identifies phenomenology also with hermeneutics. "Phenomenology of Dasein is hermeneutics in the original signification of that word" (BT 35/50). Hence, a triple identification is at play: phenomenology equals ontology equals hermeneutics.

Obviously, there are differentiations to be made. The status of hermeneutics is not entirely clarified, as Heidegger only refers to the hermeneutic of Dasein and not to a hermeneutic of being. The very name "phenomenology", however, contains the element of "logos" which indicates that phenomenological description necessarily is based on an act of "interpretation" (Auslegung) (cf. BT 35/50). Still, if we want to be precise, we have to say that in the triple identification, hermeneutics has a subordinate role. The most precise expression seems to be: phenomenology is ontology and vice versa, and both proceed as hermeneutic.

But how do we have to understand this mutual identification? In which sense is the object of phenomenology and ontology essentially the same? What does this mean for precisely this


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object, being? And how do we have to understand both phenomenology and ontology in their being hermeneutic?

To approach these questions, we will start from Thomas Sheehan's provocative claim to re-translate the notion of being with the notion of "meaning" (2.). We will see that such re-translation is possible, although from a different point of view than Sheehan thinks (3.) However, we also will see that no key term can replace another in Heidegger's thought. The plurality of terms ― or "names" ― cannot be further reduced (4.). The last part is devoted to the problem of hermeneutics. It will give us some final hints as to why Heidegger's phenomenological ontology amounts to a phenomenological perspectivism (5.).

2.

Thomas Sheehan's vivid claim that Heidegger remains misunderstood if he is not read in strictly phenomenological terms is meant to change the course of scholarship. He suggests no less than a "re-translation" of Heideggerian terms, "out of an ontological into a phenomenological register" (Sheehan 2010, 1). Such translation concerns above all the term "being" which according to Sheehan belongs to a "pre-phenomenological metaphysics of objective realism" (Sheehan 2010, 2). Scholars use it inadvertently this way:

"Heidegger scholarship tends to hypostasize das Sein into a non-phenomenological, quasi-metaphysical Something ("Big Being") that we can allegedly pursue and relate to, an "X" that performs such mythical tasks as revealing and concealing itself, dispensing epochs of itself, and so on." (Sheehan 2006, 1257; cf. Sheehan 2001, 8)

To avoid such hypostatization, Sheehan claims, a phenomenological reduction has to take place. This reduction would allow us, not only to re-interpret, but even to replace the term "being" with a new word (Sheehan 2010, 2). This magic word is "meaning". The new terminology, then, would be the following:

das Seiende = the meaningful

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das Sein (des Seienden) = meaning
das Seyn/Sein selbst = meaning-giving source (Sheehan 2010, 3; cf. Sheehan 2006, 1254).

Doubtless, such radical re-translation hardly will have a chance to be universally accepted in the world-wide scene of Heideggerian scholarship. But its purpose seems to lie more in liberating us from the fixation on a term as historically laden as term of being. The notion of being, for some, might have an evidence, and therefore a determinate meaning, that scholarship has to put into question. From this perspective, Sheehan simply follows the most basic of Heidegger's thoughts, his emphasis on the need to first raise the "question of being"" and to ask what exactly the "meaning of being" is.

And Sheehan also is right in saying that the focus on being as only principle might obscure what Heidegger's phenomenology also gives us to see: "our finitude as opening up the world/clearing/open that we essentially are"" (Sheehan 2001, 24). This attempt to bring the human back into the center of research on Heidegger would not necessarily mean to go back to existentialism's dramatizations, but to combine ontological insights with the problem of finitude.

Additionally, there is evidence in Heidegger that Sheehan happily exploits, for example, when the former crosses out the term being, or in his later works repeatedly refers to something prior to being (cf. Sheehan 2001, 7-8). Being did indeed not always remain the key word of Heidegger's thought. Understanding the idea of being, from this perspective, means to understand the wide semantic field of different words or terms related to it. Heideggerian scholarship hardly can rely on the evidence of one key term only. Even the early question for the "meaning of being" implies that being is both relevant and accessible only through the aspects under which it appears.

And finally, replacing "being" with "meaning" also leads to a certain correction of Heidegger's thought. Sheehan refers to "the later Heidegger's own quasi-hypostasization of Sein" (Sheehan 2010, 15). Not only Heidegger scholars, but also Heidegger himself was in danger of falling back into a classical form of ontology. Whether this claim is true or not – I seriously doubt it, but this would have to be discussed based on the text – it allows for a new and refreshed


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approach to his seminal texts. Great thinkers are great precisely because they allow for radical reinterpretations.

But despite all these arguments in favor of Sheehan's suggestion, two fundamental questions remain. First, why does being have to be replaced by "meaning", and not by another term? And second, why does being have to be replaced at all? Answering these two questions will be the main task for the rest of this paper. It will serve not only as a discussion of Sheehan's claims, but also help us to find an answer to the question raised at the beginning: how can phenomenology and ontology be one, in regard both to their object and methodically?

The first question, "why meaning?", seems obvious to ask. Could it not be any other notion, as long as it lends itself to a purely phenomenological investigation? As far as I see, Sheehan does not give an answer to this question. Major evidence for his choice lies in the early Heidegger and his analysis of the world. Sheehan refers to the early lecture course in 1919 where things are described as "meaningful" (bedeutsam) in their everyday and pre-theoretical encounter (Sheehan 2010, 3; cf. GA 56/57, 73). Another important point is the relation between man and being. While, according to Sheehan, in the metaphysical perspective being is disconnected from man, phenomenology allows us to see that things only "make sense within human concern" (Sheehan 2010, 2). Finally, "meaning"" also aligns with other key terms, such as the world, the clearing, the event or the turn (Sheehan 2010, 6; Sheehan 2001, 10-11 and 16-20). Insofar as all these terms indicate a specific form of intelligibility, "meaning" does indeed capture an essential aspect in all of them.

However, the shift towards a pure phenomenology of human finitude has its prize. By abandoning the notion of being, Sheehan also loses the critical function that the idea of being has. In Heidegger, being is used in critical way insofar as it breaks the transparency of the subject. Only through the ontology of existence, the spell of consciousness, of a purely epistemological approach to oneself and the world, is broken. Sheehan, on the contrary, shows a certain tendency to re-transcendentalize Heidegger, if willingly or not. There are different examples for this, only one of which can be cited here:

"We are not thrown "into" the open, as if the Da/Lichtung/Welt already existed without us; we are not open "to" the open, as if it were something separate from us; we do not

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"transcend to" the open as if we had to cross from here to there [...]. Without us, there is no open at all." (Sheehan 2001, 12)

In consequence, the formula "being-in-the-world" has to read differently than it usually is read, as "being-the-world" (ibid.). Evidently, Sheehan makes an important point: there is no world without the Dasein, just as being cannot be thought without the human. But in which sense could the world simply be Dasein? Certainly, it is not inside of Dasein, as a mere representation. And the world cannot be Dasein's particular world, because then we would have a plurality of worlds. Finally we also have to consider the things without which it would be hard to even explain what a world is. Dasein and world, so it seems, belong together, and yet are not the same. We cannot reduce one to the other. But in Sheehan, once being's external impact is lost, there is nothing but the human left. Most probably this is not a conscious theoretical decision. But the question remains how we can avoid internalizing being once we make it fully synonymous to meaning.

And yet, Sheehan is right: being can indeed be understood as meaning. It only has to be done in a different way.

3.

An alternative take on the problem of meaning can be made if we see that "meaning" possibly refers to two German terms: "Bedeutung" and "Sinn". For Sheehan, the point of reference is "Bedeutsamkeit", which refers to world as realm of meaningful things. But precisely for this reason, "Bedeutsamkeit" remains linked to the encounter with things, which in Being and Time is described before, in terms of the necessary steps the analytic of Dasein has to take, the question of the meaning of being can even be raised (cf. BT 85/117). It shows how Dasein and the world are intertwined without going further to their common foundation in time. "Meaning", however, in German also means "Sinn", and in this regard a direct relation to being can be drawn.

In the following, I will translate "Sinn" as "sense" which goes counter to the newly revised Stambaugh translation that renders "Sinn" as "meaning", and "Bedeutsamkeit" as "significance". Although the choice of these two terms makes perfect sense, especially in the context in which they are used, it is problematic when it comes to the German word "bedeuten" which


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cannot be disconnected from "Bedeutsamkeit". Stambaugh renders "bedeuten", consequently enough, as "signifying" (BT 85/116), thereby reserving the notion of meaning for the well-established formula "meaning of being". Outside of this context, however, when "meaning" is not directly opposed to the "significance" of worldly things, the term could be understood in various way. The "meaning of being" could be misunderstood, if translated back into German, as "Bedeutung des Seins", a formula Heidegger never would have used, because being does not refer to anything else (as it is the case in "bedeuten" as "signifying"). Therefore it seems appropriate to use a term that avoids such possible misunderstandings and puts a certain emphasis on the distinction between the German "Bedeutung" and "Sinn".74

The idea of sense, "Sinn", is introduced in the beginning of Being and Time, in the passage that explains the definition of phenomenology. Heidegger approaches this definition by distinguishing three types of phenomena: the "formal", the "vulgar", and the "phenomenological" phenomenon (BT 29/42). Formal phenomena are those referred to simply as "self-showing", without further qualification, while vulgar phenomena are things that appear to us in the sense of an empirical, sensual appearance. The phenomenological phenomenon, however, is more difficult to define:

"What is it that phenomenology is to "let be seen"? [...] Manifestly it is something that does not show itself initially and for the most part, something that is concealed in contrast to what initially and for the most part does show itself. But, at the same time, it is something that essentially belongs to what initially and for the most part shows itself, indeed in such a way that it constitutes its meaning and ground". (BT 33/47)

Strangely enough, if we follow these words, phenomenology does not deal with all kinds of phenomena. It only deals with such that need to be explicitly revealed. Only what needs an effort to be made visible can become the object of phenomenological investigation. And what is this? Obviously, the whole passage would be absurd, if phenomenological phenomena were limited to a specific class of things. One could never justify phenomenology being related only to


74 A similar decision was taken in translating Frege's "Sinn und Bedeutung" as "Sense and Reference" (Frege 1980).


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human existence, and not to nature, or being related only to art, and not to the political, etc. Even if we said, by wrongly assuming Heidegger's point of view, that phenomenology deals with being as such and not with beings, we would have no reason to say why this should be so. Why should phenomenology not deal with all types of things showing themselves? The very idea of phenomenology, even within Heidegger's thought, does not imply any restriction.

The solution to this problem is that the phenomenological phenomenon is not another object at all, but the very condition under which phenomena show themselves. It is the condition for becoming a phenomenon, we might say the phenomenality of the phenomenon. Only in this regard Heidegger can say that it "essentially" belongs to everything that shows itself. And what is this phenomenality? Following the words quoted above, it is the "sense" and the "ground" of phenomena, insofar as they are phenomena. The phenomenological phenomenon refers indeed to all possible objects, although it does so only in a certain regard.

For someone familiar with Heidegger, this certainly is not a surprising definition of the purpose of phenomenology. But what makes it remarkable is that here, right in the introduction to Being and Time, we find a very clear and explicit identification of being with sense. Heidegger continues:

"What remains concealed in an exceptional sense [...] is not this or that being but rather [...] the being of beings. [...] Thus, phenomenology has taken into its "grasp" thematically as its object that which, in term of its ownmost content, demands that it become a phenomenon in a distinct sense." (ibid.)

Phenomenology, as discipline that reveals the sense and ground of phenomena, at the same token reveals the being of beings. It is ontology because it is phenomenology in the emphatic sense, and vice versa. Being and Time, therefore, is nothing else than an investigation of sense, respectively meaning, right from its start. But in opposition to Sheehan's approach, this becomes evident even before the analysis of the world. The identification of being and sense lies at the foundation of Heidegger's whole phenomenological-ontological enterprise (his pheno-onto-logy, we might say). The identification is fundamental because it lies in the very method of making visible what is the sense (or ground or being) of everything that shows itself.


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But doesn't Heidegger talk about the "meaning of being", thereby making a clear distinction between being and its sense? Indeed he does. But on the other hand, he also makes clear that there is no concept of being "available" (verfügbar) yet (BT 7/10), and if there were, then "being is in each instance comprehensible only in regard to time" (BT 18/26). There is no way to comprehend behind without or beyond its sense. But if this is so, then can't we say that what being is for us, is precisely its sense and nothing else? There are indeed passages in Being and Time where Heidegger refers to being and the sense of being quasi synonymously.75 And he also puts emphasis on the point that there is nothing "behind" being that does not appear (cf. BT 33/48): being is what appears as being, as the sense it has in and for the phenomenological intuition.

Another point that shows to which extent being and sense can be identified, is the very concept of sense (Sinn). It is defined in the following way:

"The concept of sense includes the formal framework of what necessarily belongs to what interpretation [...] articulates. Sense is the upon which, structured by fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception, of the project out of which something becomes intelligible as something " (BT 147/201)76.

Following these words, "Sinn" is a "framework" which defines the structures in which something appears and becomes "intelligible". It is not the meaning a thing possesses in its relation to other things, but a horizon that encompasses and pre-determines all possible meanings that can be attributed to a thing.77 Sinn as "framework" overarches and anticipates each singular thing, as moment of the general disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) of Dasein (ibd.). "Bedeutsamkeit", au


75 The new translation deviates in an interesting way from the original here. The original reads: "Der phänomenologische Begriff von Phänomen meint als das Sich-zeigende das Sein des Seienden, seinen Sinn, seine Modifikationen und Derivate" (GA 2, 48). The translation inserts a hyphen: „The phenomenological concept of phenomenon, as self-showing, means the being of beings–its meaning, modifications, and derivatives" (BT 3). The translation seems to say that it cannot be both: being and the meaning of being. Hence, "meaning" is hyphenated because it is the only object of inquiry. But for Heidegger, it does not seem important to make this distinction here: being is in its meaning and vice versa; both belong together to a degree where they can be regarded as one.
76 Translation modified, partly by replacing "meaning" with "sense".
77 "Sinn" also can be related to the notion of horizon which further elucidates its ontological function, cf. BT 17/24. Horizon and sense both are defined as "upon which", cf. BT 309/429 and 347/483.


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contraire, translated as "significance", refers to the "relational totality" (Bezugsganzes) of the world (BT 85/116). Even if such totality of relations is a constitutive part of the framework of sense, it only concerns the world as interconnectedness of things and not as the transcending "upon which" that gives world its final unity. (At this point, it would be helpful to further discuss the concept of the world. But it should be clear, even without doing so, that the world as totality of relations still needs a moment that constitutes the unity of all it contains. Otherwise, the totality could be a mere collection of things.)

At this point, we see how plausible Sheehan's suggestion to replace being with meaning really is. It becomes even more plausible if we see that "Sinn", for Heidegger, was but an early concept for truth, which in turn can be another name for being.78 On the other side, the very notion of meaning hardly seems to be the best term for this re-interpretation, because it inevitably conflates the two concepts of "Bedeutung" and "Sinn" and thereby misses the projective nature of the latter.

At this point the second question can be addressed: do we have to replace "being" at all? Is it even possible to do so? In the previous reflections, we have shown how being and the sense of being, in the course of phenomenological analysis at least, can be treated as same. But are they really the same? To which extent can we even speak of sameness here? The following has to give at least some preliminary answers to these questions.

4.

Our point of departure, again, is Sheehan's provocative claim, according to which the focus on being as metaphysical term runs the risk of dismissing human finitude, as it is explored in the phenomenology of the world. For Heidegger, however, phenomenology and ontology are by no means mutually exclusive, as we see in his introductory remarks on the project of a "phenomenological ontology" (BT 36/51). Plus, the reciprocal relation of the human and being, that is so important for Sheehan, does not exclude the idea of being as a transcending ground, as much as the idea of being, in turn, does not exclude the sphere of human finitude. Again, none of these points


78 See the reference to truth in his copy of Being and Time, cf. BT 33/47, as well as the Contributions to Philosophy, GA 65, 466, and GA 67, 129.


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is mutually exclusive, and replacing one for the other seems to be superfluous at best. Even if our interest lies in human finitude alone, we have to retain a certain ontological perspective that tells us what existence is, what meaning is, etc. Reading Heidegger, we have to deal with a plurality of methods – phenomenology, hermeneutics, ontology – based on a plurality of dimensions in the phenomena he describes.79

But these remarks are only preliminary and lead to a more fundamental question: what does it mean in Heidegger's thought when we say that phenomenology and ontology, sense and being, are the same? Our point of departure is a remark from the collection Besinnung, (Mindfulness):

Beyng and clearing is the same; this was Parmenides' incipient saying during the other beginning. [...] / In the future thought has to reach the abyss of the belonging together itself as the incipient – beyng, the appropriation of the inbetween, which clears itself and both gives away and withholds the clearing as essence of this appropriation.80

79 It seems tempting to explore the plurality of phenomena Heidegger describes and to weaken the focus on the term of being. Many scholars have chosen this way, and many certainly would say that the most valuable insights can be found where the ontological foundation is less prevalent – in the pragmatism of being-in-the world, in the hermeneutic of facticity, and so on. But still, one only has to imagine how his thought would have looked like if it were nothing more than a collection of analyses pertaining to different topics, such as existence, art, or technology, without the attempt to bring all these topics into one unifying focus! Without such unifying perspective, many topics would be far less interesting. We only have to think of Daseinsanalyse without the ultimate focus on the temporality of being. – Besides that, even in Sheehan we can see that it is impossible to avoid the question of being, at least on the level of terminology. The term "meaning-giving source", supposed to replace "das Sein selbst" indubitably indicates a certain origin of meaning. This is an ontological question! The question then is whether the neat distinction ontological (= pre-phenomenological) and phenomenological can be maintained at all. For Sheehan, the "source" is nothing "separate from and lying behind the meaning of the meaningful" (2010, 4-5). In another passage, the "meaning-giving source" is qualified as a "merely heuristical" term with no determined meaning (2010, 6). But if this is so, then why a term so similar to the ontology it is supposed to replace?
80 "Seyn und Lichtung ist dasselbe; so lautet der anfängliche Spruch des Parmenides im anderen Anfang. [...] / Künftig ist zu erdenken der Ab-grund der Zusammengehörigkeit selbst als das Anfangende – das Seyn, die Ereignung des Inzwischen, das sich lichtet und die Lichtung selbst als ihr Wesen verschenkt und versagt" (GA 66, 313). Translation M.S.


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If we follow these words, the strict identification of beyng and clearing – or of being and sense – was an initial and necessary step at a time when philosophy was not able to comprehend its own abyss. In its more reflected form, the belonging together of that which is different shows itself as the last ground, or better: as the absence of any ground. Being gives sense, according to Heidegger's words, but this means: it gives sense and withholds itself from it. Or, if one wants to avoid the risk of hypostatization here: being is what is withheld or incomplete in the apparent sense of being. Sense itself opens the difference to what is not sense, without transforming it into another piece of sense. Sense is based on an inextinguishable lack. Against this lack, to request one term for the interpretation of Heidegger's thought would imply to request full and transparent meaning again. But we cannot substitute meaning for being without recurring to a metaphysics of meaning, if being is precisely the name for what is abyssal, non-present in any meaning.81

Indeed, for the Heidegger of the thirties, it is much more appropriate to speak not of concepts or notions of being, but only of "names". Aspects that belong to being – the clearing, truth, etc. – are names for something that is manifest in the self-revelation of being, without being clearly defined elements or parts. Words that are used "name" or "mention" something (in German nennen), but they do not "represent" it such that it is fully present. A "name" does not say that something is this or that. What it says is that it can be called this way. Names are meant to evocate something, to call it into the fore, by still preserving a sense for its independence and the untouchable ground out of which it has emerged. What is only "named" or "mentioned" calls and invites to be further explored.82


81 In a paradoxical way, Sheehan's claim remains valid here. If it is the nature of being to be constantly withdrawn, then we constantly have to abandon it. We have to deal with what is left, without being able to rely on a direct insight into being. The only difference to Sheehan's approach is that meaning has to be seen as that which has been left behind, and not as a self-sufficient sphere.
82 This also is one of the ways in which Heidegger re-interpreted his own terminology in Being and Time. He interpreted it not as defining the meaning of being once and for all, but as an indication of dimensions that have to be further explored. Time, for example, can be called the "pre-name" (Vorname) for the abyssal truth of being (GA 67, 128). Cf. also GA 67, 136 and GA 66, 302. (We might think of the act of baptism here: things or persons are baptized to be let free into their own existence. A baptism is a wish, or perhaps a pledge we give in place for someone who is not yet able to give it himself, but not a guarantee for someone to always be in a certain way.)


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5.

The final remarks have to be devoted to the other methodological term mentioned in the introduction to Being and Time: hermeneutics. To explain the role of hermeneutics, we can again refer to the idea of sense, "Sinn". "Sinn", we have seen, is a "formal framework" and the "upon which of the project out of which something becomes intelligible" (Woraufhin des Entwurfs). "Sinn", therefore, is understood in project or in a projective interpretation. As a framework it cannot simply be given, but has to be traced out or extended into its ultimate dimensions. A framework is not simply "there", but has to be understood as the opening of a space inbetween. It consists of outlines understanding has to trace into its ultimate ramifications. Hence, in its temporal dimension, projects belongs to the future; it does not comprehend what is already there, but moves "toward possibilities-of-being" (BT 321/445).

Hermeneutics, for Heidegger, is based on this projective orientation. It is a quite peculiar idea of hermeneutics he develops in Being and Time, an idea much different from the hermeneutics his disciple Gadamer will conceive. About hermeneutics, the introduction states:

"The λόγος of the phenomenology of Dasein has the character of ερμηνεύειν, through which the proper meaning of being and the basic structures of the very being of Dasein are made known to the understanding of being that belongs to Dasein itself" (BT 35/50).83

To "make known" as essential function of hermeneutics – this means that hermeneutics indicates the original, irreplaceable disclosure of possibilities for Dasein. What is "made known" is in fact not known at all before it appears in and through projective understanding. In one of his later reinterpretations of Being and Time Heidegger confirms this point:

"But 'hermeneutics' is not supposed to describe what is simply present, but to project. What is lacking is not that the attitude of description is not fully developed, but that, on the contrary, project and its decisive character are not decidedly enough unfolded".84

83 Being and Time uses Greek letters here and in the following quotes. 84 GA 67, 132; Translation M.S.


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Project, thus, is not description, it is decision. In the quote, this refers to hermeneutics, but it could just as well refer to phenomenology. Phenomenology as well cannot describe what is given, because the framework of sense is not simply there, unless it is extended and traced out. It rather has to follow and explore the outlines of the projective upon which that constitute sense. And how can it do that? Certainly not through "seeing" if seeing again means to relate to something that is already there, but through a medium that allows us to see what previously was not there: language. Heidegger's phenomenology necessarily is based on language, and because it is based on language, it cannot be other than hermeneutic.85

Remember what Heidegger says about the element of λόγος in phenomenology, relying on Aristotle's conception of the basic function of speech:

"Λόγος as discourse really means δηλούν, to make manifest 'what is being talked about' in discourse. Λόγος lets something be seen (φαίνεσθαι)" (BT 30-1/43).

This letting-be-seen of logos has to be understood as an original, productive act of disclosure. The "meaning" of λόγος is the phenomenon laid open for the phenomenological gaze. Language, therefore, is not a closed system of signs, but transcendence towards the world. On the other side, the phenomenological gaze needs words or sentences to be guided toward the phenomenon. The relation between phenomenology and hermeneutics, thus, is twofold: Phenomenology is hermeneutic in its using words for the purpose of letting-see, and hermeneutics is phenomenological insofar as language means nothing without being able to let something be seen. The letting-see is a double, pheno-hermeneutical relation to the world.

We can see this double method as a form of perspectivism. The pheno-hermeneutical letting-be-seen has no fixed meaning, but must be exercised always anew. How the framework of sense is extended and how it unfolds, cannot be pre-determined without actually tracing it out. Hence Heidegger's perpetual concern with words: do they really say what they are supposed to say, do they speak originally enough? A word can seem to mean the same it meant before, and yet the context in which it is supposed to let something be seen, prevents it from doing so. We


85 On the notion of project, cf. Steinmann 2008, 142-150.


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don't see this in the word itself. "Even ἀλήθεια and ἀλήθεια, to begin with, is not the same", Heidegger says (GA 65, 331). The pheno-hermeneutical letting-be-seen never has a guarantee that words do speak the way they are supposed to do.

Heidegger, thus, has to be read in a highly contextual way. In a certain sense, each text or perhaps even each sentence is a separate promise to let something be seen. Nothing replaces the phenomenological perspective that has to be realized in each single text, nothing guarantees that a certain context evocates the field of meaning such that words are allowed to truly speak. No statement and no theoretical claim is meaningful in itself, but only as the unfolding of a perspective oriented from the text toward the phenomena.

But if this is so, if Heidegger's method has to be seen as a form of perspectivism, then replacing one term with another seems highly superfluous. Instead, all depends on how we succeed in making even such a metaphysical term as "being" speak, how we let sense being projected with it. "Being" might have a pre-determined meaning in certain theories, but for Heidegger it is challenged to find its proper meaning in and through a pheno-hermeneutical letting-be-seen. Ontology fully depends on the right use of phenomenology and hermeneutics.

On the other side, being must not be abandoned, because without it phenomenology and hermeneutics would lose their counter-weight. The pheno-hermeneutical letting-be-seen is mediated and restrained through the abyss of being it never can fully explore. Being indicates the incompleteness in every fulfilling act of letting-something-to-be-seen. Phenomenology and hermeneutics, thus, cannot do without an ontology for which being is both irreplaceable and problematic.

From this perspective, Sheehan's suggestion to re-translate Heidegger is very close to what always takes place in his thought. In one way or the other, we always have to translate and see how far a certain combination of words carries us, compared to another. Passing from one context to the other, from one perspective to the other, is an act of translation, and compared to being in its withdrawal, we even can say that every projective understanding is a translation, want it or not. If being is nothing "behind", but only its sense, then sense, insofar as it is understood and comprehended by humans, is all we have. And yet, what humans understand never is all there is.


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Works Cited

Gottlob Frege, "On Sense and Reference", translated by M. Black. Translation from the Philosophical Writings, eds. and trans. P. Geach and M. Black, Oxford: Blackwell, third edition, 1980.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (in the following BT), translated by Joan Stambaugh, revised and with a foreword by Dennis J. Schmidt, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010 (the second page number refers to: Sein und Zeit, Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 2 (in the following GA), ed. F.-W.v. Herrmann, Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1977).
______. Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie, GA 56/57, ed. B. Heimbüchel, Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 21999.
______. Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), GA 65, ed. F.-W.v. Herrmann, Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1989.
______. Besinnung, GA 66, ed. F.-W.v. Herrmann, Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1999.
______. Metaphysik und Nihilismus, GA 67, ed. H.-J. Friedrich, Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1999.

Thomas Sheehan, The Turn, 2010.
______. "Being, Opened-ness, and Unlimited Technology: Ten Thesis on Heidegger", Le Portique 18 (2006), 1253-1259.
______. "A Paradigm Shift in Heidegger Research," Continental Philosophy Review 34 (2001), 183-202 (the text is quoted after the website).

Michael Steinmann, Die Offenheit des Sinns. Untersuchungen zu Sprache und Logik bei Martin Heidegger , Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.


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