Ontological difference

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The ontological difference , also ontical-ontological difference , describes in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger the difference between being and being. Heidegger first used the term in a lecture in the summer semester of 1927. In his main work “ Sein und Zeit ” , which appeared in the same year , the term did not appear explicitly, the idea associated with the term was already implicitly described there.

Three forms

In order to explain the ontological difference between being and being , what Heidegger means by being can be shown as a makeshift by dividing it according to two points of view:

1. Understand

In his work Being and Time , Heidegger uses being to denote the horizon of understanding on the basis of which we encounter inner worldly beings. Every understanding relationship to inner-worldly beings must move within such a contextual horizon within which beings first become apparent. Just as the giving and the giver are not revealed in the given, but the relationship between the two remains unthematic, so being is the unthematic presupposition for beings. The concept of understanding is extremely broad here and also includes the practical handling of things that is possible without an explicit theoretical understanding being present; in addition, sensitivities such as fear of supposedly harmful things can also be counted under understanding. "Understand" means all relationships between the things in the world.

The ontological difference marks the difference between the horizon of understanding and the being that it encounters. It does this so that the horizon of understanding can even become an issue. The ontological difference separates being and being for the philosophical thematization . This means that “in reality” of course being never occurs without a being. So being always remains the being of a being, which is why there is a difference between being and being, but both can never appear separately from one another. Since the two never appear separately, being is not addressed as such. Therefore being shows itself to be the closest, because in dealing with the world it always precedes and goes along with it; on the other hand, it turns out to be the most distant, since it is never explicit as something atrophy.

2. Ontological meaning

Describing being as a horizon of understanding alone misses the ontological dimension of the concept. Because “being” denotes what is . So being is not an idea that we have of things and then, as it were, throw over them so that they can be understood within the world. Rather, being and understanding coincide inseparably: only that which is understood is also and everything that is is understood. This means that the world does not consist of singular objects, but is a meaningful totality in which relationships between things have always been established. It is not possible to go back behind these references. With this emphasis on the understanding of meaning, Heidegger primarily rejects ideas from epistemology . This had always wondered how something in space and time recognized , as thus a completely respect loose object can show a subject. For example: How is it possible to recognize this cube in space and time? Now, however, the world is precisely determined by its meaningful references, which cannot be constructed from things retrospectively , but must precede the understanding of each thing so that we can even understand it as a thing (tool, etc.). The not understood is therefore also integrated into being, precisely as that which is characterized by its lack of meaning and reference.

An example

In his 1929/30 lecture “The Basic Concepts of Metaphysics” , Heidegger explains the ontological difference using the statement “The table is unfavorable.” He makes it clear that this judgment is not to be understood through reference to a subject, but rather obviously everyone in the Lecture hall can recognize the objectively unfavorable position of the board, even if it does not affect him himself. The unfavorable position of the board is not a property that is attached to the board in any way, but results from the fact that we have always looked at the lecture hall as a whole in advance . But this whole also includes ourselves and the other things and people in the classroom. Only in relation to this whole is the table unfavorable. This whole as a context of meaning already precedes each individual, which only has a meaningful relationship to other things within this whole. This means that the whole is not first constituted by the sum of its parts. The being of beings (of the table) is then its unfavorable status.

From this it becomes clear that being does not just mean matter , because this would only be an amorphous mass undefined in extension and unity. On the other hand, the term being, when it refers to the blackboard, is supposed to indicate that we are always talking about something that we understand as something in its unity of some kind . In addition, every definition of the table as a material object would of course be an ontological definition, that is, it says something about the being of beings. The ontological difference, however, would initially like to refrain from such determinations: It is precisely the methodical separation of being and being that is supposed to open up the possibility of a reflected determination of both. For this reason, in the present example, one cannot speak of a subject for which the table stands unfavorably, because then the being of beings would already be determined as an object for a subject .

Difficulty of linguistic representation

If “being” is raised to the topic by emphasizing the ontological difference, then it is missed at the same time, because “being” is not something that occurs in the world (like beings). This problem also shows up on the linguistic level: the noun “being” makes it appear as if being were an inner-worldly thing. This is a problem which every representation of being, including the non-linguistic one, brings with it and which has led to many misunderstandings in Heidegger's reception . Heidegger tried to avoid it, for example, by saying “there is being” instead of “being is.” Because with is one says something about a being that is. Being is just not being.

The ontological difference can be illuminated from three perspectives: as the difference between being and being, between ontics and ontology and as a hermeneutic difference.

Difference between being and being

“Being is always the being of a being”, but cannot be reduced to: “The being of being 'is' not itself a being.” A search for being thus always brings only beings to light. However, being as contextual background remains the precondition that a being is . Only in this way can something be understood as something . Thus, despite the difference, being and being remain related to one another. Neither is conceivable without the other: their relationship consists in the identity of difference.

Difference between ontics and ontology

Heidegger describes the phenomenal level of being as the ontic, the level of the investigation of being as ontological. In the case of the phenomenon, Heidegger differentiates between being and being, in the case of the type of access between ontic and ontological. The being belongs in the sphere of the ontic, the philosophy of the ontic is ontology. The identity of the difference between being and being is also found again at the level of ontic and ontology: what is ontically closest is the ontologically most distant: what meets within the world is always understood , but the horizon of understanding itself remains unthematic. This also applies to human self-understanding: “The being that we are ourselves is ontologically the most distant.” And “Dasein is ontically not only close or even the closest - we are even each ourselves. Nevertheless or just therefore it is ontologically the most distant. ”So in order to thematize that which is so familiar that it eludes attention, it must first be brought into a certain distance - for this the ontological difference must be emphasized.

Hermeneutical difference

The difference between what understands and what has been understood is hermeneutical. In being and time , what is to be understood ( existence , man) turns out to be so close, because it is at the same time what understands itself. Man understands the world in its meaningful references and inner-worldly references, but to bring his own understanding into view remains mostly hidden from him. This is also because he always trains his understanding of the world and the things in it. If he now wants to understand himself, then he backprojects the understanding of being gained from the world (for example, “the world consists of things”) onto himself and sees himself as a thing. The set Heidegger's conception of man as existence against which that man is emphasized not a thing but only in life volunteer there .

Since every investigation must always be preceded by an understanding , it can only be the aim of the hermeneutic method to enter the hermeneutic circle at the right place in order to get the examined subject into perspective. Hermeneutics follows the ontological difference between being and being and describes the path of the hermeneutic circle.

Meaning for philosophy

For Heidegger, the ontological difference is an important starting point for fundamental ontology : “The problem of the difference between being in general and being does not come first without a reason. Because the discussion of this difference should only make it possible to see thematically, methodically, reliably and unambiguously, such as being in the difference from being.

With this distinction, Heidegger criticizes traditional occidental metaphysics : It always only looks at what is and explores its essence, but then forgets being. Because metaphysics has forgotten being about beings, it is characterized by the oblivion of being . Because it is “nothing with being” in its exploration of beings, it is essentially nihilistic . Modern nihilism since Nietzsche makes this always prevailing, previously hidden essence of metaphysics evident.

literature

  • Ino Augsberg : “Restoring beings”: on the ontological difference in Martin Heidegger's thinking about the history of being . (At the same time: Dissertation at the University of Freiburg i.Br., 2001). Munich, Fink, 2003. ISBN 3-7705-3805-6 .
  • Oliver Jahraus : Martin Heidegger. An introduction , Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, p. 98 ff.
  • Hee-Cheon Oh: Martin Heidegger: ontological difference and the beginning of knowledge . (At the same time: Dissertation at the University of Cologne, 2001). Frankfurt am Main; [u. a.], Lang, 2002. ISBN 3-631-38687-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Basic Problems of Phenomenology ( GA 24), Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M. 1975, p. 22
  2. ↑ Jean Grondin in: Thomas Rentsch (Ed.): Being and time . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 5
  3. ↑ Cf. Martin Heidegger: The basic concepts of metaphysics . GA 29/30, p. 498ff.
  4. ↑ See Martin Heidegger: Wegmarken ( GA 9), p. 334.
  5. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Being and Time ( GA 2), p. 9.
  6. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Being and Time ( GA 2), p. 7.
  7. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Being and Time ( GA 2), p. 311 and p. 15.
  8. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Basic Problems of Phenomenology ( GA 24), Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M. 1975, p. 322.
  9. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Nietzsche's word "God is dead" . In: Holzwege, Klostermann, 6th edition Frankfurt 1980, p. 261.