Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity

by John van Buren

First published in 1988 as volume 63 of his Collected Works, Ontology -- The Hermeneutics of Facticity is the text of Heidegger's lecture course at the University of Freiburg during the summer of 1923. In these lectures, Heidegger reviews and makes critical appropriations of the hermeneutic tradition from Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine to Schleiermacher and Dilthey in order to reformulate the question of being on the basis of facticity and the everyday world. Specific themes deal with the history of ontology, the development of phenomenology and its relation to Hegelian dialectic, traditional theological and philosophical concepts of man, the present situation of philosophy, and the influences of Aristotle, Luther, Kierkegaard, and Husserl on Heidegger's own thinking. Students of Heidegger will find initial breakthroughs in his unique elaboration of the meaning of human existence and the ""question of being, "" which received mature expression in Being and Time.

Genres: Philosophy, 20th Century, German Literature, Nonfiction, Theory, Ebooks

138 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

John van Buren is Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Environmental Studies Program, and Advisor in the Architecture Program at Fordham University.

He is an internationally recognized expert in the thought of the German philosopher of nature Martin Heidegger, 20th & 21st century European philosophy, and contemporary environmental philosophy & ethics. He is currently working on questions of the interface of hermeneutics and environmental history, environmental justice, climate change ethics, and theories of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.

His doctoral work, completed in 1989, was at McMaster University in Canada and Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen in Germany. He was Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa in 1989-90, also completing a postdoctoral fellowship there in environmental studies in the Geography Department in 1990-91. He joined the Fordham philosophy department in 1991. He has served as the founding Director of the Fordham University Environmental Studies Program since 2001. He served as Associate Director of Urban Studies in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011.

Reviews

[S]

Now that I've admitted to myself I'm a Heidegger nut, I realize that I've actually set up a road for myself (or, as a Heideggarian would wink and say, a "path"). I feel like the proper, scholarly thing to do is not review this book in the typical sense (I don't feel it's appropriate to rate some books, the same way you'd never approach a teacher as a child and tell them: "you were okay in reading, but I felt like you really struggled in science and classroom management"). As a self-professed (and completely unaccredited) Heidegger scholar, who am I to judge his works? (It reminds me of the Dante saying, "the critics don't judge Dante, Dante judges the critics."

I do feel confident in relaying some possibly useful information: this lecture course precedes B&T by 4 years, and in it, you can see Heidegger setting up his gambit (we see "care" mentioned, as well as readiness- to-hand). Also, he discusses the formal indication, but not to, imho, a fruitfully elucidating degree.

Also, I noticed in this work how reliant Heidegger is on negative expression, viz., spending more time on what a thing is not rather than what it is. This is part of H.'s style, I think. He wants to pull you into his thought-path before he shows you the clearing.

Also, I had no idea how influenced H. was by Spengler! Of course, you really can't tell if it's an endorsement; similarly to how Nietzsche, despite the debt, would never have recommended Schopenhauer.

[Kathie Yang · Rating 3 out of 5]

so hard for me to rate this book…

i think a lot of it went over my head, despite my best efforts. some parts i understood and some were surprisingly beautiful. i think i’m going to try and read more analysis of heidegger’s ideas and then maybe i can tackle being and time soon!

some new or newish words to think about like Dasein and hermeneutics and phenomenology, also referenced husserl quite a bit as well as some others that i might want to take a look at

[Zach Rzicznek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I appreciate the attention to some of Heidegger's early works as he was really coming into be-ing (pun intended) as a writer, I felt that this English translation of a German philosophy course from 1923 was unfinished. If you're starting to read Heidegger, I recommend moving straight to Time and Being and skipping this. If you're a hardcore Heidegger groupie, then perhaps this book will provide insight into Heidegger's formative years.

[Alyosha · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the works I would suggest to introduce Heidegger to someone. A fairly quick and easy read (as far as Heidegger goes).

[Andrés García · Rating 5 out of 5]

Preludio de Ser y tiempo pero acabó convirtiéndose en su hijo. Sin duda recomendaría a cuál quiera que quisiera entrarle a Heidegger comenzar con este texto.
Sigue fascinándome el esfuerzo de Heidegger en articular y abstraer algo, más que complicado, oculto. Logre o no articular lo que dice que articula (eso ya es otra discusión), eso es el ser, ya su empresa filosófica deja reflexiones sumamente profundas sobre las formas que comprendemos y nos comportamos con la realidad. Su crítica a la filosofía como creadora del pensamiento objetivista y cientificista es increíble, porque la hace a través de su analítica existencial/comprensión de ser. Es una comprensión como otras, no una privilegiada. El objetivismo es otro subjetivismo. Nos queremos asegurar en un marco de comprensión objetiva para apagar las preguntas fundamentales.
La facticidad es otra locura, no busca la determinación del ser (eso sería metafísica), sino el habitar el círculo hermenéutico de la forma más auténtica posible, pues una comprensión del ser determina a la realidad y su destino. Lo que siempre está en juego es nuestra facticidad, lo que ocurre en cada caso, nuestra comprensión constante de las cosas, que es posible gracias a nuestra comprensión de ser de las cosas.

[Pavlogreen]

Este curso de 1923 es relativamente accesible y breve y adelanta ya con mucha claridad y casi exactitud algunas de las ideas básicas de Ser y tiempo, por lo que puede ser una buena lectura introductoria a ese críptico tratado. Pero más allá de las inevitables, aunque odiosas, comparaciones con la gran obra de Heidegger, Ontología. Hermenéutica de la facticidad es un buen libro y en concreto las últimas 20 páginas están entre lo mejor que he leído de este filósofo. Por ello, no os perdáis este texto si estáis interesados/as en el viejo Martín.

[Álvaro Mercado · Rating 4 out of 5]

El curso de 1923 que Heidegger impartió en la Universidad de Friburgo, en un momento inmediatamente anterior a la publicación de Ser y Tiempo. Se trata de una serie de lecciones donde se explicitan los temas que se tratarán con mayor sistematicidad en su obra más importante, si bien aquí Heidegger parece ser mucho más claro en sus intenciones y mucho más sincero, más directo en sus críticas, y concretamente se muestra muy abierto en su controversia con Husserl. En cualquier caso me parece una obra imprescindible como propedéutica a Ser y Tiempo.

[AlexVicious · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo leí como hace 5-6 años y no ha variado mucho mi opinión. Son unos cursos que dió Heidegger en los que aborda conceptos bastante preparativos a Ser y Tiempo. Los relaciona con la historia de la filosofía y resultan de bastante interés. Es muy buen libro si te quieres familiarizar con la filosofía heideggeriana sin meterte de lleno en una obra titánica como Ser y Tiempo.

[Doctor Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lecture course by Heidegger from 1923, 4 years before the publication of Being and Time, and it provides an earlier glimpse of some of the central themes of that book. The text was put together from Heidegger's own notes, augmented by those of others attending the lectures.

One of the critical themes previewed here is Heidegger's claim that the disclosure of things such as tables in an interconnected web of significance is prior, both in experience and in ontological order, to disclosures of those things as "objects" or "mere things." On pages 68-69 here, he makes a strong contrast between the table in his home, as a table for writing, sewing, or eating -- disclosed to us in a structure of such "in-order-to" relations, with the same table as "mere thing." The example mirrors his example of the hammer in Being and Time, but in more personal terms because the table he describes is one in his own house, used by himself, his own wife, and his children. I think the example comes across as more authentic and less abstract than the hammer, which reads in Being and Time, to me anyway, as an imagined rather than lived example.

That the table as "mere thing" is a construct, founded on the basis of the table as part of a web of significance, goes to the heart of Heidegger's early philosophy and to his reversal of the traditional search for a metaphysics of pure objectivity, one accounting for objects from no point of view, without interpretation. For Heidegger, the "question of being" is never one asked by no one, to be answered by an account of objects as disclosed to no one, but one that is necessarily asked by us ("Dasein"). Thus, we and the way in which the world is disclosed to us are unavoidable at the start of our investigation. That world, he claims, is the world characterized by "care" and through relations of significance -- the "in order to" of those things (e.g., tables) disclosed to us.

Reading this book won't take the place of reading the much longer, fuller account provided in Being and Time. In fact, if you started by reading only this book, I would think it would spur you on to want to read Being and Time to fill out the compressed insights and accounts given here. What remains distinctive is a freshness of insight and, sometimes, a less restrained and less formal critique of the state of philosophy in Heidegger's time.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I forgot how to put it in layman’s terms

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one of Heidegger's early lecture courses. Here he continues to build and develop his notions of Dasein and facticity. Recommended to anyone who is interested in Heidegger's early works and wants a 'fuller' account of the foundational notions in Being and Time. The content is also presented in a clear and accessible manner. If you are struggling with Being and Time, you can use this text as a supplement. However, it is not necessary to read this text if you want to understand Heidegger's magnum opus.

[Lucas Sipe · Rating 3 out of 5]

At some point, Heidegger made reference to this course as being "the first notes of 'Being & Time'." That is apparent throughout the text. The way in which Heidegger drills in on being-in-the-world and all that entails and means is reminiscent of the way that same topic is handled in 'being & Time. Going over that here seems a bit redundant as 'Being & Time' is far more refined and descriptive (for reasons we will get to.) There is one point in this text, however, that alone makes it worth reading. Towards the end of the course, Heidegger goes into detail about what an accurate description of an everyday world looks like. In it, it's a small, one to two page description of a table in the Heidegger family home. From beginning to end it is brilliant and perfect and makes clear (reveals) what Heidegger is trying to say in his new language of philosophy. The examples Heidegger uses in 'Being & Time' are blown out of the water - I'm surprised he didn't repurpose them for that larger text.

In terms of new material (I say that - this course came before 'Being & Time' lol), the analysis of hermeneutics (interpretation) is insightful. Essentially (and I think I'm correct), hermeneutics of facticity is the way humans (Dasein) "interpret" the being-thereness and the world into which we are thrown. This is done via historical consciousness and philosophy of today. His descriptions of these phenomena are wide ranging and have much impact upon everything in the modern world. The translators epilogue does an excellent job elucidating the impact of that analysis. I found it compelling and well worth going back to - even if it was a bit esoteric.

Fundamentally, however, this text (but not the course itself) is a bit of a failure because I am not sure how someone would 'get' anything substantial without already having been introduced to Heidegger's thoughts. Both the editors and translators epilogue goes into this but the text from which the text is based off is a) very rough and b) incomplete. As a result, they had to borrow from some student manuscripts. It's not that the text is "bad" but is clearly missing some things that Heidegger would have actually gone over *in the course properly speaking*. Later on, in 'Being & Time', goes over those missing connections and greater detail. What we are left with here, however, is something that can often be difficult to follow. If I hadn't read 'Being & Time', 'The Basic Problems', and 'Logic', I would have been lost. So while it may have been the first notes, the text itself does not make anything clearer. In terms of writing (and while this is a translation), Heidegger is not at his best here - 'Being & Time' is, while difficult, beautiful in its own way. This text is not.

That being said (and despite the average rating) the text is well worth reading. I noticed lots of assumptions/ thoughts that would be brought into sharper relief in his 'Logic | The Questions of Truth.' Of all the Heidegger texts, this one is clearly a step below. That's not truly a fault of Heidegger, the translator, nor the editor. The notes from which the text comes from, however, limits the efficacy of the text to a large extent that is hard to recover from.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One can easily notice here the sources that influenced young Heidegger: Luther, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Husserl, St. Augustine, Dilthey, the Bible, and so on. Then there is Heidegger's opposition and dismissal of the modern philosophy, of Hegel's dialectic, and of popular writers like Spengler – all of them engaging in empty generalities, in trying to grasp the totality of beings in different regions while using cheap schema (like form/content, rational/irrational, finite/infinite, mediated/unmediated, object/subject), and for their obsession with objectivity understood as a view free from any standpoint.
For Heidegger, it is all about questioning – as questions grow out of a confrontation with the subject matter while this subject matter appears only where such questioning takes place. This questioning is partially a critique of the intellectual history done in order to recover the primordial meanings; for example Parmenides' “being and thinking are the same” should be defended against the German Idealism and while Aristotle's λόγος/logos should be defended against the modern and rational interpretations.
This course points to some of the main ideas developed in “Being and Time” 3-4 years later: the fundamental replacement of man with Dasein, the dismissal of medieval and modern understanding of man as “animal rationale”, the confrontation with Descartes, the facticity of Dasein as being-there, the hermeneutics of this facticity, the phenomenology as developed by Husserl, everydayness, care, formal indication, world and being-in-the-world, significance, familiarity, and so on. Instead of a hammer, a table appears here.

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s the first Heidegger

This book it’s a short introduction to a new way of thinking the being. Heidegger resurrects Saint Thomas philosophy of existence as the essence of men and start to construct the facticity.

Is not easy to understand facticity, I’m a bit sure that Heidegger later didn’t use any more that word, he later found a better way to talk about the being in the world of the being there.

The radical approach that looks for the pristine way of thinking of the Greeks that Husserl first attempt in his Logical Investigations, Heidegger starts away from this standpoint and looks beyond, but with and advantage over Husserl: a solid foundation on history and really astonish knowledge is the medieval philosophy.

This books is a great guideline on how a philosopher arrives to his thoughts, obviously Heidegger doesn’t reveal all his cards but it’s really impressive the way that his philosophy takes.

[La Pasión Inútil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este opúsculo recoge las lecciones sobre Ontología que Heidegger impartió durante 1923 en la Universidad de Friburgo. En ellas, el autor elabora lo que puede considerarse una introducción a conceptos centrales que más tarde aparecerían en ‘Ser y tiempo’. La idea que defiende Heidegger aquí corresponde al giro ontológico de la hermenéutica: una vez concebida la existencia como facticidad y, siendo la interpretación un rasgo existenciario del Dasein, es necesario encontrar una hermenéutica que, afincándose en el presente, sea capaz de revelar el haber previo desde el que funciona nuestra comprensión: solo así se podrá abrir una puerta que acerque, sin acudir a la vieja y equivocada tradición, a lo que es el ser.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first encounter with Heidegger. The text was sometimes very difficult and esoteric, but Heidegger precise himself throughout the unveiling of his thought which made clearer to me certain part of the text. The text was by time choppy for its, and in respect, to his nature. The reading introduced me to many concept central to Heidegger, and I feel like I understand more his thinking and his hermeneutics.

[Jimena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como antesala de su obra Ser y Tiempo, Heidegger desarrolla unas clases en 1923 en la universidad de Friburgo que constituyen este libro. Creado por apuntes de alumnos, se ve imprescindible comenzar por leer el epílogo para situarse en la complejidad de lo que intenta transmitirnos. Breve pero intenso libro con el que conocer la hermenéutica de la facticidad desarrollada por Heidegger.

[شفيق]

الترجمة ليست بالصعبة بل اكاد اعتقد انها اسوء ترجمة مرت بي
وافقدت متعة قراءة هذا الكتاب

I have to say, I've truly come to admire Heidegger's works. There's something deeply resonant about his ideas that really speaks to me.

[Francisco Luis Benítez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante en lo que se refiere al concepto de "temporalidad" en cuanto a suposición temporal de la actualidad desde la facticidad y especialmente el de la trama de remisiones en cuanto el carácter de ocurrencia del mundo.

Aparte del concepto de la fenomenología desde su aplicación al propio devenir, de la existencia el gran problema del libro es la fastuosidad gramatical con la que explica términos por los que otros han transitado con más éxito y claridad en los principios que estudia. Pero sin duda, sin Heidegger, ciertas aproximaciones de la fenomenología hermenéutica de Vattimo no hubieran visto, quizá, la luz.

Libro denso y complejo, que exige mucho conocimiento previo del concepto filosófico de la facticidad.

[Luis Espinoza · Rating 2 out of 5]

Scribbles compared to the complete project of Being and Time. Heidegger is not exactly an author whose ideas are clear for the casual reader, but even considering someone who already had an approach to Being and Time, this book is hardly an introduction to the whole project (or anything of the sort). In my opinion the ideas are not thoroughly presented and, unless you have had a previous experience with Heidegger, they might seem at times bordering on the esoteric. These lectures don´t have the “clarity” (however that applies to Heidegger) as in, for example, “What is Metaphysics?”.

[Tommy Graves · Rating 5 out of 5]

These accessible lecture notes serve as a fantastic introduction to many of the main ontological concepts in Being and Time. Worth the read just for the wonderful account of lived experience.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very underrated book in terms of providing a concise scope of hermeneutics, one of the fields in philosophy which interests me most.