This is a copy of a piece that I initially considered as possible candidate for my introductory post to this group, and was originally written for a friend trying to come to terms with what Heidegger called 'Being'. Since everybody I know at the moment is bogged down with exams, I haven't posted it to her yet; so I thought I would give my ideas a test-run here to see what you lot thought. As it stands, what I have typed out is a train of thought put onto paper; and after some editing, I have decided to give in and just post it 'as is'. Therefore, what follows is purely my own attempt to try and get to grips with questions about 'Being' (and any possible meaning they may have) in isolation from any specific Heidegger texts.
Is there any such thing as 'Being'?
One of the many criticisms made of controversial philosopher Martin Heidegger, was that the question at the centre of his philosophy: ?What is 'Being'?? was an empty one. But before we can make up our minds on the possible value or importance of such a question, we need first to understand what it is asking.
The meaning of 'to be' (in an everyday contexts)
Perhaps a good place to start would be with the things that concern us in our everyday lives. Thus, when we say ?to be? in such contexts, we are not talking about anything that seems, at first glance, any kind of abstraction. For example, what does it mean to be 'white' or to be 'heavy'? When we talk of ?to be... such-and-such?, in our everyday lives, we appear to be talking about nothing more than a certain property an object or thing has (its 'mode' or 'way of being', to adopt more technical terminology). But when talking about everyday objects we are more likely to say things like ?the cup is white,? or ?this box is heavy? ('is', as opposed to 'to be'). Now we ought to inquire into what exactly we mean by saying such things.
Now this is not a discussion about the distinction between Realism or Nominalism. We are not interested in knowing whether properties of things are on the one hand, ?mere labels fixed to objects via social agreement?, or on the other, ?genuine 'essences' that reside in the objects themselves ? independent of a subject that perceives them?. What concerns us is how we come to know, in any way, that properties such as 'whiteness' or 'heaviness' exist at all, and furthermore, how it is that we can apply them correctly to objects in the world around us? Surely, in order for me to say ?the cup is white?, I must first have in my mind some concept of 'whiteness' (what it means for a thing to be called 'white'). The possession of such a concept, whether it comes to me innately or through sense experience, allows me to identify all white things in the world as being distinct from 'non-white' ones (the same applies for 'heavy' things, and so on). If we substitute 'to be' with 'is', and then relate 'is' to the properties we apply to things in the world, then the possibilities are almost endless. Just consider two examples from when we spoke of the cup: when talking about the cup we could say that it IS for such-and-such a purpose (drinking) and IS, in addition to its colour, a certain shape (mainly cylindrical). Which of these properties is essential to the definition: to the concept of 'cup-ness'? Which 'is' takes priority here?
The concept of 'Existence'
Let us step back for a moment and say that something merely 'is' (with no other predicates attached). What is being said? That the thing has no properties at all, or that we are concerned only with its most basic and fundamental property: 'existence'? To say simply that something 'is', therefore, is to talk about its EXISTENCE. Can 'existence' be spoken of as if it were a property of a thing? If the cup is 'white' and the box 'heavy', then, in addition to all the other properties they may possess, do they also have a 'shared' property called 'existence'?
Now my knowledge of Kant is, I admit, very limited, but I do believe that he once said that existence itself could not be a property of a thing ? is he correct in this? If 'is' means 'to be' (and 'to be', in turn, means 'to exist') then why is 'existence' not a concept we can apply to things in the way we can with all other properties? Perhaps 'existence' is a special case; perhaps it is not a property of things at all? But if this were the case, then how could we understand anything at all about the world around us? The word 'is' (that which signifies 'existence' unqualified, and some specific mode of existence when inserted between a subject and a predicate) plays a fundamental role in our language and our experience of the world. To be able to correctly identify objects in the world does not mean just to correctly apply a linguistic label to them. It means that I must also understand the concept that the label represents. By understanding that the cup IS 'white', 'hard', 'for drinking out of', 'alone' or 'over there' means not that am arbitrarily plonking label upon label onto this object before me, but that I recognise, correctly, the object's identity through the concepts I apply to it (and to all others with similar properties).
So if we identify things through concepts, why is 'existence' not the first property that confronts us when we come into contact with every entity within the world? Why do we not have a concept of 'existence' in the same way that we do with everything and anything else? Even if we were to admit defeat here, and say that our understanding of 'existence', as such, is something inexplicable (belonging, perhaps, to some mysterious thing called 'Human Nature'), we would still not have settled the matter. For philosophers have, since the beginning, inquired into the essential nature of things ? not only questioning in what sense properties and essences can be said to 'belong' to entities, but what such 'properties' and 'essences' are in themselves. But if 'is', as 'existence', has not been fully investigated, then how can philosophers continue with any self-assurance in these areas ? are they not perhaps 'building in thin air'?
'Being' and 'Existence': our definitions compared with Heidegger's
So far, we have spoken of 'is', 'existence', and the meaning of 'to be' in relation to individual things in the world. But this is not what Heidegger means by 'Being'. 'Being' is distinct from 'beings'. To talk about 'existence', in general, is something different from talking about the existence of some specific thing. For example, to talk about the 'being' of the cup (what it means for the cup 'to be') is different from talking about 'Being'. 'Being' is that which allows all other individual beings to be as they are. (Just as 'whiteness' is not solely the whiteness of the cup, but that which itself makes all white things appear as they are.) Thus, 'Being' would appear to be the essence of 'existence': both 'existence in general', and the existence of individual things. But even if we are to grant Heidegger a hearing, and say that there is such a thing as 'Being', what could we ever know about it other than the most vague and arbitrary abstractions? If there is such a thing as 'Being' (however hard this notion is to grasp), then what we might learn about it, if anything, must surely come to us through our investigations of individual 'beings' within the world (all the mundane items of our everyday lives: cups, boxes, hats, telephones and pen-holders etc)?
The problem of understanding 'Being' through concepts
The problem with 'Being' is that it
cannot seemingly be grasped through a single concept, even
'existence' is not enough. (For if I were to ask what it means for
myself, as a being which thinks, 'to be' then 'existence', alone, is
not an answer with any depth to it.) But everything we have said up
till now as regards 'Being', has been structured within, and
understood in relation to, 'existence'. Additionally, 'existence'
itself, as well as individual 'beings', has been thought about via
more concrete things in the world (like those in the list above).
But even cups, boxes and the like are never identified immediately,
via the senses, as raw 'things-in-themselves'. As we have said, we
identify a subject via its predicates combined within a 'concept'.
And here we hit the fundamental problem in our search for the meaning
of the 'fundamental question'. If access to 'Being' can only be had
through the concept of 'existence', and existence through beings (and
beings themselves are accessible only through further abstractions
and concepts), then, up to this point, our thoughts about 'Being'
have seemingly been in vain ? we have gotten further away from our
goal with each step we have taken.
Perhaps this is why Heidegger sometimes talks of thinking or speaking 'Being', as opposed to thinking or speaking OF 'Being'? If 'Being' cannot be made accessible to us via the medium of concepts, then Heidegger must seek DIRECT access to the phenomenon of 'Being' ? without the distinction between 'essence' and 'existence': a distinction required by all traditional forms of conceptualisation.
A justification of 'Existence' as a starting-point for an understanding of 'Being'
If 'Being' is not to be identified with mere existence or defined under some specific concept, then why did we, in the first place, take 'existence' as a starting-point for our investigation ? have we not been led on some wild goose chase? Maybe 'existence' itself, was too arbitrary a beginning. Could we have chosen, therefore, another starting-point that would have been better (one that would not have led us to such a dead-end)? I do not believe so.
'Existence' is certainly not an arbitrary starting-point, and nor is the fact that 'existence' is a difficult concept to grasp anything to do with our failure to reach an adequate understanding of 'Being'. Why? Well think of a time when you have had to describe an unfamiliar concept to another person, or when you have placed an unfamiliar object in front of them and they have asked you: ?What is that?? When describing unfamiliar things to people we always begin by making reference to something that they are familiar with. We say, ?It is like such-and-such? (just as the jug is similar to the cup as regards its shape and function). In the same way, the concept that leaps towards us when we first ask about 'Being' or 'to be' is 'existence' (despite what Kant is alleged to have said on the subject). 'Existence' we are immediately familiar with, if only in outline. It is from the existence of objects in the material world that we build up our conceptions of what we think 'Being' must be like ? even though most of us never take our thought processes further than these initial sketches.
It would seem, then, that the common-sense view of 'Being', as 'existence', has led us astray. But the fault does not belong to anybody in particular, for how else but through concepts, however inadequate, could we seek to gain knowledge about the world in which we live? It is from the objects that concern us in our everyday lives that the world is made intelligible and familiar to us. If we cannot gain an adequate understanding of 'Being' from the objects that we are concerned with day-to-day, their concepts, or even that which confronts us in all things: 'existence', then is all hope lost? Perhaps our failure signifies only that this particular attempt to gain access to 'Being', through 'existence', was doomed to failure; and if this is the case, then might there yet be unexplored routes to the phenomenon of 'Being' lying elsewhere?
Some concluding remarks: confrontations with 'Being' ? the limits of philosophy?
For now, we must put an end to our questioning and, in conclusion, return to the question that faced us at beginning: ?Is there any such thing as 'Being'?? As a result of our investigations and reflections, another question has arisen in response to the first: ?If there is any such thing as 'Being', then what can we know of it?? Such questions appear at once fundamental and, in the same breath, empty. Because if, from the day of our birth, we are seemingly confronted by 'Being'; if, before we even have the ability to form concepts, we are aware of 'Being' (even if we are not at first aware of our own being or that of others); if 'Being' is the foundation of ourselves, the world, and all that 'is', then how is it that we have continually overlooked that which is staring us in the face ? that which we can never shut out of our experience? In the end, perhaps all that questions about 'Being' can ever accomplish is to force us into an acknowledgement that even philosophy has its limits, beyond which we cannot inquire. Might it be the case, that in coming face to face with the 'question of Being', we are in fact coming face to face with our own limitations as human beings? (In that some questions, even those that at first glance seem the most fundamental, do not have answers that can ever be made directly accessible to us.)