Capobianco: Sinn - sentido (9-11)

Yet it was Heidegger’s study of Aristotle   in those early years, culminating in his elucidation of Metaphysics, Theta 10 on the on hos alethes — "the being as true," that is, "truth" as belonging most properly (kyriotaton) to the being itself — that confirmed his insight that to renew the question of Being was to recover the experience of Being as manifestive, as showing itself from itself, as unconcealing, as shining-forth, as opening and offering itself, as addressing us and claiming us. This is the "meaning" of Being that Heidegger sought, even if originally this seeking worked [10] itself out largely within an Husserlian phenomenological framework. Nonetheless, even in those early "phenomenological" years, the word "meaning" in the formulation "the meaning of Being" arguably served more as an indicator, a pointer, a marker for his primary concern with the "manifestness" of Being in relation to Dasein. Or that is certainly how the later Heidegger understood it. In 1946, in remarks to Jean Beaufret   under the title "The Fundamental Question Concerning Being Itself" ("Die Grundfrage nach dem Sein selbst"), Heidegger insisted, "With that question [concerning Being], I have always — and from the very beginning — remained outside the philosophical position of Husserl  , in the sense of a transcendental philosophy of consciousness." [1] This is a most telling comment, and I do not think it is meant disparagingly at all; it is simply Heidegger’s realization some years later that what he had his eye on from the outset was very different from Husserl  . That is, while Husserl   was primarily concerned with clarifying the activity of making-manifest from the side of consciousness, he had been chiefly concerned with Being qua manifestation insofar as Being makes manifest Dasein in the first place, along with its constitutive activity of making-manifest.

Some years later, in Le Thor in 1969, he explained further that already in Being and Time  , "meaning" (Sinn) did not have for him the significance of "meaning" or "sense" as Husserl   understood this in terms of "sense-giving" (Sinngebung) acts of consciousness. He added: "Being and Time   does not attempt to present a new meaning of Being [understood in this Husserlian manner], but rather to open a hearing for the word of Being — to let this hearing be claimed by Being. In order to be the ’Da,’ it is a matter of becoming claimed by Being." [2] Also at Le Thor, he emphasized to the seminar members that in Being and Time  , "meaning" (Sinn) was never intended to refer simply to a "human performance" (menschliche Leistung; Leistung, of course, is one of Husserl  ’s keywords) and thus only to the "structure of subjectivity." Rather, "meaning" is to be explained from the "region of projection," which in turn is explained by "understanding" (Verständnis), which itself is to be understood only in the originary sense of "Vorstehen, " that is, "’standing before,’ residing before, holding [11] oneself at an equal height with what one finds before oneself, and being strong enough to abide it.’" [3] In other words, his crucial point is that "meaning" must be understood most properly, that is, in the first place, as a response to Being (manifestation) by Dasein and not as a "performance" or "achievement" (Leistung) of transcendental subjectivity. We may capture his position this way: only insofar as there is manifestation, emergence, is there meaning. This is also to say that Being qua manifestation is structurally prior to, and the ontological condition of, any "constitution" of meaning.