The Greek expression phainomenon, to which the term ‘phenomenon’ goes back, is derived from the verb phainesthai, which signifies “to show itself “. Thus phainomenon means that which shows itself, the manifest [das, was sich zeigt, das Sichzeigende, das Offenbare]. phainesthai itself is a middle-voiced form which comes from phaino – to bring to the light of day, to put in the light. phaino comes from the stem pha – , like phos, the light, that which is bright – in other words, that wherein something can become manifest, visible in itself. Thus we must keep in mind that the expression ‘phenomenon’ signifies that which shows itself in itself, the manifest. Accordingly the phainomena or ‘phenomena’ are the totality of what lies in the light of day or can be brought to the light – what the Greeks sometimes identified simply with ta onta (entities). Now an entity can show itself from itself [von ihm selbst her] in many ways, depending in each case on the kind of access we have to it. Indeed it is even possible for an entity to show itself as something which in itself it is not. When it shows itself in this way, it ‘looks like something or other’ [“sieht” … “so aus wie …”]. This kind of showing-itself is what we call “seeming” [Scheinen]. Thus in Greek too the expression phainomenon (“phenomenon”) signifies that which looks like something, that which is ‘semblant’, ‘semblance’ [das “Scheinbare”, der “Schein”]. phainomenon agathon means something good which looks like, but ‘in actuality’ is not, what it gives itself out to be. If we are to have any further understanding of the concept of phenomenon, everything depends on our seeing how what is designated in the first signification of phainomenon (‘phenomenon’ as that which shows itself) and what is designated in the second (‘phenomenon’ as semblance) are structurally interconnected. Only when the meaning of something is such that it makes a pretension of showing itself – that is, of being a phenomenon – can it show itself as something which it is not; only then can it ‘merely look like so-and-so’. When phainomenon signifies ‘semblance’, the primordial signification (the phenomenon as the manifest) is already included as that upon which the second signification is founded. We shall allot the term ‘phenomenon’ to this positive and primordial signification of phainomenon, and distinguish “phenomenon” from “semblance”, which is the privative modification of “phenomenon” as thus defined. But what both these terms express has proximally nothing at all to do with what iscalled an ‘APPEARANCE’, or still less a ‘mere APPEARANCE’. BTMR §7
[SZ:29] This is what one is talking about when one speaks of the ‘symptoms of a disease’ [“Krankheitserscheinungen”]. Here one has in mind certain occurrences in the body which show themselves and which, in showing themselves a s thus showing themselves, ‘indicate’ [“indizieren”] something which does not show itself. The emergence [Auftreten] of such occurrences, their showing-themselves, goes together with the Being-present-at-hand of disturbances which do not show themselves. Thus APPEARANCE, as the APPEARANCE ‘of something’, does not mean showingitself; it means rather the announcing-itself by [von] something which does not show itself, but which announces itself through something which does show itself. APPEARING is a not-showing-itself. But the ‘not’ we find here is by no means to be confused with the privative “not” which we used in defining the structure of semblance. What APPEARS does not show itself; and anything which thus fails to show itself, is also something which can never seem. All indications, presentations, symptoms, and symbols have this basic formal structure of APPEARING, even though they differ among themselves. BTMR §7In spite of the fact that ‘APPEARING’ is never a showing-itself in the sense of “phenomenon”, APPEARING is possible only by reason of a showing-itself of something. But this showing-itself, which helps to make possible the APPEARING, is not the APPEARING itself. APPEARING is an announcing-itself [das Sich-melden] through something that shows itself. If one then says that with the word ‘APPEARANCE’ we allude to something wherein something APPEARS without being itself an APPEARANCE, one has not thereby defined the concept of phenomenon: one has rather presupposed it. This presupposition, however, remains concealed; for when one says this sort of thing about ‘APPEARANCE’, the expression ‘APPEAR’ gets used in two ways. “That wherein something ‘APPEARS’” means that wherein something announces itself, and therefore does not show itself; and in the words [Rede] ‘without being itself an “APPEARANCE”’, “APPEARANCE” signifies the showing-itself. But this showing-itself belongs essentially to the ‘wherein’ in which something announces itself. According to this, phenomena are never APPEARANCES, though on the other hand every APPEARANCE is dependent on phenomena. If one defines “phenomenon” with the aid of a conception of ‘APPEARANCE’ which is still unclear, then everything is stood on its head, and a ‘critique’ of phenomenology on this basis is surely a remarkable undertaking. [SZ:30] BTMR §7
So again the expression ‘APPEARANCE’ itself can have a double signification: first, APPEARING, in the sense of announcing-itself, as not-showingitself; and next, that which does the announcing [das Meldende selbst] – that which in its showing-itself indicates something which does not show itself. And finally one can use “APPEARING” as a term for the genuine sense of “phenomenon” as showing-itself. If one designates these three different things as ‘APPEARANCE’, bewilderment is unavoidable. BTMR §7
But this bewilderment is essentially increased by the fact that ‘APPEARANCE’ can take on still another signification. That which does the announcing-that which, in its showing-itself, indicates something non-manifest – may be taken as that which emerges in what is itself non-manifest, and which emanates [ausstrahlt] from it in such a way indeed that the nonmanifest gets thought of as something that is essentially never manifest. When that which does the announcing is taken this way, “APPEARANCE” is tantamount to a “bringing forth” or “something brought forth”, but something which does not make up the real Being of what brings it forth: here we have an APPEARANCE in the sense of ‘mere APPEARANCE’. That which does the announcing and is brought forth does, of course, show itself, and in such a way that, as an emanation of what it announces, it keeps this very thing constantly veiled in itself. On the other hand, this notshowing which veils is not a semblance. Kant uses the term “APPEARANCE” in this twofold way. According to him “APPEARANCES” are, in the first place, the ‘objects of empirical intuition’: they are what shows itself in such intuition. But what thus shows itself (the “phenomenon” in the genuine primordial sense) is at the same time an ‘APPEARANCE’ as an emanation of something which hides itself in that APPEARANCE – an emanation which announces. BTMR §7
In so far as a phenomenon is constitutive for ‘APPEARANCE’ in the signification of announcing itself through something which shows itself, though such a phenomenon can privatively take the variant form of semblance, APPEARANCE too can become mere semblance. In a certain kind of lighting someone can look as if his checks were flushed with red; and the redness which shows itself can be taken as an announcement of the Being-presentat-hand of a fever, which in turn indicates some disturbance in the organism. [SZ:31] BTMR §7
”Phenomenon”, the showing-itself-in-itself, signifies a distinctive way in which something can be encountered. “APPEARANCE”, on the other hand, means a reference-relationship which is in an entity itself, and which is such that what does the referring (or the announcing) can fulfil its possible function only if it shows itself in itself and is thus a ‘phenomenon’. Both APPEARANCE and semblance are founded upon the phenomenon, though in different ways. The bewildering multiplicity of ‘phenomena’ designated by the words “phenomenon”, “semblance”, “APPEARANCE”, “mere APPEARANCE”, cannot be disentangled unless the concept of the phenomenon is understood from the beginning as that which shows itself in itself. BTMR §7
If in taking the concept of “phenomenon” this way, we leave indefinite which entities we consider as “phenomena”, and leave it open whether what shows itself is an entity or rather some characteristic which an entity may have in its Being, then we have merely arrived at the formal conception of “phenomenon”. If by “that which shows itself” we understand those entities which are accessible through the empirical “intuition” in, let us say, Kant’s sense, then the formal conception of “phenomenon” will indeed be legitimately employed. In this usage “phenomenon” has the signification of the ordinary conception of phenomenon. But this ordinary conception is not the phenomenological conception. If we keep within the horizon of the Kantian problematic, we can give an illustration of what is conceived phenomenologically as a “phenomenon”, with reservations as to other differences; for we may then say that that which already shows itself in the APPEARANCE as prior to the “phenomenon” as ordinarily understood and as accompanying it in every case, can, even though it thus shows itself unthematically, be brought thematically to show itself; and what thus shows itself in itself (the ‘forms of the intuition’) will be the “phenomena” of phenomenology. For manifestly space and time must be able to show themselves in this way – they must be able to become phenomena – if Kant is claiming to make a transcendental assertion grounded in the facts when he says that space is the a priori “inside-which” of an ordering. BTMR §7
Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure (hammering with a hammer, for example); but in such dealings an entity of this kind is not grasped thematically as an occurring Thing, nor is the equipment-structure known as such even in the using. The hammering does not simply have knowledge about [um] the hammer’s character as equipment, but it has appropriated this equipment in a way which could not possibly be more suitable. In dealings such as this, where something is put to use, our concern subordinates itself to the “in-orderto” which is constitutive for the equipment we are employing at the time; the less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is – as equipment. The hammering itself uncovers the specific ‘manipulability’ [“Handlichkeit”] of the hammer. The kind of Being which equipment possesses – in which it manifests itself in its own right – we call “readiness-to-hand” [Zuhandenheit]. Only because equipment has this ‘Being-in-itself’ and does not merely occur, is it manipulable in the broadest sense and at our disposal. No matter how sharply we just look [Nur-nochhinsehen] at the ‘outward APPEARANCE’ [“Aussehen]” of Things in whatever form this takes, we cannot discover anything ready-to-hand. If we look at Things just ‘theoretically’, we can get along without understanding readiness-to-hand. But when we deal with them by using them and manipulating them, this activity is not a blind one; it has its own kind of sight, by which our manipulation is guided and from which it acquires its specific Thingly character. Dealings with equipment subordinate themselves to the manifold assignments of the ‘in-order-to’. And the sight with which they thus accommodate themselves is circumspection. BTMR §15
In line with the positive tendencies of this destruction, we must in the first instance raise the question whether and to what extent the Interpretation of Being and the phenomenon of time have been brought together thematically in the course of the history of ontology, and whether the problematic of Temporality required for this has ever been worked out in principle or ever could have been. The first and only person who has gone any stretch of the way towards investigating the dimension of Temporality or has even let himself be drawn hither by the coercion of the phenomena themselves is Kant. Only when we have established the problematic of Temporality, can we succeed in casting light on the obscurity of his doctrine of the schematism. But this will also show us why this area is one which had to remain closed off to him in its real dimensions and its central ontological function. Kant himself was aware that he was venturing into an area of obscurity: ‘This schematism of our understanding as regards APPEARANCES and their mere form is an art hidden in the depths of the human soul, the true devices of which are hardly ever to be divined from Nature and laid uncovered before our eyes.’ Here Kant shrinks back, as it were, in the face of something which must be brought to light as a theme and a principle if the expression “Being” is to have any demonstrable meaning. In the end, those very phenomena which will be exhibited under the heading of ‘Temporality’, in our analysis, are precisely those most covert judgments of the ‘common reason’ for which Kant says it is the ‘business of philosophers’ to provide an analytic. BTMR §6
If the present analysis is to be confined to the interpretation of the sign as distinct from the phenomenon of reference, then even within this limitation we cannot properly investigate the full multiplicity of possible signs. Among signs there are symptoms [Anzeichen], warning signals, signs of things that have happened already [Rückzeichen], signs to mark something, signs by which things are recognized; these have different ways of indicating, regardless of what may be serving as such a sign. From such ‘signs’ we must distinguish traces, residues, commemorative monuments, documents, testimony, symbols, expressions, APPEARANCES, significations. These phenomena can easily be formalized because of their formal relational character; we find it especially tempting nowadays to take such a ‘relation’ as a clue for subjecting every entity to a kind of ‘Interpretation’ which always ‘fits’ because at bottom it says nothing, no more than the facile schema of content and form. [SZ:78] BTMR §17
For Kant, however, these representations are the ‘empirical’, which is ‘accompanied’ by the “I” – the APPEARANCES to which the “I” ‘clings’. Kant nowhere shows the kind of Being of this ‘clinging’ and ‘accompanying’. At bottom, however, their kind of Being is understood as the constant Being-present-at-hand of the “I” along with its representations. Kant has indeed avoided cutting the “I” adrift from thinking; but he has done so without starting with the ‘I think’ itself in its full essential content as an ‘I think something’, and above all, without seeing what is ontologically ‘presupposed’ in taking the ‘I think something’ as a basic characteristic of the Self. For even the ‘I think something’ is not definite enough ontologically as a starting-point, because the ‘something’ remains indefinite. If by this “something” we understand an entity within-the-world, then it tacitly implies that the world has been presupposed; and this very phenomenon of the world co-determines the state of Being of the “I”, if indeed it is to be possible for the “I” to be something like an ‘I think something’. In saying “I”, I have in view the entity which in each case I am as an ‘Iam-in-a-world’. Kant did not see the phenomenon of the world, and was consistent enough to keep the ‘representations’ apart from the a priori content of the ‘I think’. But as a consequence the “I” was again forced back to an isolated subject, accompanying representations in a way which is ontologically quite indefinite. BTMR §64
APPEARING……………………………………..10
Phenomenology is our way of access to what is to be the theme of ontology, and it is our way of giving it demonstrative precision. Only as phenomenology, is ontology possible. In the phenomenological conception of “phenomenon” what one has in mind as that which shows itself is the Being of entities, its meaning, its modifications and derivatives. And this showing-itself is not just any showing-itself, nor is it some such thing as APPEARING. Least of all can the Being of entities ever be anything such that ‘behind it’ stands something else ‘which does not APPEAR’. [SZ:36] BTMR §7
APPEARS……………………………………….9
Yorck gained his clear insight into the basic character of history as ‘virtuality’ from his knowledge of the character of the Being which human Dasein itself possesses, not from the Objects of historical study, as ‘a theory of science would demand. ‘The entire psycho-physical datum is not one that is (Here “Being” equals the Being-present-at-hand of Nature. – Author’s remark) but one that lives; this is the germinal point of historicality. And if the consideration of the Self is directed not at an abstract “I” but at the fulness of my Self, it will find me Historically determined, just as physics knows me as cosmically determined. Just as I am Nature, so I am history …’ (p. 71). And Yorck, who saw through all bogus ‘defining of relationships’ and ‘groundless’ relativisms, did not hesitate to draw the final conclusion from his insight into the historicality of Dasein. ‘But, on the other hand, in view of the inward historicality of self-consciousness, a systematic that is divorced from History is methodologically inadequate. Just as physiology cannot be studied in abstraction from physics, neither can philosophy from historicality – especially if it is a critical philosophy. Behaviour and historicality are like breathing and atmospheric pressure; and – this may sound rather paradoxical – it seems to me methodologically like a residue from metaphysics not to historicize one’s philosophizing’ (p. 69). ‘Because to philosophize is to live, there is, in my opinion (do not be alarmed!), a philosophy of history – but who would be able to write it? Certainly it is not the sort of thing it has hitherto been taken to be, or the sort that has so far been attempted; you have declared yourself incontrovertibly against all that. Up till now, the question has been formulated in a way which is false, even impossible; but this is not the only way of formulating it. Thus there is no longer any [SZ:402] actual philosophizing which would not be Historical. The separation between systematic philosophy and Historical presentation is essentially incorrect’ (p. 251). ‘That a science can become practical is now, of course, the real basis for its justification. But the mathematical praxis is not the only one. The practical aim of our standpoint is one that is pedagogical in the broadest and deepest sense of the word. Such an aim is the soul of all true philosophy, and the truth of Plato and Aristotle’ (pp. 42 f.). ‘You know my views on the possibility of ethics as a science. In spite of that, this can always be done a little better. For whom are such books really written? Registries about registries! The only thing worthy of notice is what drives them to come from physics to ethics’ (p. 73). ‘If philosophy is conceived as a manifestation of life, and not as the coughing up of a baseless kind of thinking (and such thinking APPEARS baseless because one’s glance gets turned away from the basis of consciousness), then one’s task is as meagre in its results as it is complicated and arduous in the obtaining of them. Freedom from prejudice is what it presupposes, and such freedom is hard to gain’ (p. 250). BTMR §77
Space is ‘the unmediated indifference of Nature’s Being-outside-of-itself’. This is a way of saying that space is the abstract multiplicity [Vielheit] of the points which are differentiable in it. Space is not interrupted by these; but neither does it arise from them by way of joining them together. Though it is differentiated by differentiable points which are space themselves, space remains, for its part, without any differences. The differences themselves are of the same character as that which they differentiate. Nevertheless, the point, in so far as it differentiates anything in space, is the negation of space, though in such a manner that, as this negation, it itself remains in space; a point is space after all. The point does not lift itself out of space as if it were something of another character. Space is the “outside-of-one-another” of the multiplicity of points [Punktmannigfaltigkeit], and it is without any differences. But it is not as if space were a point; space is rather, as Hegel says, ‘punctuality’ [“Punktualität”]. This is the basis for the sentence in which Hegel thinks of space in its truth – that is, as time: ‘Negativity, which relates itself as point to space, and which develops in space its determinations as line and surface, is, however, just as much for itself in the sphere of Being-outside-of-itself, and so are its determinations therein, though while it is [SZ:430] positing as in the sphere of Being-outside-of-itself, it APPEARS indifferent as regards the things that are tranquilly side by side. As thus posited for itself, it is time.’ BTMR §82
Because the restlessness with which spirit develops in bringing itself to its concept is the negation of a negation, it accords with spirit, as it actualizes itself, to fall ‘into time’ as the immediate negation of a negation. For ‘time is the concept itself, which is there [da ist] and which represents itself to the consciousness as an empty intuition; because of this, spirit necessarily APPEARS in time, and it APPEARS in time as long as it does not grasp its pure concept – that is, as long as time is not annulled by it. Time is the pure Self-external, intuited, not grasped by the Self – the concept which is merely intuited.’ Thus by its very essence spirit necessarily APPEARS in time. ‘World-history is therefore, above all, the interpretation of spirit in time, just as in space the idea interprets itself as Nature.’ The ‘exclusion’ which belongs to the movement of development harbours in itself a relationship to not-Being. This is time, understood in terms of the “now” which gives itself airs. BTMR §82
We cannot as yet discuss whether Hegel’s Interpretation of time and spirit and the connection between them is correct and rests on foundations which are ontologically primordial. But the very fact that a formaldialectical ‘construction’ of this connection can be ventured at all, makes manifest that these are primordially akin. Hegel’s ‘construction’ was prompted by his arduous struggle to conceive the ‘concretion’ of the spirit. He makes this known in the following sentence from the concluding chapter of his Phenomenology of the Spirit: ‘Thus time APPEARS as the very fate and necessity which spirit has when it is not in itself complete: the necessity of its giving self-consciousness a richer share in consciousness, of its setting in motion the immediacy of the “in-itself” (the form in which substance is in consciousness), or, conversely, of its realizing and making manifest the “in-itself “ taken as the inward (and this is what first is inward) – that is, of vindicating it for its certainty of itself.’ BTMR §82
Like every ontological analysis, the ontological Interpretation of Dasein as care, with whatever we may gain from such an Interpretation, lies far from what is accessible to the pre-ontological understanding of Being or even to our ontical acquaintance with entities. It’is not surprising that when the common understanding has regard to that with which it has only ontical familiarity, that which is known ontologically seems rather strange to it. In spite of this, even the ontical approach with which we have tried to Interpret Dasein ontologically as care, may APPEAR farfetched and theoretically contrived, to say nothing of the act of violence one might discern in our setting aside the confirmed traditional definition of “man”. Accordingly our existential Interpretation of Dasein as care requires pre-ontological confirmation. This lies in demonstrating that no sooner has Dasein expressed anything about itself to itself, than it has already interpreted itself as care (cura), even though it has done so only pre-ontologically. [SZ:183] BTMR §39
‘Ranke is a great ocularist, for whom things that have vanished can never become actualities … Ranke’s whole tribe also provides the explanation for the way the material of history has been restricted to the political. Only the political is dramatic’ (p. 60). ‘The modifications which the course of time has brought APPEAR unessential to me, and I should like to appraise this very differently. For instance, I regard the so-called Historical school as a mere sidestream within the same river-bed, and as representing only one branch of an old and thoroughgoing opposition. The name is somewhat deceptive. That school was by no means a Historical one (italicized by the author), but an antiquarian one, construing things aesthetically, while the great dominating activity was one of mechanical construction. Hence what it contributed methodologically – to the method of rationality – was only a general feeling’ (pp. 68 f.). BTMR §77
‘The genuine Philologus – he conceives of History as a cabinet of antiquities. Where nothing is palpable – whither one has been guided only by a living psychical transposition – these gentlemen never come. At heart they are natural scientists, and they become sceptics all the more because experimentation is lacking. We must keep wholly aloof from all such rubbish, for instance, as how often Plato was in Magna Graecia or Syracuse. On this nothing vital depends. This superficial affectation which I have seen through critically, winds up at last with a big question-mark and is put to shame by the great Realities of Homer, Plato, and the New Testament. Everything that is actually Real becomes a mere phantom when one considers it as a “Thing in itself” – when it does not get Experienced’ (p. 61). ‘These “scientists” stand over against the powers of the times like the over-refined French society of the revolutionary period. Here as there, formalism, the cult of the form; the defining of relationship is the last word in wisdom. Naturally, thought which runs in this direction has its own history, which, I suppose, is still unwritten. The groundlessness of such thinking and of any belief in it (and such thinking, epistemologically considered, is a metaphysical attitude) is a Historical product’ (p. 39). ‘It seems to me that the ground-swells evoked by the principle of eccentricity, which led to a new era more than four hundred years ago, have become exceedingly broad and flat; that our knowledge has progressed to the point of cancelling itself out; that man has withdrawn so far from himself that he no longer sees himself at all. The “modern man” – that is to say, the post-Renaissance man – is ready for burial’ (p. 83). On the other hand, “All History that is truly alive and not just reflecting a tinge of life, is a critique’ (p. 19). ‘But historical knowledge is, for the best [SZ:401] part, knowledge of the hidden sources’ (p. 109). ‘With history, what makes a spectacle and catches the eye is not the main thing. The nerves are invisible, just as the essentials in general are invisible. While it is said that “if you were quiet, you would be strong”, the variant is also true that “if you are quiet, you will perceive – that is, understand”’ (p. 26). ‘And then I enjoy the quietude of soliloquizing and communing with the spirit of history. This spirit is one who did not APPEAR to Faust in his study, or to Master Goethe either. But they would have felt no alarm in making way for him, however grave and compelling such an apparition might be. For he is brotherly, akin to us in another and deeper sense than are the denizens of bush and field. These exertions are like Jacob’s wrestling – a sure gain for the wrestler himself. Indeed this is what matters first of all’ (p. 133). BTMR §77
Our existential analytic of Dasein, on the contrary, starts with the ‘concretion’ of factically thrown existence itself in order to unveil temporality as that which primordially makes such existence possible. ‘Spirit’ does not first fall into time, but it exists as the primordial temporalizing of temporality. Temporality temporalizes world-time, within the horizon of which ‘history’ can ‘APPEAR’ as historizing within-time. ‘Spirit’ does not fall into’ time; but ‘factical existence ‘falls’ as falling from primordial, authentic temporality. This ‘falling’ [“Fallen”], however, has itself its existential possibility in a mode of its temporalizing – a mode which belongs to temporality. [SZ:436] BTMR §82
The distinction between the Being of existing Dasein and the Being of entities, such as Reality, which do not have the character of Dasein, may APPEAR very illuminating; but it is still only the point of departure for the ontological problematic; it is nothing with which philosophy may tranquillize itself. It has long been known that ancient ontology works with ‘Thing-concepts’ and that there is a danger of ‘reifying consciousness’. But what does this “reifying” signify? Where does it arise? Why does Being get ‘conceived’ ‘proximally’ in terms of the present-at-hand and not in terms of the ready-to-hand, which indeed lies closer to us? Why does this reifying always keep coming back to exercise its dominion? What positive structure does the Being of ‘consciousness’ have, if reification remains inappropriate to it? Is the ‘distinction’ between ‘consciousness’ and ‘Thing’ sufficient for tackling the ontological problematic in a primordial manner? Do the answers to these questions lie along our way? And can we even seek the answer as long as the question of the meaning of Being remains unformulated and unclarified? [SZ:437] BTMR §83