Author: Matthew Sanderson
Category: Phenomenology and Existentialism, Metaphysics, Historical Philosophy
Word Count: 997
While witnessing the birth of a child, or a flower newly in bloom in early spring, you might begin to reflect on existence in general and feel amazed by the simple mind-blowing fact that anything exists—that there is something (not anything in particular, but anything at all) rather than nothing.
In doing so, you are experiencing wonder at what Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) calls Being. This essay summarizes Heidegger’s notion of Being.[1]
1. Being and Beings
Consider the device on which you’re (perhaps) reading this essay. Being refers not to what the device is—e.g., a computer or smartphone—but rather to the simple fact that it is, that it exists.[2] Being is the basic fact or “that-ness” of existence overall.[3]
Whereas beings (e.g., devices) are particular entities that exist, Being is existence in general. As such, Being is what makes beings be or exist: Being is what makes there be something (i.e., some being or beings) rather than nothing.[4]
However, Being is not a being (i.e., an entity or thing).[5] Thus, we should not think of Being as a God who causes something to exist.[6] Even thinking of Being as what encompasses all beings still reduces it to a being: a being that includes all beings.[7] Being is “larger” or more general than any one being or even all beings: Being is existence as a whole.[8] Being is the existence or “that-ness” which all beings have in common.
Nonetheless, while Being is not the same as beings, Being is also not a blank space or void filled by beings. There is no free-floating Being independent of beings. Instead, Being is always the Being of beings: Being always comes “attached” to beings, so to speak.[9] Being and beings then always co-exist.[10]
While Being is shared by all beings, Being is not therefore a trait (e.g., greenness, etc.) of beings.[11] Instead, Being is what gives existence to beings so that they can possess traits.
Likewise, for Heidegger, material and immaterial are properties only of beings, and so Being possesses neither. Thus, Being is not a spiritual reality or limited to physical existence observable through sense perception.[12]
However, while not a physically existing thing, Being is also not just an idea or concept inside the human mind. Thus, Being is not the “umbrella” concept encompassing all beings that we arrive at by generalizing the concept of existence from particular entities that exist.[13]
Instead, Being is mind-independently real.[14] Indeed, Being is arguably the most fundamental dimension of reality, insofar as it is what enables everything to exist.[15]
2. Being and Presence
For Heidegger, to be or to exist (i.e., to be a being with Being) means to be present. For instance, your device’s existence (i.e., its Being) is found in that it is present before you. Thus, overall, Being (i.e., the simple fact or “that-ness” of existence in general) is presence.[16]
More specifically, because Heidegger thinks of Being as a continual event that happens in time, Being is a dynamic movement: Being is the presence-ing of beings.[17]
Notice your device again: as a being, it is now presence-ing to your awareness.[18] Not that your device is moving or doing anything to make itself present. Rather, your device is presence-ing in the simple sense that its existence—i.e., its Being—is appearing or becoming revealed to you over time. Being is that event of presence-ing.[19]
Because Being is not a being, it is not a cause (like a God) behind presence-ing: rather, Being is itself the movement of presence-ing.[20]
In this way, Being is a verb (as indicated by the “ing” at the end of the word) more than a noun, a happening rather than a thing (i.e., a being): Being is Be-ing,[21] i.e., the perpetual activity of beings coming into presence before an awareness.[22]
Something (i.e., some being) is always presence-ing to you: this essay, the device you’re maybe reading it on, the snack you’re enjoying while reading—something is constantly becoming present to your awareness.[23] This ongoing presence-ing (i.e., Being) is why there is something rather than nothing: presence is the “that-ness” of existence.[24]
3. Being and Concealing
As an event, Being unfolds across time. Being is then always temporal; presence-ing always occurs in time.[25] For instance, the presence-ing (i.e., the Being) of your device takes time: the whole device doesn’t appear instantaneously.[26]
Thus, because Being only appears over time, it never completely appears all at once. Instead, Being is always simultaneously both revealing (i.e., showing) and concealing (i.e., hiding) itself.[27] It’s the nature of presence-ing that, if something becomes present, then something else—some other being, perspective, etc.—is concurrently concealed or hidden (i.e., is not present).[28]
For instance, something presence-ing means other beings are hidden from view: your device appearing before you means other things around you are concealed. Or, to use another example, something presence-ing from one angle prevents us from seeing it from other perspectives: the appearing of the front of your device means the back of the device remains hidden.[29]
That Being always partially “hides” means we can never experience all of Being, and therefore it is mysterious.[30]
4. Conclusion
Heidegger thought it is important to contemplate Being because doing so makes us human.[31] However, Heidegger’s notion of Being can seem so abstract and vague that you might have trouble wrapping your mind around it.
But this is likely because we are usually too focused on beings—e.g., people, devices, laundry, etc.—to attend to or even notice Being in general.[32] Furthermore, if Heidegger’s notion of Being is difficult to comprehend, it’s perhaps not because Being is so unusual, but rather because it’s so ordinary, common, familiar, and close to us.[33] Indeed, Being is us: it is the basic fact or “that-ness” of all of existence, ourselves included.[34] Nothing could be nearer to us than Being, and that is perhaps why it can be so easy to overlook.[35], [36]
Notes
[1] It would be an understatement to say that Being was the major preoccupation—some would argue obsession—of Heidegger’s philosophy. In fact, there is perhaps no other philosopher who more thoroughly identified himself with a single theme than Heidegger did with the topic of Being. Heidegger (1968: p. 50) writes that “Every thinker thinks only one thought.” Being was definitely Heidegger’s one main thought.
Heidegger’s philosophy is often divided into early and later periods based on the view (which Heidegger himself sometimes seemed to suggest) that his thinking underwent a significant shift between the two periods. (When exactly to draw the line between the periods is a matter of much scholarly debate, though Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time (1962), is most often viewed as an early work. There is almost a lot of debate about what specifically are the major differences in Heidegger’s thought between the two periods.) However, this essay attempts to summarize Heidegger’s concept of Being as it is arguably defined throughout all of his writings, focusing on ideas that can be considered common to both the early and later periods. Nonetheless, the first half of the essay does draw more from the early period and the second half more from the later Heidegger. For more on the issue of early vs. later periods in Heidegger’s philosophy, see Polt (1999.)
[2] Heidegger (1962: p. 25) writes that all humans have a “vague average understanding of Being.” For instance, you already have a basic understanding of Being just in thinking about your device: you understand that “my device exists” or “my device is a smartphone.” Your use of the words “exists” and “is” implies an understanding of existence and is-ness, i.e., Being. And yet what is Being itself? While you have an implicit understanding of Being, it can be difficult to formulate that understanding in an explicit theory. Doing so was arguably Heidegger’s main task as a philosopher.
[3] Heidegger (1962: p. 26) writes, “Being lies in the fact that something is.” Heidegger (1998: p. 234) says that “the wonder of all wonders” is “that beings are” and writes (1994: p. 169) that “the miracle of beings” is “that they are.” Heidegger does also think of Being as the way in which beings exist, including humanity. For instance, the Being of humanity, or the way in which we exist, is that we are being-towards-death: we live with an awareness of our mortality. Heidegger thus challenges the traditional distinction between what he calls “what-Being” (i.e., what something is) and “that-Being” (i.e., the fact that something is.) For example, see Heidegger (1982: pp. 7-121). However, for those first learning about Heidegger’s philosophy, focusing on Being as “that-Being” is arguably the most accessible entry point.
[4] Polt (1999: p. 2) points out that Heidegger ended his essay “What is Metaphysics?” and began his lecture course Introduction to Metaphysics with the traditional philosophical question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Heidegger’s notion of Being is intended as an answer to that question, insofar as Being is that which determines beings as beings and thus makes there be something (i.e., some being or beings) rather than nothing. However, because Being is not a being, Being should not be thought of as a God or separate being that causes something (rather than nothing) to exist. Instead, Being is itself existence or existing-ness (i.e., being-ness) rather than a distinct cause behind existence. For another, theistic perspective on why there is something rather than nothing, see Cosmological Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf.
[5] Heidegger (1962: p. 26) writes that “the Being of entities ‘is’ not itself an entity [i.e., a being].” Thus, Being is not a God, person, agent, ground, cause, etc. Heidegger sometimes refers to the difference between Being and beings (i.e., entities) as “the ontological difference.” For example, see Heidegger (1982: pp. 17 and 319). According to Heidegger, the mistake of traditional metaphysics was thinking of Being as a being—for instance, as God, substance, the thing-in-itself, spirit, will to power, and so on.
[6] Heidegger (1993: p. 234) writes, “‘Being’ – that is not God and not a cosmic ground.”
[7] While Being is the shared existence of all beings, Being is not the biggest being (because it is not a being at all) in which all particular beings participate. Heidegger (1993: p. 242) insists that Being is not “something that encompasses being, or…a creation of the infinite being, or…the product of a finite subject.”
[8] Heidegger (1993: p. 240) writes that “Being [is] essentially broader than all beings.”
[9] Heidegger (1962: p. 29) writes that “Being is always the Being of an entity [i.e., a being or beings].” There is no Being without beings that have Being. Because Being is shared by all beings, and therefore it also always co-exists with beings, we can say that Being is both one (i.e., the one Being-ness of all beings) and many (i.e., the many beings possessing Being.)
[10] Being is not a separate reality independent of beings. Thus, Being should not be understood as the first cause of all beings. Being is not the cause of beings because causes are beings (e.g., God, etc.) and Being is not a being. Also, Being does not technically exist before beings. Instead, in the beginning, so to speak, there was both Being and beings.
[11] Heidegger (1993: p. 260) writes that “Being [is not] any existing quality that allows itself to be fixed among beings.”
[12] While it is perhaps not clear whether Heidegger recognizes the existence of supernatural entities (Heidegger occasionally speaks of “the gods,” but their metaphysical status is arguably left ambiguous), Heidegger does think Being is metaphysically prior to the material vs. immaterial distinction, in the sense that he thinks applying this distinction to Being reduces Being to a being, since only beings can have properties such as mental, physical, etc.
[13] Heidegger (1962: p. 22) writes that the “‘universality’ of ’Being’ is not that of a class or genus. The term ‘Being’ does not define that realm of entities…conceptually according to genus and species.”
[14] While Being is mind-independent, in the sense, for instance, that it’s not just an idea inside the human mind or dependent on human perception for its existence, Heidegger (1998: p. 310) does think Being needs human awareness in order to appear. Nonetheless, Heidegger (1993: p. 240) clarifies that his view is not that “Being is the product of man.”
[15] Heidegger (1993: p. 238) even says that only Being truly exists, and therefore we should only use the word “is” when referring to Being; beings, on the other hand, can’t be said to exist except by virtue of Being giving them existence, and therefore we perhaps shouldn’t say a being “is” or exists, at least not when considered on its own, i.e., independent of Being.
[16] For examples of Heidegger identifying Being as presence, see Heidegger (1968: p. 235) and (1972: p. 2). Heidegger (1969: pp. 31-2) writes, “Let us think of Being according to its original meaning, as presence.” Saying Heidegger defines Being as presence is not at all to suggest that he identifies Being with the present-at-hand rather than the ready-to-hand (referring here to the important distinction he draws in Being and Time (1962)). Instead, the present-at-hand and ready-to-hand should be understood as two types of presence, as Heidegger considered them both to be aspects or modalities of Being, so to speak.
[17] For an example of Heidegger identifying Being as presence-ing or presencing, see Heidegger (1998: p. 308).
[18] For Heidegger, humans are the only beings who are aware of Being. Thus, Heidegger says humans are a “clearing” for Being: just as a clearing in a forest is an open space that allows light to appear, human awareness is an open space that allows Being to come into presence. (Note that if Being becomes present in the clearing, then really what comes to presence is presence-ing itself.) In other words, we are the beings to whom Being becomes present; we are the presented-to of Being. In this way, Being needs and relies on humans in order to show itself: without humans, Being (although metaphysically mind-independent) does not come into presence, because it would then have no one to whom to present itself, so to speak (remembering that Being is not a being and therefore it lacks the agency to literally choose to present itself). For Heidegger’s notion of humanity as the clearing for Being, see Heidegger (1962: p. 265 and 1993: p. 228). For Heidegger’s view that only humans are aware of Being, and that Being only appears to humans, see Heidegger (1993: pp. 228-229 and 231; 1962: p. 228). Heidegger (1998: p. 310) writes that Being does not stand “somewhere on its own” independent of humanity but instead needs the human being in order to become present. Heidegger (1969: pp. 31-2) writes, “Being is present to man neither incidentally nor only on rare occasions. Being is present and abides only as it concerns man through the claim it makes on him. For it is man, open towards Being, who alone lets Being arrive as presence.”
[19] Heidegger (1998: p. 302) refers to Being as the “ereignis” or event of presencing.
[20] Heidegger (1962: pp. 4-5) writes that Being is “that which determines beings as beings.” As the event of presence-ing, Being is what gives beings (i.e., presences) their Being or makes them become present. However, because Being is not a being, it is not separable from the presence-ing of presences (i.e., beings), like a distinct being (such as a God) that causes presence-ing. Instead, Being is itself the presence-ing of beings (i.e., presences). Just as when we say “it is raining,” only the rain is raining (i.e., there is no separate being doing the raining), because Being is not a being, there is no being doing the presence-ing of beings. Instead, Being is Be-ing, that is, making beings be or present themselves; Being is itself the action of presence-ing. But Being is an action that is its own actor; there is no doer behind the doing of Being. Being is self-giving of presence-ing: presence-ing is Being itself with no further cause behind it. Thus, Heidegger (1993: p. 238) writes, “The self-giving into the open, along with the open region itself, is Being itself.” Being is self-giving in the sense that Being itself gives the event of presence-ing (i.e., “the open”) rather than something behind it causing presence-ing.
[21] Braver (2014: p. 13) points out that Heidegger encouraged one of his English translators to write Being as Be-ing in order to highlight its dynamism.
[22] When something becomes present in front of you, the entire happening (i.e., the presence becoming present to your awareness) is a presence-ing, and that movement of presence-ing is Being. In the space and relationship between a presence (i.e., a being) and a human awareness (i.e., a presented-to), there is the event of presence-ing. Being is that event. Ordinarily, we only notice the presence (i.e., the being or beings), but it’s also possible to attend to the movement of presence-ing between the presence and the presented-to.
Heidegger’s insistence that Being needs human awareness in order to appear or come to presence might suggest there is an element of idealism in his philosophy. See Richardson (2012) for a discussion of this topic. For more about idealism in general, see Idealism Pt. 1: Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism by Addison Ellis and Idealism Pt. 2: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism by Addison Ellis.
[23] The reader might object that beings don’t present themselves, but rather we make them present through our human choices and actions: by picking them up, looking them over, paying attention to them, and so on. However, Heidegger insisted across all his philosophy that humans are not the masters of presence-ing. Instead, presence-ing happens with humans in cooperation with presences (i.e., beings): Being is the event or relationship of presence-ing between 1) the beings that come into presence and 2) human awareness or the presented-to. As Heidegger (1969: pp. 31-2) writes, “becoming present needs the openness of a clearing, and by this need remains appropriated to human being. This does not at all mean that Being is posited first and only by man…Man and Being are appropriated to each other. They belong to each other.” Heidegger (1993: p. 234) writes that “Man does not decide whether and how beings appear,…come forward into the clearing of Being, come to presence and depart.”
[24] Heidegger sometimes uses the word “ereignis,” translated as “event of appropriation,” to characterize the dynamic movement of Being. Being is an event of appropriation in the sense of appropriating—i.e., seizing hold of or presence-ing before—human awareness. For a helpful discussion of Heidegger’s notion of ereignis, see Polt (1999: pp. 143-148).
[25] Heidegger (1962: pp. 39-40) writes that Being is essentially temporal. Indeed, his masterpiece is called Being and Time, and Heidegger always stressed that the key word in the title is “and” (i.e., because Being and time always go together.) Notice that while Being is in a sense the absolute (since it gives existence to everything), and therefore can perhaps be understood as permanent, infinite, eternal, and so on, Being is also finite and impermanent in the sense that it reveals itself temporally. Said differently, Being might be considered changeless, and yet as temporal it is also constantly changing.
[26] As temporal, Being is historical, which means it shows up in different ways in different time periods. For a helpful discussion of how Being is historical for Heidegger, see Braver (2014: pp. 140-156). For instance, Heidegger thinks in our current world Being reveals itself as what he calls technology, which for Heidegger refers to the way Being appears today rather than certain types of equipment: namely, nearly everything (e.g., your device, etc.) appears as a resource, forcefully extracted from nature, standing in reserve to be used towards achieving our goals in the most efficient ways possible. Heidegger says that, in our age of technology, nearly everything is “enframed” as “standing-reserve,” i.e., as resources or tools to be exploited for efficiency. Consider, for example, that even employees (i.e., people) are now “enframed” as “human resources,” and organizations now commonly say that “people are our most valuable resource.” Thus, Heidegger says that the age of technology turns everything, including humans, into a giant gas station (note that gasoline is a perfect example of a resource that is kept on “standing-reserve” for use in vehicles.) For Heidegger’s views on technology, see Heidegger (1993: pp. 307-342).
[27] Heidegger (1993: p. 249) talks about Being as revealing-concealing. Heidegger (1994: p. 178) writes that Being “withdraws and conceals itself…It shows itself and withdraws at the same time.” There are arguably few texts of Heidegger’s writing where he does not stress the revealing-concealing nature and structure of Being.
[28] Notice that, for Heidegger, presence implies absence: for something to be present means something else is absent. Thus, if Being is presence, it is also at the same time absence or non-presence.
[29] Another example is that, as Being currently reveals itself in our historical era as technology, it simultaneously conceals other, non-technological ways of presence-ing: for instance, where Being reveals itself as things which are superior in value precisely for not being technological or useful, for being instead intrinsically or inherently valuable, such as perhaps works of art, sacred places and objects, etc.
[30] Heidegger (1993: p. 236) writes that Being always “remains mysterious.” That we can never experience the totality of Being means that it is always partly unknown and unknowable, and hence mysterious.
[31] See Heidegger’s essay “Letter on Humanism” (1993: pp. 213-266) for a prime example of his insistence that contemplating Being is what makes us human.
[32] Heidegger (1993: p. 235) says we often end up forgetting about Being “in favor of the pressing throng of beings.” Heidegger (1993: p. 234) writes that “Man at first clings always and only to beings.” Heidegger (1994: p. 183) writes, “What, in an exceptional and unique sense, conceals itself in the domain of open beings is Being. We experience this in the most prosaic and yet most enigmatic event, namely that beings most immediately press upon us and impose themselves and that only beings seem to be.” Further connecting the unnoticed nature of Being to its revealing/concealing nature, Heidegger (2002: p. 197) writes, “It would lie then in the essence of Being itself that Being remains unthought because it removes [i.e., conceals] itself.”
[33] Heidegger (1993: p. 263) writes, “What is strange in the thinking of Being is its simplicity. Precisely this keeps us from it.” Heidegger (1994: p. 159) writes that “on account of its obviousness, Being is something forgotten.” Heidegger (1962: p. 36) writes that what is most familiar is, for that very reason, the most difficult to grasp. Heidegger (1993: p. 234) writes that “Being is farther than all beings and is yet nearer to man than every being, be it a rock, a beast, a work of art, a machine, be it an angel or God. Being is the nearest. Yet the near remains farthest from man.” Also (1993: p. 235), “But nearer than the nearest and at the same time for ordinary thinking farther than the farthest is nearness itself: the truth of Being.”
[34] Heidegger (1968: p. 98) writes, “Prior to all else it [i.e., Being] stands before us, only we do not see it because we stand within it.” Being is like a painting you can’t see well because you are standing too close to it; only, in the case of Being, it’s because you are the painting or you exist within it. Like how the eye can’t see itself, sometimes the most difficult things to see are those which are closest to us.
[35] Another reason it is so easy to overlook Being is that, as the event of presence-ing, it is like the visual field which makes seeing possible and yet which we overlook by focusing on the seen object, where our focus on the illuminated object blinds us (ironically) to the light (i.e., presence-ing) itself. As Heidegger (1994: pp. 127-8) writes, “In order to bring into view what resides in a visual field, the visual field itself must precisely light up first, so that it might illuminate what resides within it; however, it cannot and may not be seen explicitly. The field of view…must in a certain sense be over-looked.”
[36] In addition to the difficulty involved in comprehending Heidegger’s ideas, his philosophy is controversial primarily due to his early involvement in the Nazi party of Germany which he never publicly denounced and for which he never apologized. This involvement raises difficult questions about the relationship between Heidegger’s philosophy and Nazi politics which scholars continue to debate to this day: for instance, whether Heidegger’s philosophy, intentionally or unintentionally, provides theoretical support for the Nazi agenda; whether Heidegger’s philosophy is representative of the Nazi worldview; whether Heidegger’s philosophy can be interpreted and valued independent of his personal involvement with the Nazi party; and so forth. For a helpful summary of this controversy, see Polt (1999). How to regard Heidegger’s Nazi sympathies is an example of a larger question regarding how we should view and respond to morally flawed philosophers and philosophies in the history of philosophy. For discussion of this, see Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies by Victor Fabian Abundez-Guerra and Nathan Nobis.
References
Braver, Lee. (2014). Heidegger: Thinking of Being. Polity Press.
Heidegger, Martin. (1982). The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. (1993). Basic Writings. HarperCollins Publishers.
Heidegger, Martin. (1962). Being and Time. Harper and Row.
Heidegger, Martin, (1969). Identity and Difference. Harper Torchbooks.
Heidegger, Martin. (2002). Off the Beaten Track. Cambridge University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. (1972). On Time and Being. Harper and Row.
Heidegger, Martin. (1998). Pathmarks. Cambridge University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. (1968). What is Called Thinking? Harper and Row.
Polt, Richard. (1999). Heidegger: An Introduction. Cornell University Press.
Richardson, John. (2012). Heidegger. Routledge.
Related Essays
Martin Heidegger on Technology by Matthew Sanderson
Phenomenology: Describing Experiences From a First-Person Perspective by Matthew Sanderson
Cosmological Arguments for the Existence of God by Thomas Metcalf
Existentialism by Addison Ellis
Idealism Pt. 1: Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism by Addison Ellis
Idealism Pt. 2: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism by Addison Ellis
Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies by Victor Fabian Abundez-Guerra and Nathan Nobis
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About the Author
Matthew Sanderson is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at West Shore Community College in Scottville, Michigan. He specializes in philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and 19th and 20th-century continental philosophy. westshore.edu/staff/sanderson-dr-matthew/
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