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Metaphysics of Principle of Reason [170-172]

between primordial transcendence and the understandingof- being. They must in the end be one and the same.

We saw earlier (section a) that being-true belongs to being-by something on hand and that the "discovery" of what is on hand is a basic form of the comportments in which we deal with things. The essence of truth as a whole is thus only to be clarified as the problem of transcendence as such.


§ 10. The problem of transcendence and the problem of Being and Time


The understanding-of-being forms the basic problem of metaphysics as such. What does "being" mean? This i s quite simply the fundamental question of philosophy. We are not here about to present the formulation of the problem and its "retrieval" in Being and Time. We wish instead to make an external presentation of its guiding principles and thereby pin down the "problem of transcendence."

a) First, a general description. Fundamental ontology, as the analysis of the existence of Dasein, constitutes the approach to the problem. The analysis proceeds solely with the purpose of a fundamental ontology; the point of departure, execution, limit, and mode of concretizing certain phenomena are governed by this purpose. The understanding-of-being is to be brought to light by way of Dasein's mode of being, which is primarily existence. The constitution of Dasein's being is such that the intrinsic possibility of the understanding-of-being, which belongs essentially to Dasein, becomes demonstrable. The issue is therefore neither one of anthropology nor of ethics but of this being in its being as such, and thus one of a preparatory analysis concern i n g it; the metaphysics of Dasein itself is not yet the central focus.

b) the guiding principles:

1. The term "man" was not used for that being which is the theme of the analysis. Instead, the neutral term Dasein was chosen. By this we designate the being for which its own proper mode of being in a definite sense is not indifferent.

2. The peculiar neutrality of the term "Dasein" is essential, because the interpretation of this being must be carried out prior to every factual concretion. This neutrality also indicates that Dasein is neither of the two sexes. But here sexlessness is not the indifference of an empty void, the weak negativity of an indifferent ontic nothing. In its neutrality Dasein is not the indifferent no


The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (GA 26) by Martin Heidegger