Dasein - Monoskop

HEIDEGGER'S ONTOLOGY AND LANGUAGE AS THE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM 177 SI
out their Being, presence-at-hand, readiness-to-hand, and existence.
Heidegger's point is that Husserl's eidetic reduction is based on the
presupposition that Being is inessential, a presupposition that remains
unjustified and ultimately unjustifiable:
From the what [das Was] I never learn anything about the sense
and the manner of the that [das Daß] ... Merely looking at
the what-content means seeing the what as apprehended, given,
constituted. ... But above all, this conception of ideation as
disregard of real individuation lives in the belief that the what
of any entity is to be defined by disregarding its existence. But
if there were an entity whose what is precisely to be and nothing
but to be, then this ideative regard of such an entity would be
the most fundamental of misunderstandings. 165
Heidegger claims here that Husserl's lack of appreciation for existence
("that") is due to Husserl's implicit assumption according
to which Being means nothing but presence-at-hand (being "apprehended,
given, constituted"). Husserl can treat Being as inessential,
since for him Being means 'being-posited' by some subject or other,
at some time or other. While meaning-structures and their interconnections
are necessary, the existence of the transcendent world and
the (empirical) subject are merely contingent for Husserl. Heidegger's
counterargument is this: if there were a being whose essence is
not to be posited and positable by the subject, then this being and
its essence would lie outside of the scope of Husserl's methodological
tools. For Heidegger this being is the subject itself, Dasein as Beingin-the-world.
It is of the very essence of Dasein and its world not
to be posited but rather to precede all position-taking. Therefore,
in order to clarify the essence of Dasein and its worldlihood, the
phenomenologist must analyze Dasein non-reductively and without
losing sight of Dasein's worldboundedness.
Now Heidegger's main point concerning a non-reductive inquiry
into Being is that such an investigation into Being must inevitably
presuppose an antecendent understanding of Being. There is no
possibility of placing oneself in a position in which one would not
have to make (implicit) use of this category, for it is involved and
presupposed in all acts of relating to beings, be they ideal, real, or