1. Heidegger's lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, delivered on the 100th anniversary of Hegel's death, has been translated and published in English. However, this work will not be the main point of comparison, mainly because, after re-reading the work, I was struck by how inconsistent some of Heidegger's claims are with regard to the texts written by Hegel. The lectures are essentially Heidegger propounding his own view of what a phenomenology, dominated by "logos" and of the "determination of the meaning of being as infinity," might look like, and why one might take this seriously. To take this as the main point of comparison would hardly be doing justice to either Hegel or Heidegger. Without in any way raising or diminishing the value of these lecture, therefore, I will instead take Being and Time as my chief point of comparison. I wish I could also incorporate the subsequent works - especially Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics and On the Basic Problems of Phenomenology - but due to my still immature understanding of these texts, I will let this idea stay until another occasion.
2. The method of Being and Time is phenomenology, but phenomenology understood in Heidegger's technical sense, which is to grasp being as it shows itself in its being. In other words, phenomenology finds a being, or a presence, and then inquires into how this being came into being, or how it was presented. Here, one already sees a doubling of being, first as "a" being, or presence, and then "being," the background movement of presentation of beings. Heidegger will always move at this two-level or two-term relation. In this sense, if this method were to find its logical counterpart in Hegel, it would be called reflection.
3. The first task of phenomenology is to find an entrance into being through and out of beings. This task is what Heidegger calls "formal indication." Not every being allows the phenomenologist to penetrate into its background movement of presentation. A bottle, for example, would not allow one to see how it came into presence. Merely observing the bottle in all its details and describing its properties and its relation to other beings will only multiply the instances of the kind of being of the bottle, namely an objective presence. This way of taking a static, present object as the analogue of being is criticized and rejected by Heidegger again and again. Hegel is also in agreement with the crudeness of this method, for it is none other than what Hegel calls "picture-thinking" or "representation." But then, the question returns, which being is the being from which the presentation of beings may come into view? Heidegger's answer is, Dasein.
I would like to pause here and point out another possible parallel with Hegel. Formal indication, the task of indicating a being whose description can allow us to enter into being as such, is what Hegel would call a syllogism or an inference, elaborated in the "Doctrine of the Concept." In the language of Hegel's Logic, formal indication would start with the singular as the immediate, and will try and derive the universal. To appearance, the passage from the singular to the universal is direct, sudden. To take Heidegger's case here, "a being is the being of beings" would be just such an inference. This transition from "a being" to "being" as such is what takes place with formal indication. What justifies this transition, in Heidegger's case, is the phenomenon, or the thing itself. Dasein, as the being for whom being is a question, or the being whose being is to ask the question of the meaning of being, is, when understood as such, already a universal, being. To be more precise, at first Dasein was understood only as one being among others, a singular. Now it is a singular universality, a point of entrance into the background of all beings, or, as Heidegger is fond of saying, "beings as a whole." But this "phenomenon" which justifies this transition, this is a particular. The particular vanishes immediately, but it is nonetheless a necessary middle term for the transition from the singular to the universal. Of course, at the level of appearance, the particular comes after the universal. A particular, as a "one among many of its kind," has as its presupposition the universality of "its kind." But likewise, the singular cannot pass into the universal without letting its infinite self-referential negativity dissolve. This dissolution is precisely the singular's becoming "one among many" as opposed to merely staying as "this and nothing else (i.e. infinite negativity.)" Formal indication, like the first figure of the syllogism, requires this vanishing middle term.
If the above interpretation is plausible, then what I have previously called reflection in Heidegger's two-term method is in fact to be called a syllogism. In addition to immediate being and "being" as such, a third, vanishing middle term, what Heidegger calls the "phenomenon," also enters the method. Therefore, phenomenology in general, and formal indication in particular, is a syllogism, and it has reflection, which Hegel also calls "essence," as its product. In other words, out of a three-term movement, a two-term relation will hopefully be fixed as a determinate thought.
4. With the selection of Dasein as the point of departure of phenomenology, Heidegger begins his description of the being of beings. I will assume that the reader is here familiar with the basic ideas expressed in Division I. The result of Divison I is that the being-in-the-world is care. Division II aims to describe the temporality of care. I think that this is where the real originality of Heidegger shines forth. But, in as much as I would like to refer to the content of Division II as the primary point of comparison, this is inappropriate given that time is never the explicit topic in Hegel's Science of Logic. On the other hand, Division I is, as it were, a work of logic, for here Dasein is still treated a-temporally, or as a phenomenon which is not molded yet with temporality. To put it in another way, Division I prepares the ground for the phenomenon of temporality described in Division II. Given this logical character, in terms of content I will refer to Division I as the point of comparison, and will reserve Division II as a part to be compared with Hegel's Philosophy of Nature.
5. Division I lays out the "existentials" of Dasein. Dasein becomes unintelligible without a world, and this world is a world in which beings can show themselves. In this sense, "world" is just another name for "being," the background movement of the presentation of beings. Now it turns out that world contains three components: attunement, falling-prey, and understanding. In Division II, these components get explicitly qualified as being either "authentic" (i.e. in the sense of taking their negativity into account) or "inauthentic" (i.e. in the sense of being presented as something already lying around, as objective presences to be taken up.)
Personally, Heidegger's terminology seems a little tasteless and misleading. He speaks of "falling prey," "arresting," "investigating," "invading," as well as "idle talk," "average," "inauthentic," and "vulgar." These terms blind the reader to no small extent to the pure, neutral claims which they aim to make. In stead of "falling prey," I will call this component of the world "immersion." Also, instead of "understanding," which is meant to express one's grasp of future possibilities, I would like to use the term "anticipation," for "understanding" is very misleading in the present context. The rest I will for the time being bracket, put them aside, for only the "authentic" Dasein is interesting, since it is simply richer than the "inauthentic" one. So: attunement, immersion, and anticipation. These three components find their unity in "for-the-sake-of," which amounts to each person's vocation. This unity is care.
Care is a further unity of itself and its negation. Thus, corresponding to the three positive components of care, there are three negative components: out-of-tune-ness, detachment, and blindness. At first these three only appear as determinations external to the first three. For example, it might seem as if one can either be "attuned" or "out of tune," but not both at the same time. But this external separation exists only from the perspective of a person who already knows the norms of society and tries to think within their limits. What is more interesting is how hitherto abnormal things turn into norms. This transformation is effected when the positive and the negative take place in unison. For example, an attuned anticipation of a certain kind of immersion is at the same time an out-of-tune, blind detachment from the normal point of view and action. In the moment of thinking or doing something abnormal, one at the same time constitutes this abnormality as a new norm, an acceptable part of the world.
What is the upshot of this unity of care? I think that what Heidegger is getting at here is the productivity of being. A being, Dasein, is productive in the sense of being this unity of positivity and negativity.
5. Division I lays out the "existentials" of Dasein. Dasein becomes unintelligible without a world, and this world is a world in which beings can show themselves. In this sense, "world" is just another name for "being," the background movement of the presentation of beings. Now it turns out that world contains three components: attunement, falling-prey, and understanding. In Division II, these components get explicitly qualified as being either "authentic" (i.e. in the sense of taking their negativity into account) or "inauthentic" (i.e. in the sense of being presented as something already lying around, as objective presences to be taken up.)
Personally, Heidegger's terminology seems a little tasteless and misleading. He speaks of "falling prey," "arresting," "investigating," "invading," as well as "idle talk," "average," "inauthentic," and "vulgar." These terms blind the reader to no small extent to the pure, neutral claims which they aim to make. In stead of "falling prey," I will call this component of the world "immersion." Also, instead of "understanding," which is meant to express one's grasp of future possibilities, I would like to use the term "anticipation," for "understanding" is very misleading in the present context. The rest I will for the time being bracket, put them aside, for only the "authentic" Dasein is interesting, since it is simply richer than the "inauthentic" one. So: attunement, immersion, and anticipation. These three components find their unity in "for-the-sake-of," which amounts to each person's vocation. This unity is care.
Care is a further unity of itself and its negation. Thus, corresponding to the three positive components of care, there are three negative components: out-of-tune-ness, detachment, and blindness. At first these three only appear as determinations external to the first three. For example, it might seem as if one can either be "attuned" or "out of tune," but not both at the same time. But this external separation exists only from the perspective of a person who already knows the norms of society and tries to think within their limits. What is more interesting is how hitherto abnormal things turn into norms. This transformation is effected when the positive and the negative take place in unison. For example, an attuned anticipation of a certain kind of immersion is at the same time an out-of-tune, blind detachment from the normal point of view and action. In the moment of thinking or doing something abnormal, one at the same time constitutes this abnormality as a new norm, an acceptable part of the world.
What is the upshot of this unity of care? I think that what Heidegger is getting at here is the productivity of being. A being, Dasein, is productive in the sense of being this unity of positivity and negativity.
6. Here, it seems that there is one glaring omission in Heidegger's account of care, and that is the gap that separates productivity and repetition. In other words, in caring for the world without repeating the norms, one necessarily goes through a moment where one's thoughts and actions are purely and simply out of tune, blind, and detached. I would even claim that this state of deep uncertainty is not the exception, but a moment immanent in the way we live. As an example, just think about the system of employment and unemployment, or the ever-present possibility of massive disasters due to climate change or nuclear warfare/accidents. The way one often relates to these things fits perfectly the framework of Heideggerian phenomenology. For in the moments where one most intimately feels the importance of these possibilities, one tends to cover this importance up by talking about them as if they were abstract and remote things which do not really matter to how things are at present. But of course the truth is that these possibilities that immediately throw us into uncertainty are fundamental to the way we live today. Now this state of uncertainty is not relieved. It is not as if, in acting in the face of this uncertainty in an original way, one immediately constitutes a new norm which relieves this uncertainty. There are many cases, both on a small scale (such as personal relationships or individual purchasing decisions) and on a large scale (such as politics and business,) where one is forced to act on uncertainties while also failing to constitute any solid norms. This indefinite dimension of the world is not clearly described by Heidegger.
7. How would one supplement Heidegger's phenomenology on this point? The task here is to describe the state of uncertainty, and then to show how this uncertainty is relieved by its own resources. Hegel does precisely this in "Objectivity," chapter 3, "Teleology." Let me take a detour here through Hegel in order to return to and reconsider Heidegger's position.
8. Teleology is the transition from objectivity to idea. For this transition, subjectivity needs to be restored from within the logic of objectivity. The "Objectivity" section is divided into three chapters, "Mechanism," "Chemism," and "Teleology." (As a side-note, Hegel here interprets Kant's Third Antinomy in the first Critique as that between mechanism (necessity) and teleology (freedom) and then proceeds by claiming that the resolution of this Antinomy requires that one show which side - mechanism or teleology - is the higher truth. And for Hegel, teleology is the truth of mechanism - mechanism is not self-sufficient, but brings out the concept of purpose, or it re-organizes itself as purposive out of its own contradiction. More on this in Part II.) Mechanism begins with the "mechanical object," an object indifferent to its external determinations. But in order to be able to maintain itself as external to other influences, the object must negatively relate to other objects. This negative relation is itself a determination of the object. In this way, the mechanical object enters into the mechanical process, i.e. into a unity with other objects. The new object is this negative unity, the "law." The law is the totality of this process. But the mechanical object is still, on its positive side, indifferent and external to the law. Again, the object is lawful in so far as other objects negatively relate to it. In this negatively positing of its others, the object has produced a chemical object, i.e. a transitory object which cannot remain indifferent and external to its determinations.
9. Chemism is the implicit negative side of mechanism, and it is the truth of the latter precisely for this reason. Mechanism functions, and the positive mechanical phenomena appear as such without bringing its underlying chemical processes explicitly into view. However, the excess, or excrement, as it were, of this mechanical process constitutes a new process. This is the chemical process. (As a side note, this is a beautiful dodging of reductionism by Hegel, for he simultaneously preserves the autonomy of the mechanical process and accounts for the "emergence" of a higher process, by pointing out that the latter is through and through the negative side of the former.) As a concept negatively posited by mechanism, the chemical object exists only in opposition to another. Multiple chemical objects relate to one another, therefore, through the mediation of mechanical processes. Or, to put it another way, the mechanical process posits the chemical objects and simultaneously maintains their negative unity. In this sense, opposition is "immediately real" in the chemical process. Therefore, here there is a distinction between the chemical objects in tension, and the neutral mechanical process which unites them together. But this distinction is immediately opposition. Thus, the negative unity of chemical objects, or the chemical process, immediately enters into opposition with the neutral mechanism. In this way, the neutral mechanism itself becomes one among the many terms related in the chemical process. Instead of a positive and stable center, therefore, the chemical process posits its own center, but only as this process. In other words, the center is now a negative. As the negative center, however, it does not enter into opposition with the chemical process itself, and so is self-subsistent. It is again essential to keep in mind that this self-subsistence of the negative center is thoroughly contingent, for this center only is in tact as a certain configuration of the chemical process. In so far as this center is maintained, however, the chemical process has an internal point of determination, and its own oppositions are no longer directed against an other, or to mechanism. This center is what Hegel calls "purpose."
9. It is worth pausing here just to appreciate how non-substantial this "purpose" is. As the negative unity of a thoroughly negative process, this purpose has no positive substance. One cannot point at the positive features of an object and declare that "this is purpose." Of course, the chemical process, as negative, is already something which cannot be presented in itself, or purely positively. But this process is still in connection with a positive object, or it relates negatively to this object, as it was clear in the transition from mechanism to chemism. As such, there was an element of contingency and uncertainty in the chemical process. Not so with purpose. While the origin of purpose is contingent, its determination as purpose is necessary, and it remains fixed through all chemical processes. To put this point in another way, while chemism is still dependent upon the mechanical object, and so is not genuinely a new thing, teleology is genuinely new, for it is divorced from all positivity. However, at first, purpose is not immanent to the chemical process. Rather, it is the unity of this process which seems to enjoy an external, indifferent self-subsistence.
10. As self-subsistent, and as the negative unity of a negative process, purpose is subjective, or is singular and self-referential. At first, purpose steps outside the chemical process, and so the relation between the two is a third term. This third term is the means. The means is the negation, posited by purpose and therefore subjectively, of the indifference of the objective world or chemism to purpose. Chemism is made to rally around purpose as means. The means is a particular, meaning that it can, unlike purpose, be replaced indefinitely without losing its singularity or uniqueness as well as its universality or intelligibility. To take an example dear to Heidegger, a hammer, as this hammer suited to this carpenter, is, as a means, a particular hammer, which can be purchased, repaired, exchanged, and yet remain the "same." Now essential to the object being a means is that it relates to a purpose. Therefore, as means, the object already is the unity of the totality of objects which constitute the purposive chemical process. The purpose here becomes immanent to the chemical process only as a means. To return to the example, it does not matter whether I succeed or fail to build a house or pound a nail with the hammer; the essential point is that in the purpose of building a house, the chemical process is already constituted as a hammer, and so in this process of becoming a hammer, my purpose is already realized. The hammer was needed for me to realize my purpose. The failure to directly realize the purpose becomes the condition for its realization, for it allows the object to be immanently purposive. In fact, purpose continues to stay self-subsistent and real only in so far as this failure is repeated, only as long as success and completion is deferred indefinitely. The purpose which defers itself indefinitely in this manner is the idea.
11. What Hegel calls "purpose" here is very close to what Heidegger calls the "for-the-sake-of" of Dasein, which amounts to one's social vocation which is intelligible from the perspective of others. In both cases, purpose permeates the subjective objects through and through, is their negative unity, and the objects themselves, as means and as the realizations of purpose, are also negative, and so cannot be given directly in a positive manner. In this last point, Hegel agrees with Heidegger that purposive objects are fundamentally different from "objectively present things" or things which can be brought to explicit contemplation and observation.
12. However, there is also a very important difference between the two accounts. In Heidegger's case, objects become purposive, or useful, only as something permeated with the positive determination of a social vocation. For example, the object which a builder uses has to be a hammer, or it is no object at all. If an object fails to qualify as a hammer, it does not even show up for the builder. For Hegel, on the other hand, this failure is essential to the realization of purpose. Objects becomes subjective just because purpose repeatedly fails to directly realize itself. Here, a hammer which fails to be a hammer is just as real and essential as an object which qualifies as a hammer. Things become ever more vivid as a builder fails to pick up something which can serve as a mean to pounding in that nail, to the point where the vivacity of the object becomes unbearable. This experience of intense failure is part of the purpose or his vocation.
13. This logical movement from the mechanical or chemical process to a purpose therefore accounts for the missing piece in Heidegger's account. For Hegel, purpose subsists through failures. Being out of tune, detached, and blind only shows that the purpose is very real, almost unbearably so. The purpose slips out of consciousness and so becomes the negative of the negative process - and thus becomes idea, absolutely self-subsistent. In this one comes to fail unconsciously. The idea is the most elusive of purposes, which, to use Hegel's phrase, "harbors the most stubborn oppositions." In the Science of Logic, Hegel points to two ideas: life and cognition. With these two keywords, I would like to move on to Kant.
